When I got off work, midnight reigned and I was exhausted. It was one of those nights where the darkness infused the city so deeply it nearly swallowed my headlights. A few streetlights did just enough to throw around strangely angled shadows of giant oaks and retirement homes. Even the coyotes lost their howls to something in the darkness, their voice clipped and desperate.

A small creature stepped onto the road in front of me. A raccoon? Javelina? Normally, I can tell by the crest of the back, but for some reason, it hid beneath my beams and the shadow of the brick office standing near the road. Nice of the little fellow to use the crosswalk.

Woa! By the time it had gone three quarters of the way across the street, it grew arms and legs. With a stooped back, it looked less like an old man and more like a teen although we were in the midst of an aged community.

I widened my eyes, thinking I was so tired, I was seeing things. It probably didn’t help that I had just read chapters of Hollow City, and When Godly People do Ungodly Things.

Is this an illustration of the power of the written word or of the ever increasing spiritual warfare morphing into a beast right before me?

Maybe both, or my Dr. was wrong and I do need more caffeine.

Either way, it will go into my ever increasing collection of unexplained stories. Happy Halloween to you.