The Phantom from Behind the Walls

It’s hard for me to recount that day, but I’ll try. I was walking home from the barber shop, filled with the confidence of a new cut, and locked into the rhythm of my music. Any city liver knows that you have to get used to being run into. There’s just not enough space on the sidewalk for everyone. This wasn’t a normal nudge, though. While I was in my jam, I was nearly knocked to the pavement by a sharp shoulder. 

            Now I’m a big man, nearly 6’3 when I stand up straight. I’m not trying to brag, but it isn’t easy to push me over. I have a large center of gravity. So, as I steadied myself, I turned back to see who had the strength to knock me off balance. To be honest, I was thinking of recruiting them to my rec league basketball team. Looking back on it, I wish I just kept moving like I did every other time someone bumped into me. I don’t know, maybe it was fate or something. 

            The dude was lurched over in pain wearing an orange winter jacket. It sounded like he was wheezing really hard, like one of those old squeaky toys that grandparents always have an excess of. As usual, no one was stopping to help so I decided to do my good thing for the week and check on him. When I got closer, I realized that what I thought was wheezing was really laughing. Not like laughing at a joke, though. Maniacal, horrifying laughter that pierced every cell of my body. 

            His head jerked up to face me at an angle that would have cracked a normal person’s neck. The sound his body made when that happened was almost worse than the laughing. Describing his face isn’t hard because I still see it in a nightmare occasionally. It looked like what a child’s crude drawing of a face would be if they had been locked in a room since birth with no human contact. The eyes were too big, and they were so white that they glowed. His head was too perfectly round like it had been created with a compass. His teeth were the worst part. There were too many of them, but they were still packed in like human teeth just longer and skinnier. Each one ended at a jagged point that created a horrifying smile of needles. I think of him as a phantom because these features weren’t still on his face. They hovered over it and moved a millisecond behind every other part of him. The thing was, they still looked solid. It was like a weird, meaty hologram. 

            As I fearfully backed away from the cackling phantom, I looked around to see if anyone else was seeing this. I tried to get their attention, but no one batted an eye. The thing didn’t stand as much as unfurl to its full size which was at least six inches taller than me. Its torso was long like a wilted flower, but its legs were long too. It didn’t make sense. Looking at it in segments it should have been much bigger, but all together it didn’t seem too abnormally huge. It was more like the biggest basketball player you’ve ever seen rather than the giant it should have been. I’ve read a lot of science fiction since that day which makes me think that our reality couldn’t handle its true form. I really don’t know though and I don’t think I want to anyway. 

            I was running before I even thought to move my legs. It was like my subconscious had taken over. Normally when someone starts booking it on a busy sidewalk, he gets a chorus of curses thrown at him, but not that day. People just moved out of my way like they had eyes in the backs of their skulls that could see me coming. I couldn’t turn back to see if the phantom was following me, but I could see it in the window reflections to my left. It ran like a horse with no spine. Its torso and arms flopped around like one of those tube balloons in front of car dealerships while it galloped with an unnervingly wide gait. The huge eyes on its face were locked right on me.  In the reflection, it looked like it should’ve been able to reach down and grab me, but it didn’t. 

            I ran for about three blocks before I tried to purposefully run into someone. I had already figured out that the phantom was causing this parting of the Red Sea in front of me, but I needed to know if I was truly alone. Turning a corner seemed to give me an extra few seconds before the phantom was back on my ass, so as I bolted around one, I also lunged for the nearest body. My victim was a woman not much older than me. I had a sinking feeling that I would fly right through whomever I decided to tackle, so I was relieved to make contact. Soon I would wish I had phased through her. 

            A pile of garbage bags cushioned my fall, but the woman was pushed to the side. I scrambled to my feet, trying to locate her as I did so. She was curled over just next to me, wheezing. Just before I leaned down to check on her, I realized that the phantom hadn’t followed me around the corner. There was, however, a second body lying on the sidewalk. He had African features but a pale, gray complexion. Not like he was albino like he had been drained of all color. Most strikingly, there was a syrupy, black ooze pouring out of every hole in his face. But I was fixated on the orange jacket he wore. The realization struck me as the woman’s wheezing morphed into laughter. 

            She bent her neck just as he had done before, and her face had become a canvas for the phantom’s awful visage. That thing had shed the man who laid behind me and possessed the woman I tackled. I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I hadn’t pulled her down, it would have just left her alone. These days, I frequently find myself depressed over the fact that I never saw her face before it was taken by the phantom. She could have been beautiful. 

            I honestly don’t remember how long I ran after that. Looking back, it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but it felt like hours. Whatever the phantom was doing made it so I didn’t get tired. My lungs never burned. My legs didn’t start to ache. I could just keep running with it right behind me. Since I watched what happened to that woman, I didn’t think much. Every move I made was pure instinct. The only thought that crossed my mind was why? It didn’t need to touch that woman to inhabit her, so why was it waiting? Was it just toying with me? Or did it want something else? 

            A few blocks later and another thought crept into my head. The phantom hadn’t touched the woman, but I did. It didn’t emerge in the first man until we bumped into each other. The awful thought that I had possibly infected those people made me want to jump into traffic, but I had to test my theory.  I didn’t know if I had control over it or if it got to choose what it possessed. There was no way I was gonna infect another living thing with this phantom, but maybe I could trap it in something inanimate. 

            Up ahead, I saw a lamp pole and sprinted towards it. The phantom followed right behind as usual. I leaped the last few steps and swatted the side of the pole like it was the rim of a basketball hoop. When I landed, I held tight for a moment waiting for something to happen. It was the first time I’d stopped since I’d tackled the woman. The pole didn’t change, but my perception of the situation did. I turned around to face the phantom. 

We must have looked like the strangest Western standoff; a man and a creepypasta come to life staring each other down in the middle of a busy sidewalk. It didn’t look much different in the woman’s body than it did before. It had long hair and wore a warped blouse on its extended torso. The phantom didn’t advance as long as I stood still. I took a step back and it took one forward. The only reason it had ever chased me was because I ran. It reminded me of my childhood dog who did the same thing. I couldn’t look at it for long. I don’t think my brain was built to handle whatever it was. I knew that my guess was correct. The phantom was reliant on me. 

We stood there for a while with the current of people flowing past us like a river around a rock extended above its surface. In my short glimpses at the phantom, I saw something that hadn’t occurred to me through all the terror of the chase. It looked sad. Not in the way a human or even an animal looks sad, it just radiated sadness. A strange part of me hoped that this thing didn’t want to hurt anyone. That it was forced to act like this but deep down it resented itself for the pain it caused. I still hold onto that hope.

I don’t know if what I did next was something I chose to do or if the phantom compelled me. I took a step toward it, and it mirrored that step. A few more and I was in arms distance. The phantom gave off no heat and seemed like it had no gravity as well. It was like standing next to a cloud. I extended my arm in its direction and again it mirrored me. There were infinities between the time that our fingers touched, but when they did, my life changed for the second time that day. 

I was suddenly able to comprehend the phantom in its true form. It’s impossible to describe but I’ll try my best. Imagine a huge brick wall with a few blocks removed. There’s a hand sticking out of the hole. The hand is what I saw before touching the phantom. Like everyone else, I didn’t know that there was a wall, let alone that there could be anything behind it. The phantom’s touch showed me that this world is bound by walls of physics and matter. We are in a cage and this phantom was one of our keepers. It peaked in to check up on us, but it needed a conduit to do so. For whatever reason, it chose me. 

I was broken from this trance when I felt a hand on my shoulder. For a moment, I thought I had gotten it all wrong and the phantom was going to eat me. But it was just a normal, human hand. Actually, it was a cop’s hand. The phantom was gone, and I had been returned to the spot where I originally encountered it. The cop told me about the bodies that had been discovered up the road, those of the phantom’s two victims. The officer asked me to turn around and I did without protest. 

I spent years after that trying to rationalize the phantom and what it did. I hoped that it would fade away like any other nightmare. Only after I finally told my son did it occur to me that others may have run into these beings. These things behind the walls. Every part of me hopes that there are others. What would I do with the knowledge that I was the only one these phantoms had chosen? So, this message is as much a plea as it is a warning. If you’ve had an encounter with one of these beings, don’t remain silent. And may this serve as another reminder; if you run into someone on the sidewalk, just keep walking.