It happened in the summer when I had just turned twenty. My friends and I rented a small cottage deep in the countryside for a BBQ party.
There were six of us—three guys and three girls—young, carefree, and a little giddy with the thought of a mixer in such a remote place. We arrived under the blazing sun, cracked open drinks before unpacking, and by nightfall, we were loud, clumsy, and completely drunk.
We swam in the nearby river, lit a campfire, and laughed until our voices went hoarse. But there was something I couldn’t shake. Every so often, from the dense thicket beside the cottage, I heard… something. Not animals. Not the wind. Just movement. I’ve always been sensitive to that sort of thing, so I kept it to myself. No reason to ruin the mood.
By midnight, I was too drunk to make it back inside. I collapsed into my friend’s car parked in front of the cottage, deciding to just sleep there. Through the windows, I could hear the muffled chatter of the others inside. Then, sometime around 1 a.m., the car rocked gently.
No wind. No earthquake. No reason for it to move. Everyone was inside. I told myself it was my imagination—until the gentle swaying turned into a violent shake.
"This isn’t good," was all I could think. My body tensed, struggling to stay upright. Twenty seconds of shaking, then silence.
And then—
BANG! … BANG! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!!!
Fists—no, hands—slapping every inch of the car, from every direction at once. My pulse hammered in my ears. I curled into myself, too afraid to look, praying it would stop.
After about fifteen seconds, the pounding ceased… replaced by faint, high-pitched laughter. Dozens of voices.
Morning brought no relief. The car was covered—plastered—with handprints. Large ones. Small ones. Not just on the outside… but on the inside of the windows, the dashboard, the seats.
Shaken, we left immediately. I got dropped near my home. The car’s owner drove off toward his.
No one has seen him since.