"Nip Story" by Marc Svirtunas
It was September 1991 in a section of the Hockomock swamp. About 100 meters west of Lake Nippenicket there is a road that runs north along the western side of the lake, that starts at either Chase Road or Birch Hill Road. The road runs north until it passes between Nippenicket and Nunkets Pond, after that it takes a sharp right and heads east toward the lake. There is a sand pit there where I would go target shooting in many weekends from about 1985 till 1997. As a child, my father took me fishing there- ice fishing in the winter, and shoreline fishing in the summer. I remember one specific time that I was about 5 years old and I had a huge largemouth bass take my line. My dad yelled to me to hand him the rod but I didn’t want to give it up because the fish was so huge. I wanted to be the one who landed the monster. Although my mother protested the “fish steal” as well, in the end I handed it over to my Father who promptly lost the fish! I can still remember how angry I was I wouldn’t talk to him until we got home.
The place has always held a place in my heart as it was a part of my childhood as well as being part of growing into a man. Believe it or not I even took my future wife there one night in my 71 Super Beetle with a 12 pack of Schaefer cans behind the passenger seat. We decided to play “hide and seek” after a few beers too many and I got out of the car and climbed a tree about 10 meters from the car. It was very dark and there couldn’t have been more than a half moon in the sky. She got out to find me and I watched as she walked around. She only lasted about 2 minutes before the darkness and the fact that she had only known me for about a month drove her back to the vehicle. I climbed down and told her where I had been… She thought that I was crazy to be able to stay out there in the dark without being spooked. At that point I told her how familiar this place was to me and that I felt as if I was in a tree at my dad’s house. I had never had a bad experience there by the water out in the woods near the lake or even in the swamps behind it.
About a year later she and I had some problems involving an old boyfriend which proved to be extremely stressful to me. So stressful that I grabbed a backpack, my Mauser rifle with bayonet, a box of 7.92 ammunition and jumped into my 71 VW and drove out to the Nip to get my head straight, a little exercise and some shooting practice. I parked my car and started the long walk to the sand pits. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon which wasn’t a big deal because I only had one box of ammunition and I didn’t intend to stay out there very long. It usually got dark around 5 so that gave me a half-hour to get in, a half-hour to shoot and then a half-hour buffer to get out of there before it got too dark…
I sat there and pondered my situation for a bit and then went into the brush to find some bottles or cans to shoot at. Between shooting, thinking, and collecting cans I lost track of time. It suddenly dawned on me that dusk was approaching and that I would not be able to get back to the car before darkness set in.
So I packed up, shouldered my rifle and started walking. I remember thinking to myself that I had shot every round that I had brought with me so that if a monster tried to get me I’d be fucked. I love dark humor so I chuckled to myself. I also felt like the stupid guy in the horror movie that I usually find myself yelling at for forgetting his gun or dropping it into the stream while some fiend is chasing him.
I kept on walking down the dirt road towards the left turn that would take me between Nunkets Pond and the lake. I turned the corner south towards my car and walked another few hundred feet before I noticed that It had really really gotten dark quickly. There was not enough moon to light my way properly. Luckily I had been up and down this road so many times that I pretty much knew it by heart.
I turned the next corner which led me east toward the lake. I walked on until I hit the small clearing where the road forks east, taking you to the lake, or south, bringing me closer to Route 104 and to my old VW. (God I miss that car.)
I turned south and kept walking. The day of solitude, exercise, and target practice had kept my mind off of my problems but now, a little tired and anxious to get back to my car, they started to drift back into my thoughts. Then I heard some footsteps behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I slowly turned around. Peering and squinting through the darkness, I watched for any movement at all. I couldn’t make out a thing in the darkness.
I turned back and started waling again and there it was- the sound of footsteps again. I found myself saying to myself “you’ve got to be shitting me”. No flashlight, no cell phone, no ammo, escapee from Bridgewater State or a ghoul behind you… Most of the time saying something like this to myself would generate comforting mirth but this time it didn’t work.
I knew that there was something back there watching me, stalking me like an animal. I thought to myself, whatever it is, it picked a shitty time to do this to me because now I get to be that stupid guy in the slasher movie with no way to protect himself. I could use the rifle a club or… then I remembered the bayonet and quickly attached it to my rifle. Making sure not to look back I started walking again…The bayonet may sound like a stupid idea but at that point anything that gave me more of a chance to defend myself was at the top of my immediate want list.
As I walked, I stopped a few more times, and each time that I did the footsteps behind me would stop as well.
The footsteps got closer and closer until it sounded like whatever it was was within arm’s reach of my back. I stopped again- this time the blood in my veins felt like ice, the hair on the back of my neck felt like needles. I honestly thought that if I turned around that I would be face to face with whatever it was. I don’t ever remember being that scared before.
So I started to run. I broke into a fear-fueled run that took me past the second clearing, past the little cove that my dad lost my fish from and just within sight of the road where my car was parked. Out of breath I finally had to stop… I had run far enough that the road was partially illuminated by a street light that was only about 25 meters away. I slowly turned around and looked back into the woods past the cove and into the darkness. Whatever it was, it was still there in the shadows. I could feel it watching me.
Somehow I didn’t think that it would come out into the light after me. But still, after catching my breath, I jogged all the way back to my car, threw my stuff under the hood, and put as much distance between the lake road and myself that I possibly could, as quickly as I could.
I still have fond memories of that place and I have been back there several times- I mean after all, I practically grew up there. However I will admit that since September 1991 I have never been back there again by myself.