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In the early '70s, my aunt Sarah studied education at a college in a very conservative small town. Sarah lived on campus, while her boyfriend Jack (who eventually became my uncle) lived in a crappy house in a crappy part of town off campus.

Because the college was in an industrial town, there were surrounded by really big feedlots and beef packing plants (slaughterhouses) that ran 24 hours a day and among the blue collar workforce were many undocumented workers that were paid under the table and lived off the grid.

Part of my aunt's coursework for her degree was going into the local district and trying to help illegal immigrant families get resources for the kids (stuff like free lunches and pre-natal care if the moms were pregnant). Mostly, the work was depressing as fuck. The families wanted the resources, but they didn't want to bring any attention to their undocumented status. It was just a disaster.

Uncle Jack lived across the street from a crappy apartment building that housed several of these families and often, groups of children would be playing outside. One day while visiting, my aunt noticed this kid, a five or six-year-old little girl, sitting alone on the apartment's crumbling balcony. After that, whenever she'd visit during the week (day or night), the girl would be there, but she was always gone on weekends.

There were a lot of people who lived in those units, so on the weekends, there would be tons of kids of all ages running around, tearing crap up, generally being little jerks, like kids do. They moved into the house in August, so it was blazing hot and the sun didn't set until almost ten at night, so the kids were always out running around.

Any given weekday, though, that kid would be sitting there all by herself, just staring over at them, well into the evening. My aunt said at first she just thought it was sad that the kid didn't have anybody really looking after her.

But then it started turning to fall and the days were getting shorter and colder. One night, my uncle was walking my aunt out to her car and she remarked to him that the little girl wasn't out there, a relief because it was getting so cold. But then a car turned down the street with its brights on and when the headlights hit the balcony of that apartment building, the kid was still there. My aunt said she must have been wearing dark clothes because when the headlights passed over her, all they could really see was this very pale little face, the headlights washing away all of her features. She'd been there the entire time. They just hadn't seen her because it was so dark.

That was turning point for my aunt. By now, she was into her internship with the district and she was doing a lot of outreach. So one weekend afternoon when it was still pretty nice outside, she and my uncle approached the families mingling outside. She asked about the little girl, but no one would talk to her. She said even the kids pretended not to be able to understand her.

Winter came and still the little girl could be seen on the balcony, appearing like like she wasn't wearing a coat. At this point, my aunt decided to stage an intervention to get the kid a jacket and maybe even enroll her in school. So she sees the kid one morning and heads across the street and up the stairs that lead to the second level. But by the time she gets there, the kid is gone. My aunt didn't hear any footsteps. She didn't hear any doors closing. Nothing.

My aunt figures it's the same thing from before—they're just scared of an outsider. But now she's more determined than ever because this kid clearly needs some resources.

That week it snowed, so when the weekend comes, a bunch of the little jackals that were living across the street were outside stockpiling snowballs to throw at each other. My aunt has learned from the last time, so this time she doesn't take my uncle, but she does take candy. And a bunch of silver dollars.

The older kids avoid her like the plague, but a couple of the little ones come over and my aunt starts asking about the little girl. The kids are way more interested in the candy and silver dollars than the questions and most of them refuse to answer until one of them finally says "Venka"—the name of the child, my aunt presumes. She'd never heard of a name like that, but gives the little kids some candy and money anyway which eventually entices the older kids over to start talking to her, Until she asks about "Venka." Then the older kids completely clammed up, gathered up all the little ones and in like thirty seconds, everyone was gone.

One winter evening when it was hella dark, my aunt saw the kid. By now it was absolutely freezing out—there had been an ice storm the night before and that kid was still out there. Flipping out, my aunt headed over, fully intending to get the kid and call the cops because it wasn't just neglect at this point, it was abuse.

When she finally made it up the apartment building's icy stairs, the kid was once again gone, which finally got my aunt to freak out—because there was NO WAY a kid could have moved that fast on icy concrete and she knows that none of the doors to any of the apartments were opened. Still, she pulled it together and decided to walk the length of the balcony just to make sure the kid wasn't there.

Reaching the midway point, where this kid was always sitting, she saw, deep in the ice, these... she didn't know what to call them. They weren't footprints, because they weren't shaped like feet, not even little feet. And they're weren't just on top of the ice, they were all the way through it, down to bare concrete. It was like the the kid had been standing there during the ice storm the previous night and the ice had built up around her feet.

Terrified, my aunt tore ass off the balcony and down the stairs, managing to trip and take a spectacular chunk out of her shin in the way. (She still has the scar today.) After making it to my uncle's house and saying what happened, he and two of his roommates headed over to check it out while she stayed back and had someone patch up her leg,

After about 10 minutes, the guys came back and told her that, yeah, they saw the footprints, though none of them could come up with any kind of explanation and they tried to play it off, working out all these different scenarios that seem plausible, like maybe there had been some empty cups or something sitting there and the kid kicked them off the ledge, and that made the weird footprints. They convinced her that if they went over and looked in the morning they'd probably find some cups on the ground. And then they said that maybe my aunt hadn't seen the kid at all. At this point they'd ALL seen the kid, at least once. She was always over there. But they pointed out that they all got so used to seeing her, that my aunt probably just saw a shadow and took for granted that it was the kid. (Which didn't make any sense if they really thought the kid had kicked over some cups, but whatever.)

After winter finals, my uncle and has roommates decided to throw a giant kegger before everyone headed home for Christmas. It was the first time my aunt had been back to the house since all of the stuff on the balcony happened. But everything now seemed fine. The little girl is nowhere to be seen.

The party ends up being low-key, with only my uncle, his roommates, their girlfriends, and one roommate's sister—Marisol—in attendance. The night wore on and another ice storm began outside, causing the power to go out and the roommates to light a fire in their fire place.

They were all fairly trashed at this point and one of the roommates brought up the weird footprints—something they'd yet to speak of out loud. Finally, around the fire, my uncle and two of his roommates admitted that it was creepy as fuck.

"I know it's not possible, but it looked like..." began one of the guys.

"A goat hoof or a pig hoof," filled in the other roommate, leaving my uncle to remark, "Yeah, like something was standing there with cloven feet."

The entire energy in the room, according to my aunt, was still uneasy when the roommate who said it looked like a goat hoof turned asked, "What's the girl's name again? Velma?"

"Venka," my aunt corrected.

My aunt says you could have heard a pin drop at this point, but eventually someone changed the subject and everyone continued to drink and goof around. At some point, however, my aunt went into the kitchen and was followed by Marisol, the roommate's sister. Alone in the kitchen, Marisol, a weird expression on her face, asked, "Did you say the girl's name was Venka?"

And my aunt nodded, telling her that that was what kids—the regular kids— across the street told her.

Marisol nodded and didn't say anything for awhile, but when my aunt turned to leave, Marisol put a hand on her arm and said, "It wasn't Venka. It was 'venga.' It's slang. It means 'come here' in Spanish."

And that's when Marisol told my aunt the story: It was the first year the district and the college tried the internship my aunt was participating in and Marisol, participating in the program, was stuck literally going door-to-door, trying to find the families with kids that need to be enrolled in school. She got a hell of a lot farther than my aunt ever got because she spoke fluent Spanish. The families still didn't like her nosing around, but they would at least speak to her.

Marisol says she went another crappy apartment building, not across the street from my uncle's rental, but close. While there, she saw all of these kids, including a little girl dressed in dark clothes, who appeared to be by herself.

So Marisol talked to the more friendly kids and their families, convincing them that they can qualify for services and going to school is really a good thing to be doing. Getting up to go, she asked about the little girl she saw outside. Upon mentioning her, an older woman—probably a grandmother or great grandmother—crossed herself and shook her head. She told Marisol that what she saw wasn't a little girl. It was a bad spirit and Marisol should forget she ever saw her.

At the time, she figured that maybe the kid was illegal, or possibly stolen or sold to another family (sadly, it happens). But then, when she tried to really think back to the girl's features, nothing came to mind. It was sort of blank. Just a general impression of a girl in dark clothes.

Over the weeks and months, Marisol started to eavesdrop and more and more, she would hear about this venga girl. Apparently she was called that because she would whisper "venga" and try to lead people off into the woods. Marisol wasn't clear on what supposedly happened to anyone who dared to follow her and, according to the conversations she overheard, all of the kids knew better than to go with her or else they'd be beaten within an inch of their lives by a granny armed with a wooden spoon. She then swore that she would catch glimpses of this kid in different places around town.

By this point in the story, my aunt was super dunk and totally freaked out. Getting away from Marisol as quickly as she could, she informed my uncle that he needed to take her back to the dorm. Heading away from the apartment and by this wooded area, my uncle—either because of the ice storm or because he was tanked—ended up hitting the curb hard enough that it blew out a tire. It being the middle of the night and freezing, he left my aunt in the car and got out alone to change the tire by the light of a flare, the only light source he had.

In the car, my aunt was terrified. The red light of the flare was bouncing off the ice and flashing everywhere, and there, in the woods about 20 feet away, is the girl. The flare was bright enough for my aunt to get a good look at her face, except... there wasn't one. The face was perfectly pale and featureless—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. It was just completely smooth.

Even over the sound of the heater and the radio, my aunt says she could hear the girl whispering "venga" to her and she could see her crooking a finger toward her. This was the first time my aunt saw the girl's hands—they're bleeding with long cracked fingernails. And her feet weren't feet, they were like hooves.

At at this point, my uncle climbed back into the car and my aunt, pointing him to the girl, finds that she was gone.

The next morning, as soon as the sun was up, they packed up and drove all the way home for the holidays. After that, my aunt refused to go back to the house and they never saw the girl again.