I grew up in a rural village in England called Hascombe and the term village is overselling it if you ask me. A few houses and a pub you would barely notice driving through but for the 'please drive carefully through our village' signs. Our house was between 2 roads, the road that passed through was 'The Street' and the one behind us was 'Hoe Lane'.

Our house didn't have an exit to Hoe Lane, no house in the village did. The only use for Hoe Lane was to access a beautiful mansion at the end of it. Nothing else. I was told that Winston Churchill stayed there and that was the reason for the tall fences blocking access from the rear of our house and the other houses next to us.

I would have been about 14 years old when I started smoking. My mother and father both smoked but would have whooped me if they found out I did too. I kept it away from the house. Hoe Lane became my go to place for a smoke before bed, I would walk down the street then up hoe lane for a couple of hundred metres just to be safe. It was so quiet, fence on one side and woods on the other. The mansion at the top was only used as a holiday home so no cars. All I would hear was faint traffic from the main road in the distance. A very peaceful place is what I thought.

That night I was puffing away on my cigarette oblivious to the outside world. I heard a twig snapping in the wooded side of the road. I barely registered - animals live in the woods and it's not unusual if you hear them.

Then a louder crunch. I look across and see nothing but darkness. I'm on edge but not fearful yet.

Suddenly I hear what sounds like a tree trunk snapping. Instinctively I looked at the woods where the sound came from and I saw... nothing. My heart started racing - I knew I heard it and it couldn't be explained by a fucking deer or badger. Something was in those woods and very close

I drop my cigarette to the floor but otherwise I am frozen, staring into the woods for any sign of movement. Nothing... I saw nothing but what I heard was enough to freak me out

I stayed frozen, my mind not working. Stuck in the fright response you might say. I remain in paralysis until...

A screech is the best way to describe it but doesn't do it justice. The noise was inhuman, driiling into the skull more than theveardrums. Yet the noise wasn't the thing. What terrified me was the proximity. This noise, this awful noise came from 2 feet from where I stood.

I panicked, I found my feet and I fucking fled for my life. Only when I ran back down Hoe Lane this thing, whatever it was, matched me step for step. The screeching, the crunching and snapping noises only grew until I felt I would pass out. My only solace was that the noises remained on the woods side, not the lane I was running down. Yet as I got close to the end of the lane the woods/lane barrier broke. The screeches became deafening, as if from 2 inches away and through loudspeaker directly to my brain. The noises of trees breaking only intensified the same way, I can't explain or even imagine hundreds of trees trunks snapping at once but that is what I heard.

I made the end of the lane and everything stopped. Quiet resumed. I told myself it was my imagination but I know it wasnt really.

Stupid me went back into those woods many times (not from hoe lane - never returned) and noticed no animals appear to live there and the trees are all dead. Bluebells and stinging nettles thrive, make of that what you will.