The Wee-Jees: A Ghost Story Based on True Events

By Bryan Hutchinson

“I’ve heard my father talking, ” Jake said, head tilted back, eyes on the leaves above and the sun that filtered through them. “About the World Wars. He says a huge number of people died in this area during the fighting. A lot of them hid in the woods during the bombings since it was the buildings that were the real targets. They figured they’d be safe in the forest. They were wrong.”

Thanks to his father’s military career, Craig is familiar with moving, and he’s absolutely sick of it. Traveling from place to place, base to base, friendships are sometimes short-lived. At his newest home, he struggles to relax into the new rhythm of not only a new school but an entirely different country. There are many things that he loves about Germany: his new friends, the playground in his housing area, cookouts at the VFW, and the attention of Stephanie, the most beautiful girl in class. But there's something else.

Strange things begin happening to Craig. His night terrors grow worse and more vivid than ever before, and sometimes, he’s overtaken by the powerful feeling that something unseen is watching him from the darkest corners of his apartment, something that his parents never seem to notice. Worse than that is the forest across from his building, where he has seen bright yellow eyes and heard hair-raising, inhuman screams. Frightened as Craig is, he’s always loved a good mystery, and part of him wants to know more. His new friends, it turns out, want to know more as well.

So begins an adventure the likes of which none of them have experienced before...and never will again. Joined by his friends and his crush, Craig discovers that dark secrets lie within the forest once ravaged by the bombs of war. The things they see should be impossible, but there’s no way to deny what you see with your own eyes. As sinister forces draw Craig and his friends deeper into the forest, it becomes clear that the danger they are in is very real. Peril and terror await them within the trees, and the bonds of their friendship will be tested.

All military brats are used to moving, but if Craig and his friends aren’t careful, this could be their last stop.

Based on actual events, this ghost story isn’t for the faint of heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryan Hutchinson
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005722944

Bryan Hutchinson

I became a writer because I saw a ghost. True story. I had my first paranormal experience when I was 8 years old. At first, I thought it was just me and that I had 'night terrors.' It turns out that I wasn't imagining things because soon my friends saw what I saw, and then we were attacked by it. I've wanted to write about that experience for over 30 years. And so, yes, it's literally the reason I became a writer.Doubt, fear, the supernatural, and a general uneasiness with the idea of telling my story, which might not be believed, kept me from actually writing it for such a long time. I wrote book after book about how to become a more confident writer, but all the while I felt like such a fraud because I wasn't telling the story that made me become a writer in the first place!Now, finally, I am both excited and relieved to have written and published the most terrifying experience of my childhood. It wasn't easy, it took many tries over the years, and even now I am a bit nervous to share the story with the world. But, I feel the story needs to be told.Ghosts are real, and hopefully, I can transform some doubters into believers. Once you've had a true-life paranormal experience your entire perception of the world changes, and I really think that the more open you are to the existence of the otherworldly, the more likely you are to have an actual experience.The book is titled, "The Wee-Jees." It's my ghost story, based on the actual events from my childhood.

Book preview

The Wee-Jees

A Ghost Story Based on True Events

By Bryan L. Hutchinson

Copyright © 2020 Bryan L. Hutchinson

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law and in quotes for use in reviews or articles about the book. For permissions contact: [e-mail]

Cover photo by Diana Palacios

Cover design by Bryan L. Hutchinson

Special thanks to: Joan Hutchinson, Michael Hutchenson, Diana Palacios, Jeff Goins, Frank McKinley, Karen Bohn, Jessica Peterson, Kate Foley, and The Daredevils.

Warning for spiritually sensitive people: Since the story is based on actual paranormal events, it may be possible, in theory, for you to connect with the spirits. Spirit board events are also described herein. Therefore, it is advisable for you to take any necessary precautions and proceed at your own risk.

Disclaimer: Names, places, ages, timelines and other identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Some people/characters do not exist and were made up to fill in blanks or to combine two or more people into one or more to maintain anonymity. All of the names used are entirely fictional. The author has to the best of his recollection recreated events, locales and conversations. Special liberties were taken to address gaps as needed. In other words, this book is a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, written in such a way to tell a more complete story and maintain anonymity. The author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption resulting from any cause. Due to the nature of the content, each reader chooses to read the story at their own discretion, regardless of whether it is fiction or non-fiction, or both. It is clear that not all of the information in this book is non-fiction.

In Loving Memory of Jake

You are missed

Dedicated to all Military Brats

Make no mistake, Military Brats serve just as their parents do, and there are hardships that come with serving that only other Military Brats can fully appreciate. Although this story is about a haunted forest and what happened there, it’s also about a group of young strangers who quickly became friends and banded together to survive, which is what Military Brats do every day around the world.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Welcoming

Chapter 2: Just Swinging

Chapter 3: Kenny and Steve

Chapter 4: Entering the Woods

Chapter 5: Night Noises

Chapter 6: Jake

Chapter 7: Easter

Chapter 8: Glowing Butterflies

Chapter 9: Hideout

Chapter 10: Craig!

Chapter 11: Stephanie

Chapter 12: The Two Jakes

Chapter 13: Spirit Board

Chapter 14: The Library

Chapter 15: The Daredevils

Chapter 16: Come to Me

Chapter 17: The Way Up

Chapter 18: The Cave

Chapter 19: The Way Back

Chapter 20: Goodbyes

Follow up: Photographic Evidence

Introduction

I finally wrote the story that refused to be written.

The Wee-Jees is very different from anything else I’ve written. It’s a ghost story based on true events from my childhood, when I lived very close to a haunted forest. The main focus of the story is about when my friends and I went on an adventure into the forest. The adventure turned from what was supposed to be a fun and daring escapade into a very terrifying experience.

I wanted to write this story for many, many years, but something always came between me and the writing of it. In fact, about a half-dozen years ago, I wrote a few chapters and sent them to my then editor, but she refused to finish reading them and instead insisted I talk about the events with a priest. After my editor’s refusal, I gave up writing the story for several more years. I thought her suggestion to go see a priest was made in jest and she was merely saving me from rejection. But it turns out she was very serious, and her refusal to critique the chapters had nothing to do with whether my writing was any good or not.

Other weird things happened whenever I tried to chronicle the story. Once, I somehow accidentally threw away a notebook filled with several chapters. By the time I realized what happened, the garbage collector had already picked up the trash and it was gone forever. It’s as though the writing of this story was intentionally being stopped, and frankly, I believe that to be true.

In 2018, I happened upon a workaround that finally allowed me to write it unimpeded. Previously, I always named people and locations and I was very specific about revealing other things as well, but this time I was determined to not only write it, but publish it, too. Therefore, in order to publish the book, I would need to protect the identities of my friends and conceal the location. I changed my friends’ names and omitted the name of the forest. I even went so far as to also leave out the specific location of the overall general area. I fictionalized other details as well to maintain anonymity and fill in blanks.

At long last, I had found the key that unlocked my ability to tell the story!

I know how that sounds, but either subconsciously or in some other way, whenever I wrote about the specific location of the forest or certain aspects of the story in detailed ways, I would stall and then stop writing about it, often for years. For the longest while, I thought it was writer’s block, trauma, or my own fears of reliving those events, and although all those things are likely true to some degree, I believe something else was keeping me from telling the story. Something that’s still in those woods.

Even though I’ve fictionalized parts of the story for the reasons already mentioned, the experiences involving the paranormal are true. The supernatural things we encountered are real and they affected us profoundly. I don’t want to reveal too much more in this introduction, so I’ll leave you here, as twilight dims, to read it for yourself.

This is my story.

Bryan Hutchinson

Dec 2019

1

The Welcoming

When I was a kid, I lived for nearly a year in a building that was haunted. Along with several other buildings in the area, it was surrounded by a forest that was home to sinister spirits. It was the first building we lived in after moving to Germany.

My father was in the military, and I was 8 years old. Not long after we arrived, I wished we could have stayed in California, where it was always warm, the sun was always out, and as far as I knew at the time, there weren’t any ghosts.

The day we arrived in Germany it was overcast, bitterly cold, and raining. The turbulence was the worst I’ve ever experienced. Our plane had swayed all the way down as it landed. I’d like to say I was brave since I didn’t panic, but the truth is, I didn’t know how dangerous the situation was or that I should even be afraid.

After the plane ride, which seemed to last forever, we took a bus another two hours to our new home. When we arrived in our new housing area, I was awestruck. I had never seen such old buildings before, one after another, in perfect order, just like soldiers ready to salute, each one the same color and size. If the buildings didn’t have numbers on them you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them. Our building was number 92718. When I saw the number I could hardly believe there were so many buildings, although I would soon find out that there were only twenty buildings in our section. The number was merely a designation and address. We soon settled in, but it didn’t take long for weird stuff to start happening.

I was wide-awake the first time it happened. I had just gone to bed with the lights off for about ten minutes when from across my bed, in the little square of moonlight that shone through my window, I saw what looked like a dark, liquidy sphere opening on the wall. The darkness there looked far deeper than the grey, nighttime blackness of my room. This was different somehow, far more sinister, like I was seeing the inside of a pit of unfathomable depth. As I stared at it, dumbfounded, it started to spin. It was about the size of a vinyl record. I saw something else, a movement within the sphere. It could have been a trick of the light, but the longer I stared at it, the more my eyes adjusted, the more certain I was that what I was seeing was absolutely real. Within the sphere, something shifted. Whatever it was, it was large enough to fill the entire hole. It was every bit as black as the hole itself. It seemed…silky, and its movements were fluid, almost cat-like. There was a flash of yellow, two twin bulbs appearing suddenly within the mass of blackness—eyes. The creature was staring directly at me, its eyes unblinking, its cold and inhuman gaze boring into my own.

I wanted to scream, but for a while I couldn’t do anything, much less make a sound. With those eyes still on me, I felt like a rabbit frozen in the gaze of a wolf, unable to muster the courage to scream or to run. The creature kept moving forward, pulling itself persistently through the opening in my wall. It was almost into my room; it was squeezing its way through and was about to step out onto the floor. This, somehow, was what broke the spell. Finally, I was able to scream, and I did so loudly. I was so loud that I’m sure everyone in our apartment building could hear me. My father came running in mere seconds later and flipped on the lights, almost falling as he made himself stop. As the light lit up the room, the creature and the hole were gone, as if they’d never been there.

What’s wrong? my dad asked, his eyes wide with worry. They darted to the window first, perhaps concerned that I might have seen someone outside.

There was something in the wall! I blurted. I saw a hole and there was something climbing out, I swear.

By this time, my mom had reached the room as well, her eyes still at half-mast with sleepiness, her hair in disarray, and a robe hanging over her lopsidedly, mostly hiding the pajamas she wore beneath it. Craig? she said, eyes darting to my father. Is he alright?

Another bad dream, my dad explained. I understand why he thought so; I really do. When it came to waking up terrified, I was an expert. My parents had been summoned to my room by screaming in the middle of the night more times than I could easily count.

Normally I had no trouble convincing myself that whatever frightened me was nothing but a dream; this time though, I was positive that I had been fully awake. The thing I had seen, whatever it was, had been nothing imagined. Even then, after that first sighting, I was sure that it was real.

No, I did my best to assert. "It was right there. I was awake. I know I was."

My father, to his lasting credit, did not immediately shoot me down. He walked over to the wall where I had pointed and gave it a long, curious look. He swept his eyes over the expanse of wallpaper from floor to ceiling, before turning his gaze back to the window.

We are not used to living this close to the woods, he said. The moonlight probably just cast a shadow from one of the tree branches.

"It had eyes!" I insisted.

But that was as far as the investigation went. My father, finally showing a bit of irritation at being awoken in the middle of the night, left the room and returned to his bed. My mother was more sympathetic. She stayed for a few minutes longer, turning out the light and watching the empty expanse of white, unbroken wall with me.

See? she said. Nothing to be afraid of. She gave me a quick peck on the forehead and left the room as well. Thankfully, at the very least, she left my door open just like she always did when I was afraid.

I laid awake for a long time that night, too afraid to give in to sleep. I didn’t blame my parents for not believing me; there was, after all, no proof aside from my word, and why would they have believed a kid so prone to bad dreams anyway? Truthfully, that first time, I wasn’t entirely sure that it was real myself. It could have been a nightmare or a night terror; I’d certainly had vivid ones before. If only I could have been so lucky. The creature would return to haunt me again, and my soon to be new friends too. It would not come alone. It turns out, this experience was just the welcoming.

The story that follows is about the time I lived in that housing area in Germany, and what happened there in the forest. It’s where I learned that ghosts are real and they can do very real damage. It’s also where I joined my first gang of friends. Sadly, and although it will never be proven, I believe one of the spirits we encountered caused harm to one of my friends that eventually led to his death. He was an amazing person and will always be sorely missed.

Kill yourself.

That was the clearly spelled, unmistakable message we got from a spirit board. We should never have started playing with that accursed thing, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We moved into the housing area in Germany in 1977. The apartment building we moved into was built just after World War II and it housed 24 families. It’s now gone, long ago demolished and replaced with rows upon rows of townhouses. I don’t think the buildings themselves were haunted. However, I know the forest and the nearby mountain are.

My room was small and cozy, on the first floor. I spent a lot of time there alone. During the day it wasn’t that bad. My bed was just under the window, and I had an incredible view of the forest behind our building; I often sat on my bed, gazed into the endless trees, and daydreamed. But at night, I preferred the curtains closed, and I tried as much as possible not to look out into the forest, which essentially surrounded our entire housing area with one road in and the same road out.

I would later learn that thousands of people were killed in and around that forest during both the first and second world wars. When I played outside with the other kids, we would run through bomb crater after bomb crater on the forest floor. The craters were countless, and great fun for hide and seek and other shenanigans. We even had a fort in one of them. Thinking back on it, it’s kind of macabre, but we didn’t understand—at least, not yet at that age.

The dead talk in them there woods, I once heard a friend of my father’s tell him. He followed it with a laugh, saying, Welcome to the neighborhood! When I heard him say the woods talk, I didn’t know what he meant and my dad waved it off, so I figured it was a joke. However, I eventually discovered it wasn’t a joke, and yes, those woods, they do talk. And not the nice kind of talk.

2

Just Swinging

We arrived in Germany while the school year was already in session, and although the weather was still bitterly cold and it rained every day, it was almost Easter. I knew this because my mom kept telling me to be good so that the Easter Bunny would leave me a nice basket with lots of goodies inside. My mother always used birthdays and holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, to extract good behavior from me. Or else, she used to say with a giggle, the Easter Bunny will skip our house. What my mom meant by good behavior was that she wanted me to pay attention in school, do all my homework, and clean up my room, because for the most part, I was a very quiet kid who rarely got into any kind of trouble. I was more likely to stay in my room than anywhere I wasn’t supposed to be. At least, that was until I met Kenny and Steve, and The Daredevils. Once I met them, I came out of my shell and started playing outside more often.

My mother often made me go outside to play whether I wanted to or not. She told me it wasn’t healthy for kids to stay indoors all day.