It was September 1992.
I was 17 years old. My senior year in high school had just commenced.
Hurricane Iniki was touted as the most powerful hurricane to hit Hawai'i in recorded history. It was a Category 4 hurricane when it hit the island of Kaua'i. The damage it left in its wake was heartbreaking. I have extended family in the Ha'ena, Wainiha, Hanalei region so it was sad to see the damage.
The island I lived on, O'ahu, had been spared any real major damage. We had dodged the fury of Iniki in my little town of Hau'ula. The day the hurricane arrived was a Friday. When O'ahu had received the all-clear sign, I instantly went back to teenage mode instead of worrying about my life and the unknown future. Being that it was Friday night, I wanted to hang out with my friends.
A few of us met up at the BYU Hawaii Campus. The Canon Activities Center on-campus was doubling as the Red Cross Shelter. We normally hung out there on the weekends. It was a safe place. Clean. It had a snackbar with inexpensive food and there were college boys.
The remnants of the hurricane left us with light passing showers and cloudy skies with a full moon hiding behind it. Naomi (high school bestie) and I were sitting near the box office of the Canon Activities Center. A couple of our guy friends came by also. We sat there laughing and talking. And then a peculiar thing happened. The full moon revealed itself from behind the rain clouds. One of my guy friends, let's call him Scott, went into this weird trance. We all started laughing while he was stoic and contemplative.
He proceeded to tell us a story. I cannot remember all of the details but I remember the important stuff. Scott said he had a dream one night. He was compelled to walk out of his home in the middle of the night and directed to go to the intersection of Moana Street and Kulanui Street. There, a man in black waited. (I swear this is not a reference to The Gunslinger stories by Stephen King.) The man in black asked Scott if he wanted to live forever and have supernatural strength. Scott agreed and did as the man in black directed. He lay down on the ground at the "crossroad" of Moana Street and Kulanui and sold his soul to the devil.
I couldn't figure out if he was telling the truth or if it was a scary story for a stormy night. I giggled at first (probably an attempt to calm my fears) but was completely weirded out by the visuals that I had in my mind of the man in black. I wondered what the man's face looked like. Was he like that creepy old man, Reverend Kane on Poltergeist II? Or was he a mirror of Scott's deepest fears?
Naomi and I stood up to move away from him. He stood up immediately also and began following us as we backed away from him.
"Scott. Stop! What are you doing?" I asked.
The full moon was so bright above him. He towered over us. He turned his head to the moon and began howling at the moon as if he were a werewolf. When he faced us after his howl, he raised his arms up, his hands mimicking the claws of an animal and began chasing us. Naomi and I screamed. We were both on the borderline between laughter and terror. Scott saw the terror on our face and fell down laughing. When we seen that he was laughing, Naomi and I calmed down and started laughing too.
At the end of the evening, Naomi and I talked about it and we couldn't figure out if Scott was joking or if he was telling the truth. Til this day I still wonder.
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