One time, a long, long time ago, when I was just a young boy, I decided to go squirrel hunting one day after school with a friend. We followed the creek behind my house until we came to a big woods that was about 3 miles away from my house. The woods was full of hundred year old beech trees that were so tall it  looked like a rain forest. We walked way up a big hill back deep into the woods and found a good spot to sit and wait on some squirrels.  Squirrels were jumping around in the trees all over the place and we totally lost track of what time it was. After we had shot 4 squirrels a piece and realized it was beginning to get dark, we decided we better start heading for home. Before we had gone a hundred yards, it had gotten so dark that we could barely see where we were going. That was when we heard the first scream. It was the most blood curdling scream we had ever heard and it just echoed through the woods. The scream came from about a hundred yards back in the woods where we had just been. We immediately picked up the pace heading for the edge of the woods as fast as we could move in the dark but then we heard the second and third screams. Now they were coming from about 50 yards away in the direction we were heading. This scared us so bad that we both started shooting our guns blindly into the dark woods in the direction the screams came from. We fired about 5 times each and then stood quietly listening for any sound at all. After a few minutes of quiet, without any more screams, we quickly continued on our way home, more frightened than we had ever been in our lives. Upon reaching home, we quickly retold the story to my father, he laughed and said, it was only a Screech Owl. Neither of us believed this explanation and made it a point to never get caught out in the woods after dark until about 5 years later when we actually saw a Screech Owl that was screaming.