The Akhtabbut

“Well? Which website will it be?” Nathan poked his friend to keep up with the leaving class, “I know most of ‘em.”

“Still need to do my research on that,” Olin replied, his mind half-distrait “I’ll need to wire up the basement. Do me a favor and send me your calculus homework, will ya?”

“Call me when you’re home!” Nathan shouted as his friend disappeared in the student crowds.

Olin’s eyes kept coming back to his watch, fearing he would miss his bus ride, and wait for the next one. That way, by the time he would reach his home – or his grandmother’s to be exact – it would’ve been already dark. Nathan usually got physical with other comedian wannabes from laughing at Olin’s problem with the dark, as he could guess their true nature.

“Yo, where you been?” The speaker talked through the phone on Olin’s shoulder while he was fine-tuning some cable work.

“Didn’t catch the bus,” He replied as he stood up and pushed his desk all the way across the basement.

“Oh,” Nathan’s tone slightly shifted “You okay?”

“Yeah, there was nothing today.” He delicately positioned his monitor, CPU, routers, and other devices on the desk and started wiring everything in sight.

“Well if you find him try to take a picture so we can show something to the cops.”

“Okay, listen, I don’t know if the guy even exists. I don’t want to end up bothering anyone by mistake, like last Halloween with the goth girl.”

“Hey, just because it was the most hilarious thing that year doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and find evidence.” He explained, trying to get that memory out of his head so he wouldn’t start laughing.

“I know,” Olin was done with the setup “I didn’t see him anywhere lately, but I’ll keep my eyes opened.”

“And the blog?”

“I’ll probably go for a forum instead.”

Olin sat down in front of his computer in his new, messy lair, as piles of paper, toys, electronic devices, and all kinds of stuff granted it the look of a junkyard – Yet still better than the room upstairs right next to his strange grumpy grandmother, and her yelling whenever he played his nu metal playlist, or invited his friends over. Not that they didn’t deserve it sometimes, especially when they delved into the deep web, possibly sneaking a peak at some sketchy content a few times. It was not with ill will rather than mere exploration, as they stopped shortly after. That was why Olin had solid security procedures. Even as a tech-savvy, you can’t be too careful.

It was tonight’s task to find a proper horror-story website to anonymously post one himself, about the things he experiences, and the stalker who has been following him since the drowning of his parents. Many times was he seen by Olin in the distance before the darkness swallowed him again. One time he tried to chase him down, but the suspect was too fast for him to even call it a pursuit. As the stalker in black continued his distant visits on several occasions, Olin became wary of the night. But last year incident, where he went after a girl in black only to learn about her skills in taekwondo the unpleasant way, inspired doubts about the stalker’s existence in the first place. Added to that was what he had read about the potential traumatic effects he may have developed after his parent’s death.

He didn’t want to inflate the problem if there is one. In fact, he was inspired enough to write a short story. And so he began his venture in various writer blogs, horror story sites and niche forums. He wondered how much of those stories were actually true, behind the “based on a true story” label. It was hours past midnight when he had a particular idea.

He ran a VM and opened his Tor browser, and stepped into the deep web. He wanted to keep a low profile, while peeking at the forums around here. “There must be more interesting platforms here.” he thought.

In the middle of the deep ocean of creepy – and sometimes horrific – tales, Olin found a small obscured forum, titled “Tales from Clamstone”, which he found curious as this is his town’s name. He started reading from the beginning: An anonymous user posted a screenshot of another post, describing the tale of a young boy named Olin. The forum had dozens of writers contributing to its canon, adding to the same subject. Olin anxiously kept reading the dreadful details of his parents’ death, his middle-school crush, even the delinquent sneaking into the deep web…

It was as if all of it was there.

***

When the morning arrived, Olin was still awake.

 He fortunately remembered to take his backpack, and went out the door, barely seeing what’s in front of him.

“Well then? Olin!” The entire school cafeteria heard Nathan waking up his friend for the fifth time. “What else was there?”

“Something haunted Olin in the stories.” A tired Olin went on “It’s called the Akhtabbut. It apparently manifests to hunt those who see its mark.”

“And who leaves the mark?”

“No one can leave the mark, basically because no one survives after seeing it. People wrote about it; a dead octopus eating its own eight tentacles. No one has posted pictures though; just repeating the rumors.”

“Well,” Nathan spoke hesitantly “Are you sure it was you in the stories?”

“The details… were too specific. I thought whoever did this may be someone I know who was that much of a dick, but there were different writers, tens of them. I reached out to some yesterday. Most of ‘em didn’t even know Clamstone was a real town.” Olin sighed in discontent “I don’t believe in ghost shit.”

“Could it be the stalker who wrote this?”

“I don’t know,” The thought brought Olin chills “I guess we should find the source of the stories.”

“Uhm.. did the forum say anything happening in the future?”

“Yes,” Olin replied, “it said the Akhtabbut would find me and kill me.”

Olin managed to convince Nathan to come over, so that the search would be less tedious. It was almost sunset when they both were running after a departing bus. Their tired lungs forced them to stop as their ride vanished at the turn of the street.

“We can walk.”

“Next bus will be here soon.”

“There’s two of us, dude. The guy could catch a beating if he was stupid enough.”

“And slow.” Olin’s amusement slowly faded, as he stopped.

Along the empty road they walked in, was a fenced line of large oak trees, their sunset shadows cast on the left lane. But despite the darkness, the two accidentally caught a glimpse of a still figure. It was a humanlike silhouette, who stood in the distance until it was noticed by the two. It started approaching slowly – Its movement was locked inside the darkness.

Nathan was ready to curse the figure when he noticed a shiny, sharp instrument in its left hand. He grabbed Olin’s arm.

“Come on,” He pulled him “let’s get outta here.”

Olin didn’t budge – His eyes were stiffly fixed on the nearing body.

Nathan grabbed him, as the figure got too close. The two fell on the ground before Nathan sprinted away, shouting to his friend to follow. Olin was on the ground, his heart sinking, and his teary eyes staring at the dark figure as he was only a few meters far before all the street lampposts flashed at once, announcing nightfall. The next thing Olin saw was the shadowy figure behind the fence. It was lurking between the bushes for a moment. Olin didn’t feel himself getting up and walking out of the lamp’s spotlight, and towards the retreating shadow.

Nathan cautiously retraced the turn of the street, to reach the same spot, where he found no one.

***

“Hello?” Nathan turned the speaker on as he kept walking back and forth in his kitchen.

“What a cowering bitch.” Olin’s contemptuous voice echoed across the kitchen. Nathan turned his speaker off.

“You have no right.” Nathan defended himself “He had a knife!”

“Just admit you’re a coward. I’m glad someone else finally saw it.”

“Look, I wasn’t forcing my opinion on you before. But that is your life we’re talking about, man! If you don’t report this to the police, I will.”

“I’ll do that tomorrow morning. Now I will just see what I can find about the forum. By myself.”

“Bye.”

“Cuz my friend is a coward-” Olin threw the phone on the desk, giggling, after Nathan hung up on him. The basement was faintly lit by the moon from one end, and Olin’s screen from the other, as he revisited the mysterious forum, and sorted the entries by publishing date. The oldest post was by a person called bogShip97, and consisted of a screenshot of Olin’s birthday certificate with something scribbled over it: The Akhtabbut comes for one more.

Olin tried to reach bogShip97 to no avail. Actually he discovered that the user was kicked out of the forum for threatening a moderator. He tried to contact another user, QwaZZar, who contributed to the canon with a picture of Clamstone beach.

[AnonyMouse, 22;23]: hi

[QwaZZar, 22;29]: hi

[AnonyMouse, 22:30]: wqnted to ask about ur 1st post

[QwaZZar, 22:30]: wat about it?

[AnonyMouse, 22:31]: where was the original pic taken?

[QwaZZar, 22:48]: in clamstone the real town. took it while i was on holdiay. why u ask?

[AnonyMouse, 22:51]: im looking for the person who started the stories on the site

[QwaZZar, 23:04]: why

[AnonyMouse, 23:04]: he posted my bday cert without my permission

[QwaZZar, 23:05]: lmao must be a mistake plus bogship is long gone

[AnonyMouse, 23:06]: u started posting when he was still around. did u know him?

[QwaZZar, 23:15]: sorry cant help u

QwaZZar is currently offline. Check back later.

Olin turned off the screen to rest his eyes. He watched the weak moonlight sneaking inside the skylight across the basement. It felt dreadfully quiet. Olin looked at the closed door to the stairs, where lines of orange light usually came from a lamp behind the door to border it. There was no light. Olin tripped over one box on his way to the door, and the small pieces of paper filled the dark floor, not that he cared. He opened the door to find the power went off the whole house, he checked the computer and the power was off.

He carefully walked up the stairs with his phone as his flashlight. The other houses out the window were normally lit. Olin turned to the stairs to check his grandma, when he found a masked person in black coming down the stairs. They froze for a second, then ran upstairs, with Olin right after him. Olin caught the shape of his mask, or at least the black tentacles dangling from it. When he reached the lobby upstairs, the intruder jumped out the window, and to the front yard. Olin turned to go down the stairs, when he caught a glimpse of his grandma lying on the floor, with a shiny, sharp object buried in her chest. He came inside the dark room, and as he struggled through his chills to dial 911, he felt choking. He gasped for air as his parents image flashed in front of him. He was in the back seat. Mom and dad screaming. Seawater filled the car. Bubbles…

He sat down, struggling to breathe. His mom grabbed him to the front seat and pushed him out the window. The car sinking in the darkness.

Olin opened his eyes, on the ceiling of his grandmother’s room was an enormous tribal-like drawing of a dead octopus devouring its own tentacles.

***

The next day, Nathan and his mother were waiting outside Chief Huffman’s office, where Olin has been sitting for a while. They watched officer Huffman as she walked in and closed the door.

“We caught him,” she told Olin, giving him a picture of a pale-faced man “Lawrence Benning, 26, not from around here. Clean record, but the kid posts all kinds of weird shit on the internet. Seen him before?”

Olin managed to shake his head.

“Well, he had a mask on him, maybe you’ll recognize that when you see it. The bastard looks like a nutjob, says he wanted to prove the existence of some being, if it makes any sense. We’ll get to that later. Can you tell me again what happened after the power went out?”

Olin repeated how he chased the man upstairs, how the man jumped, and how he fainted after dialing 911.

“And the drawing?” She questioned “Are you sure it wasn’t there before?”

Olin shook his head once more.

“Apparently, it belongs to some kind of deep web cult. I got a couple of people working on that.” She said as they both got out to the lobby where Nathan and his mom were sitting. “You got a place to stay in for a while? We can arrange for a motel room…”

“He can stay with us, officer Huffman.” Nathan’s mom said.

“Very well, I’ll leave you with officer Willis to help take your luggage. We’ll be in touch.”

The police car stopped in front of Olin’s house. Officer Willis took him past the ‘do not cross’ tape, and into the house. Olin got out of the basement with some clothes and his backpack. They left for Nathan’s place.

“Hey, man, if you wanna talk about anything-”

“I don’t.”

“Well, I’m right outside if you need me.” Nathan closed the door on Olin, who heard an incoming message on his phone.

[QwaZZar, 19:58] u still there mouse?

[AnonyMouse, 20:00] yeah

[QwaZZar, 20:01] maybe I can help you with bogship, if ur still interested

[AnonyMouse, 20:02] how is that?

[QwaZZar, 20:02] cant talk here, your system isnt secure.

[AnonyMouse, 20:03] i’ll get back to you when i fix it. how did u find me

[QwaZZar, 20:04] youre not hard to find olin. letme know when you can talk

Olin rushed out of the room, heading straight for Nathan.

“We need to go to my place.” He spoke intensely

“Did you… forget something?”

“I need to use my PC to get to the deep web.”

“What?”

“Someone will help me find who bogShip is.”

“I’m sorry, who’s bogfish?”

“bogShip97, nathan. He started the whole forum. We have to know who he is.”

“Ok can’t you do this from my PC? Or wait till we call officer Huffman in the morning or someth-”

“We need to go now, Nathan, we’re losing our chance!”

“Aren’t we supposed to call the police for permission? Besides you look like hell, man. You need to rest…”

Olin looked at his friend like he was an alien. He grabbed his jacket and went out. Nathan went to let his mom know he’ll go to bring Olin home. He missed the bus, which Olin barely caught. No one was on board except for a woman sitting by a window. Olin hesitantly sat down next to her.

It was about nine, and the house looked empty when he arrived. He went past the police tape and down the stairs.

After opening the door to the dark basement, he walked on the paper-covered floor straight to his desk, and pressed the power button. He was about to open the browser when he noticed a figure standing in the moonlight, in the other end of the basement. It started moving towards him, his face as black as ink. Eight fleshy tentacles extended from it, floating in the air, and fiery heat was burning beyond its eyes. Screams of victims were suppressed inside its head. It finally reached Olin’s desk before his mind could reflect. He felt an unbearable heat coming from the entity’s disproportionate hand when it took hold of Olin’s face and neck, strangling him as smoke emerged out of it.

When Nathan arrived, he went straight for the basement. He walked on the little paper pieces on the ground that had names such as bogShip97, QwaZZar, AnonyMouse, among dozens of usernames and their respective passwords. He found Olin in one corner, gasping for breath as he flailed and swung his arms, fighting the air around him. He immediately called 911, before noticing the drawing on the basement’s ceiling; a dead octopus eating its own eight tentacles.