There are those who still believe that Satan wears horns and brandishes a pitchfork.  There are others who believe that evil walks only on two legs: human appendages. And then there are those whose concept of wickedness defies their own prior notions. Thanks to a brief but chilling encounter that Mr. Smith (for purposes of anonymity) experienced in the seemingly serene setting of the bird sanctuary at the tip of Cape May Point, he now falls into the latter category.

 

In the warmer months, the patch of wetland that constitutes the sanctuary above ground usually teems with life: varied species of birds, the living marsh itself, and the ever-opportune insects; particularly, mosquitoes that treat visitors the way a starving clan would enjoy a free smorgasbord.   Late one pleasant afternoon, Mr. Smith ventured into the sanctuary with a friend of the opposite sex.  Before you read of their encounter, it should be known that, although we are not at liberty to divulge the actual nature of the field in which the two friends worked, their jobs were critical, involving, ultimately, the protection of human lives.  As the focus of a most eerie confrontation, then, our witnesses were rational and not given to flights of fancy.  Their tale, however ugly, is true.

 

On the day in question, the sun was beginning its descent upon the horizon, illumining the marsh with the rich light and color of a sunset at the Jersey shore.  Standing at the edge of the marsh, Mr. Smith cast his gaze out over the water, enjoying his company and the natural surroundings.  His enjoyment, however, was short-lived.  As the sun slanted down from the heavens, burnishing the surface of the water, he caught sight of something that chilled him to the bone.  A short distance out from the shore, upon the water itself, sat what he could best describe as a column of darkness, perhaps seven to eight feet tall.  The laws of physics dictated that this area should have been just as illuminated as the rest of the water; however, it was completely dark — as dark as a black hole, or perhaps, the heart of Satan himself.

 

As our witness was attempting to digest this sensory-conflicting information, he became aware of the sudden absence of sound in a place usually alive with the music of nature.  The birds had stopped cawing and chirping, no fish plopped in the water, and even the mosquitoes had stopped their incessant buzzing.  All was unnaturally still. One by one, the hairs began to rise along our raconteur’s body, for he realized that, as nature absented its sounds, something else had crept into that place, something evil.  For that inexplicable column of lifelessness was beaming an almost palpable sense of malevolence directly at Mr. Smith and his friend!   Never before or since have these two logical and reliable souls felt such a terrible presence.  Feeling like targets of this evil entity, they were convinced, by silent complicity, that if they did not hightail it out of there before the sun had set, they would have been the victims of a more tangible form of wickedness.  Without wishing to further alarm his companion or give the entity direct cause to act, Mr. Smith murmured to his friend that they should be heading out of there, as there was perhaps only twenty minutes of sunlight left.  Wordlessly, she nodded and followed his lead, feeling the evil thing with its blind eye upon her.

 

When they had gained the safety of his car, our witness asked, “Did you see that thing out there on the water?”  With a frisson of terror, a resounding “Yes!” was the woman’s response.  Both were too rattled and frightened to discuss it much further, but once every few years, Mr. Smith brings up the topic.  All he needs to do is ask, very tentatively and perhaps looking over his shoulder for the horrible specter, “Do you remember that day out in Cape May Point when …?”  As she did that day, his friend answers with a single word, a definitive, shivering “Yes!”, as if slamming the lid shut on the coffin of a beast best buried quickly and deeply.