Hide-Behinds and the Silent Winters Night

Creatures of the long silent night. . .

Many years ago, the young and adventurous me, discovered a 40 acre parcel of heavily forested property which even the locals had lost track of the original owner. It was smack dab in the middle of a state forest. Deep in the middle of this secluded 40 acre parcel in the wild’s of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula stood a 20’X20′ tar papered shanty I was about to call home. It took every penny, but I had to buy the property that had been up for sale for more than 15 years. I was beside myself with excitement! I was 43.

The cabin/now shanty was built as a hunting camp in 1963 using real saw milled 2X4’s. Sturdy, well built, no electricity or water as there were no power lines out there in the early days. It was now a dirty, run down and neglected waif from all the years of no human intervention.  However, a local population of mice and raccoons had made a claim to the walls and ceiling over the years, moving in their own families. A really large, gray, wart covered wolf spider and his cousins inhabited their designated corner of the tiny, lovable little cabin nestled in among the overgrowth of trees and flora. These guys were the biggest, most horrifying toad like, eight legged creatures I had ever witnessed! Repulsive as all hell.

I was anxious to get started and arrived early on the day after I had taken procession of my new home. There were no keys handed to me at the time of signing at the bank.  Even the realtor was unaware of the shack on the property. Gus, my yellow lab took off to explore his new environment and was no use whatsoever helping to unload the boxes of cleaning supplies, hammers, nails, crowbar and a shovel I figured it would take to make this place near as livable as possible. It took me most of that summer to fix up what was to be the most memorable 20 year adventure of my life.

By now it is late fall. My first night alone out here in the woods, in my now cleaned one room shanty found me laying in my bed with my blanket pulled up to my chin with one hand and a flashlight gripped tightly in the other. Listening to the night time parade of mice playing tag in the ceiling and walls, my thoughts turned to; “What the hell am I doing out here 30 miles from town,  in the middle of this 1000’s  of acres of woods? All alone! Was I nuts?”

“OMG! What’s that noise? Listen, there it is again!”

It sounded like an animal was actually chewing on my cabin.  Sometime during the night I did dozed off but only briefly. A thunderstorm demanded that I not get too comfortable. Loud claps and bright lightening fueled my anxiety of this precarious first night in the woods. Then suddenly as a lightening bolt lit up the room, there on the ceiling was a monstrous, wart covered wolf spider the size of my hand, hurriedly making his way in my direction. . .

To make a long story short and the purpose of this post, when there is no power, it is quiet! I will be the first to tell you that the constant buzz of human activity, electronic gadgets, cell phones and all sorts of technology along with traffic noise and streetlights are so natural to the every day guy and gal that we just don’t notice the noise, that is, until it is gone. When the constant pulse of modern electrical power shuts off, the first sense is that of ahhhhhhh. It actually feels good.  (Personally, I miss my days and nights living unattached to the power grid and even today, going into town seems so loud.)  It doesn’t take long, however, before you begin to feel withdrawal symptoms, much like that of a cigarette withdrawal. Then night comes, the stillness of the true light less night becomes the monster in the closet of our childhood.

My first long winter night played games with the stillness of my snow covered wilderness. I suddenly became acutely aware that moon light uses shadows as an accomplice; it tricks the imagination into seeing beasts stalking the darkness. A wise older man I knew called these night time imaginary beings hide-behinds. "

Elusive mythical creatures without true form, created purely from ones own imagination, hiding behind leafless hardwoods," he liked to say.

This man loved to tell scary stories, especially at Halloween.  I remembered his words one night as I sat reading quietly by oil lamp, the muted flickering of the yellow flame demanded entrance into the playful party of dancing shadows. At that moment, as I looked up from my reading, the icy stillness crept up and stole away with my struggling confidence. That mythical hide-behind ran his icy finger up my spine. 

                                               

As the terror in my mind swelled in my throat a scream would have landed on no one. The hide-behind that annihilated my courage was enjoying his trophy win, his icy finger and leering snicker now retreating out the window. Cloud cover was my hero that night as it ended the stalking, it pulled the curtain on the full moons glittering ribbons through the trees, taking with it the shadowed creatures demanding my attention. I am again, alone with my thoughts and the thick, silent blackness of night. 
                               ***           ******         ***  

Twenty years have now come and gone since my first encounter with the night time hide-behinds deep in my forest. My tiny cabin has given way to a fit a proper homestead. The moral of this story you may have guessed is that when the lights go out, and they will, it is the thick blanket of stillness people will surrender to. More often than not even before the lack of food sets in. Humans have adapted to noise, to the hustle of activity and having every desirable electronic device at their fingertips. You can and should prepare for as many physical aspects of the coming take down of the U.S. as possible. But will you be able to survive the quiet? It is truly a possibility that needs to be understood.

If you haven't guessed by now the true monster wasn't the hide-behinds. Silence is the true enemy. This enemy invades the human imagination like a parasite, feasting on your confidence leaving you weakend and immobile to fight your imagined closet monsters. Silence can be a formidable enemy.

History has recorded that silence created a debilitating madness in the unprepared pioneer women during the 1800’s westward movement.  Women whose husband had settled them in the prairies of the western U.S. and were left alone for long periods of time often went mad due to the silence. Their only companion was the never ending wind, the mournful song of the elusive wolf and the constant fear of an Indian attack. After weeks away searching for or trading for supplies, returning husbands sometimes found their wives, if the were lucky, wandering the open prairie looking for another human neighbor, disponent, delirious and babbling gibberish.