Your True Tales
June 2005 – Page 7

The Others in Samoa
by Zephaniah Carpentier

When we first moved to American Samoa, I had never heard of it. A territory of the United States in the middle of the Pacific. My brother and I were about 7 and 5. We lived in our grandfather's house with two of my father's brothers and sisters and their families. So you can see that our house was busting out at the sides already.

One night as he and I were getting ready for bed, we could hear footsteps of someone who had just come from swimming. The ocean is right across the street from our house. So we paid no mind to it. But as the night continued, so did the footsteps. It was about two in the morning when my aunt started yelling at the top of her lungs. She was choked by someone in her sleep. Mind you, now, the entire house was asleep and my grandparents sleep in the living room. So no human could have entered the house without being noticed.

The next morning, everyone was having breakfast when we saw our aunt come out of her room with imprints of a right hand on her neck. It was bright strawberry red. My grandmother explained what happened to us. Last night my father had knocked out on his oldest brother's grave in the front of the house. My mom, worried that he had gone for a late night dip, went to call him home and found he wasn't there. She then returned and continued with her cooking for a feast we were having. My grandmother, who has always had a keen sense of other beings, said that something had followed my mother back home. It waited and waited for my mother outside our room, but my mom was too busy cooking. So as it circled the house, it found my aunt and laid its warning upon her.

She then asked my brother and me if we had heard "wet" footsteps outside our window. We replied to her yes, we almost couldn't sleep. She then warned us about the dangers of going to ocean at night. From then on, every time we heard footsteps, we knew that the "others" had come ashore and that we had to be careful.

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