It is very dark... Mystery Cache

Night Cache Long pants suggested Camera in Cache Bring a Flashlight Wear bug repellant!

Generated by The Selector

If you continue you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

There have been stories about a wooded area in town that is patrolled by unseen, vicious monsters at night. No one has actually seen these creatures, but it has been said that people who have ventured in there at night without a reliable light source have never returned. After hearing the following story, I have come to believe the mystery creatures are grues.

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grue: n.

[from archaic English verb for shudder, as with fear] The grue was originated in an early computer game as a hint that you should perhaps look for a lamp, torch or some type of light source. Wandering into a dark area would cause the game to prompt you, “It is very dark. If you continue you are likely to be eaten by a grue.” If you failed to locate a light source within the next couple of moves this would indeed be the case.

The grue, according to scholars of the Great Underground Empire, is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is either adventurers or enchanters, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its extreme fear of light. No grues have ever been seen by the light of day, and only a few have been observed in their underground lairs. Of those who have seen grues, few have survived their fearsome jaws to tell the tale. Grues have sickly glowing fur, fish-mouthed faces, sharp claws and fangs, and an uncontrollable tendency to slaver and gurgle. They are certainly the most evil-tempered of all creatures; to say they are touchy is a dangerous understatement. “Sour as a grue” is a common expression, even among grues themselves.

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I stumbled on this story while speaking to a couple of my relatives one day. The story came up in the conversation after a large family dinner, and caused the mood of the gathering to change from happy and carefree to dark and somber in short order.

“Remember the time we went exploring on old man Gunn’s land,” Uncle Walt asked Uncle Bruce. That comment drew a look from Uncle Bruce that I wouldn’t have expected – sort of a mix between fear and apprehension. I knew him to be a man that was never scared of anything, so this reaction seemed totally out of character for him.

“Old man Gunn was a miserly old man that was about as sociable as those trees out there. He only cared about dealing with other people when there was money involved. He had a good bit of land and it turned him a decent profit from the crops he raised. Matter of fact, about the only thing he spent his money on was that land. If he didn’t need to spend a dime on something, he wouldn’t part with it. ”

So far, this guy didn’t seem to be any different than any other farmer that my brother and I had known. Every one of them saved where they could in order to make their farms profitable. Uncle Walt could see that we were thinking along these lines and continued his tale.

“This man wasn’t just tight with his money. He was a miser in every sense of the word. He wore his clothes until they were more patches than the original cloth. He lived in the smallest one-room house he could afford in order to save every precious penny he could make. The only reason he spent money to have those fields worked was because he knew it would turn him a profit.”

“He was so protective of his property that he put up fences all around them to keep people out. Not just the little barbed-wire fences you’re used to seeing, but six-foot-tall hog wire fences that would discourage anyone from crossing his land. He didn’t just do this around his productive fields, but also did it around the uncleared, wooded sections of his land as well. The animals in the area didn’t take long to figure out that they wouldn’t get hunted on this land if they could get in there, and a few of us knew that the hunting would be good if we could get in there as well.”

My brother and I thought we knew where this was headed. “You went hunting on his land and got caught,” said my brother. This drew a snort from Uncle Bruce and a strange chuckle from Uncle Walt. “Something like that,” said Uncle Walt. “But it wasn’t Mr. Gunn that gave us the scare.”

“You see, since everyone knew Mr. Gunn for his miserly ways, it was no surprise that there were stories about him hiding little stashes of his treasures on his land. Nobody could say they had ‘seen’ him do it, but the stories were there just the same. And the stories didn’t end there. People also said that he had made a deal with the devil to protect his treasures from everyone else. Of course, since the land was off-limits many people seemed more eager to believe the stories. Some people had made attempts at scouting his land at night, but they all came back with stories about hearing weird noises coming from the woods and noticing odd, glowing eyes watching them from the trees. None of them stayed long to find out what caused these things.”

“Those stories should have made me stay off that land that night we went,” muttered Uncle Bruce, and Uncle Walt nodded in agreement. “Yep, but we were young and invincible back then, or so we thought,” said Uncle Walt.

“We decided to go explore his land one night, just to see if what we had heard was true. We figured Mr. Gunn had probably started the stories himself to keep people off his land, so we wanted to see what he had to hide. We slipped out of the house after dark and headed out to one of his uncleared sections of land nearest our house. Part of the way there we considered trying again on a different night, because the new moon wasn’t providing much light and our flashlight wasn’t particularly bright. But neither one of us wanted to look like we were going to chicken out, so we ended up daring each other to continue.”

“We finally arrived at Mr. Gunn’s land and began looking for a way to get over or under the fence. We followed the fence line for a while and finally found a low spot. For some reason the fence was allowed to rise above a little depression rather than being buried below the surface. The gap was only about six or eight inches, but Bruce and I decided we could get under the fence if we tried. It took a little work, but we finally managed to get to the other side. We already knew where we were going to explore – there was a tree on the land that stood much taller than the rest, and we had seen it from a distance many times when we passed that land in the daylight hours.”

“Along the way to the tree Bruce said he thought he saw some orange eyes looking at us from the trees, but I never saw what he was talking about. I was just assuming he had seen some coon eyes reflected in the light from our flashlight. I was more interested in getting in and out without getting caught and thought Bruce was just trying to get me rattled.”

“Right about the time we got close to the tree, Bruce stepped in a stump hole and fell down, making a good bit of noise. I turned to back to give him a hand and to tell him to be more careful, but then I noticed the eyes in the trees. They seemed to be all around us. Now, I’ve seen coon and possum eyes plenty of times, and that was NOT what was in those trees that night. I reached to give Bruce a hand up so we could get out of there, but when I did he whispered that he had stepped on some kind of metal box in that hole.”

“We figured this might be our chance to prove the tales right or wrong, even as creepy as those woods were that night. The eyes stared at us, unblinking, but they never moved closer, so we decided to take a chance. We both looked in the hole and saw a small metal box with a skull and crossbones on it. That little image kinda spooked us a bit. However, we still wanted to see this through, so we pulled the box out of the hole. The light from the flashlight was beginning to fade, so we began to move more quickly. Taking a look around, we noticed that the eyes that we had seen earlier had disappeared, which spooked us even more.”

“Bruce grabbed the box and knelt down to get a better look at it. Then he started trying to figure out how to open it. Right after that the woods around us lit up with an orange glow and we heard the weirdest laughter we had ever heard. That was all it took. Bruce dropped the box and we both hightailed it out of there as fast as our legs would carry us. We barely slowed down to get back under the fence. The laughter followed us until we reached the other side, and then stopped as quickly as it started. We headed home after that, but I doubt either of us got any sleep that night.”

“We never did go back to explore his land after that. Mr. Gunn eventually sold off his land and moved on, but stories similar to ours cropped up from time to time, talking about the orange lights and the weird laugh. I guess we’ll never really know what was in that box in the woods, but we’re not too inclined to find out, either.”

We asked Uncle Walt about where this happened and were surprised to find out that Gwinnett Tech has since built its campus near that spot. There’s a section of the land, though, that still remains undeveloped, and my brother and I now think we know why.

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Are you willing to brave the grue-infested woods in order to hunt for Mr. Gunn’s treasure? You can only find the treasure when it’s dark, so be sure to bring a bright flashlight with fresh batteries. Otherwise, the words, “It is very dark; you are likely to be eaten by a grue”, will possibly come true.

The best parking near the listed coordinates is 33° 57.754; 84° 04.233, but be sure to waypoint your car so you can find your way back.

The grues will lead you to the treasure if you are patient and can keep them from eating you. If you shine your light at eye level, starting at the above coordinates, the light will reflect in their eyes and show up as a reddish-orange glow. Go from one grue to the next, following their eyes, until you reach the three-eyed grue. The treasure should be behind him about ten feet. If you keep the grues blinded as you search for the treasure you should be able to safely return from this adventure.

A note of caution is necessary. This wooded area is difficult to walk in during daylight hours, so it is even more difficult at night. The grues make the walking still more difficult. However, according to some of the other stories I have heard about this area, the most important thing to remember is that if you hear a grue laughing and can see its glowing fur, you are in danger of being eaten. If you are in this predicament, shine your light in the grue’s eyes and RUN!

I have left "boxes" in the cache with prizes for the first and second finders of the cache, each identified with a "1st Place" and "2nd Place" ribbons attached. Good luck!

Disclaimer: The above story is a work of fiction, wholly created by me except for the definition of the word grue. If, by chance, you really do meet up with a grue at this location, please explain these facts to it while it tries to eat you. If you manage to convince the grue that it is a fictional creature, you’ll be safe. If not…

FTF honors go to: kennethpruett

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