Chapter Text
Someone’s been following you. A man, or... something. You’ve seen him out of the corner of your eye so many times. When you went to the park for your nephew’s birthday party, he was lurking between the trees at the edge of the woods. When you went to the movies with your friends, he was watching you from behind a concrete pillar in the parking garage. When you went to see your grandmother in the hospital, you swear you saw him standing at the end of a dark hallway: a tall thin man in a black suit, too tall, too still, too-long hands hanging down from the long sleeves of his suit, the pale head with no face but staring, always staring.
What does he want from you? He frightens you. You haven’t told anyone about him because you’re afraid they’ll think you’re insane. And... you’re afraid that they’ll be right.
You have a dream, almost every night now, where you’re wandering through the deepest part of the woods. The skeletal trees stand tall and black against the thick mist, and a cold breeze makes the dead leaves hiss around your feet. There’s someone standing in the distance, hazy and eerie through the mist. You’re so desperate for company in this dead, lonely place. You rush toward the figure, stumbling in your hurry and falling to your hands and knees in the wet leaves. You scramble back to your feet, but by the time you’re up, the figure has disappeared, leaving only the swirling gray mist in the distance.
As you stand there staring, uncertain and unnerved, you hear the tiny sound of a twig snapping behind you. You whirl around. It’s him. He’s standing just a few feet away, looming over you, peering down at you from out of his featureless white face. You want to run, but your feet are rooted to the spot. He raises his too-long arms, spreading them wide as if requesting an embrace. There’s something moving behind his back, many somethings, raising themselves up in tandem with his arms. More arms. More limbs, long and black like dead branches, like spider’s legs hanging ready to ensnare you.
In the terrible logic of the dream, you’re sure that you must step into his arms. Your feet carry you forward, and your heart hammers in your chest. Yet somehow the fear eases as you press yourself into his long thin frame and feel the warmth of his body through the rough material of his suit. So much warmer than you expected. His many long limbs slowly snake around you, pulling you tightly against him.
That’s always when you wake with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. Just a dream, you assure yourself. Just a dream. But somehow the relief is mixed with an aching sense of loss as you remember the tall solid warmth of him.
That strange sense of yearning never lasts past the morning, though. The fear returns, and the sightings become worse. One evening, coming back from a walk, you catch a glimpse of a tall silhouette in the alley across from your apartment. You race back up to your room, climbing the stairs two at a time. A few days later, carrying your laundry down to the basement, you see a dark figure, still and staring, at the end of the unlit hallway. You flee from the sight, and your laundry goes undone.
The worst comes a few nights after that. You’re lying in bed, restless, troubled and afraid to dream. You roll onto your side and see the tall dark shape standing stock-still in the corner of your room. You scream and scramble for the light switch, but once the light is on, the figure is gone. Your roommates come to check on you, and you tell them it was just a nightmare.
But you can’t take the terror anymore. The next day, you stuff a flashlight and a bottle of water into your threadbare backpack and head for the woods. You leave a note for your roommates, telling them you’ve gone hiking. It’s a lame explanation—you never hike—but you can’t exactly tell them the truth: that you’re going into the woods to confront whatever’s haunting you before you go mad.
There’s a trail just a few miles outside of town that’s supposed to lead directly into the heart of the old woods. You park at the trailhead, and you give the hood of your car a firm pat as you climb out, praying that this won’t be the last time you see it.
At first you’re worried that this isn’t going to work. The forest around you is bright and cheerful, the trees still lush with red and yellow leaves. But as you go deeper, the chill mist thickens, and the woods become more and more dark and oppressive. The trees grow taller, and barer, and your surroundings become so like the woods in your dreams, the sense of deja vu and unreality become so intense, that you start to feel really insane. Maybe you’re dreaming all of this. You’re sure that he’ll appear at any moment, a dark skeletal silhouette hovering in the distant mist. The sense of dread physically hurts. You start to run, abandoning the trail in your panic, needing this thing to be over one way or another.
Just like in the dream, you trip and fall to your hands and knees in the wet mud. So similar to the dreams, except that your tormentor has failed to appear.
“Where the fuck are you!?” you scream into the empty woods. The fear has made you furiously angry. You squeeze your eyes tight against the tears threatening to fall, understanding that if you don’t get a hold of yourself, you’re going to start sobbing.
You hear the tiny crunch of wet leaves underfoot. Your eyes snap open. Two long black shoes are standing in the muddy mess of leaves directly in front of you. You slowly raise your eyes, up the long black legs of the trousers, past the too-long arms with their long black hands hanging limply at his sides, up, up until you reach the horrible, faceless white head. Terror blooms inside of you. He isn’t human. He’s going to hurt you.
He raises one of those long terrible hands, and the movement makes you flinch away, shutting your eyes tight. But the pain never comes. When you open your eyes again, you see that he’s simply holding his hand out to you, palm up in invitation. You stare for a long time. He never moves an inch, so still he could be a statue, frozen in place with his hand outstretched. You put your trembling hand in his. His long fingers curl around it, and he pulls you carefully to your feet.
You’re too stunned to do anything except stare up at him. You don’t even pull your hand away. Now that you’re this close, you can see that his blank white face is actually made of cloth—a glove-like mask pulled down over his whole head, concealing his true features. His long black fingers are warm around yours, the texture sort of different from human skin. So much warmer than you expected.
You remember how it felt to press yourself against his body in the dream. You wait for him to spread his arms, inviting you into them, for the other long limbs to unfold from behind his back and prepare to ensnare you. You yearn for this, but he doesn’t move a muscle.
You pull your hand out of his, and then you lean into his body, wrapping your arms tight around his long waist, pressing the side of your face against him and shutting your eyes. His body is as warm and sturdy as you remember from your dreams, and something eases inside of you.
Suddenly you hear familiar voices, laced with concern, calling your name.
You pull away and whirl around, just in time to see your roommates emerging out of the mist, carrying flashlights and a compass. Stunned, you turn your head to look back over your shoulder, but the man... the thing... he’s gone. You slowly turn back to your roommates.
“How did you find me?” you ask. Your voice comes out as a hoarse whisper.
One of them rolls their eyes. “We read your note, obviously. And then we heard you screaming... What the hell are you doing out here? You’ve been acting really weird lately. We’re getting worried about you.”
You let your roommates guide you back to the trailhead, squabbling and fussing over you the whole way.