The Pocket Watch

My name is Greg and I grew up in northern Connecticut. First off, I'd like to state in high school I was a devoted atheist. I had a small circle of friends, my friend Aaron who was incredibly deep into the occult, horror movies, witchcraft, things along those lines, my friend Jennifer who was one of my closest friends (We are married now) my friend Edward who was also a big atheist and Peter who came from Germany and was a devout Catholic. My friends and I were usually out everyday well into 3 AM, one day we wanted to play capture the flag at night, which at the time seemed to be a great idea. We were wrong.

We split up and made it a 2 on 3 game. Me and Aaron were the members of our team. The place in which I lived had a lot of wide open space and plenty of woods so strategically I knew everything about the area. Me and Aaron sat around for about 45 minutes; he then leaned over to me and said "Greg, where's that trail go to?" The trail he pointed to went to a rather rundown house. I replied back to him "Oh that trail? Yeah that goes down to the "Garbage Hut" it's pretty much the longest trail in town." Me and my dad called the house down that trail the garbage hut because the house literally looked like it was patched together from sheet metal and cans. "That's perfect" Aaron said to me. To be honest I was beginning to get scared. I didn't believe in ghosts at all but something about the trail itself had sent bad feelings into me. "No, that's a terrible idea. It would take us at least 15 minutes to walk that whole trail and the others would never even be able to find us." I replied straight away. After much deliberation I had been suckered into following Aaron down that trail.

Upon reaching the garbage hut I had felt cold. I zipped my hoodie up and stood there starring down the wrecked house. Aaron asked me who lived there and I told him that the man who lived there was in jail for tax evasion. Aaron opened the door and I had sprung up in disbelief. "What the hell are you doing!?" I had shouted I ran in after him and this is where I began to feel nauseous. The inside of the house smelled of rotting meat and excrement. We walked around the house for a few minutes. (Around the kitchen and living room pretty much) Aaron and I heard growling, like a huge dog growling. We decided to leave but not before Aaron spotted a beautifully detailed pocket watch and took it for himself. As we sprinted down the trail I could have sworn I heard the galloping of a large dog behind us. Neither of us was in shape to sprint the way we did but we cleared that trail. After realizing we were not being followed we went our separate ways and called it a night. I was up for the rest of the night watching TV because I needed to hear and see something to distract me from that incident.

The next day Aaron calls us all up and invites us to his house for the night. At this point I was so reluctant to have anything to do with Aaron because I thought it was morally wrong to take that pocket watch. When all of us were at Aarons it felt freezing, I wasn't the only one who felt cold so I felt some comfort in that knowledge. Aaron was showing off the pocket watch and the more he waved it around the less comfortable all of us felt. Edward complained of a stomach ache and had been violently vomiting most of the night he was there. He left fairly early around 11 PM. Peter had church the next morning so he left shortly after. Jennifer and I were the only others left. Around 1 AM we heard a tapping on the window. Aaron went to check it out because he thought it was his brother Charles coming back from another vicious night at the bar. It turned out it was nothing. Jennifer was very tired and she decided to drive home. Before she left she pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted a ride home. I don't know what came over me but I just said "...No, I think I should stay here." Jen was uneasy and left me behind.

It was around 3:30 AM and Aaron was out of it. I turned to him and said "Dude, you tired?" he opened his eyes and said in a very firm voice "No." All the questions I asked him were either answered with "Yes." "No." or he would stare at me blankly. He got up slowly and opened the door to his basement I followed him and the image of what I saw was forever burned into my mind. He got halfway down the steps and then and turned around. I said "Aaron, why did you wait so long to grab the beers, man? Everyone is gone." His pupils disappeared and he smiled. He stuck his tongue out at me and his tongue had become increasingly longer. The shadows at the bottom of the steps were dancing and swirling and all of a sudden I heard screaming and doors opening and closing. I broke out in a sweat and ran as fast as I could out of the house. I sprinted until I couldn't breathe and even afterwards I ran. I had arrived at my house and woke my dad up. I told him everything. My dad nodded his head and told me "Greg. You need to go back to church. You need to find God again." After that night I had never missed a Sunday and I have found myself praying almost every day.

A few days afterwards Edward and Peter told me that they had gone back to Aarons because Ed left his backpack there. Apparently no one was home at all. I had only seen Aaron a few times after the incident but after 2 weeks him and his family had vanished. I haven't seen Aaron since junior year. I wish I knew what happened to him or if he is still alive.

Did I really see all this or is there even a possibility that he and his family are still alive?