The scariest thing that has ever happened to me is...

[tommy2]

Since it is almost Halloween, I figured it is time to bring out our personal scary stories--100% true only. Here is mine.

When I was in 2nd grade, we lived right on the 7th hole of a municipal golf course. Once it was nighttime, there was no visibility whatsoever beyond our backyard. We had a pretty big yard, with a swing set on the far part of it, the part closest to the golf course.

I had my First Communion in the late spring. We had a party at our home and all of the guests were in the backyard. All of the adults were near the house, under the lights, talking and eating. The kids were playing "freeze tag" at the other end of the yard (closest to the golf course). It was about 7:30pm and the sun was almost completly set; there was just enough light to make out shapes, but not faces or details.

I was gleefully playing freezetag with my friends and had just been tagged by one of the girls, Erin...I was frozen in sort of a semi-splits stance, but standing upright. As I stood there while the 10 of us played, I heard a gutteral sound coming from just beyond our chain link fence, in the golf course, but real real close. I then heard a animal-like growl and then (I swear to God) a dark orange pitchfork came flying towards me and landed about 3 feet from my outstetched leg. All my friends turned towards the growl, none of them noticed the pitchfork initially. Then, we all ran together to the adults.

About 12 years later I was talking to my parents about it--they not only remembered it happening, but we still had the GD pitchfork in the garage. I still can't hardly believe that it happened.