Kid Fears: The Dark Tower

I have never understood why people say that children are fearless. I was scared of everything as a kid. Mostly zombies. Though I was also afraid of the dark, the woods, getting lost and loud noises amongst other things… though these were really just extensions, symptoms really, of my fear of zombies. Face it, when you’re that small, the world is full of things that can seriously kill you and eat your guts… stupid Thriller music video. Most kid fears you eventually realize were silly in the first place. Others you ultimately have to tackle head-on.

The first fear I can ever remember facing was an old hunters lookout in the woods behind my house. Erected by the previous owners, the lookout was a simple four-legged structure with a fifteen-foot ladder leading up to a partially enclosed platform. Built many years earlier, the wood had started to rot and blacken, and it was hiding in just enough shadow to resemble an evil haunted tower. Every time I saw it, I shivered, feeling like there must be zombies looking out at me from the gloom, just waiting for me to come closer.

Sometimes, I ran away. Other times, I went to that end of the yard just to look at it and prove how brave I was. Occasionally I even yelled, “I’m not afraid of you!” though I made sure never to cross the tree-line. Not until I was five years old did I decide that enough was enough. I was not afraid. Zombies were not real. And I was going to prove it by climbing the tower.

Oh, how it scowled at me that day. I only hesitated for a second before plunging into that part of the woods for the first time. I covered the fifty feet to the tower in seconds, not giving myself the chance to reconsider. I refused to even look up at it lest I lose my nerve—or lest a zombie actually be glaring down at me. I took a deep breath and started up, but only got one foot onto the ladder before the old dead wood snapped under the weight of my little body. The sound was like a gunshot in my ear. First I screamed. Then, I ran. Then I ran faster. It was the first time I had ever faced a fear. And the fear had won. At least nothing chased me out of the woods. I still had all of my soul and most of my entrails. It really could have gone at lot worse.