The Booger Owl

The Booger Owl

My granddaddy used to tell me stories about a species of huge bird creature that had haunted the woods near our town since even before the natives had lived in the area. He said that Toad Hop was a stop along their migration route from Washington state to Florida. He called them Booger Owls, but they had some other, older, names. According to his stories, the Booger Owls would fly down near the beginning of October, and shelter in a place called Deadwood Hollow. At night, they would hunt, and they especially liked to eat children. They would take a man, or even a deer, but children were their favorite. Granddaddy said that they looked just like very large owls while they were flying, but if they were standing still on the ground, they somehow looked like women. They could even speak a few human words, the way a mockingbird can, and they would use that ability to lure their prey close enough to be snatched up with beaks and claws. They were most active on Halloween night, since that was when their favorite meal would be most accessible. The stories terrified me back then.

When I was twelve years old, I did a school paper on the local Wea tribe that had inhabited the area until 1812, when the big city on the hill over the Wabash river was founded. While I was doing the research, I looked for any native lore I might find that referenced owls, or owl monsters. There wasn't much. The most interesting bit of information I could find was that the last medicine man of the tribe was called Owl. Other than that, nothing indicated that the Wea knew about grandaddy's Booger Owls, which I found strange. I did learn that the Wea had not lived there until the 1700's, but surely in a century they would have noticed something. It was then that I stopped believing in the Booger Owls.

Before my grandaddy died, he told me that he had actually heard the story from an old Seminole woman while on a family trip to Florida, when he was a small boy. He had connected the legend to the frightening unsolved disappearances of several children in Sugar Creek township the following year. That was the same year that the Fresh Dawn mushroom factory burned down. None of the missing children were from the immediate neighborhood of Toad Hop, but Granddaddy had known some of them from school. In his mind, only the Booger Owls could be to blame. That's why he told me the stories, to warn me. I wish I had never stopped believing.

Toad Hop is a peaceful little unincorporated village, the kind of place where practically every person knows each other person. It is surrounded by woods and farmland, but not cut off from the world. It has shops, a post office, and schools within a short driving distance. There are no bars, but there is a VFW hall, and if a fellow wants a drink with dinner he can get beer and spirits at the Steakhouse. Camping and fishing are the main attractions in the area. All in all, it's a nice place to raise children, which is why I chose it as the place for my own family. I wish to all the gods that I hadn't.

My wife and I had a little boy almost as soon as we moved into our house. I named him Thomas. We call him Tommy. He is the center of our world. The house is a two story Victorian style dwelling, complete with a tower room, an enormous attic, and a deep cellar. It's actually just a bit older than the town itself, and has a strange history of it's own. But this story isn't about the house. It's about the night my son went missing.

It was Halloween, and Tommy was nine years old. He had decided on his own that his costume would be a skeleton, and he insisted on making it himself. His mother bought him a black sweatsuit, white felt pieces, glue, and facepaint. He worked on it the entire weekend before Halloween, and it did turn out really well. He looked impressive, and we were very proud of him. His mother took a picture before we let him go out to roam the neighborhood. We knew the route he was meant to take, and all the parents had each other's phone numbers in case of trouble. Each of us were keeping an eye on things in our areas, so we weren't worried. Our confidence would unfortunately turn out to be misplaced. Several children went missing that night, our Tommy included.

Some of the other children reported having seen strange women standing in the shadows, watching them with unblinking eyes, calling to them. One child claimed to have seen the woman's face split open horizontally, revealing a wide mouth with a long pointed tongue. Another said that she witnessed one of them flying away on giant wings, while carrying something large with her feet. The police dismissed the stories as the kids' imagination, sparked by some Halloween television special. I knew the truth, although I didn't dare to believe it at first. I remembered the old stories. I knew the signs. My blood ran cold as I realized that my son had been taken by a Booger Owl.

The police went about doing their investigation, but I knew that they would turn up nothing. How could they? They were looking for a human perpetrator. I knew that I would have to rescue Tommy myself, and nothing on earth would stop me. The problem was that I had very little idea of where to look. It would be somewhere in the woods, of course, but there was a lot of wooded land around Toad Hop. Searching it all blindly could take weeks, and that would surely be too late. I tried to remember all of Granddaddy's stories, hoping to recall something that could be a clue. The only thing I could come up with was Deadwood Hollow. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone I asked had any idea where such a place might be. I checked several maps of the area, poring over the hollows along Sugar Creek and the Wabash, to no avail. It must have been an unofficial place name that the old timers used. Eventually, I took to looking at satellite images of the region, and that's when I found something. The pictures showed an area of about an acre of trees that had no foliage, and looked to be stripped of bark. They were just dead wood. In the center was a lone dark tree with large, full, branches. It was very peculiar looking.

This little grove of dead trees had to be Deadwood Hollow. I could feel it in my guts. But even if I turned out to be wrong, I needed to start somewhere. I had to rescue my son, or bring back what was left of him. I had lost too much time already. I pushed such thoughts out of my mind, and set out on my search. I brought along a flashlight, a pack of matches, my camping knife, a first aid kit, and a canteen of water. It felt reckless to go alone, but I thought that if I got into trouble, I could use the CB radio in my truck to summon help. I drove my truck as far up the hollow as I could, and then abandoned it, pushing into the brush on foot. For three hours I wandered the ridges. I considered, several times, calling out for Tommy, but I feared alerting the Booger Owls to my presence. At last, I came to a deadfall of dry branches. It stretched too far around for me to try going around, and I figured that meant it could well form a closed circular wall. So I decided to climb up and over. Once I was over and safely on the ground, I let the beam of my flashlight pour over the area. The dead, blanched, trees seemed corpselike. As I walked past their twisted remains, I noticed an unpleasant ammonia like aroma wafting up from the ground. The smell intensified as I approached the dark tree at the center. It was a monster of a tree, over a hundred feet tall, with sharp black needles on scaley black branches. Here and there, gelid scarlet blobs of sap oozed from cuts in the bark.

I played my light up into the branches, searching for evidence of a feathered predator. What I saw put a chill in my bones. Several large, pellet shaped, objects were wedged into the branches, stuck in place by oozing, red, sap. Each one was large enough to hold the remains of a human child. I was momentarily overcome with panic, and I clasped my hand over my mouth to prevent myself from crying out. As I did so, I bent over and looked down at the ground. It was then that I noticed several more of the huge pellets, on the ground nearby. These were old and dry, and something had been worrying at them, stripping away some of the outer covering. I saw, with abject horror, first the bones, and then the clothing, of children. They appeared to have been wearing Halloween costumes, of a vintage style. They could have been as old as my granddaddy.

The grisly revelation had left me cold, but my resolve to recover my son only grew stronger. It was a fire that moved me onward. Seizing the broken stumps of the lowest branches, I began to climb the tree. I saw dozens more of the pellets, with bits of old bone and cloth sticking out. None of them could be Tommy, I told myself, even as the morbid suspicion assaulted my mind. I kept climbing. Near the top, before the trunk had become too narrow, I discovered a huge mass of branches, woven all together like a nest, but arched and rounded in a peculiar way. The overall shape was like a melon, grown to the size of a house. Somehow, I knew that this structure held the answers I needed, and maybe even my boy. I had to climb up over it, by the higher branches, in order to reach it. I dropped down on top, and almost turned my ankle as I lost my balance, but I saved myself from falling by slamming my hands into the mass of branches. It was pretty solid. I felt it bow very slightly from my weight, but nothing came loose. Carefully, I crawled along the surface, until I came to the far end, where a large opening on the side was blocked by a mass of sticks, grass, tree needles, and sap. I lowered myself into a good position, and found a good strong branch was there to stand on. I took out my knife and worked at the edges of the plug, digging through hardened sap.

After about fifteen minutes, I had cut through all the sap around the blockage, and I maneuvered it out with a stick. Shining the light into the interior, I discovered three large bundles of sticks, woven in a similar manner to the larger structure, and also held tight together with the blood red sap. Going to the nearest, I saw a child, huddled into a fetal position. I had found them. Elated, I gently and quietly spoke Tommy's name. The child turned around to look at me, but it wasn't Tommy. She was a little girl, who I recognized from the neighborhood. I recalled that her name was Chastity. I asked her if she had seen Tommy. She nodded and pointed to the other side of the wooden structure, at another of the stick bundles. I crawled over, hardly daring to hope that my son was there, and alive. I shined the light inside, and saw a skeleton in a heap on the floor. I gasped in anguish before realizing that what I was seeing was, in fact, Tommy's Halloween costume. He was here! I called out to him, trying to remain quiet, which made my voice come hoarsely from my throat. Tommy looked up listlessly, then turned over and faced me. Crying, he told me that he wanted to go home. With hot tears streaming down my own face, I assured him that I had come to take him home, and that everything was going to be okay. I could not bear to think what had happened to those children who were not accounted for.

I grabbed hold of the cage of sticks and yanked it back and forth until it was loose, then I threw my shoulder into it. Several sticks cracked free from the floor, and I pushed the remnants off of Tommy. I pulled him up to my chest and just hugged him close for a minute. However, I was well aware that we were not safe yet. The other two children were clamoring to be released as well. Tommy helped me batter their cages open. Chastity, and another little boy, Evan, were freed. Then I was left wondering how I was going to get them all out of the tree safely. We were at least sixty feet up, and the branches were treacherous. The kids could never make it on their own. I thought that I could tie Tommy to my body and carry him down pretty well, but it would be impossible to transport all three in that way, even if I tried it one at a time. The multiple trips up and down the tree would be too exhausting, and would take hours to accomplish. But I couldn't think of any other way. I was not going to leave Tommy behind while I freed the others, so I had to get him down first. Using the straps from my canteen, and my belt, I made a makeshift tether for Tommy. As I worked, I told the children my plan, as if it could guarantee their salvation. I did it to calm them, to give them confidence that they would survive, but in the recesses of my own mind, I knew the chances of my returning in time to prevent them being eaten were remote.

With my son clinging tightly to my neck, and the other two children watching us glumly, I made my way down to the ground. It was an even slower process than I had feared. Once we finally reached the ground, I untethered Tommy and we ran towards the edge of the deadfall. As we ran, I told Tommy where to find the truck, and urged him to run straight there, get inside, and lock the doors. We could use the CB to call for help before trying to retrieve the other children. I gave him the flashlight so he could find his way. I didn't know how I was going to be able to see on the way back to the children, but maybe that was going to be a moot point.

Suddenly a startling sound drew our attention to the sky. A gigantic winged shape blotted out the stars as it soared through the air. The sound it made was similar to the cry of a hoot owl, but lower, louder, and drawn out like a train whistle. Debris flew about us as it was disturbed by the wings of the creature landing between us and the deadfall. Upon touching the ground, it pulled it's body up to a stature of six feet, at least. It looked down at us with the graceful and placid face of a woman, with a silvery complexion. It's wings drawn about it's torso gave the appearance of a dress or robe. This was definitely a Booger Owl. Granddaddy had been right, all along. I told Tommy to run off to the side and go behind the monster, to run straight to the deadfall, and go to the truck. Tommy ran, and the Booger owl moved as if to give chase, but I threw a handfull of stones at it's head, and screamed for it's attention.

The Booger Owl wheeled back around to confront me again. It screeched it's fury at me, and I saw something strange about it's face. It didn't move the way it should if there were muscles under the skin, and the eyes seemed cold and flat, motionless. It struck at me, and I tumbled away, drawing it further from Tommy. I came up with a fistful of dirt and debris, which I hurled at the thing's face, aiming for those flat eyes. I saw the debris land right in the eyes, but they did not close against the assault. Instead, the Booger Owl shook it's head, and then the eyes lifted up like eyelids, revealing two limpid black pools the size of baseballs. The face split open horizontally at the bottom of the delicate nose, revealing a sharp beak and terribly wide mouth. The beak snapped twice, and then closed back up, becoming invisible. The eyelids closed back over the big black eyes, and the woman's face reformed. I noticed a texture to the face, which convulsed like the fluffing of millions of tiny feathers, then smoothed out again. The face began to move closer to me. I grabbed a stick of dead wood, and swung it wildly in front of me.

The Booger Owl stretched it's neck out. The head turned all the way around, and then the neck stretched again. The head continued to turn as the neck stretched into a twisted coil, three times around, getting closer to me all the while. I wasn't sure of the purpose behind the display, but it succeeded in one thing, which was to make me sick to my stomache. I fought my guts to hold back vomit. Then the Booger Owl spoke.

In a high pitched voice, like that of child, it complained that I had hurt it, and begged me to stop hurting it. I was first shocked, and then horrified as it dawned on me that the Booger Owl was mimicking words that it had heard spoken by actual children, and that the words were likely spoken by those children to the Booger Owl, as they were being attacked. I heard it speak again, in the voice of a young woman, begging for her child to be returned to her. I realized that it knew what it was saying, and that the child it wanted was my son. Enraged, I sprung up and swung my stick at that awful head. The coiled neck unwound at lightning speed, avoiding my blow, and striking me heavily in the side. I was knocked onto my back, several yards away, with a bloody gash on my ribs, probably from the beak. My body was wracked with pain. I could feel that at least two of my ribs had cracked, and possibly my coccyx was broken as well. The Booger Owl strutted toward me, chanting a nasally sounding child's taunt, a nonsense word spoken over and over in a mocking tone, it's head spinning back and forth on the coiling neck as it advanced. A pair of feathered tufts unfurled at the top sides of it's head, giving the appearance of longish cat's ears, or devil's horns. I thought that I was done for, then. In what I was sure were my final moments, I was grateful that I had been able to give Tommy a chance to escape. If he made it back home, the other parents would at least know what had happened to their children.

I tried to scramble backward into a pile of fallen limbs for at least a little protection, but I could barely move. The Booger Owl advanced on me again, slowly. I dragged myself toward the stick pile as best I could, gasping in pain with each effort. Abruptly, the Booger Owl raised it's head and looked into the distance as though something else had caught it's attention. It looked back at me briefly before deciding to go check out it's new concern, and flew away. It knew I wasn't going anywhere soon. Once it was gone, I crawled into the sticks, and tried to arrange them in some kind of defensive structure. It occurred to me that I still had my matches, and that fire could make an effective weapon. In a few minutes, I had two hastily made torches burning, and stuck into the ground in front of my position. It was better than nothing. I hunkered down and waited.

I passed in and out of consciousness for an indeterminate amount of time, my injuries causing me to throw up bile at intervals. I don't know how long I lay there, waiting for the Booger Owl to come and finish me off, but my torches eventually burned almost completely away. Then I began to hear voices, and I thought that either I was hallucinating, or the Booger Owl was trying to mess with my head. But then I recognized one of the voices. It was my wife, calling my name. At first I didn't dare to hope that it was actually her, and stayed silent, until I saw her walking quickly toward me in the light of the nearly spent torches. She was followed by several other people, who I soon recognized as the other parents of the lost children. I called out, confirming my location, and my wife rushed to my side. She and one of the men helped me out of my hiding place, and I tried to explain the situation as best as I could. My wife described to me how Tommy had used the CB to call for help. It didn't take long for the word to spread, and all the parents grabbed their guns and other weapons, heading straight out to Deadwood Hollow.

As my wife helped me toward the deadfall, the other parents went to the dark tree to help the children. All our attention was drawn up when we heard the unearthly call of the Booger Owl split the air. Several of the men swore and lifted their rifles. The Booger Owl shrieked in it's fury, hurting all of our ears so that we collapsed or cowered, covering them with our hands until the sound stopped. The first person to recover was the mother of little Chastity. She was armed with a double barreled shotgun, which she fired at the Booger Owl amid rage fueled screams of her own. Shortly thereafter, everyone who was armed was firing on the feathered monster. It sounded like a war, and in a way, I suppose it was. Our freakish enemy spun, dove, twisted, and soared away from our onslaught, seeming to mock us. I wondered if we really could hurt it.

As our neighbors battled the demonic bird thing, my wife practically dragged me back to my truck, where Tommy was waiting for us. Several other vehicles were now parked nearby, with a few other people who had hung back, including the sheriff's deputy and a veterinarian. They helped my wife dress my wounds, while Tommy excitedly told me how he'd made it to the truck, narrowly avoiding being seen by the Booger Owl, and used my CB radio to call for help. I told him he'd done a good job before lapsing into a woozy state. I was given water and a warm blanket to combat the shock. The deputy was now staring up at the top of the tree line, where the Booger Owl was visible as it continued to swoop and screech, trying to drive off the angry humans that had now thoroughly invaded it's private domain. Every time it dived, we heard a gunshot ring out, and then it reappeared over the trees. Again and again it attempted to regain control, but it could not long hold out against so many humans with long range weapons, fueled by the instinct to protect their children at all costs. At last we heard a barrage of gunfire, as several weapons were discharged in unison, followed immediately by a second barrage, and then the Booger Owl turned skyward and fled with a final enraged screech.


A little while later we saw the parents of the two children that I had released emerge from the trees with the precious little ones in their arms. We could smell smoke, and I looked to the dark tree. Flames rose from the branches where the imprisoning structure rested. The tree itself seemed impervious to the conflagration. There were other children still missing, and a vague feeling of unease penetrated the fog of my traumatized brain as I wondered what became of them. Then I saw more of our neighbors arriving, clutching damaged child sized pellets, their eyes haunted, and I knew the horrible truth. I wept for them, and I clutched my son close to me. I held him like that for the entire ride home. My wife drove the truck in what was a somber processional back to the relative safety of town. The sun began to rise behind us. All Souls' Day was dawning, bleak and cold, following a terrible Halloween that none of us would ever forget. A new tradition would start, where the story of the Booger Owl would be recounted, with ample warnings of it's powers and strategies. Hopefully, those who hear the tales will not dismiss them, as I had.