I could never really decide which idea was more unsettling to think about. Is it the primal, unhinged atrocities that mankind is capable of? Or is it the unnatural, unexplainable horrors that lie just beyond our comprehension?
To be honest… I still don’t know.
I’m in between a rock and a hard place right now. Let me elaborate:
There was this guy that used to go to my high school. His name’s Thomas. He was always incredibly popular, having the ultra-charismatic personality and chiseled jawline that just made all the teenage girls swoon for him. This is not to mention that he stood at around 6’4 at 18. He also pretty much dominated every sport and earned straight A’s. Despite this though, he was never a blatant jerk. He was cocky for sure, but never actively tried to put anybody else down. In other words, he was no stereotypical bully. This just made everybody love him even more.
All of this culminated in him being able to rotate through relationships, seemingly dating any girl that he felt like at any particular moment. He ended up breaking up with all of them rather quickly, however.
That was until Nicole.
I’d known her since elementary. We’d always been close friends, but nothing beyond that. I mean, she was way out of my league. I guess I didn’t expect anything to happen between us. But just like every other pretty girl at the school, she eventually ended up with Thomas.
“Look, don’t worry about it.” She would tell me. “If he’s an asshole, I’ll break it off instantly.”
She would always smile and playfully roll her eyes when I raised my concerns. It made me feel warm but somewhat emasculated at the same time. It was like I was her little brother or some shit.
Nicole was too smart for this and I knew it. On the surface, Thomas seemed ideal. But there was something off about him. Something that nobody else seemed to notice. Now, I didn’t speak to him much directly, but he always had this subtle look in his eyes. They were passionate about something, possibly even deranged. This guy was psychotic, and I knew it. He fit all the traits perfectly. I just hoped to god that Nicole would also realize this.
She eventually did, breaking up with him after about one year. It was the longest relationship that he’d been in and also the first one where he’d been the one dumped.
I was in college at that point.
One day, Nicole came to my dorm, eyes puffy and makeup smeared everywhere. It only took me a few moments to realize that she wasn’t crying because she was sad or angry. She was crying because she was terrified. She’d told me that she’d figured out something was terribly wrong with Thomas after only four months. She’d found pictures in his drawers. Pictures of dismembered animals in the woods. These ranged from mice to cats. When Nicole brought this up to him, he just laughed it off and said that they were digitally generated stills he was holding onto for one of his friend’s horror projects.
Now, obviously, that sounded like bullshit and she knew it. She tried to believe him but there was no way in hell that she could. After that day, Thomas’s behavior took a sharper turn into the unhinged. One time, Nicole found blood-stained gloves in his garage and he freaked out when asked about it. He took a baseball bat and destroyed one of his bookshelves before storming into his room for a few minutes. When he came back out, he was smiling again, and acted like nothing had even happened. At that point, Nicole was too scared to leave, especially since Thomas had already confessed his love to her. She’d always been the kind of person to never take shit, but I guess this psychotic dipshit really got to her.
This all led up to what had been the breaking point. She’d been suspecting him of cheating. It’s not that she would’ve dared to confront him about it, but she was still somewhat curious. He’d been talking on the phone at odd hours in the night, during times where he would force her to stay over. She could never make out what he was saying, but it was always angry. He would also occasionally go out incredibly late, not telling her where and usually never coming back in the morning.
Nicole eventually found out what he was really doing, and it was a lot worse than cheating. She was studying late one night, when she caught a report on the news. Three dead in a warehouse. Unclear motives. The killer had gotten away, and the police only had one photo of him. He was wearing a ski mask, so they couldn’t pinpoint his exact identity. But Nicole knew it was Thomas. He’d been wearing the same jacket that he’d had on that morning, when they were with each other. Her suspicion was pretty much confirmed when she got a text from him later that night, telling her that they needed to meet up in the forest, and that she needed to know something important.
She agreed, and they set up a meeting location. However, Nicole never went. This was her chance to get out of this. Instead, she sent the cops right to him. Problem is… the outcome wasn’t one that she hoped for. They never found him. No traces, nothing. Knowing that she was essentially screwed, she called the cops again and pretty much reported Thomas straight up.
The investigation lasted a while, but the cops couldn’t pin him for the crimes. He’d covered his tracks with such precision that it made it impossible to uncover the evidence. They stuck around and monitored him for a few months before dropping it entirely. This was just another cold case. They told Nicole to contact them instantly if she ran into any trouble with him, but that they couldn’t do anything at that moment.
After that, she tried to continue living normally, but there was no chance that she could. She had to watch her back now. While studying in the library one day, she’d noticed that somebody had sat down across from her. She was busy, so she didn’t look up immediately. But when she did, she nearly burst into tears.
It was Thomas
He sat there and stared at her for about a minute, before leaving abruptly. She sad that the look in his eyes burnt her very soul. Obviously he couldn’t kill her any time soon, as the cops would be all over his ass. But when dealing with people who this severely unhinged… you just never know. Plus, he probably had some kind of plan waiting for her in the future. That was the day before she came crying to my dorm.
I’ve decided to do something about this. So this is where another personal story comes into play, and I promise… they’ll be very much related.
It was Halloween night. Me and a few college buddies had gotten absolutely wasted at a party and were now roaming the streets, looking for something interesting to do. And what’s better to do on Halloween than to seek out some spooks?
Now, our city didn’t have much in the way of ghostly legends or anything, so we decided to just pick up an Ouija board and take it to this abandoned house in the local forest. Really basic shit, I know.
We got there and drunkenly started setting up the board. We must have dicked around with it for ten minutes before we realized that it was absolute horseshit. However… it was what we heard coming from the basement that scared the living shit out of us. It was a cry. Sounded like a child’s. Most of us decided to get the hell out of there right at that moment. However, my buddy Mike wanted to stay.
“What if it’s an abducted kid? There’s no way in hell that I’m leaving that.” He told us.
“Yeah, well what if it’s motherfucking pennywise?” Somebody else barked back.
Eventually, they all scrambled, leaving Mike and I to deal with it ourselves. I have a little sister, so even the slightest chance that there was a little kid down there caused my blood to boil. Besides, I was willing to bolt the second that I saw some demon shit.
When we finally located the basement door, we realized that it was locked. However, the lock looked relatively new, which only furthered our suspicion that this was the deed of some sick child predator. We eventually got it open and started making our way down.
Using the flashlights on our phones, we realized just how old this place was. There were cobwebs everywhere and the foundation was crumbing. In fact, we were genuinely afraid that the steps were going to break on us at any moment.
The first indication that we fucked up were the obscure-looking symbols carved into the floor and walls. The second and final one was that the thing making the noise was in fact not a child. As soon as I saw the monstrous entity huddled in the corner, I froze. It was ghost pale, and looked to be about 8 feet tall if it were to fully stand up. Its limbs were thick, with black veins bulging out like a roadmap. It had only one, giant empty eye socket on its face, accompanied by a large triangular mouth filled with dagger-like teeth.
It turned around to face us, covered its eye socket with two massive, bony hands, and let out a child’s giggle. At that instant, I could already hear Mike running like hell. I followed immediately, but could hear that fucking atrocity just moments behind me. I felt a sharp sting across my back before finally surfacing from the basement and running through the forest, back onto my street. Mike and I decided to never talk about it. Just leaving it alone would be a lot better than dwelling on it, right?
Well, maybe for him. He didn’t get slashed by the thing. I went to my mirror and inspected the cut. It wasn’t extremely deep, but I was afraid of whatever possible infections that thing could’ve introduced to my system. I waited a week, but nothing seemed to pop up, so I started to breathe a little easier.
However, that wasn’t the end of my demon problems. From that day on, I could see that thing following me out of the corner of my eye. When I try to look at it directly, it disappears, but I know for a fact that it's just hiding. I’m under the belief that since it drew blood from me, it has the ability to now track me. But who knows, it could be any number of explanations. All I know is that this is extremely bad news for me.
The thing never seems to make an appearance in the day time, however. It’s always exclusively after midnight. I’ve also noticed that it seems to be afraid of artificial light and crowds of people. Whenever I walk under streetlights, or have five or more people in my vicinity, I’ll never see it. Problem is, the more time that I spend alone in the darkness/moonlight, the closer and closer it seems to get to me.
I’ve never used a nightlight as a kid, and I really don’t enjoy using one now, so you can see where my frustration comes from. This has been going on for nearly half a year now, and I’m not really sure what the fix is. I’ve gone as far as to scour occult message boards on the dark web for information regarding what the hell this thing is, but nothing’s come up. Hell, I’ve even tried shooting at the thing with my airsoft gun when I see it, but I can rarely hit it, since it seems to disappear instantly. However, when I have managed to land a shot, I’ve noticed that it does seem to react. This is great, since I can assume that this demon can be hurt through physical means. Or maybe I should just refer to it as a creature from now on, who knows.
But on top of all this, now I have to deal with the psycho-fuck Thomas. I genuinely care about and enjoy being around Nicole, so when she told me that she was thinking about moving countries, I realized that something needed to be done here.
So, this is where things finally intersect. I have a plan that could potentially solve both my demon problem and Thomas. I say potentially. This could also end in sheer disaster, but it’s worth a shot.
I’ve asked my boss to change my upcoming work shift to a night one. I’ve been avoiding the night shift like the plague recently, but this is necessary for my plan to go through. I work at a medium-sized department store, so this is also pretty much the perfect place to conduct my plan. I have a lot of room to run around, I know the place like the back of my hand, and I’ll have access to the lights. I’ll be closing the store alone as well (the person who was supposed to work with me is sick right now), so all the conditions needed for the demon to appear are satisfied.
Here’s the basic blueprint of how it’s going to go down:
I’ll message Thomas, saying that I have indisputable proof of all his murders. This is obviously a lie, but I need to draw him out somehow.
He’ll doubt me for sure, but I know for a fact that he’ll be on edge. He won’t be able to stop thinking about it. He knows where I work, since I’ve seen and made brief eye contact with him while in the store before. He’ll probably try intimidating me. I just a need a way to make sure that Thomas comes after me while I’m in the store. The easiest way to do this would be to message him right as the store closes, telling him that I’m planning to divulge his secrets to the police that very night, and that there’s nothing he can do to stop me. I’ll probably even mock him a bit. Psychopath’s hate that, right?
He’d know where I was, since I have him added on snapchat (we went to high school together, what’d you expect?), and would deliberately leave my location on. Telling him straight up to meet me at the store probably would probably give too much away. This needs to go off without a hitch.
I would also remember not to lock the main entrance, allowing him to come in. At that point, he’ll probably start searching for me. This is where the plan really shifts into gear.
I’ll be waiting in the back, near the monitors getting the feed from the security cameras. Once Thomas finds himself deep in the store, I’ll turn off all the lights. This is where I‘ll have to be quick. I can only imagine how fast this demon’s going to move. I’ll throw on the night vision goggles that I received last Christmas and make my way towards where Thomas is. I’m expecting that he’ll have a concealed carry. If he wasn’t planning on killing me right there, then waving a pistol around would be sure to send me a message. Because of this, I’ll also make sure to have a gun on me. Better safe than sorry, you know?
However… that’s kind of where the plan ends for me. I may have to think a bit more ahead, but this is where it is for now. In a perfect world, Thomas and the Demon will provoke and ultimately wipe each other out, while I stay on the sidelines. When explaining it to the cops, I’ll just say that Thomas broke in, destroyed the security tapes, and knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I found both him and the demon dead on the floor. After a few FBI interviews, I’ll probably be in the clear.
Of course, I could just as easily end up dead. Now, you may think that this is a lot to go through, and that the chances of achieving the desired results are miniscule for me. That may be so. However, this demon following me around is really fucking stressful. In addition to that, I could not imagine my life without Nicole in it. If this plan comes to fruition, I’ll be killing two birds with one stone.
My shift is the day after tomorrow. If you don’t get an update from me, well… you can probably guess what happened. But let’s be optimistic, shall we?
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Credits
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