The man seemed out of place.
Kalie Ulriksen took the provincial bus from La Ronge, Saskatchewan, to Saskatoon in 2006 when the bus made a scheduled stop in Prince Albert.
“It was the middle of July and hot. I’m talking 30-plus Celsius (near 90 degrees Fahrenheit),” she said. “So I wandered around and went to grab a coffee at a nearby shop.”
As Ulriksen sipped the coffee, she walked back to the depot and found a crowd had gathered in the waiting area of the small bus stop waiting for departure. Then she saw the man.
“I look around the room and there is this guy standing in line waiting to board the bus,” she said. “His clothes just don’t fit. He is in knee-high, jet-black boots, extremely dark glasses, a large cowboy-style hat, gloves, and this takes the cake – a huge trench coat in a tiger skin pattern.”
Sweat rolled off Ulriksen as she stood in line, staring at the man in the tiger-skin trench coat.
“I was melting in a tank top and shorts,” she said. “Strange dressing people, even in the middle of Saskatchewan, doesn’t stand for anything. I know some crazy people. Dressing like it’s Halloween in the middle of summer doesn’t shock me. I know people who go to the bar wrapped in Saran Wrap.”
But there was something about this man beyond his clothing, something strange, something Ulriksen was not alone in noticing.
“It was the attitude of this guy. Like he was a predator,” she said. “I remember thinking at the time, ‘This guy could blow up the entire bus and kill us all and not think twice about it.’”
Ulriksen watched the man as the driver gave the signal for passengers to board the bus.
“I’m staring at this guy. He stands in line to board the bus and everyone gives him a wide berth,” she said. “No one is standing close to this guy.”
At all.
A large group of people crowded in front of him, another group stood as far behind him as they could in this small room. Ulriksen, who returned late for boarding, stood near the back of the line.
“There is something about him; something hair-raising,” she said. “Literally the coolness runs up the nape and I can’t stop staring at him. He was clean-shaven, handsome, but deadly.”
Then the passengers board the bus. When Ulriksen stepped on, she found the man sitting in one of the middle rows. Seats around the man were empty, other passengers staying as far away from him as possible.
“Yes, he is dressed strange but it’s the air around him. I don’t like to label things ‘evil’ lightly. I would imagine I would have the same feeling standing before a wild animal on the hunt,” she said. “The heebie jeebies doesn’t describe the feeling this dude is giving me. It’s suddenly everyone around me is no longer on the top of the food chain. Something is very not right about this guy.”
As Ulriksen stood at the front of the bus, she felt an urge to get close to the man.
“The little voice in my head speaks up, ‘Sit with him why don’t you?’” she said. “It’s the same one that says, ‘have another smoke’ ‘play with that Ouija board.’ The little voice I don’t listen to.”
She walked past the man and sat two rows behind him.
“I keep glancing at the back of his head,” she said. “I think, ‘What’s this guy’s deal?’”
As that thought ran through Ulriksen’s head, the man turned and grinned at her.
“My heart stops,” she said. “Pure fear drops through me; the electric kind. The pulsing, I’m-going-to-die feeling. Pure primal fear. I can’t explain it in words. It was screwed up.”
Ulriksen stared in terror at the strange man’s close-lipped grin, his eyebrows rising above the rim of his sunglasses. She knew she was in danger.
“I swear this guy wasn’t human,” she said.
But nothing happened. The man turned around, the bus eventually stopped at its scheduled destination, passengers got off and went on their way.
However, the terror of that moment has never left her.
Reports of strange, out-of-place “people” are common, littering online message boards far away from the mainstream media. Men in Black, hybrids, Black-Eyed Kids; there are many human-like entities that walk our earth, insert themselves into our sense of reality, and stalk us in broad daylight.
What did Ulriksen encounter? Simply a strange man, or something more sinister?
Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Time Slip in Oregon
Wedding guests at the Troutdale, Ore., resort Edgefield in the summer of 2006 had an urgent request for the catering staff – more wine. Michael Reed worked that wedding and didn’t expect this moment of celebration to burn terror into his memory.
“I had not worked there long, maybe two months,” Reed said. “We were catering a wedding at another building off the main one when a coworker asked that I retrieve more wine from the main building’s basement.”
The main building, a historic three-story brick structure built in 1911 as the county poor farm, is a National Historic Landmark. The structure has been a winery, hotel, restaurant, and for many years abandoned. Reed approached the expansive building that sits on 74 acres on the edge of Portland, and walked into the kitchen.
“The basement had a few entrances but the main one that we used was off the main house kitchen,” he said. “There was a stairwell as well as a small elevator for carting food and beverages.”
The chef scowled at Reed as he went through the kitchen, descended the stairs and began his trip into the unknown.
“I entered the central hall in the basement and began looking for the room where we kept the wine,” Reed said. “It was two rooms down the hall from where I exited the stairwell, so not a long journey in this massive basement.”
Reed counted the rooms and turned into the second room from the stairs only to find it empty.
“I thought, ‘Oh boy, I miscounted the rooms or something,’” Reed said. “So I checked the next one, but not before making a mental note that the room I checked looked quite run down. I just figured that was why it was empty.”
In the next room, water slowly dripped from a stained ceiling and into a dented, rusty bucket on the floor. The rest of the room was bare.
“I thought (dripping water) was strange considering the floor above was immaculate,” he said. “But I didn’t over-think it and proceeded to the next room.”
But Reed knew something was wrong at Edgefield, in this basement. His heart beat heavily in his chest as he stood in the doorway to this damp, deteriorated, abandoned room beneath the busy, modern resort.
“I had always had a very powerful fear of getting lost,” he said. “I was afraid of being erased.”
Panic pulled at Reed as he stepped into the next room, almost a quarter through the basement. It was just as empty, dark, and dank. He had to leave.
“I turned around to go back to the staircase,” he said. “I was terrified to see that the steps leading up to the kitchen were rotted and many of them were broken.”
Those were not the steps that took Reed into this empty, moldy basement.
“I looked around in growing fear, opening rotten doors that should be much newer,” only finding age and disuse, Reed said, “raced toward the darker half of the basement where I knew there were doors to the outside. The whole time afraid that at any moment someone would jump out and grab me.”
Reed’s race through the basement showed no signs of the restored Edgefield – only decay.
“I never saw anything remotely familiar as having any newness to it and to be quite honest, I thought I had fallen back in time to when the hotel sat abandoned,” he said. “I yelled out a couple of times thinking that this couldn’t be and maybe to prove to myself that I still existed.”
No one responded.
Reed ran through the basement toward a set of doors he knew should take him outside to safety.
“I found the door I was looking for and pushed it open,” he said. “I walked into a sunny normal world. People were walking here and there and all was fine. The door closed behind me, but even if it hadn’t, I had no intention of going back in the same way.”
Reed walked back to the wedding reception and told the coworker who sent him on the errand that he couldn’t find the wine.
“She looked at me with this strange expression,” Reed said. “I knew why. It was not hard to find. She asked if I used the kitchen stairs and I told her I had. She explained where it was in the second room on the left and I trotted off again feeling like a fool for returning empty handed and feeling embarrassed because I could not tell her what really happened.”
Reed walked slowly back to the main building, through the kitchen, down the stairs and to the second room. Crates of wine sat waiting for him.
“I grabbed four bottles and ran back up the stairs to the kitchen,” he said. “I was so scared that it might happen again that I nearly dropped the wine on my way up. I ran into one of the kitchen wait staff at the top. She looked at me as if I were an idiot. I smiled dumbly playing the part of (the) dumb new guy.”
Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
“I had not worked there long, maybe two months,” Reed said. “We were catering a wedding at another building off the main one when a coworker asked that I retrieve more wine from the main building’s basement.”
The main building, a historic three-story brick structure built in 1911 as the county poor farm, is a National Historic Landmark. The structure has been a winery, hotel, restaurant, and for many years abandoned. Reed approached the expansive building that sits on 74 acres on the edge of Portland, and walked into the kitchen.
“The basement had a few entrances but the main one that we used was off the main house kitchen,” he said. “There was a stairwell as well as a small elevator for carting food and beverages.”
The chef scowled at Reed as he went through the kitchen, descended the stairs and began his trip into the unknown.
“I entered the central hall in the basement and began looking for the room where we kept the wine,” Reed said. “It was two rooms down the hall from where I exited the stairwell, so not a long journey in this massive basement.”
Reed counted the rooms and turned into the second room from the stairs only to find it empty.
“I thought, ‘Oh boy, I miscounted the rooms or something,’” Reed said. “So I checked the next one, but not before making a mental note that the room I checked looked quite run down. I just figured that was why it was empty.”
In the next room, water slowly dripped from a stained ceiling and into a dented, rusty bucket on the floor. The rest of the room was bare.
“I thought (dripping water) was strange considering the floor above was immaculate,” he said. “But I didn’t over-think it and proceeded to the next room.”
But Reed knew something was wrong at Edgefield, in this basement. His heart beat heavily in his chest as he stood in the doorway to this damp, deteriorated, abandoned room beneath the busy, modern resort.
“I had always had a very powerful fear of getting lost,” he said. “I was afraid of being erased.”
Panic pulled at Reed as he stepped into the next room, almost a quarter through the basement. It was just as empty, dark, and dank. He had to leave.
“I turned around to go back to the staircase,” he said. “I was terrified to see that the steps leading up to the kitchen were rotted and many of them were broken.”
Those were not the steps that took Reed into this empty, moldy basement.
“I looked around in growing fear, opening rotten doors that should be much newer,” only finding age and disuse, Reed said, “raced toward the darker half of the basement where I knew there were doors to the outside. The whole time afraid that at any moment someone would jump out and grab me.”
Reed’s race through the basement showed no signs of the restored Edgefield – only decay.
“I never saw anything remotely familiar as having any newness to it and to be quite honest, I thought I had fallen back in time to when the hotel sat abandoned,” he said. “I yelled out a couple of times thinking that this couldn’t be and maybe to prove to myself that I still existed.”
No one responded.
Reed ran through the basement toward a set of doors he knew should take him outside to safety.
“I found the door I was looking for and pushed it open,” he said. “I walked into a sunny normal world. People were walking here and there and all was fine. The door closed behind me, but even if it hadn’t, I had no intention of going back in the same way.”
Reed walked back to the wedding reception and told the coworker who sent him on the errand that he couldn’t find the wine.
“She looked at me with this strange expression,” Reed said. “I knew why. It was not hard to find. She asked if I used the kitchen stairs and I told her I had. She explained where it was in the second room on the left and I trotted off again feeling like a fool for returning empty handed and feeling embarrassed because I could not tell her what really happened.”
Reed walked slowly back to the main building, through the kitchen, down the stairs and to the second room. Crates of wine sat waiting for him.
“I grabbed four bottles and ran back up the stairs to the kitchen,” he said. “I was so scared that it might happen again that I nearly dropped the wine on my way up. I ran into one of the kitchen wait staff at the top. She looked at me as if I were an idiot. I smiled dumbly playing the part of (the) dumb new guy.”
Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
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