Owl Eyes

Man, this is just what I needed, a week away from everything. Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Marcus, I'm 27 years old, I have a wife, two kids, and another on the way. Ever since I was a child I've wanted to be a writer. I guess I'm good at it, I've had two books published, but that's beside the point. I recently suffered from writers block. No matter what I did, I couldn't get back in the rhythm. I decided to see a therapist about it, and he told me I needed to get away from the stress of daily life. I of course, had no objection to that, considering I hadn't taken a vacation in several years. I confronted my wife about it, and invited her to tag along. The kids could stay at her parents home, it would be a romantic weekend for the two of us, but, too my surprise, she declined and said she'd rather stay with the kids, but encouraged me too go alone.

I was disappointed, but didn't argue. I packed my suitcase, kissed my wife and children, then headed out. There was a beautiful cabin beside a river my therapist told me about. It was a long drive on a curvy dirt road, but well worth it. When I arrived at the cabin, I was astonished by the massive trees secluding me from the rest of the world. The cabin, as stated before, was beautiful. I opened the door, but lost my breathe. The air was stale, cobwebs lined the corners of the ceiling, and I'm pretty sure I saw a mouse run across the floor. No one had lived here in a very long time. Either way, I went to the bedroom and unpacked.

It was starting to get dark, so I decided to go to bed and further inspect the area in the morning. As I put on my pajamas. As I undressed, I heard a sound coming from outside, it sounded like someone rustling through a patch of dead leaves. I opened the window to see if anyone was outside. Nothing. I was about to close it, but I noticed a peculiar sight. An owl sitting on a branch, looking at me. It was a bright white color with pitch black eyes, and it was staring me right in the eyes. I slammed the window shut, the noise made the owl fly away. I lied down in the bed and fell asleep.

It was seven a.m. when I awoke the next morning. The sun was piercing through the windows, creating beautiful gleams of light in the dark cabin I yawned and sat up. A beautiful day. I wondered what I should do, maybe I should try and work on my book, no, I'll go for a swim in the river. A brilliant idea! I put on my bathing suit and went outside, it was surprisingly chilly for the middle of summer though. When I reached the river, I stuck one foot in it, but yanked it out. The water was ice cold, too cold to swim in. On my way back to the cabin, I saw the owl from last night. Weird, I thought they only came out at night time. It was watching me as I walked back, "Get out of here!" I yelled as I threw up my arms.

The owl didn't budge, I shivered a little and went inside. What a strange encounter. I went to get my camera too take a picture of the owl, but when I returned, it was no where to be found. For the rest of that day, I took pictures of my surroundings, my wife was a photographer, so I thought she'd like the photos, I got some pretty good ones too. One of a bright red centipede crawling across a root, even a fox chasing a rabbit, I'm really proud of that one. Night came, so I retreated back to the cabin to sleep. When I went into the bedroom, I felt something, like someone was staring at me. I looked around the entire room, the whole cabin! It was really bothering me. I couldn't find anything. I decided too shake it off. I went back too the bedroom and fell asleep.

I didn't normally have dreams, but that night I did. There were too black eyes staring at me from the foot of the bed. I tried to kick, but I couldn't move, something had me pinned down. The eyes began too move closer, "NO! GO AWAY!" I pleaded. The eyes were close now, reveling an entire face. Too black eyes, with no mouth, or any other facial features, just gray skin, and those damn eyes. I woke up and fell out of the bed. I felt the stare on me. I looked outside and saw the owl, "Get the fuck out of here!" I screamed as I opened the window and threw a shoe at it. The shoe missed and the owl just sat on the tree branch, gazing at me through the window. This was way too creepy. I got my stuff together and went to my car. The owl had moved now. It was on top of the cabin looking down at me as I was opening my car door. I pulled out my camera and took a picture of it. It screamed loudly, making me cover my ears, then flied away into the woods.

By the next morning, I was home. My kids greeted me with hugs, and my wife kissed me, "Why are you back so early?" She asked. I smiled, "Eh, that wasn't really the place for me." I gave her the camera and told her about the pictures I'd taken, especially about the owl. She said she'd get them developed for me. I got too rest easy that night, and in the morning, my wife handed me the pictures. I looked at them one by one, "Not bad right?" She began too put on earrings, "Yeah, they're pretty good hun." "Did you see the one of the owl?" "No, I only saw a few." I flipped to the picture too show her, but it was only a picture of the corner of the cabin's roof. The owl was gone, I knew I got him in that picture. My wife hugged me, "I'm going to work, see you at six." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw too black eyes staring at me from the window in the kitchen.