Things That Go Jump in the Night

By Sharie Derrickson

I’ve seen some pretty strange stuff in my time, but none more strange than the one I saw the other night, and I must admit, I am still pretty creeped out by the whole affair. There is a stretch of road near my house that is right out of, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The trees are all twisted and menacing looking and have these huge arms that I am afraid are going to someday reach down and grab me and chew my leg off, and then, I expect for the headless horseman to ride out, stand in front of my car, and say, “Hey, you seen my head?” Just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I usually have to drive through this area when returning at night after one of my government meetings in Cape Vincent, so naturally, I am already a bit on the nervous twitch side. Anyway, so to distract myself, I sing songs, or write nasty letters to my congressman in my head. But, the other night, it was unusually foreboding – the moon peered through dark clouds – the wind howled – leaves swirled and danced their ominous dance – the headless horseman chased my car demanding that I return his head, to which I replied, “I don’t have your stupid head – now give it a rest.” Anyway, it was a dark and stormy night.

So, I sat at the intersection of County Route 12 and Millens Bay Road with my blinker signaling a turn, while I had a conversation with myself.

“Come on Sharie – you can do it. It’s just a road. There is no boogie man out to get you – it’s quicker.”

“Yeah, but that’s a scary road.”

“Oh, come on, you wimp.”

“Hey, don’t call me a wimp.”

“Wimp. Baby. Scaredy-cat.”

“I don’t like you anymore.”

“So.”

“So, so suck your toe, all the way to Mexico.”

“That’s mature.”

“Just drive.”

“Alright,” I said as I made the turn, feeling my pulse throb in my neck. “But if that headless horseman shows up, I’m never talking to you again.”

It began to drizzle, and my headlights tried to pierce through the thick blackness. I kept looking in my rearview mirror to make sure no one wearing a mask and holding a butcher knife was in the back seat, and I sang the Oscar Meyer Weiner song to help me maintain my composure.

“My bologna has a first name . . .” Gulp. “It’s O-S-C-A-R.”

Then, in the scariest place on the road, I slowed down so that I didn’t hit a limb, as leaves jumped around my car. Suddenly, from nowhere, something flung itself on my windshield – two giant eyes and hands with webbed fingers and toes.

“Aaaahhhhh,” I screamed, hitting my brake, throwing my car in neutral, and climbing into the back seat with the guy with the mask and the meat cleaver. “What was that,” I said, curled up in the fetal position in the back seat. I peered through my fingers, to see the monster that stared at me through the windshield.

“Ribbet.”

“It’s just a frog,” I said to myself as I made my way to the front. “Shoo. Get off my windshield,” I said tapping the glass. The frog just continued to look at me. Then, another jumped onto my driver’s side window, then another, and another, and as I watched, frogs surrounded me.

“Hey, get off my windows, you stupid frogs. I just washed them and you are leaving your muddy footprints all over the place.” It was then I looked down to see that there were thousands of frogs in the road, all staring at me, motionless, like a deer in the headlights, only it was frogs – thousands of them. What did they want from me?

Then, my mind began to race. “Do frogs eat flesh? I am sure some frogs do, like piranha, but that is most likely South American frogs – everything there either eats you or is poisonous. Have you ever heard of anyone picked clean by frogs? Don’t think so. Maybe they are just crossing the road and they don’t want anything from you. Or, maybe, this is some kind of sign, like locusts and that first-born thing. Maybe it’s the end of the world. Just drive through them. No. Don’t. You’ll kill them and that’s like seven years bad luck for every frog you schmush. Well, you have to do something. Honk your horn.”

So, I began to honk my horn and shouting. “Get along little froggies. Get off the road before you get turned into frog pattae.” Hoooonnnnkkkk. Hoooonnnnnnk. They continued to stare at me with their beady peepers.

“Darn it all,” I said, opening my car door and tiptoeing around all of the frogs until I stood in front of my car in the headlights. “Move it,” I said waving my arms. “Go on. Get.” They all just looked at me as they sang a five-part harmony chorus of “Ribbet – ribbet – ribbet.”

“Alright then,” I said tiptoeing through the frog minefield back to my car. “You give me no other choice.”

Once in the car, I dialed home on my cellular phone, which I carry with me in case there is a man in the back seat holding a meat cleaver. “Come on. Come on. Answer.” I thought my husband would have some ideas, but no one at home picked up the phone. My mind began to race again. “What if the frog invasion has disrupted communications? What if these weren’t frogs at all but some alien specie disguised as frogs and they are really here to colonize and enslave us – and take over the airwaves so they can broadcast their fiendish plan to space frogs everywhere. What if my husband and daughter have already been assimilated and they are no longer my family, rather, frog-like alien creatures. How would I know the difference? What if they act normal when I get home, but really, they have plans to subdue me and take away the remote. I have to get home before this happens,” I said to myself, panicky. “I have to stop this madness.”

I put the car into first gear and drove precariously through the frog-aliens, honking my horn and trying to dodge each frog as it threw itself in my way. “You can’t have them,” I said to the frogs. “They are my family, and that’s my remote.”

Well, to make a long story short, when I got home, my family was watching television. “You wouldn’t believe this,” I said, short of breath. “But there are thousands of frogs in the road – they are everywhere,” I said, my eyes all wild.

“Yeah,” my daughter said not looking at me. “It’s the rain – it’s pushed them up to dryer ground.”

“So, you haven’t been turned into a frog alien?” I asked her.

“Uh, not lately,” she said, giving me a funny look.

“Prove it.”

“Prove what? How?” she said puzzled.

“Give me the remote.”

Okay, so it doesn’t appear that my family has been taken over by any frog aliens or anything like that, and maybe the frogs were just looking for a place that was high and dry after all the rain. Or, maybe, that’s what they want me to think. Anyway, I’m staying off Millens Bay Road just to play it safe – at least until after Halloween. There’s still that headless horseman guy I have to contend with. Dude, one last time – I don’t have your head.

© 2006 Sharie Derrickson. Previously printed in the Thousand Islands Sun.