kind of long, but true story, and most terrifying experience of my life. i originally posted this a long time ago but it's relevant here.

Black Star Canyon is a real place in Orange County, CA, where I live. Many people believe it to be inhabited by a malevolent entity, some call it the Demon of Black Star. You can google this creature for more info. I'm not saying that this entity had anything to do with this story, but the story takes place in my buddy's house, which is in Black Star. I'm 26 now so this was some time ago. At age 14 I was invited by my high school buddy Daniel to hang out with him and babysit his 5 year old brother Alex in their fabulously appointed mansion. Their house was very old but had a new intercom system, so the parents could locate/yell at the kids from anywhere in the house.

My dad dropped me off right as Daniel's parents were leaving. We were already up in his room playing Playstation when the speaker in his room crackled to life, "Okay, we're leaving guys. We ordered a pizza for you, it'll be here in a half hour." Then I caught a glimpse of their car leaving the driveway.

Not even 5 minutes later, the intercom starts popping and static-fuzzing, and a really soft, barely-audible woman's voice comes on, "We love you. Alex we love you. We all do." There was a lot of feedback and interruption, but this is what I made out from it. Then, in a much clearer/normal transmission, Alex responds, "Who are you? Momma?" This freaked us out a lot, and we ran and grabbed Alex out of the upstairs "bonus room" (rich people, right) where he was watching a movie. We searched the entire house, finding no one of course, and Alex explained, "it was probably the cold people... they come in at night where its warm."

When the pizza guy made the delivery, Alex kept laughing hysterically, and we kept asking, "what's so funny?!" He refused to tell us. A few hours later, we were watching a movie, and Alex again broke into hysterical laughter again, saying "I know, I know" to himself. Daniel yelled at Alex, "what is your problem?!" and Alex responds, while laughing and laying on his back on the carpet, "pizza boy gonna die. pizza boy gonna die."

Around 9PM we put Alex to bed and went onto the balcony to smoke weed. The balcony overlooks the canyon, which is very dark. The moon lit everything up just a little bit, and as we stood there, we heard this terrible, terrible scream. It was the scream of an animal, not a person. Those of you who live in wooded areas know the sound of a rabbit getting picked off by a coyote. It was kind of like that, but a much louder, longer shriek that echoed through the entire canyon. It was sad and frightening at the same time, and deeply disturbed me. At this point I realized I'd smoked too much, and went into Daniel's room to lay down on my sleeping bag.

Daniel played playstation on his bed while I tried to calm down on my sleeping bag, but my head was spinning, and all of the creepy things that had occurred tonight were starting to add up. I was way, way too stoned, and I kept getting this nagging idea that there was something in Daniel's closet, which was about two yards away from my feet. For about fifteen minutes I just sat there, thinking of all the different kinds of horrible things that could be inside it. Trying to imagine what the "cold people" look like.

Finally, I jumped up and yanked the door open.

It was a walk-in closet, with all kinds of clothes, a snowboard, and other crap a rich kid should have. There was a stuffed animal dolphin from Sea World sitting on the ground, which I knew belonged to Alex, so I picked it up and walked down the hall to his room to return it. Do you ever get that flash of dizziness from entering a closet or a room? I don't know if it's the smell or the stale air or what, but sometimes I get this feeling like I need to get out quick, and that's how I felt in that closet. I reasoned it was the weed.

Alex was awake on the top bunk of his bunkbed. I gave him his stuffed animal and he thanked me.

Then he asked, "Wheres my water?"

I replied, "I dont know. Do you want some?"

He sat up in bed and said, "I asked mom for some. But she just stared at me and walked out."

This rattled me a lot. I told him to sit tight for a minute, then I went and got Daniel, and we walked downstairs to the garage to see if his parents had gotten home yet. They had not, and all the doors were locked (and the expensive alarm system armed). We went back up and interrogated Alex, and he said, "I woke up and she was just standing at the doorway, looking at me. I asked her for water and she turned around and left. I thought she went to Daniel's room." We brought Alex into Daniel's room and set up a sleeping bag for him next to mine, so we'd all be together. Then we called their parents' cell phone, but they didn't answer. Then the doorbell rang.

It was the community security guards who worked at the front gate and patrolled the neighborhoods. They told us that Daniel's next door neighbor, Mrs. Schwartz, was watching TV in her living room when she noticed a woman standing at the glass door to her patio, staring in at her, watching her. She screamed and called 911, but after a sweep of the premises, they found no one. The guards wanted to know if we'd seen or heard anyone. We said no, and they promised us they'd look around the property and sweep the neighborhood every hour.

We went to bed. I was so out of it from fear and exhaustion that I just wanted to hide under some blankets. Around 1:00AM, I woke up to the sound of whispering. I lifted my head off the pillow and looked around the room. The moonlight seeped in through the window just enough to light up Alex, who was standing at the intercom. A voice was whispering from inside it, but I couldn't make out any of the words. He pressed the button and said, "I can't. They dont want me to go downstairs."

I jumped up and shook Daniel awake, and shouted, "what the fuck are you doing, Alex?!" He was obviously startled, and replied, "she wants me to let her in, Dan. She says shes freezing." Daniel grabbed Alex and pulled him away from the intercom, then pressed the button and said, "Who the fuck are you?!"

After a few seconds, there was just a hissing, popping, static-y noise, then nothing.

I asked Daniel if there was an intercom outside the house, and he said no. There were two intercoms downstairs and four upstairs, so whoever was using it was already inside the house.

We called the security guards, who checked the entire house and disabled the intercom for us. They said it was probably malfunctioning and picking up signals from a nearby house with the same system. We went back to sleep, and this time, I slept against the wall beneath the intercom, so Alex would literally have to step on me to use the intercom.

At about 3:00AM, we all jumped awake to deafening, terrifying screams. I was so shocked that it took me a second to realize that it wasn't Alex or Daniel screaming, it was someone else- someone inside the bedroom with us. The lights flicked on, illuminating the entire room in blinding white. I first noticed Daniel, who had turned on the lights. Then, I saw a woman, standing there in the doorway, completely silent, her eyes wide open.

It was Daniel's mom, Carrie. She didn't move or make a sound for a few seconds. Daniel said, "mom?" and then she lifted her hand slowly, pointed at the closet door, and resumed screaming uncontrollably. Her screams were so loud I actually thought I was going to have a heart attack. I have never been so afraid.

Then, a huge lumbering form came barreling down the hallway toward Daniel's room. It was Daniel's father Ben. Both Daniel and his dad grabbed Carrie and gently guided her out of the room, calling her name. Ben apologized to me over and over, saying that his wife suffered from night terrors, and that it was actually somewhat common for her to have fits of screaming or sleepwalking.

After about ten minutes everything had calmed down, and Carrie was awake. She returned to apologize to me and to calm Alex down, who was actually handling the situation quite maturely for a 5 year old. He asked her, "Why were you looking at me in my room?" and she said, "Mommy wasn't home, sweetie. You must have had a dream." We opened the closet again, just to be sure, and found nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't finish out the night at Daniel's house. My father came and picked me up before sunrise.