Spirit In The Swamp

My encounter happened in early February of 1985 in a farming/swamp area of extreme south Florida outside Homestead, Fl. My father called it the East Glade; some folks call it the Double Canals. It's a very flat area, fairly large area 5x8 miles, where corn and potatoes are grown in the winter with a mix of willow, button wood, scrub oak, saw grass and cat tail slew. It is criss crossed with small drainage ditches that we called jumpers because they were just wide enough to jump across. Some larger ditches and 2 large canals (hence Double Canals). The drainage ditches were dug for fill for the roads which are set up in straight north south, east west grids and they divide the area up into large plots of fields and swamp.

It was late afternoon and the temperature was cold for subtropical Florida, mid 50s expected to drop to the low 40s that night. My buddy and I had been fishing the jumpers about smack in the middle of the glade on the edge where the farms yielded to the swamp. About an hour and a half before sunset I saw a figure approaching us from the swamp about 3/4 of a mile down the road we were fishing on. My friend was around a corner, so at the time I was alone near the car. I knew it was a person but it was moving very slowly and I didn't pay it much mind and continued fishing but kept an eye on it.

After about a 1/2 hour I could make out it was a woman. Then as she got closer I could tell she was barefoot, wearing only a long pink tee shirt with a teddy bear on it. The kind young girls sleep in. When she finally got close enough to talk to me I could see she had been out there a while. She had a slight build; her mouse brown hair looked like it had been wet earlier in the day and not brushed very well but her feet didn't appear very dirty. Her skin was slightly ashen but not pale and she wasn't blemished. She seemed fairly healthy, didn't seem lost or overly concerned about her situation.

She asked me for a cigarette of which I didn't have. When I told her I had none she just looked at me blankly. I then asked her what in the hell was she doing out there. She replied "I've been swimming with the alligators". I asked her who left her out there (I figured she was a hooker), she just said "they left me here". I asked her if she would like a ride back to town when we were done fishing and she said she had no place to go. I told her that I couldn't in good conscience leave her out there and would give her a few bucks, and then drop her off at a convenience store. She just said "I'll wait over there". She walked about 50 feet in front of my car and she squatted down in the road and pulled the shirt over her knees and just kind of settled there.

Now this was getting kind of strange so I went and found my buddy to tell him we had a crazy lost hooker we were going to take back to town. We spoke about it out of ear shot of the girl and decided where we would drop her that would be the least likely place that anyone would see us dropping off a fallen flower at. He did ask if she propositioned me, which she had not, then it seemed even stranger. He also said something to the effect that she might be trying to set us up to be rolled, which wasn't likely because I was wearing a rather large pistol.

Gets time to leave she gets in the back of my 72, 4 door, Chevelle and off we go. My buddy asked basically the same questions I did and she gave the same answers. Swimming with the alligators, not gators, alligators and that "they left her out there". She also said she didn't have any more friends in town. That they were all gone. From that point we just rode and were quiet

About 1/2 mile from the pavement and civilization she blurts out "I forgot my shoes". I told her she could get more shoes but she reiterated that she had to have her shoes. I told her it's almost dark and we're not going back for shoes. To which she replied "let me out, I must have my high heels". I wasn't going to argue with some crazy hooker so I stopped and let her get out.

She exited the car from the back passenger door and at that moment my buddy just looked at me and said "she's a spook". I told him he was nuts, she's a hooker, not a spook. He said "no a spirit". As I was explaining to him why his eyes were brown I looked in the rear view mirrors and she was gone. Turned around, no sign of her. The road we were on was white rock 50 feet wide and had flat freshly planted farm fields on either side. Not a bush of a tree in sight but it did have a jumper on either side. I still thought he was a loony as she was. Then he turned around and put his hand on the seat where she had been for the last 20 minutes. It was cold as ice when I put my hand on it. He then said "did you notice she didn't smell like anything". Then when he mentioned it she didn't, for someone who had spent a day in the south Florida swamp she had no odor at all.

I didn't tell hardly anyone about it except my wife, then one afternoon while chatting with my father I told him the story. With as serious a look as he could have he told me he had seen the same girl 50 years prior in the same area. When she approached she asked the same question, "Do you have a cigarette". Her attire was different. She was completely naked except a pair of high heeled shoes. My father told me that she had been out there for a long time. This was sort of shocking to me that my father, elder in the church had had direct contact with a spirit and the same spirit had contact with me.

Call bunk on it if you want but this encounter made a believer out of me!