I grew up on an Indian Reservation in the Dakotas. My father became rather traditional as he got older, and being aware of the spirits that are constantly around us is a huge part of Sioux spirituality. The Cheyenne believe that once something terrible happens in a place, it never stops happening. The reservation is/was home to some of the worst atrocities on record, and so the idea of people hanging around after their deaths was not foreign to us. I was raised to believe that it was perfectly normal, if not desired, to be able to see things that non-Natives couldn't. I’ve seen some terribly scary things in my life, but I’ll only share a couple of them.

I grew up in a town that had been home to the most traditional of the traditional. A great war leader was said to have been buried along the banks of the creek that ran through the town, and the traditional Natives flocked there to practice their religion (relatively) safely after a horrible massacre happened in the 1890s. Drug and alcohol abuse had slowly taken over, however, and the one spiritual refuge of the reservation had become a hotspot for rape, murder, suicide, and other untimely endings.

When I was in the 6th grade, my father worked at the community school. Since it was a small town, the school taught grades K-8. He came home troubled one day because the kindergarten class claimed to have all seen a girl who appeared to be dead (throat slit, blackened eyes) staring in at them from the hallway. They had simultaneously started screaming and gesturing toward the door (Natives don't point). Their non-Native teacher was convinced that the kids were all in on some kind of prank, but my dad thought that the appearance of the girl was a sign of things to come.

And it was. It was the beginning of what my family refers to in hushed tones as the 'creepy year.' For no apparent reason, kids started committing suicide down by the creek that ran through the town. One after the other, kids would go down to the same spot and end their lives. A reservation-wide emergency was called and we had to sit in countless assemblies regarding suicide prevention. Still, the suicides continued, and by the end of the month, 4 or 5 kids had died down there.

Soon after the first wave of suicides, a large black car with tinted windows began popping up around town. People mentioned it casually at first, as it was strange to see a new car in a place where everyone knew each other’s rides. Then the car began doing weird things. One of my cousins was driving home from a friend’s house late one night when the car appeared right behind her. Its brights were on and it was tailgating her so closely that she found herself going 90 mph just to keep from getting hit. Then, as she drove past the school, the car disappeared in thin air. Just gone.

The car began appearing more and more. It attempted to run several more people off the road, and everyone was really, really scared. Whatever was in the car became stronger. It would pull up to the houses where the kids who committed suicide had lived and just sit in the darkness with the engine idling. People who drove by it would see the outlines of 5 people sitting in the car. Two in the front, three in the back.

My dad worked with other spiritual leaders across the reservation to find a way to make the car go away, and to give whoever was driving it peace. As my family was pretty open about supernatural phenomena, and as we'd all seen stuff that couldn't be explained, my dad let us know what was going on. As the numbers of ghosts appearing in the community school increased, and as the sightings of the black car rose, my dad grew very upset and worried. We felt like we were under siege...and kids kept committing suicide down by the creek.

One night, when my dad was out somewhere, we heard a car approach the house. I had been reading in my bedroom, but I heard my mother tell my sisters to run to the back. My two younger sisters hurried into the room looking terrified, and we heard my baby brother's babbling stop completely. My mom would later tell me that she had moved to the big window that looked out to the front yard and peered out. It was the black car. In our driveway. Idling.

My mom said her heart stopped when she recognized the hairstyle of one of the girls who had committed suicide. She could barely make her out through the tinted glass, but she knew who she was. My mom ran to the phone to call my dad, and as soon as she got him on the line, the car reversed with a screech and left our driveway.

The car continued being seen, as well as other truly terrifying things, until the suicides halted and a town-wide ceremony was performed. That remains one of the most frightening periods of my life.