I was frozen. Absolutely, unequivocally frozen. I could only describe the fear that gripped me as visceral. Like I was drowning in a freezing lake of incomprehensible dread, unprepared to face what was ahead of me in the slightest.
I looked at Sven, the most capable one out of us. But even he looked petrified, face drained of any color. I looked back at the trees, watching as the pale, gargantuan creature wrapped its disturbing hand entirely around the tree. The high-pitched radio-frequency laugh continued around us, seemingly growing louder and louder by the second.
And then, out of nowhere… it stopped.
”WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?”
A deep, slimy, penetrating voice assaulted my ears. It nearly sounded like it was coming from my own head. I flinched, taking my eyes off the entity behind the tree for just a moment. It was gone when I looked back up.
“S…seth….” I heard Rose call my name out.
I whipped my head around, nearly passing out in fear upon seeing what was behind me.
It was him.
Blank face. Skeletal torso. Giant, bony hands. Leering down right at me, only a few inches away. Without even thinking, I began running. I turned back after a few seconds, watching as the creature’s body twisted and contorted, turning into a massive spider-human hybrid with tens of pale, veiny limbs crawling towards me.
I nearly threw up right there. Sven drew his pistol and began shooting. Due to how erratically it was moving, he missed every shot except for one, which drilled straight through the creature’s head, causing a wave of thick, black blood to burst out from the other side of its temple. It went limp immediately, with its limbs crumpling and falling to the ground.
For a moment, I suppose I was relieved. But then… I realized what kind of monster we were really dealing with.
The laughing had come back, louder than ever now.
”THAT HURT.”
I blinked once and the “corpse” had disappeared. And then I noticed a hulking shadow looming somewhere next to me. I looked over, watching as the creature – now back in its humanoid skeleton form, wrapped one of its hands around Sven’s neck. With the other one, it grabbed one of his wrists, instantaneously crushing it into a bloody pulp.
As Sven grunted in agony, the creature turned to look directly at me. The bottom half of its face began distorting. Soon enough, a human mouth emerged from underneath its skin. If I was close to puking before, I couldn’t help myself now.
I retched, before looking back up to see it smiling at me. Not only that, the smile was familiar. Soft, pink lips. Glowing white teeth that were just slightly crooked at bottom.
It was… Lacey’s smile.
“What are you doing, Seth? Come find me.”
It was her voice. Unmistakably identical. I heard myself whimper.
I blinked one more time and it disappeared again. Sven dropped to the ground, still grimacing at his gruesome injury. Mike and Rose were in abject shock. I could feel tears begin swelling up in my eyes.
”START RUNNING.”
Again, the voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once. I began hearing what sounded like heavy, animalistic movements approaching fast. I turned around, seeing something barreling towards us. It looked comparable in appearance to a gorilla with dark fur, but with about three times as many limbs, running at us like an oversized centipede.
And of course… a familiar blank face at the front. He wasn’t even giving me time to grieve.
Safe to say, we took the advice and bolted like hell the other way. Every time I looked back to see if it had finally caught up, the creature always looked like it was moving at an unfathomable pace. Yet… it always remained the same distance behind us. After a while of this, it really felt like I was losing my own grip on reality.
As we began reaching the edge of the forest, I remember my vision beginning to blur. I passed out, likely due to a combination of exhaustion, fear and agony upon hearing Lacey’s voice and seeing her lips on that fucking monster.
I woke up back in Mike’s apartment, clothes dirty, cold sweat running down my forehead and my joints aching like hell. It had become dark outside. I suppose I’d been out for a while.
Mike and Rose were sitting on the other couch, neither saying a word or even looking up. Can’t really blame them, I suppose. Not after an experience like that.
“Where’s Sven?” I finally asked.
“He… left. Drove off. Said he had ‘do something urgent’.” Rose answered, after a few moments. “Never even went to the hospital before leaving town. I don’t think he’s coming back.”
Guess we aren’t getting any more help from him, I thought to myself.
I decided to stay at my parents place for a bit. They were happy to see me but… I wasn’t really there emotionally. I hated to admit it but… the whole encounter had taken a lot out of me. As much I still wanted to somehow save Lacey, I… I couldn’t stand the idea of facing that thing again. I needed time to overcome my fears. Time to recover, before looking for any more answers.
But… Mr. Blank wouldn’t even let me do that.
For the first few nights, everything was normal. I used some of my vacations days to get off work and spent my time watching TV, playing games… trying to motivate myself to stop being so scared and go looking for her again. Wasn’t working so well. I was still petrified at the very thought of it.
But after a few nights… the tapping started. Sounded like a bony finger rapping on my window during the dead of night. I never bothered looking, of course. When I didn’t react to that, Mr. Blank began fucking with me in more severe ways. I’d see a hulking shadow behind my shower curtains seconds after I’d stepped in. A pair of legs sticking out from underneath my bed as I was getting ready to sleep. An unwanted passenger in the back seat of my vehicle at night. Employees following me around grocery stores and staring at me in restaurants. I never could make out any of their facial features. It was all starting to take a heavy toll on my mind. I could feel my sanity slipping away by the hour.
I called Mike and Rose. Same story. Rose’s voice was monotonous, devoid of any kind of emotion. Mike sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
But what made everything infinitely worse was the knowledge that at any point, he or… it could kill me in a split second. So that begged the question… why didn’t it? What was the point of fucking with me like this?
It all came to a boiling point while I was grabbing my mail. As I was getting ready to reach in, a bloody hand poked out of my mailbox and handed my envelopes to me. How generous.
It was all starting to become rather bothersome. I freaked out right then and there.
“Fuck you!” I screamed. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
I grabbed the door of the mailbox and slammed it into the hand until I heard bones begin to break. For the first time in a while, fear wasn’t my dominant emotion. It was anger. After enduring the punishment, the hand eventually retreated. I bent down, staring directly into the now-empty slot.
“WHERE THE FUCK IS LACEY, ASSHOLE?”
My screams were beginning to attract the attention of my neighbors. Not that I cared. I could hardly keep my frustrations in at that point. I had to let it out.
“WHY DON’T YOU JUST KILL ME, YOU PUSSY! GUESS I’LL FUCKING FIND AND KILL YOU FIRST!”
I hardly believed in what I was saying. The words were simply pouring out of my mouth.
I slammed the door shut and stormed back into my house. I took some time for self-reflection. The cops had told me to let it go from the start. Hell, even my own parents were telling me that. So why hadn’t I? Why couldn’t I just let it go?
Maybe it’s because… I hadn’t lost hoped. For one reason or another, I still believed I could get Lacey back. That I could somehow overcome this horrific, seemingly impossible enemy and come out victorious in the end.
After all, if Mr. Blank could imitate Lacey’s voice… then it meant she was still alive, right?
Perhaps that was a stretch. But I didn’t allow myself to believe that. It’d be comparable to admitting defeat right then and there.
There was also another thing driving me forward. If I didn’t face it head on, this thing was never going to leave me alone.
I remembered what I’d told myself from the beginning. That I wasn’t going to let it end like this.
Whenever I'd backed down from a conflict before, my father had always told me to grow a pair of balls and man up. It made me kinda hate him at times. But suddenly... that seemed like rather sound advice.
I spent the next few days getting off my ass and preparing to head back into the forest. I was going to keep following the tree carvings. Our only real lead, wherever that may lead me. It was pretty obvious that physical attacks weren’t bringing this thing down. Hell, I wasn’t even trying to kill it. I needed information first. Like where the hell it was keeping Lacey.
However, physical wounds did seem to bother it, in some marginal capacity at the very least. While I was brainstorming, I noticed something else as well. Ever since the mailbox incident, the bastard had left me alone. My first act of defiance against it. There had to be a correlation there. I decided to call Mike and Rose again. They still sounded frightened. Defeated. Mr. Blank was still going after them. What did this mean?
I only had my theories, of course. Nevertheless, they were theories worth testing. I began putting together my own mini-arsenal. My dad’s pistol, one of Mike’s shotguns that I’d borrowed a few weeks back, a hunting knife, and a baseball bat for good measure. Was I trained in armed or unarmed combat? Fuck no. Still had a puncher’s chance, though.
I decided to head back into the forest exactly one week after I’d first gone in. I'd made my preparations, of course. Wrote a letter for my parents. (In case I didn't come back). A letter for Mike. One for Rose. (Didn't even bother asking them to come. They sounded like they weren't even ready to leave their rooms when I talked to them last). I wasn't quite sure what to put in the letters. I just felt obligated to write them. An explanation, I suppose.
Before heading out of my house, I slugged back one swig of whiskey. Two cups of coffee. I tried my calm my nerves. Didn’t really work. Didn’t matter. Before I knew it, I was standing back at the edge of the tree-line, alone.
I took a step. Deep breath. Another step. Oh shit. The nerves had come back. One more step. My legs began shaking. It’s as if the fear I’d been suppressing began rushing back to me all at once. I looked up and something caught my eye. A large figure obscured by the woods, creeping along my line of vision. A familiar hand wrapped around one of the trees, dangling a severed hand by the pinky. Sven’s hand, most likely. It was taunting me.
Every fiber of my being was telling me to turn back and the run the fuck away. And I nearly did just that. I was petrified. But that didn’t mean I could stop.
This thing wasn’t going to stop following me at the forest. It knew where I lived. Knew how to push my buttons. How to get under my skin. It knew nearly everything about me. I was too deep into this mess already. Face my fears and deal with it myself, or end up like Jay and leave Lacey trapped in whatever hell she was currently in.
With that in mind, I took another deep breath and began walking, right towards it. As I’d suspected… it disappeared shortly after. Like I’d somehow scared it off. Even though that probably wasn’t the case, I smiled to myself, reveling at the idea. From there, I began following the carvings, retracing our steps from a week prior. But I was planning on getting farther this time.
As expected, Mr. Blank didn’t leave me alone after I’d entered. In fact, I was pretty much on my toes the entire time. About five minutes in, I heard something breathing down the back of my neck. I remembered what had happened to Sven and immediately pivoted sideways. At that point, it was the closest I’d ever gotten to it. This time, it’d taken a gargoyle-esque form, wings and all. I pulled out my pistol and fired about four shots at it. I never had great aim, so only 1 bullet even grazed it, but I think my message was sent, because it disappeared with a blink, immediately after.
It hurled its share of auditory torments towards me as well. Screaming horrible things at me in a generic demonic voice. The only time these really affected me was when it was imitating Lacey. God, this fucker was really pissing me off.
It appeared two more times before it finally managed to hurt me. However… the attacks were awkward. It obviously could have killed me at any point. Yet, it seemed bent on trying to give me only non-lethal injuries. Nevertheless, it succeeded.
Have you ever seen fanart of the Rake? A classic creepypasta. Well that’s what it turned into, only with no face. It managed to slash my thigh. Not a deep cut, but it still hurt like hell. I responded by breaking my bat over its head. Even though doing so caused it to disappear, it was a move I regretted instantly. I lost my one of my close-quarters weapons. I used to play baseball, but I’d never used a knife for anything beyond chopping onions.
I calmed down by telling myself that at the very least, it wasn’t going to kill me.
Boy, was I wrong there.
After about only a minute, it crawled out of the dirt in the form of a familiar, machete-wielding zombie wearing a hockey mask and nearly took my head off. I managed to dodge the swing by a hair, and the tree beside me was sliced clean in half.
I guess Mr. Blank was something of a cinephile. I suppose that made sense.
That didn’t look non-lethal to me, I thought to myself. I scrambled to pull out my shotgun and blew off the wannabe Jason’s head. However, it took me both shots to do so, and I wasn’t very fast at reloading. Mr. Blank suddenly appeared behind me, now as a hulking, faceless clown carrying what looked like a lead bowling pin.
At that moment, I was defenseless. It swung the pin, breaking the shotgun in half as I attempted to defend myself with it. After that, I started running.
What the fuck was I thinking? This asshole could basically teleport.
It suddenly stepped out from a tree in front of me. This time, it had turned into one of the nurses from Silent Hill, bolting at me with a rusty knife.
“Fuck!” I shouted. It looked like Mr. Blank wasn’t pulling any more punches.
It caused me to experience a new kind of fear. Not dread, or some vague fear of the unknown. It was fear of immediate and certain death. But at the same time, I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I tried convincing myself that I was ready.
Knowing that I couldn’t run, I pulled out my own knife and tried bracing myself.
This is gonna fucking hurt, I thought to myself.
As it got within a few feet of me, the crack of a heavy shotgun caused me to flinch. The nurse was subsequently sawed in half at the torso, with stray fragments of buckshot littering the trees beside me.
“JESUS, WHAT THE FUCK!” I shouted, panting like hell at the same time.
“Hey boy! You best not be taking the Lord’s name in vain there.”
An unfamiliar voice. Heavy southern twang. We weren’t anywhere near the south.
I looked over, seeing two wholly unexpected figures.
One was Sven, with heavy bandages wrapped around his wrist. He wasn’t the one that’d fired the shot, though. Standing next to him was a tall, bulky man with messy blonde hair, wearing what looked like a heavy tactical jacket and camo hunting pants. He was carrying a massive, industrial-looking shotgun. Certainly not anything police-grade. Hell, it didn’t even look like something the military would use.
“Anyways, it’s your lucky day,” the man said, slinging the weapon over his shoulder.
Sven looked at me and smiled.
“I told your friend I was coming back,” he said. “I don’t think she believed me, though.”
He looked at his shotgun-wielding friend. “So? What’d you think? Told you I had something big.”
The man chuckled, watching as the nurse corpse disappeared into thin air, just as every one of Mr. Blanks “forms” tended to do.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said, smiling to himself. “It’s a strange one for sure. No matter. I’m itching for a good old-fashioned battle.”
“What th… the …hell?”
It was the only thing I could muster out, given how truly bizarre the circumstances had become.
“Hush up there,” The man said, aiming his shotgun at something behind me. “Looks like it’s itching for the same battle.”
I turned around, watching as Michael Myers dropped down from a tree. Only, he wasn’t carrying a kitchen knife. He had a damn chainsaw. Looked like Mr. Blank was getting his films mixed up.
Asking any more questions seemed like a lost cause. In any case, I needed to focus on the task at hand: staying alive while searching for Lacey.
But it looks like I have so much-needed help now. Can’t complain about that.
---
Credits
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