HORROR COMES TO TEXAS -- RALPH PATTERSON'S ENCOUNTER

(Season 2, Episode 50)

RALPH PATTERSON

 Copperas Cove, TX

MY HORRORWALKER HORROR ENCOUNTER 

My name is Ralph Patterson. I live in Copperas Cove, Texas and I have seen the
Horrorwalker face to face. Although the Horrorwalker did not physically harm me in any way, it still scared the piss out of me and I still haven’t fully recovered from our encounter three years later.

I could tell you of the horror story it made me read that day, or I could tell you what it is like to meet this being from what has to be another world, or time... or physical plane of reality. I think I will...

My nerves are still all shot to hell and every time I close my eyes at night I see it standing there imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I can even still hear its sandpaper voice whenever I have the sounds of my life turned off and I am trying to relax. That voice is like nothing I have ever heard before – imagine gravel scraping over glass and metal. Or, something like that.

What’s crazy about meeting the Horrorwalker is the way it chooses to appear before you. I was standing in front of my refrigerator… actually reaching for the handle to the freezer compartment. In my right hand was a large glass mug filled with orange juice mix that I had just added tap water to. I was going to get some ice to put in my mug. Then suddenly, without any warning whatsoever… it just appeared there... standing there, towering over me right in front of me, inches away from the pitcher... looming over me as it stood between me and the refrigerator.

I gasped, then time and space seemed to vanish as my mind adjusted to this sudden horror intrusion of surreal madness. A second later, or was it an hour later, I was … aware… that I had actually dropped the heavy mug. It landed on my right foot, smashing into a hundred wet pieces. I looked down to see orange juice and blood pooling around my feet. I stood there looking at my foot, waiting for the pain that never came… because… I was distracted… because… the Horrorwalker presented its huge scary book to me!

I actually had to take a couple of steps back to give myself enough room to take the book in my hands. No... that isn’t right... I was compelled to take a couple of steps back.

The Horrorwalker then, somehow, forced me to read a horror tale from that massive tome. It forced me to take into my mind the too nasty horrid substance of the strange tale titled, ‘THE BUG IN THE TREE!’ My skin still crawls when I think about the content of the story. Who would ever imagine that what Bryan P. Smith thought was a loud obnoxious Cicada had the potential to be something else entirely -- a fist sized, blood sucking monster from hell? You may read my recollection of that relentlessly ugly Horrorwaker tale somewhere inside the Horrorwalker World’s sites.

Its strange, you know… in retrospective reflective moments of thought about my encounter with the Horrorwalker… one fact about my encounter stands out the most. I am still amazed by the strange fact that there was no odor emanating from the Horrorwalker. The billowy light negating ebony black clothing it wore, if in fact what I saw actually was clothing, looked like it should have trapped a lot of body heat. There was a strange redness mixed in with the blackness that billowed around it. I expected, maybe, the smell of sulfur… or something. And that scythe-like thing it held is an awesome sight. The menacing-looking, huge black blade looked like it was razor sharp. The stone-like material of the handle had strange markings all up and down its six foot length. If only I could even begin to imagine what all of that menace meant.

I do know, from my own after the fact Horrorwalker research, that different people may see the Horrorwalker in different ways. I still wonder about what I actually saw that night.

And the book... that tome... of what I assume are the countless Horrorwalker observations of the horror it has witnessed throughout time and space and distance -- my lord, how the pages seemed to turn themselves as I finished them. That fact was was baffling... like the book was actually alive. It was all too weird, too surrealistic and too sublime.

And then suddenly, as soon as I was finished reading through my crazy tale, the Horrorwalker took back the tome and it was... gone! I mean it was gone, like, vanishing right before my eyes. And then it was all over. All I had left from the experience was the vivid as a photo memory from the story, the scary words the Horrorwalker whispered to me before it vanished, this weird triangle-like marking that is permanently etched into the center of my right palm that must have formed while I held the book and a body full of wrecked nerves. Oh, yea… let’s not forget my crushed foot. It healed just nicely... in six weeks, but my mind, and my nerves, is still not right.

As I’ve already said, from what I have read about the experiences of other people contacted by the Horrorwalker, everyone seems to react differently to their encounter with this creature of falling down dreams, frightful horror stories and nightmare memories. Everyone appears to see, and feel, something a little different from other people when they stand before it. Some people are filled with dread, some filled with fear, others are just confused. I think I am in the confused category. I hope I can eventually shake this feeling of physical discombobulation, but it’s hard. You want to know how hard? Well, just you better hope that the Horrorwalker doesn't decide to just pop-up into your life one day, frightening the shit out of you, forcing you to read, quite possibly, a completely unwanted by you tale of horror dread… thus scaring the reality out of you and changing the core of your being forever.

Can it be that this marking in my hand has something to do with the way I feel? And, this line from the words the Horrorwalker whispered to me before departing... “...To be a sentinel of the nightmares of mankind?”

I don’t know about all these Horror tales, Horrorwalker Travel Guides, Countdowns To Horror, horror outside your door -- it really is a Horrorwalker World out there. Sometimes I just wonder... “Is blissful ignorance of the horrors surrounding us better than this scary horror creature popping in and dropping this arcane knowledge on us... reminding us of the fact the humans are, in effect, just blood bags for the horror to feed upon? Just a thought...

Goodbye... for now!

REP