A Spooky Tale of Fright

I want to tell you a truly spooky tale. One full of fright, mystery and drama. And I swear to you that every bit of it is true, cross my heart! When I was in my sophomore year of college, I had a slightly different experience then most college students. First of all I went to Snow College, a two year school with a student population smaller than my high school (around 3,000ish students). And I LOVED going there.

 (I absolutely love this place. I highly recommend it)

But I didn't live in your standard student housing. I lived in a little old (and I mean old, like think pioneers settling Ephraim) house that one of my roommates parents owned. It was full of little eccentricities, most of which I found endearing or fun. But when I returned after the summer to start my sophomore year, I got a surprise that I never anticipated.

 (This is it. The Allred House. So many fun times.)

It seems that over the summer the house took on some new residents. The kind that don't pay rent or clean up after themselves (actually I had a few of those along the way as well...) They were tiny in size but great in number. And their place of choice in the house was the attic. They were small and winged and Grey. BATS!!! The thing is, no one bothered to tell me about the new house guests. And I was the first one to move in. All by myself. For like 3 days.

 (This is not a picture of my actual bat, but I assure you it was equally disgusting. Also, I am not sure why someone is being stupid enough to hold that thing with bare hands. They really do carry diseases like rabies.)

I began happily moving in my excited sophomore self. But as I moved things around, I found some very unexpected surprises. Dead bats clinging to things!!!!! EWWWWW. I found one on the underside of my matress, one hanging on a curtain and a couple more. Needless to say I was more than distressed. So I called the owners of the house to ask about it. They assured me that the problem had been taken care of. That the bats had been exterminated and the ones I found were just ones that had gotten lost and found their way into the house. They promised me that I shouldn't find any more and that everything would be fine. I reservedly believed them.

It got to be late, so I bedded down for my first night alone in the house (which I think is creepy anyway). And as I lay in my bed, I hear a strange noise. Then as my eyes adjusted, I spotted something flying around. I knew immediately that one of my winged friends had decided to be my roomate. I was beyond petrified. I didn't even dare get out of my bed to leave, plus, I had no where I could have gone anyway. So, I bravely ;) pulled the covers over my head (which for a closraphobic person is not exactly a picnic). And somehow, I survived the night, though I don't think I did much sleeping.

 (I was like this, only more scared and had the covers all the way over my head.)

When I woke up I surveyed my room. And there it was. The evil winged creature of doom. Sleeping on top of a box. So I went and got a neighbor to come "take care" of it. Because you better believe I wasn't going anywhere near that thing. When I returned with the neighbor, the guano spewing rabies carrying flying menace was nowhere to be found. So I called everyone I knew until I found someone to take pity on me and let me sleep at their apartment for the night. The next day, some of my other roommates arrived. So I figured I could return to Dracula's castle. 

We all decided to celebrate that night by having a girls night, and watching a scary movie (what were we thinking?). One of the girls asked me for something so I went upstairs to my room and got the bag of stuff she wanted. We began our movie and assumed the typical stupid teenage girl scary movie watching positions. We were about half way through our movie when all of the sudden one of the girls starts beating the girl next to her with a pillow. There was screaming and confusion. But eventually we figured out what happened.

(typical scared girl movie watching positions)

One of our little winged "friends" (wich was probably hiding in the bad I got from my room, YUCK) had decided the brim of Joannes baseball hat was the perfect play to hang from. She was so scared she couldn't do anything except poke Crystal sitting next to her, who, ever so intelligently started freaking out and beating her with a pillow. So we managed to turn on the lights amidst all the screaming and flailing and such. We spotted the bat and managed to chase it into a small bedroom. We then called Brittany's Dad (who owned the house). He came over, walked into the room, and squashed that bat with his big booted foot. And then, the bat was no more.

 (This is Joanne. You should feel bad for her because she is the one who's hat the bat hung on. Poor Joanne.)

The Hallelujah chorus began playing in my head. It was as if I were Xena warrior princess and I had whooped some amazon bad guy butt. My apprehension never disappeared completely. I never saw any more bats (aka flying creatures of doom). But there was always this fear in the back of my mind that some day, some time, somewhere, another one would appear and come to take it's vengeance on me for it's squashed brother. And to this day, I still can't stand Bats.

Also, I am pretty sure that had I been lucky enough to catch the whole thing on video, I could be a millionaire, or at least famous :)  I hope you all have a happy, bat free, Halloween!