I was listening to The Rasmus playing on my cell phone while looking outside the minivan as it cruised along the small deserted road. Of course it wasn’t really deserted; truckers and busses used it everyday very early in the morning. It was just that it was early in the afternoon and it wasn’t exactly busy. It led to this small town just around 35 miles down but we intended to turn into an even smaller road- a path really, to go up to this little cottage house on a hill. I was in the rented car with my best friend, his girlfriend and her younger sister. The car was submerged in silence. Brandy was concentrating on the road, Angelica was sitting beside him taking a nap, her sister Ashley was sitting at the back with me reading a book and I…well I told you what I was up to.
The journey wasn’t very eventful actually, it was pretty boring. If it wasn’t for the scenery outside, I would have bored myself to death. The trip itself planed out a little weird. Brandy was back from Med School for winter break with his new girlfriend and they were planning to spend some time together for a couple of days at this small cottage her parent’s owned in the country side. Well, what was supposed to be a mushy, lets-get-down-and-heavy retreat for the both of them was interrupted when her little sister gave her a call. Apparently she kind of had a huge fight with her parents and she was sobbing all over the phone. They both had an hour worth of girl talk and Angelica decided that her sister should accompany them to the trip. Well, Brandy obviously wasn’t all that happy but he decided to grin and bear it, he figured he might as well earn some brownie points. Then he had an idea on how he could avoid the babysitting, he called me. Ashley was just a year younger than me so he figured I’d be the natural choice. Well, after going through a tough break up and being bored of being depressed at home, I decided to accept the invite. Turns out, the both of the sisters were very interesting people, I spent a lot of time talking to Ashley and getting to know her but as the journey pulled on, we began feeling tiered…
The singer’s voice was slowly fading away into an almost silent static hum as I looked out of the window at the really tall trees. Though it was winter, they were still pretty green. There was a chilly breeze going around, but that was it. They still looked very beautiful and with some of the yellow and brown leaves they had shed around themselves, they looked pretty picturesque.
Then in between the trees, I noticed something. It wasn’t really something but rather someone. The person was wearing a full suit and was just standing there, head cocked to the side looking at the car as it passed by. I don’t know why, but it felt unnerving for some reason. I made my eyes squint to get a better look, the hum of static getting louder in my ears, when I noticed this person was very tall. No wait, unnaturally tall. The car moved forward to get a better look at his face…
“Bro, we’ve reached. Bro, wake up!” I shifted my eyes to a very confused Brandy who was shaking me by the shoulders. “Huh, what’s the deal man?” He simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dunno man, you spaced out. Everyone else is waiting inside and you’re sitting here staring outside the window.” I looked around and saw that he was right. No one else was there. I shook my head and blinked my eyes a few times trying to shake the weird feeling out as I got out of the car. I made my way into the cottage and looked around. It was a nice homely place. There were only two bedrooms and a bathroom that connected them. There was a sitting room which extended into the kitchen. The sitting room had two couches at a right angle from each other facing a little fire place. The girls were already occupying the couches. I made a mental note to occupy the one that directly facing the fireplace. I guess I’d have to crash there for the night. We all freshened up and were sitting around just talking, passing the time and before we knew it was already five. Ashley hugged herself and said in a soft voice while rubbing her arms. “Is it just me or is it getting chilly in here?” Brandy looked out side the window and said, “Look how foggy it’s gotten out there! I think we are in for a chilly night, we might as well get this fire started up.” We looked around the place for somewhere logs could have been stored but all we found was this small cupboard with a large of can gasoline in it. Brandy looked at the can, outside the window and scrunched his face up. “I guess we will have to go fetch some wood Bro.” I nodded my head and turned towards the girls and told them we would be right back.
We went outside into the woods and began breaking of large branches or tender young trees with this knife I was carrying with me. After cutting of as much as I could hold in both my arms, he took the load and said that he was heading back to the cottage. “You cut some more, you hear? I think we will need some more wood to stay warm today night. I’ll be back in twenty minutes to collect the next load from you and then we can both head back.” I simply agreed and continued hacking away as he left. I had cut quite a bunch and had them laid down in a heap and noticed that the fog around had grown thicker. I scanned the gentle slope of the hill as a chilly breeze hit my cheeks and I saw the same person I had seen earlier, standing in the same rigid position with his head cocked to the side looking right at me through the fog. I was right the last time, he was unnaturally tall. I couldn’t see his face but I could make out his silhouette. His head seemed to reach some off the higher branches of the trees and his arms and legs were just like the rest of his body, long and slender. I just stood there gazing at him, uneasiness washed through me and the hair at the back of my neck was standing, but I couldn’t move. I was just frozen and transfixed to presence. I do not know what was going on but my body welt weird. I felt cold and terrified, but at the same time, I felt warm and loved. I felt like my ex had just kissed me and told me that she was sorry and we should get back together again. I was just staring at him feeling this cocktail of emotions when my eyes started losing focus because I hadn’t blinked in a while. I began seeing two separate images of him and every think around him. I just blinked my eyes and saw that my vision was being blocked. He was there, standing so close to me I could see his black tie. I was about to look upwards to his face when I felt a hand close around my shoulder and an overwhelming feeling of tiredness come over me, my eyes shut by them selves and I couldn’t see his face…
“Sleep.”
“He’s awake. Guys, he is opening his eyes!” I heard Ashley’s voice faintly, a little dulled down but growing clearer as I opened my eyes to look at her sitting next to me with an expression of relief on her face while Brandy and Angelica’s heads hovered over me looking concerned. “Wh-Where did he go?” Brandy looked at me with a confused expression, “The thin man, where did he go? He was standing right in front of me and…and where am I?” Brandy took out a flashlight and opened my eyes real wide shining the bright beam on them. “Well, you look normal so I don’t think you are crazy. I’m guessing you saw a dream or something. I came back into the woods to fetch the next load when I noticed you asleep on the ground with this huge pile of wood next to you. I tried waking you up but you wouldn’t budge so I lifted you up and brought you here.” He moved away to give me space to sit up. “Oh, and you were completely alone, and you somehow broke your knife. Did you strike it on a branch or some thing?” I shook my head and was about to utter that it seemed so real, but then I remembered. All dreams seem real…
The rest of the evening passed without any such incidents. I kept looking outside the window, several times I though I caught a glimpse of him just standing there behind a tree or something, just looking. But I’d blink and he would be gone. I was scared of this unnatural man but I couldn’t speak it out. They would think I was crazy, heck even I was wondering if I really was crazy. Brandy and Angelica kept the mood light by joking around and being mushy. It calmed me down a bit and to help things off, Ashley somehow sensed that I wasn’t feeling right and was comforting me by squeezing my hand or cozying up to me in front of the fire. Brandy made some lecherous remarks that when we’d leave there would be two couples not one. Ashley threw a cushion at him and laughed, but I looked into her eyes and gave her a silent thank you. I really needed someone right then and she was there for me…
I woke up in the evening to this sound in my ears. It was like static, I wasn’t wearing any headphones but I could hear static. I looked around to see Ashley at the door smiling through the light from the full moon that flooded in through the window. “Hey, Ashley.” I mumbled, “What’s up?” She turned her head towards me and still giggling she said, “Daddy just told me that he was sorry, and now he has come to take me home.” I was still groggy from my sleep and mumbled, “What the heck are you talking about Ashley? How could your dad be here?” She smiled and opened the door pointing outside, “Look! Can’t you see? Daddy is out side, he is waiting for me!” I rubbed my eyes and looked at where she was pointing. There he was, just standing there the same way he had been standing before. His face seemed blurry but I could make it out clearly, he was looking right at us no, he was looking right at me.
My eyes went wide as I grabbed Ashley and slammed the door shut pulling her away from it, “Have you gone crazy? That thing isn’t your daddy! That thing isn’t human at all, don’t go near it!” Ashley, punched me in the gut with surprising force and I fell to the ground clutching it. “Don’t you dare stop me! If I want to go to my dad, you cant stop me!” She opened the door and ran towards the thing grabbing it in her arms. It’s head looked down at the girl and though it’s arms were already pinned to the side by her, many pairs of long, slender arms grew out of it’s back going around her and clenching her in it’s embrace. I scrambled back towards the wall as far as I could, just to get away from it watching as her body slowly dissolved into the mist around her. It looked at me again and I heard the sound of laughter, it was childlike, like the sound of many children laughing together, taunting. It sounded perverse.
It didn’t walk, rather it was as rigid as ever, it’s multiple arms were slowly retracting into it’s back in jerky movements as the thing began to glide towards me. I was too scared stiff to move any where away from it. It bent down and it’s right arm stretched out towards me and gently caressed my cheek with its long slender fingers. They were as cold as a corpse. One finger went under my chin and lifted my head up so that I would look right at it’s face. For the first time I noticed it’s face clearly, I began to shiver, my teeth begin to chatter and my leg began to feel the warm trickle slowly flow against it as I looked into its completely white pupils, it’s face with a long stretch where it’s mouth should have been and its pale albino like skin.
“No, you shall live.” I heard it’s gentle soft voice creep into my ears, “You shall live.” It repeated again as it got up, turned right and slid into Brandy and Angelicas room. I closed my eyes and began to cry…
I never saw any of them again. I remember waking up in the morning at a street at the next town. A policeman woke me up, heard my story and managed to get me home. They searched the cottage and found no disturbance what so ever. They took me in for questioning, but this time I didn’t tell them what happened. I couldn’t believe what happened, I didn’t expect them to…
Two weeks later they found their corpses on a great big pine tree some where north, about a fifteen hundred miles from where they had disappeared. They had been impaled to the branches, their chests had been cut open and their organs had been removed and placed back exactly as they should have been but this time in clear plastic bags.
As for that thing, I haven’t seen it again. I came back home, went to college and life was back to normal…well almost…
Some children from my neighborhood have been missing lately, presumed kidnapped. A couple of students from my college went missing when they went for this camp. The police closed the case saying that the students ran away from their parents who opposed them being together as they were from different backgrounds.
Oh, and some nights, I feel a cold finger gently caress my cheek as I sleep. I feel terrified as well as in love at the same time. I never open my eyes, maybe if I keep them shut, it will go away… It will go away…
