Top 10 Strange Encounters with Black Eyed Children

Tales of Black-Eyed Children began appearing on online forums in the late 1990s. They are pretty much a folk phenomenon of people having strange encounters with kids whose eye’s are all black. They insist upon entering a stranger’s vehicle or home ad seem to instill a great sense of fear and panic. As a fan of paranormal talk radio I’ve heard hundreds of encounters with the black eyed kids, and am fascinated each time, so I searched the internet and social media websites for some stories to share with my readers These were by far the creepiest I’ve read in a while.

Ezekiel Finch is convinced that these people aren’t human. At least not any more. “I’ve run into these things more than once. Different ones in different states,” he said. “With a fair degree of certainty I can tell you what these things are, vampire,” he said. Finch has had two strange encounters with Black-Eyed People. One encounter was in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the other was in a medium-sized city on the East Coast where he lives, and chose not to identify the city.

10. Midnight caller.

It almost felt like a dream. I woke up to my dog, Lucy, barking. She was upright on the bed where my husband and I were sleeping with our 22 month old daughter, staring at our door like an unknown stranger was out there rummaging around. I thought she was just freaking out over a house noise. We’d only had her for 3 months and she was still a puppy. It could have been anything- our roommate, a creak from the house settling, the awnings moving outside in the breeze- I wasn’t too concerned initially.

I decided the best bet would be to open the door and show her nothing was there. It sounds a bit silly, but it’s what we do with our daughter when she gets scared, and I figured it should work with a puppy, too. I opened the door and she raced to the front door. She stood there, snarling at the door. It was an angry, violent growl, one I had never heard her make before. I looked groggily at her and opened the baby gate blocking the doorway, planning to open the door and show her everything was OK.

The second my hand reached for the deadbolt, Lucy went wild. She started barking and jumped toward me, and when I touched the metal, she suddenly changed her temper. She whimpered, almost like she was afraid and backing down. As her mannerism changed, so did mine- I wasn’t calm anymore. My heart was racing and sinking at the same time. I had been flooded with a mixture of fear and dread. I looked through the peephole. I can’t explain why I looked, but I did. Outside were two kids.

One was just a smidgen shorter than me, and didn’t look much younger. I’m 21, and she looked to be 16 or 17. She was slender and pale. Her hair was a light shade of honey blonde, and she wore it long, about mid-back, with long, thin, blunt bangs in the front that covered most of her eyes. She wore jeans, a light-wash that’s popular right now, and a thin-looking olive colored pullover style hoodie. She held the hand of a small girl, who looked to be around 3 or 4, in the same style jeans and a button-down ivory cardigan. The smaller one looked at the floor shyly, but had the same shade of hair, tied back in a ponytail. She held a stuffed toy under her free arm, and it was identical to one my daughter has- as was their style of dress. Had it not been for the feeling of overwhelming dread and fear, I probably would have asked these children in and given them some tea or hot chocolate to get them out of the bitter cold. Something about them seemed off. At this point, I hadn’t made any noise- I hadn’t shushed the dog or grumbled, nothing- I hadn’t turned on any lights, these kids had no indicators I was at the door. The older one spoke.

A man tried to break into my house while I hid, sobbing, with a knife.

She had a voice that was mature, confidant, strong, and accentless. She held her head tilted downward, and I couldn’t see her eyes. She said “We have to use your phone.” I stood frozen in fear. How did she know I was there? She raised her head to face me directly, and that was when I saw her eyes. There was a reason I couldn’t see them through her bangs before- they were black, or midnight blue, or a dark, dark purple- they were otherworldly. she said. “Our mother is worried.”

As someone who has always been interested in creepy stories, I knew what she was the second she looked at me through the door. I have never been one to believe in these things- as a staunch Atheist and skeptic when it comes to the paranormal, I had written off many a ghost story from friends and family members eager to tell their tale. I didn’t believe it. Still, I couldn’t rationalize my way out of this- I was standing with nothing but a thin wooden door between me and a Black Eyed Kid. There was no questioning what was right in front of me.

I did not answer her. Slowly and silently, I backed away from the door, Lucy still cowering at my ankles. She kept talking. “Just let us in to use your phone.” I took another step back, and with that step, the tone changed. At first, she seemed polite. When I took that second step back, she became commanding, almost hostile. We’re not going to hurt you. If we wanted to do that, we would have broken in. I’ll ask again. May we come in and use your phone?” Lucy snarled at the door, and I inched backward, though something inside me seemed to be slowly pulling me back toward the door. It wasn’t a physical pulling so much as a subconcious need to go back and let them in.

I got to my room, covered up the window, locked the door, and sat there in the dim light of the nightlight. I heard her call me back to the door once more, and then quiet. I didn’t go back to sleep that night, and I haven’t slept right since. I know from reading about them that BEK’s can’t just come in without permission. I know they haven’t hurt anyone, but I still fear I’ll be the exception. When I told my husband, he said it was just a dream. He keeps telling me to forget it, but this lingering feeling of sadness, this dread when the house is silent at night, this fear of a knock at the door… this tells me otherwise.

9. Bus encounter.

I was riding the bus back home after work, it was about 1 am, I’m a security guard and often work odd hours. So I’mm sitting there, and this guy gets on, sits across from me. He was wearing a suit, had a briefcase, regular looking guy in his 20s. What struck me about him at first was that he was chewing a cigar, not smoking it, you can’t smoke on the bus. So I was just looking at him while he stared out the window and chewed his cigar, and all of a sudden he turned and looked at me. His eyes were pitch black, just as you described.

My heart started beating like a mad motherfucker, and I felt my gorge rising. I was starting to panic and I had no idea why, I was just pants-shittingly terrified of this guy. Then he grinned at me, and his teeth were all covered in tobacco bits and brown juice, the cigar clamped between them. I almost screamed, but instead I had the presence of mind to just get up and take the seat right behind the driver. I calmed down a bit after that, but I kept an eye on the guy. He ended up chatting with some girl that got on, and they were still talking when I got off. I later convinced myself he was just trolling me, having fun with a pair of contacts… now I wonder.

8. Halloween.

This is so funny, I’d never heard of BEK’s before my incident so I come on here to post my story and the first story I see is about a BEK. Weird.

Let me preface this by saying I’m by no means a writer, just a “domestic engineer” living in north Texas. Also, I don’t believe in the paranormal – ghosts, demons, aliens, whatever. However, I did have an event happen to me this Halloween I have to admit has me scratching my head.

This is my first post on Reddit, and sorry to say I’d never even heard about it until yesterday. I told my best friend about my incident and she’s an avid reader of nosleep and she told me if I didn’t post it, she would – so here I am. Anyway, hope you like.

So, it had been a slow trick-or-treat night in our neighborhood that evening, which is pretty odd in itself. We usually have kids from different areas “dropped off” in ours and have a constant parade at our door. That night I’d say we’d had no more than 8 or 10 groups of kids come by the entire night. It was about 9:30pm and my husband and I were sitting in our family room watching some of those ghost shows based on (supposedly) actual events. Like I said, I don’t believe in that stuff but I do like a good ghost story now and then and it was Halloween and all.

We hadn’t had any activity at the door in over half an hour and it was getting late so we decided to turn the porch light of and let our dog Chloe out of her crate. Chloe is an American Bulldog and is very docile. We only put her in her crate because we were afraid she’d try and get out to “play” with all the kids and I didn’t want to have to chase after her down the street. Also, we didn’t want her to scare any of the kids because she would look a little intimidating to the younger kids.

So, I turned the outside light off let Chloe out and she followed me back to the couch and lay down at my feet. It was getting close to 10:00pm when my husband decided he’d had enough fun for the night and was going to go upstairs, take a shower and get ready for bed. After all, it was Thursday and he still had to get up early the next day. My teenaged son was out with his friends at a local haunted house and wasn’t expected back for another hour or so, so that left me alone on the couch with Chloe.

Now, just because I don’t believe doesn’t mean those shows don’t freak me out a bit, and being alone now watching I’d have to say was kind of “on edge”, as it were. It wasn’t long after I heard the upstairs water for the shower turn on when there came a light “knock – knock – knock” at the front door. My initial reaction was “what the hell, really? It’s almost 10:00 go home…” but soon an uneasy feeling came over me. Why the knock? Our doorbell glows and in the dark and without the porch light it would be extra obvious to anyone there.

I paused. I couldn’t really just ignore it, our front door has a big beveled glass panel and anybody right at the door could see in enough to see someone was in the family room watching TV. It would be pretty rude for me to just sit there and not answer it. “Knock – knock – knock”, again from the door. I glance down at Chloe and she was gone. My gazed followed her usual path to the front door expecting her to be on her way there as she normally does. Nothing, she wasn’t there.

I stood up to look around the room better and found her, crouching by the back door like she was wanting out. However, she never asks to go out like that. She always comes and licks my hand or puts her head on my knee. This was totally out of character for her, and I have to say heightened my anxiety. “Chloe, crate!” I said. She just turned back to look at me like “hell no lady, ain’t movin..”

I yelled up to my husband, but if he was already in the shower I knew there was no chance of him hearing me. “Knock – knock – knock.” About that time a car drove down our street and cast just enough light on the door to where I could see the silhouettes of two small children thru the glass. I instantly felt relief. It was just some kids, probably a couple of my neighbors on their way back home that wanted to stop by and show me their costume or something. I headed to the door and looked back to make sure Chloe wasn’t going to follow, what a great watchdog I thought to myself as she just sat there.

I turned on the porch light when I got to the door and sure enough, I could see thru the glass that it was a couple of pretty small kids. A little late for such young ones I thought and I began to wonder about what kind of parents would let their kids run the streets that late at night. I only opened the door enough to where I could block Chloe’s escape if she decided to grow some balls, which was only about two feet. What struck me immediately as odd was the kids weren’t wearing any costumes; they were in normal street clothes. Also, no customary “Trick-or-treat!” either. I began to feel very uneasy again.

It was a girl and boy. The girl, to my left, was older – I’d say about 11 or 12. I could tell she was blond, but I couldn’t make out any distinct features as our lights are from high above and on columns at the front of the porch so most of the light was coming from behind them. I had not opened the door wide enough for any light from inside to hit them directly. The boy was younger and about a foot shorter, I’d say 8 or 9 and looked to have light brown hair.

The girl very politely spoke up, “Ma’am, can we please come inside and use your phone to call our mom?” As she spoke something in the pit of my stomach was telling me something was wrong. What kid, even at that age doesn’t have a cell phone of their own these days? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anybody asked to use my home phone. “Um… hun, don’t you have a phone of your own you can call your mom on?” I asked. This was things really got weird. Both kids turned to look at one another like they were going to say something to one another, but neither ever spoke. They both turned back to me and the girl said, “Ma’am, my cell phone battery doesn’t have any charge left in it. Can we please come inside and call our mother. We’re alone out here and my brother is scared.”

I have to admit there were two competing feelings going on inside me. The first, that of a mother’s heart that wanted to help these two small children get to their mom. The other, a sinking fear in my gut that was keeping the other feeling at bay. It was then I noticed that during the short conversation I’d already opened the door a few extra inches which I was completely unaware of doing. I stopped. “Honey, why don’t you give me your mother’s number and I can call her myself.” Another pause and they again looked at one another. After a short moment, they turned back to me and the girl said, “Ma’am, my little brother has to use your bathroom. Can we please come inside while you call our mom?” And with that last statement the little girl moved closer toward the door like she was going just walk on in by me.

As she did, she stepped into the light coming from inside the house and I got my first real good look at her. Solid, jet black eyes – that’s all I could see. That motherly instinct was gone and replaced by terror I don’t think I’ve ever felt in my life. I could feel every hair on my arms and back of my neck standing at attention. I closed the door to where just my face was able to stick out. The little girl stopped and again pleaded, “Please Ma’am we’re really scared and alone out here. We HAVE to come inside. Please help us!” Then, like on cue, both kids began to whimper and cry.

That’s when the fear took over and I shut and locked the door. “I’ll call your mom if you give me the number,” I shouted thru the door, “but I’m not letting you in my house!” I could still see them stand there on the porch, just staring at me thru the beveled glass pane. Part of me wanted to run upstairs to my husband, but the bigger part didn’t want to lose track of where they were. That would have freaked me out even more to not know where they were.

After what seemed like forever, but probably only a few seconds, I decided I’d call my neighbor that lives across the street. As I made my way to the side table by our couch to my phone, I glanced at the back door – Chloe was nowhere to be found. We later found her in the guest room under the bed. When I got to my phone and started to look for his contact info, it was only then the kids stepped away from the door and began to walk to the street.

As they did I walked to the door to get a better look to see where they went, still not calling my neighbor. If you get close enough to the glass you can see out enough to make out peoples shapes, but you can see much detail. Of course, standing that close to the door would make you pretty obvious to anyone outside looking in. From the door, I could see that the kids were still standing under the streetlamp nearest my house, staring at me. As I lifted the phone to my ear after calling, only then did the kids start walking down our street. I met my neighbor out under the lamp once he was out there, but the kids were nowhere to be seen.

Like I said, I don’t believe in any of this stuff and had never even heard about black eyed kids before talking to my friend. What I really think (what I have to think) is these kids were just out yanking people’s chains on Halloween night. But I will say this for them, they were good. Really good at it. They scared the s out of me AND my dog!

7. “You must let me in.”

On March 17, 2008 I had my one and only encounter with a black eyed kid. Before my experience i had never heard of anything having to do with the black eyed kids. I was 12. I was sitting outside of a hairdressers in a old Chevy pickup waiting for my mom to get her hair cut. About 15 minutes had passed and I saw some kid walking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of my parked car. At first I thought I recognized him as one of my friends from school so i banged on the front windshield until he looked my way. It was not anyone i knew. At this point I was not scared at all. Not yet. The boy walked over to the side of my care and just stares. I think to let me get a good look at his eyes. To freak me out. Let me tell you.. If you have never seen a black eyed kid.. you have no idea what to imagine. Pupils black as the night sky. The boy whispers “You must let me in” and then i locked the car doors and ducked down into the space below the seats. Five minutes later he was gone. When my mother got into the car she told me a boy with black eyes had came into the hairdressers had insisted for my mother to give him the keys to the car. She refused……thank God she did.

They just stared.

This one time (early 2010) I was walking home from work & found myself escorting a young lady to her car. She asked me to escort her &, hoping I’d talk her into a drink or two (I had already had a few myself), I’d get a number or (possibly) get laid that night. I’m not going to lie, she was kinda hot.

No shit though, she looked scared.

I kept walking with her & was trying to at least coax out of her what she was so worried about. She would only comment about some really “creepy looking kids” who were following her. Being we were in the Downtown Seattle area, this could amount to anything.

So we kept walking & talking, I kept looking behind us to see if the little fuckers were in tow (nothing popped up out of the ordinary). Then she grabs my arm really hard & whispered “That’s them”. They were about 1/2 a block in front of us just standing there & looking at her.

So I do the prudent thing to do, which was cross the street. I make sure I lock eyes with the big one & I keep in mind once I get the lady to her car that I’d give them an ear full about being a coupled little shits for scaring a lone woman in a metropolitan area.

I didn’t get scared or anything but did notice something strange: they didn’t break eye contact with me.

Mind you, I don’t look like the kind of guy you want to fuck with. Honestly, it’s an unconscious front since I’m a bit shy. My “look” reminds people of either a Skin Head or Club Bouncer. The Black Tanker Boots & Van Dike mixed with the above don’t make me look like a people person either. People break eye contact with me constantly… these two kids didn’t. That was a Red Flag for me.

I finally got this woman to her car. She said thanks, I made sure to tell her where the local police station is at (The Seattle PD West Precinct was only about 5 blocks from where we were at.

6. Evening Skateboarding

I was skateboarding at around 10:30 last night and i had stopped to take a rest when i was approached by two kids one with blonde hair and a baseball cap pointed and a skateboard painted all black on the bottom and the other slightly less intimitdating as he look to be around 8 he had blonde hair also and was wearing a spiderman shirt the older one spoke to me as i had my head hanging low
” Hey, kid can you help us were lost we need to use a phone can you take us to your house?” I looked up at them and immediately felt Dread and dispair i stood up quickly sensing something was wrong ”

Uh, you can use my cellphone if you want” the older kid seemed annoyed then and look me in the eyes it was then that i noticed they were black all black not in white i could see ” Hey cool contacts where did you get them” i asked

” There not Contacts” he said flatly ” Yea well sorry i couldn’t help you guys out but im going inside” i turned around and started to ride but somehow the older kid caught up with me and grabbed my sholder ” YOU will let us use your phone WE NEED TO GO INSIDE BUT WE CAN”T IF YOU DON”T TAKE US TO YOUR HOUSE” it was at this point i hit him in the face and ran up the stairs to my house and shook for hours later when i was on the computer i looked outside my window and the kids were staring at the window i told my mother and of course she didn’t belive me

5. Every story I’ve read about them is from someone who already knew about them.

Last night was like any other night, I was switching between listening to music and watching youtube videos with one headphone in so I can hear my infant daughter if she cries, that way my wife can get a full nights sleep (she works at 4am at the hospital every day). When I decide to go lay down in the spare bed in the babies room..

Just as I dosed off I heard a thumping coming from the front porch, startled at first I open my eyes wide and scan the room. Realizing it was most likely my cat scratching himself on the front porch I dose back off. Then again, the thumping. “Damn cat” I got out of bed to run him off the porch only to see he wasn’t there any more, now that I was up again I wasn’t the least bit tired. I figured I’ll just get some tea and check Facebook while I’m up, maybe finish the web series I was watching on youtube..

a few minutes into the video I felt the sudden urge to look up at the kitchen window, there they were..

the tops of two short statured peoples heads cresting the stairs just above my window frame. The people were just short enough to not see in the window but I could see out. I heard no footsteps on my porch as my stomach turned.. but the knock, the knock was a steady hollow thump. The very same thump I had just blamed on my cat. Deciding it was best not to answer I shut my laptop and crept by the door back to the babies room..

I assumed it was some of the people from the low income housing across the road from me that were high or hiding from the cops or maybe looking for my cousin who stays with me often and has many friends over there. The last thing I needed was to try to explain to two stoners that I was trying to sleep even though it was 2am.

It wasn’t until I got to my daughters room that the creepiness set in. The thump had moved from the kitchen to the bedroom windows.. both windows, a room apart thumping in perfect time. These stoners were going to wake up my daughter if I didn’t run them off now. Pissed off I went out to the kitchen, unlocked and opened the door ready to run around to the side of the house and kick some little idiots ass.

It happened then, standing there looking up at me were two 10 or 11 year old boys. The feeling of dread and the smell of mold almost made me vomit. the smaller of the two then spoke “May we use your telegraph?” Huh? I just stared blankly at these boys, horrified of what I then realized.. their eyes were pitch black. He asked again to use my “telegraph”.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard no crickets chirping, no dogs barking, no cars driving by.. nothing. I tried to play it cool and ignore the fact that he didn’t say telephone, or phone, or cell.. anything that would have made any sense of the situation and calmly replied “I don’t have service at my house sorry.” The expressions on their faces turned to rage as I finished my sentence. Swiftly I shut the door and locked it as quickly as I could, then stumbled back to protect my daughter. I picked her up from her crib and held her close, the fact that she didn’t wake up freaked me out the most but I managed to gather my senses enough to make sure she was still breathing and warm.. everything seemed okay with her.

The thumping on the windows was back, I dropped to the floor as close to the wall as I could and held my little girl in my arms and wept like a child.. I felt helpless and afraid. I lied there for what felt like hours and hours crying and shaking until I heard it, my wifes alarm clock. The thumping stopped the instant the alarm went off and I crept into the master bedroom with the baby. “Whats wrong with you?” My wife asked… “I just had a bad dream” Is all I could mutter out. “okay well give me the baby so I can feed her before work.” I handed my wife the baby and she fed her like any normal day.. I turned on every light in the house and made coffee for her. For some reason just having her awake calmed my nerves enough to pretend like nothing happened.. I walked her out to the car nervously with the baby in my arms.. I asked her not to leave until I walked back in the house. She was put off by the request but did so to humor me. Once I was safely in the house I locked the door again.. and in the house I sat horrified until she got home. I insisted we go to the next town over and stay the weekend at my brothers house… and here I sit horrified while she sleeps in the guest room with my daughter. Wondering why they stopped when the alarm went off.. I think I know the answer. I was aware of BEKs she wasn’t. Every story I’ve read about them is from someone who already knew about them. Maybe, Just maybe knowledge of them existing is the only reason they visit..

I’m afraid and I’m sorry.

4. “No. You won’t be calling anybody.”

The incident took place about 13 years ago. I had just moved to a new city with my wife. We were small town newlyweds from the Midwest. We moved cross country to one of the biggest city’s in the Southwest so I could attend graduate school. Being naive and new to city living, I habitually answered the door without a second thought. Never again after this.

The first thing that should have tipped me off to the peculiarity of this situation was the fact that someone was knocking at 6:00 in the morning. The second thing that should have dawned on me is this kid had to reach over a rather tall patio gate to unlatch and open it.

The knock at the door was startling. My wife and I were getting ready for work, a pretty normal routine. The moment I opened the door, I was overtaken with an inexplicable sense of fear. To this day, I can picture him. Teenager, average height, average build, knee length black leather coat, short black hair and sunglasses. The sunglasses at 6:00 a.m. struck me as odd and even more odd, he was eating an apple. He was very polite and asked if he could come in and warm up. I said, “No”, closed the door and slid the security chain in to place. A moment later, another knock. I opened the now chained door, and before I could speak he asked again if he could come in and warm up. “NO!” I reply and attempted to close the door. Before the door could shut, he put his hand out stopping the door on its hinges. He looked directly in to my eyes, still wearing his sunglasses, and said, “Can I at least get some ketchup for my apple?”. “Fuck that!” I reply, albeit a little confused. “Get the hell outta here! My wife is calling the police!”. He takes a moment to let this information sink in, lowers his glasses, revealing eyes as black as obsidian and says, “No. You won’t be calling anybody.”. At that moment I force the door closed, lock it, and call out to my wife, she is scared shitless hiding in the bedroom. All jacked up on adrenalin, I rip the curtains back to look out the window next to the door. He’s gone. Absolutely no trace of him. I go out on the patio and check the gate, it’s still latched from the inside. That was fucked up, I think to myself and as I turn to enter the house I notice a half eaten apple lying on the ground.

3. I was having a visceral experience all over my body.

Tales of Black-Eyed Children began appearing on online forums in the late 1990s. They are pretty much a folk phenomenon of people having strange encounters with kids whose eye’s are all black. They insist upon entering a stranger’s vehicle or home ad seem to instill a great sense of fear and panic. As a fan of paranormal talk radio I’ve heard hundreds of encounters with the black eyed kids, and am fascinated each time, so I searched the internet and social media websites for some stories to share with my readers These were by far the creepiest I’ve read in a while.

Ezekiel Finch is convinced that these people aren’t human. At least not any more. “I’ve run into these things more than once. Different ones in different states,” he said. “With a fair degree of certainty I can tell you what these things are, vampire,” he said. Finch has had two strange encounters with Black-Eyed People. One encounter was in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the other was in a medium-sized city on the East Coast where he lives, and chose not to identify the city.

2. David’s Story:

I’m a 26 years old, male. I work at a small private college in Michigan. I’m a normal, average guy. I like hockey, HBO shows, kayaking, and hiking/camping. I have a girlfriend, love my dad and sister, and have a pet dog named Bear. While I keep an open mind, I don’t believe in ghosts, aliens, big-foot, and am not even too sure about God. The way I see it, if I haven’t encountered it first hand or seen documented, verifiable proof then I keep a healthy amount of skepticism. There is one thing I do believe in now that I never did before, hell I didn’t even know about it before – black freaking eye kids.

As I said earlier, I love(ed) to hike and camp. For reasons too introspective to get into fully here I just loved the solitude, peace, and serenity the outdoors provided me. My life is not overly stressful, chaotic, or dramatic, but every once in a while a man needs to get away from it all. Being alone in the wilderness gave me the opportunity to clear my head, be introspective, consider the facts of life. I loved the beauty of the natural world, and I try to appreciate the small and big things, from the smallest clover to the biggest mountain. Beauty is all around us. In a way, I think it’s my belief in beauty that has helped me cope as well as I have with what I’m about to share. In late August of 2010 I set out for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore located along Lake Michigan. I had schedule five days off of work, and I planned on making the most of it. Sleeping Bear is one of my favorite parks in lower Michigan. I know it to be a great place for some solitude, and having usually been abandoned by sun worshipers by mid August I knew I’d have most of the park to myself. So, I wasn’t surprised when I arrived the fist day, found my usually parking spot, a sand parking lot just yards from the lake, and didn’t see another person.

As I sat on the hood of my car, overlooking the beach and the lake, I remember breathing deeply and saying aloud “thank God for solitude.” I ate lunch, walked down the beach and put my bare feet into the water. Cold. Very cold. It didn’t matter to me though, because I didn’t come to swim. I came to hike, and to camp. I came to, as was my tradition, sit by a warm fire on a cool night, sipping on my flask of whiskey, enjoying the sounds of the forest. However, this peaceful tradition didn’t happen. The proper procedure when camping at a state or national park, if you’ve never been, is to check in at a ranger station. There you pay your fees, obtain your backcountry pass, if you’re going to be camping in the backcountry as I always do, and give the rangers your information: license plate number, make and model of your car, etc. After my quick stop off at the beach to eat my lunch, I headed to the nearby, a fifteen or so minute drive, and get my affairs in order.

The Platte River Ranger Station is manned until mid October, I think, so it was open and I didn’t have to travel to the main station a ½ hours drive north. I park in the station’s parking lot, and walk into the office. The ranger and I spoke for a little and he asks me for my license plate number. I knew he was going to ask, but I still forgot to write it down before I went in, so I walk back out toward my car, and I see two kids sitting at a bench just in front of where I’m parked. They weren’t there when I parked, and I didn’t notice them when I walked in to the station, but at this point in time I’m still on cloud nine. I’m happy to be on vacation, so I take no real notice. I walk to the back of my car, jot down the license plate number and walk back to office. I take care of business in the office and step out and walk to the connecting bathroom. The backcountry area I’m staying at, White Pine, has a pit-toilet, think port a john but just with a deep hole in the ground, but I’d like to use a real bathroom while I can. I go into the restroom and go into the empty stall.

As I’m taking care of my business, I hear the bathroom door open. I hear whispered voices. It’s a small bathroom, but I can’t make-out what the voices are saying. I can tell they’re kid’s voices though, and I figure it’s the kids I saw near my car earlier. No biggie, right? I finish up, and open the stall door. Sure enough, there are the two kids standing outside the stall. I remember saying, “it’s all yours.” As I walked to the sink. The kids just stood there. When you think about it now, in reading, the situation seems a little spooky, but at the time, and if you were in the situation yourself I’d bet that you wouldn’t be the slightest bit worried and neither was I. I was my hands, and glance in the mirror, only to notice the kids are looking right at me. This is the first time, but certainly not the last time, on this trip that my spine tingles with fear. The god damn kids have completely black eyes. No whites to their eyes at all. Like I said, this is a pretty small bathroom and they were not more than three feet away. At first I can’t do or say anything. I am literally frozen with fear. The water runs over my hands, but I can’t feel it. I’m so deep inside my head at this moment that all I can hear are my thoughts, which were something like “Ahhhhhh!.” All joking aside, I was petrified.

It was only when one of the kids, a brown haired boy that I would guess was around twelve took a step toward me that my fight or flight instincts took over control from my fear. I turned off the water, why I bothered I don’t know habit I guess, and moved a step back from the kids and toward the door. Seemingly sensing my fear the boy didn’t take another step toward me. Instead he stopped, on retrospect I can guess he was trying to keep from frightening me too much – didn’t work kid!

“Can you help us?” That’s what the boy said when one of us finally spoke. For a moment I did want to help.

I consider myself a pretty nice guy. I’d go out of my way to help pregnant women carry groceries to their car. I’d rescue cats from trees if the situation arose, and for a while I thought that is why I wanted to help those creepy kids. I thought, my sheer decency was what made me, despite my better judgment, and despite my fear want to help them. Only since I began researching the BEK’s do I realize that I didn’t want to help those kids, but whatever, magical, mystical voo-doo, power they have made me want to help them. I can’t tell you with any certainty how long I stood motionless thinking about helping those kids, but it seemed like an eternity. Finally, like a physical shaking of my brain I said “No, Not right now. I gotta go.” And then I left the bathroom.

I remember in that two seconds my back was turned on those kids to me leaving the bathroom I felt certain I was going to die. I thought as soon as my back was turned they were going to tear me to shreds. It was with knee buckling relief that I left the bathroom and walked out into the midday sun. I walked the fifteen or so feet to my car, on noodle like legs, too afraid to look behind me. I fumbled for my keys and unlocked my door, sat down, closed the door and locked it. Only then, in the safety of my locked car, did I feel safe enough to look back toward the bathroom. Damned if the little bastards weren’t standing just outside the bathroom staring at me with the big, black soul sucking eyes.

1. He told me to never agree to help them.

It was a cold October evening, not too far off from Halloween. I remember sitting in my room, playing the original suikoden. The evening was slowly creeping by so I decided to go to the corner store. It was only 3 blocks, shouldn’t be much trouble right.

During my walk I see the normal. The occasional person putting up Halloween decorations and kids playing in their yards, but this story is about something far more sinister. I remember seeing two teens about age 14, knocking on a door asking to use the phone, which of course I thought was weird because most teens these days have phones. As I kept walking, they stopped and stared at me for a short moment. I felt the blood in veins chill. I felt so creeped out I hurried to the next block. The next block seemed fine, until I looked behind me and saw the two teens were following me. I took off sprinting to the store at this point.

I saw the sign for the store, and relief washed over me. I opened the door, and I told the cashier about what happened on the way here. He looked at me slightly creeped out, and told me a story about this happening to him in his hometown and how they found him the day he left, and asked for his help, in an emotionless voice, and he told me to never agree to help.

He told me another story, but at that point I was no longer paying attention because they were standing at the door asking to be let in. The cashier freaked out, and locked the door.

The teens never seem to waver or leave. They wouldn’t step away from the door. It had been an hour. The cashier and I were ready to fight our way out, but instead he took me out the back. The one teen came around the back just as the door shut behind us.

Can you help me is all he could say. He was closing in on us, and his eyes. They were black as a starless night. They were peering right into my soul. I couldn’t help but gaze into his eyes. The terror, I can’t remember too much of what happened next, but I do recall the sounds of struggle.

When I came too, the cashier was struggling with both teens. He was calling out to me for help. I ran towards them, grabbed him by his collar and pulled him between the two, and knocking them over in the process. I didn’t look back until I was near my house, the cashier was gone but the teens were still following behind. I ran into my house, closed all the blinds, and turned the music up.

I got lucky that day, but I’m not sure how long I can keep out of there grasp. I tried to find and thank the cashier for saving my life that day, but he didn’t show up to work after that. I asked his boss, and he told me he called over the phone and quit. He said he was moving.

To this very day I sometimes feel the fear of those eyes watching me as I drive to work. I sometimes will look out my window and swear I see them watching my house from a couple blocks away. Waiting for their next chance.