I work as a home caregiver for a local agency in Kentucky. I’m not a nurse, though I have some basic training in CPR and First Aid, and I’ve going through classes so I’m able to render some level of help to our clients that need physical assistance. For the most part though, my job is to check in on people, help them do chores they have difficulty doing on their own like getting groceries or doing laundry, and drive them to appointments as needed.
The story I’m about to tell has been changed enough that I’m not violating client confidentiality, but I assure you that the core elements of it are true.
About three months ago I started seeing a new client, Peter Phelps. When I reviewed his casefile, I learned that Peter was a 55 year-old man who lacked a right arm due to a birth defect. This wasn’t the reason for his home care, but rather that he was in the last stages of liver failure due to chronic alcoholism. His physical condition was deteriorating fast, and my supervisor told me that he was probably a “stop-gap client”, which was what they called it when we were only providing services until home nursing or hospice started up. In Peter’s case, he already had a nurse checking in on him twice a week, and my job was primarily to get him groceries, prepare meals, and do some light cleaning the three days a week I visited him.
I liked Peter from the first time I met him. He had a dry sense of humor, and while there was a sadness that lingered about him most of the time, he seemed very kind too. We would chat as I folded towels or swept the floor, and by the second week I found myself sometimes staying a few minutes over my time just to finish whatever we were talking about.
He seemed more interested in hearing stories from me than telling them, and I noticed that when he did tell me something, it was almost always from someone else’s life rather than his own. I’ve done this job long enough to know that some people are very private or aren’t comfortable talking about themselves, particularly with people they barely know. So I didn’t find it all that strange that I knew very little about Peter’s past even though I’d spent hours talking to him.
What did surprise me was the question he asked one afternoon as I was finishing up a round of dusting. “Do you want to know what happened to my arm?” He gestured to the empty space at his right shoulder, and while I knew what he meant, I didn’t know why he was asking. I tried to keep my tone light as I responded.
“I think I remember reading in your file that you were born without it, right?” I felt uncomfortable, and I was worried about hurting his feelings or saying the wrong thing about something I thought might be a sensitive subject. He was quiet for a moment and I began to think the conversation might be over, but then I saw him shake his head out of the corner of my eye.
“No…No, I know that’s what they say. What your file says, what everything says, but that’s not so. It’s going to sound crazy, but if you want to hear about it, I’ll tell you. If not, we can talk about something else.” I turned to look at him and he was smiling. I believed him that he would be fine either way, but I could also see that he hoped I’d say yes. He wanted to talk to somebody about whatever weirdness this was. So against my better judgment, I told him to tell me what really happened to his missing right arm.
I know going into this that you probably won’t believe me. That’s okay. I got used to people not believing me when I was a kid. After a few arguments with my family and a few trips to a shrink, I learned to keep my lips zipped on that topic most of the time. As an adult, you’re only the second person I’ve ever tried to tell this story.
The first was this girl I was dating when I was…what? Twenty-five? Her name was Abigail. She was a beautiful girl inside and out, and there was a time when I thought she was the one for me. Wanted to marry her, the whole nine yards. Then I made the mistake of confiding in her. Telling her what I’m about to tell you.
Have you ever watched someone fall out of love with you? I mean actually seen that light, that living thing that was in their eyes when they looked at you, just wither and die? I hope not. You’re young, but I hope you never do. I saw it when I was telling her this story, and it’s—as you’d guess—a pretty terrible thing to see.
It wasn’t until much later that I realized I had done both me and Abigail a service in telling her my secret. She loved me, sure, but not that much. Enough to listen, enough to not laugh. Enough to wait another month before she found some other reason that we needed time apart. To spare me the embarrassment of her telling me she wasn’t going to be stuck with some lunatic that thought a monster took his arm.
I’m sorry, I’m getting off-topic. The point is, I’m past worrying about what people think. Maybe I am crazy after all. But crazy or not, I have enough sense to know I’ll likely be dead in six months, and you may be one of the last friendly faces I ever run across. And I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to listen and not make fun of me.
Okay? Good.
When I was twelve years old, I lived with my parents in a small town called Westerfield. It’s about three hours east of here, and I doubt you’ve ever been or even heard of it. For the most part, Westerfield is a normal, mediocre small town. Back then we had a two-theater movie theater, a few chain restaurants, and more than our share of farms around, but not much in the way of fun for boys looking for a good time without getting into bad trouble.
I had been friends with Jack Paulson and Steve Marks since third-grade, and we really weren’t bad kids. We would occasionally throw rocks at the trains as they passed through town or trespass on a dare, but nothing like some of the boys we knew. We never hurt anything or anybody—we were just bored.
That’s part of what always made Halloween such a great time for us. We were getting older, and we knew our time for trick-or-treating was getting close to an end. And we still liked candy, but it wasn’t like we couldn’t get it any other way. I think that the reason we loved Halloween so much was because it gave us a way of holding on to being a kid a bit longer. Something to be excited for, to look forward to.
And if part of that was the trick or treating, part of it was us trying to tell each other scary stories, both as entertainment and in an attempt to freak each other out. It never really worked—we knew the stories weren’t real, and if I’m being honest, we did a fairly bad job of telling them in the first place. But none of that stopped us. Every year, without fail, we would circulate several stories of how a dead body was found over at this abandoned house (and it might have moved) or how so and so’s aunt had once seen a ghost levitate her living room table. Silly shit for the most part.
Then Jack told us about the thing in Amerson Park.
He had heard about it from his brother, who was older and in the military. A few days earlier, the brother had been home on leave and was talking to Jack about different places he and his friends hung out at—meaning me and Steve, though Jack’s brother didn’t know our names. He told Jack to stay away from Amerson Park, especially at night. That there was a strange homeless man that lived there, and Jack’s brother had heard he was dangerous. By itself, that might have kept us away. But then his brother had added that, according to some people, the man wasn’t really alive and was haunting the place. Whatever Jack’s brother’s intention, his warning immediately made Amerson Park the most intriguing place in town to us.
The park was small and rarely used, tucked away in an older part of town that was full of closed stores and ramshackle houses. As far as I knew, I had only been to the park once, and it was with my parents when I was younger. There was a small creek that ran through the property, covered at one point by a wooden bridge that had probably once been charming but now looked like it was held together by termites and mold. The outing with my parents had ended when my father realized it didn’t live up to memories from his own youth, and me and my friends had never had a reason to go so far outside of our normal stomping grounds to visit. Until now, that was.
The plan was simple. We were allowed to go out trick-or-treating by ourselves between 6 and 8 pm. So long as we stuck together, didn’t eat any candy until we got home and it was checked, and weren’t out past 8, we were cool. We figured it would be about a thirty-minute fast walk outside of our normal trick-or-treat circuit to get to the park and another thirty to get back. Allowing time to explore, we should still have a good thirty minutes for trick-or-treating after we were back closer to our neighborhood.
The only real point of contention was the last. Did we trick-or-treat before or after? Jack and I wanted to do the park first, while Steve wanted to prioritize candy. Steve’s eyes had been big as dinner plates when Jack had told us about the man in the park, so I suspected he was hoping to distract us long enough with trick-or-treating that we abandoned the park idea altogether. But majority ruled, and to the park we went.
It was just getting dark when we arrived, and as we walked down a cracked asphalt path and shined our plastic flashlights on the overgrown grass and rampant bushes everywhere, I was surprised at how much worse it looked than in my memory. Whatever half-hearted efforts had been made in the past to maintain the park seemed to have been given up now, as though a decision had been reached to just let the space return to nature through the slow process of urban decay.
We were getting close to the splintery skeleton of the bridge when Steve poked me in the ribs. “Look over there!”, he whispered, his hand now tight on my arm. “I think that’s the man!” I turned my light toward where he was looking and illuminated an old, rusted out water fountain that was next to the path further head.
Jack snickered. “Good looking out, Stevie. Let us know if you see any rabid squirrels or trashcan monsters too.”
I laughed a little, but it was forced. I didn’t really think there was some dangerous man out here, much less a ghost, but I had to admit the park was creepy. Unsettling even. I wasn’t willing to be made fun of by asking to leave before we were done looking around, but I did pick up my pace. If we made it all the way through, I reasoned, we could all go home without the danger of being called a chicken.
Looking back on it, I think some dim part of me realized we were being followed early on. Some primitive instinct that recognized that something wasn’t right. But it wasn’t until we were passing under the bridge that I heard the rustle of someone walking a few feet behind us. I still don’t know why I didn’t just bolt right then, but for whatever reason I stopped and turned. My friends lurched to a halt and spun around as well, with Jack letting out a gasp as he saw what was behind us.
It…It looked like a man, but it wasn’t a man. The outline was that of a large person wearing a big poncho or hooded overcoat, so if you just caught a glimpse, you would think it was just a tall, broad-chested man out for a walk. But when I shined my light on it…
It was made of rot. I saw mounds of dirt run through with worms and maggots, bits of trash stuck to the decaying carcasses of mice and birds, strings of brown ichor wound tight round hot, red meat that never stopped moving and pulsing as it slid around on what approximated the thing’s chest and face. Its eyes were irregular circles of broken green glass, and the bits of bottle seemed to shine with some dull inner light as it regarded us. But none of that was the worst of it.
When it opened its mouth to speak, I saw it had long, thin teeth of silver. It took me a moment to realize what they were. Hypodermic needles.
”Do you have somethin’ ta offer?” Its voice was deep and roaring, like the wind of an angry storm. We all took a step back that it matched with a shambling step forward. ”Or do you mean ta waste m’time?”
We ran. Of course we ran. I could hear it behind us, somehow moving, somehow gaining on us as we tried to make it out of the park. Its footfalls were heavy and squelching, and when I realized they were getting closer, I looked back just as it reached Steve. I saw it when it closed a wriggling, oozing hand on Steve’s shoulder, and I heard the start of Steve’s terrified wail as he registered the contact. But then the scream was cut off. Because Steve wasn’t there anymore.
Let me be very clear on this point. It wasn’t as though I lost sight of him or he turned and went a different way. I watched him literally disappear in front of my eyes—clothes and candy bag and everything that was him. I even heard a faint popping sound as air rushed in to fill the void his absence created.
The sight of it almost made me stop dead in my tracks. It made no sense. What had happened to him? It was as if my brain wanted to reconcile what it had just seen before it could go back to the pressing business of running away from the horror that was chasing us. But I caught myself, and I didn’t stop. I just slowed down for a couple of seconds. That was just enough time for Jack to plow into me and knock us both down.
I had the breath knocked out of me, but my fear and panic had reasserted itself and I was immediately pushing myself up to run again. That’s when I heard another small popping sound right behind me. I looked back to see that Jack was gone now too. The monster was standing over me, its green eyes blazing as it scraped its metal teeth back and forth.
“Do you have somethin’ ta offer?” Its voice filled my ears and I felt my pants grow warm as I wet myself.
I shook my head as I began to cry. “N-no. All I have is this.” I held out the empty trick-or-treat bag in my right hand. I had lost my flashlight when Jack ran into me, so I really had nothing else to offer the thing. Or so I thought.
It suddenly shot out its hands and gripped my right arm, and after a moment of tingling pain, it was gone. My arm, all the way up to the shoulder, was just gone. I watched in amazed horror as the empty bag fluttered to the ground now that it had no hand to support it. Reaching up, I touched my shoulder, finding only smooth skin where the start of my arm should be. It was as though it had never been there at all. When I looked back up, I saw the creature giving me a terrible, shining smile.
“Fairly paid. You may go.” With that, it turned and walked back into the shadows where it disappeared.
I ran all the way back home, and I didn’t stop running until I was crying in my mother’s arms while my father called the police. They believed me that I had been attacked, but they didn’t understand the rest. The stuff about the monster was clearly because I was in shock, but how did they explain these other people I was making up? Or how I now claimed I had always had a right arm before that night?
Because Jack Paulson and Steve Marks weren’t just missing. They didn’t exist at all anymore. Just like my arm, no one had any memory or evidence of my two best friends ever existing, not even their own families. Even my own memory of Jack had gaps, and I think it’s because I actually saw Steve disappear but only heard when the thing got Jack.
But I was the only one that remembered them at all. For weeks I kept waiting for something to change, for someone to tell the truth or suddenly remember them again. But it never happened. Instead, I spent the next several years getting increasingly intensive therapy as my parents drew away from me more and more. Eventually, I learned to lie and keep the truth of what happened to myself…well, except for Abagail, but we know how that turned out.
I’m ashamed to say that I lied to myself for a number of years too. Tried to just believe that I had some mental issues and a birth defect. That the best way of getting past it was to accept that I was wrong and the world was right. Problem was, I never really believed it. In my heart, I’ve always known what happened to my friends.
What I don’t know is why or how. I don’t know what that thing is, and I don’t want to know. I never went back, never tried to investigate…nothing like that. In part, because I didn’t think I’d get anywhere. In part, because even today I’m fucking terrified of that thing.
Anyway, that’s the real story of how I lost my arm. Thank you for listening and not laughing or calling a doctor. You’re a good kid.
Four weeks later, Peter was dead. He wanted to be cremated, with his ashes to go to his mother, an elderly woman who was still alive and living in Westerfield. He had no other family or friends, and his mother was too feeble to come get the remains, so I volunteered to carry them down the next day for a small service she was going to have in his honor.
The trip down was uneventful, and the service was nice, if very sparsely attended. At the end, I gave his mother a brief hug and told her again how much Peter had meant to me, surprising myself by realizing it was the truth. He had been a good friend, and while I didn’t believe his crazy story about Amerson Park, I did think the world was a worse place without him in it.
It was late afternoon as I turned out onto the highway that would take me home. Peter was right. I had never been to Westerfield before, and as I traveled through it I found myself imagining Peter growing up there. The thing was, I kept imagining him with Jack and Steve. I knew it was just a mental trick—I knew next to nothing about his childhood, and what I did know came from him and included these fictional friends. It was only natural that I would insert them into my own…
Amerson Park
The sign was small and rusted, with such a pronounced lean that the name and arrow were barely legible from the road. But I felt my heart leap when it caught my eye, and before I knew it I was backing up a few feet to make the turn down into a decrepit part of old Westerfield. As I drove slowly down the patchy stretch of street, I told myself that visiting the park was a good way of honoring the part of Peter that he had to keep hidden from the world.
And that was true. But I also wanted to see the park for myself. Prove to myself that it was just a story. So I parked outside a chain-link fence that was rusted to the point of collapse and made my way into the park. It was getting dark, but I could still see well-enough to make out the main features. It was surprisingly close to the way I had imagined it when Peter was telling me his story. I saw the path they had walked, the remnants of the water fountain Steve had been scared of, and in the distance, the silhouette of what had once been a small wooden walking bridge.
I threaded my way gingerly through the tall grass, my fear of getting snake-bit walking hand-in-hand with my nervousness at being in this place. My goal was to make it to the bridge, look under it, maybe take a picture or two, and then leave before full night came on. The air was already turning cooler, and the October light was fading faster than I’d expected. And I was getting close to the bridge, but it was already getting harder to make it out in the growing pool of shadows.
That’s when one of the shadows stepped away from the rest.
It was just like Peter had described. A tall, large man shape wearing a long coat or cloak of some kind with a hood. I slowed to a stop, my brain frantically trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for what I was seeing. But then I saw them. Its glowing, green glass eyes, burning in the moving darkness of its head like twin lanterns. And below that, I thought I saw the pale glint of silver in the failing autumn sun.
I ran. I ran and didn’t look back, jumping the fence and driving away before that terrible thing could reach me, touch me, take me away. I drove without stopping until I got home, almost wrecking more than once in my frantic desire to just get far away from that place and what lived there. That was a few days ago, and I think I may be safe. I also think I might be going insane.
You see, I keep having memories that can’t be right. I remember having a girlfriend. I think her name was Angelica, and I have several snippets of spending time with her. Loving her even. There are times when I can picture her face or imagine what her voice was like. There are times when I can almost remember things I did with her. Our first date, bowling, meeting her parents.
Her going with me to Peter’s funeral.
It’s probably all in my head. I’m a big believer that people can trick themselves into believing just about anything. Missing arms, monsters under the bridge, girlfriends that no longer exist. I probably just need to take some time off and get my head right.
Maybe then I’ll stop imagining I heard her scream as I scrambled over the fence at Amerson Park, never looking back to see what happened to her. Maybe then I won’t remember feeling that brief change in the air as a void at my back was created and then filled. Maybe then I can stop looking out of my windows every night, half-expecting to see green glass shining at me from somewhere in the dark, waiting patiently to finish some terrible transaction.
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