Cone Head

Jasper, Alabama 1978

   I grew up in a neighborhood that bordered small strips of woods. A railroad track ran through those woods. My friends and I built a fort there where we’d camp out on weekends. One weekend my friend and I planned a camp out there since he was in town visiting his relatives.
  I was a sophomore in high school at the time. We were sitting on the railroad tracks as the sun was going down waiting for trains to come by. We would hold up a sign saying "Throw Us Flares”. They often threw us some as they passed by. We’d used them for starting our camp fires or for lighting around the campsite. That evening as it got dark, we had an incoming train from the north rolling in. It had not turned the corner to the left yet before it would head straight toward us. In the light from the train we could see someone running in front of the train. My friend and I thought that’s weird.
     We sat there as the train was approximately 300 yards down range turning in our direction with this person running in the middle of the tracks in front of it. With the bright light of the train behind this individual, we could only see the outline of them. This individual was running fast as we could begin to hear loud grunting as they ran down the middle of the tracks toward us. The train was moving at a good pace so this individual had to be running faster than any person I had ever seen by how fast it was covering ground quickly. My friend and I got off the tracks as we saw how huge this person was and how fast they were running. They were about 100 yards from us when we got on our bikes and pedaled quickly to my house as fast as we could because we were frightened by what we witnessed.
    The best description I can give of this individual they were tall, definitely a pointed head on top and ran fast. They grunted loudly as it breathed in and out as it ran.
   The next morning, I was afraid to go back to the woods in fear it may still be there. I had my mother drive me there so she could be there as I retrieved my camping gear from the fort. Fortunately, there was no sign of anything other than our gear being there.
    To this day, I wonder who or what would run in front of a train for that distance in the dark down the middle of the railroad tracks at that speed? It was definitely a weird moment. We never camped there again.

Author: Teddy