Come Outside

In the space where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, Herman Bandey's afternoon routine is but a veil, soon to be lifted by the uninvited. Here, in this humble house at the edge of the woods, the threads of philosophy intertwine with the supernatural, edifying the idea that the truths we seek may lead us down a path where shadows dance and reason fades.

Herman’s key rattled in the lock, a familiar sound that usually brought a sigh of contentment. It felt strangely hollow this late afternoon, as if the house itself was holding its breath. Herman, whose shoulders were still tight from a long day’s work, took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Before he stepped in, he turned his head, calling out, "Evening, Mrs. Michaels!" His voice was aimed at the small porch next door where Mrs. Michaels, a spry woman in her late eighties, often sat in her rocking chair.

Her head popped up from the puzzle book of crosswords she routinely worked at, a warm smile creasing her face. “Good evening, Herman! How was the salt mine today?” she chuckled, her voice still sharp and clear.

“About the same,” Herman replied, managing a smile of his own. “Hope your crossword’s being kind.”

"It's giving me a run for my money, but I'll beat it eventually,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Herman waved and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He moved up the stairs of his garage into the apartmentesque room above that acted as his home. He kicked off his boots, the worn leather hitting the floor with a satisfying thud as he headed to the kitchen. He looked forward to the familiar yet relaxing routine of his afternoon after a hard day's work.

A frozen TV dinner is tossed into the microwave. He takes a cold beer out of the fridge and pours it into a clean glass – the last clean glass in the cabinet. He writes on the calendar attached to the refrigerator door, telling himself to do some dishes on Saturday. “I can make it a few more days,” he says out loud.

With a sharp ding from the microwave, Herman removes the plastic tray and, with the glass of beer in hand, sits in front of the lime-green walls that support his TV screen. With his quick meal on a TV dinner tray, he began catching up on the news. A glob of synthetic potatoes rests on his chin as he chews on his Salsbury steak, watching with a blank expression as another tragedy somewhere in the world unfolds on his television. “Bummer,” he grumbled to no one. “Just goes to show, you can’t -”

He was cut off by a sound at the living room window. It sounded like something on the outside of the glass, gently tapping – so gentle that he wouldn’t have heard it had the TV not been so quiet at that precise moment.

His head flicked so abruptly to the side that it caused a snag in his neck. He grunted angrily as he rubbed at it, surveying his window. He set his tray of food next to his beer, rose from his armchair with a discernable sigh, and stomped to the glass frame. He searched with suspicion and growing paranoia through the remote and inky blackness of the outside. He could make out the treeline just past his back porch, the branches swaying like lengthy gaunt hands, beckoning him over. He heaved an annoyed sigh and jaunted back to his chair.

Then he heard it again. Herman froze where he was, his rear inches from sitting back in his armchair.

“Come outside.”

It was a chilling, icy whisper, accompanied by light scratching at the window.

Herman flew to an upright position and looked again to his window – and beheld a sight that made icicles form within the spaces of his vertebrae. What stared back at him was a face that resembled that of a woman’s, though her eyes were jet black, and her skin was gray and coarse as concrete. Her hair, which may have once been auburn, was now matted with dried mud, and there were large empty spots of it across her dry scalp, which had either fallen out or may have been forcibly removed. She stared at Herman, no expression in those voided eyes, her nose pressed against the window alongside her gnarled, claw-like hand.

A bewildered gasp escaped Herman. He rubbed his eyes with inflamed urgency. When he opened his eyes again, the creature at his window was gone. He stood still – so very still – for several long moments before he concluded it must have been an act of an overworked imagination. He brought his plastic tray, still half filled with cooling food that he no longer had an appetite for, and went to dump it in the trash can. The trash sat just below the window where he thought he saw the creature, so despite himself, he hovered back a few feet, stretching his arm out to reach the trash can, keeping his gaze locked on the window. Though he had no more desire for his dinner, he chugged what was left of the beer in his glass, leaning to his right to drop the glass in his piling sink.

The house remained quiet, save for the gentle hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of settling wood. With the fright of the figment in the window fading, Herman felt a sense of calm wash over him as he walked across the living room and into his bedroom, the returning sense of comfort of his home wrapping around him like a soft blanket.

He drifted off to sleep easily, but the peacefulness didn't last. He was plunged into a dreamscape twisted with unease. He sat upright in a jolt, unsure if he really had awoken or was still dreaming. The window in his bedroom seemed to warp, expanding to a grotesque rectangle that framed a scene of horror. Pale faces, just like the one in the living room window, smudged with dirt and grime with empty black eyes, pressed against the glass. This time, one seemed a man and the other a woman, but not the same one from earlier. They wore no expression upon their malnourished faces as they began to whisper, their voices a chorus of dry, rustling leaves. “Come outside,” they hissed. “Come outside…”

He felt himself collapse back into his bed…

Herman woke up in a sweat, heart pounding, the eerie whispers lingering in his mind. He shook it off, blaming such a terrible dream on his episode earlier at dinner, and struggled to get back to sleep. He never remembered his dreams usually, but this one was too vivid, too disturbing.

He began to thrash in bed, his agitation rising as he began to sweat despite the night's chill. He tried to block out the sound, but the chorus of “Come outside” rang relentlessly in his mind. He released a strangled gasp, the feeling of dread clinging to him like a shroud as he made a disturbing realization – he could not move. His limbs were heavy as if weighted down by lead. He tried to turn his head, to sit up, but nothing responded to his frantic commands. He was trapped.

Then, his eyes widened in terror. He heard soft, sluggish footsteps moving in his living room, shambling in the direction of his bedroom door.

Pitiful moans cracked through his frozen lips while his heart pounded so aggressively in his chest that he feared it would soon give out. The door handle began to turn.

In came another of the pale figures. Silver moonlight shone through the bedroom window to his right, illuminating the gaunt monster. It was male, with thin strands of dead hair hanging from a mostly bald, decaying scalp. It wore a dirty and moth-eaten brown suit, the tie hanging loose around its neck, which had become too thin for the collar of its shirt. Its face was emotionless like the others.

Herman’s sanity drained as his heart seemed to be thumping between his ears, while he could only lay there and watch as the living nightmare crept indolently closer to him. It reached the side of his bed, and to Herman’s maddening dismay, it sat down on him, setting all of its weight on his chest as it stared down at him.

Sitting on his chest, its weight pressing down on him, making breathing even more of a labored chore, it began to lean in close to Herman’s face.

Its face, inches from his own, was gaunt and unnatural, its thin lips moving slowly, revealing brown-and-green speckled teeth. It was just barely audible as it whispered, “Come outside… Come outside…” The creature's breath was cold and stale, a chilling gust against his skin.

Tears welled up in Herman's eyes, a silent scream trapped in his throat. He was paralyzed, his body unresponsive, utterly at the mercy of the thing that sat upon him. All he could do was stare into its dark, empty eyes and listen to the relentless, horrifying invitation: "Come outside..." The monster then grabbed his shoulders and squeezed. Its long, dry fingernails dug into Herman’s skin as it began to shake him, aggressively thrusting Herman about his own bed. Yet still, it only whispered. “Come outside… Come outside…”

Finally, Herman could feel the power to move himself. He pressed his hands and feet against the bed and launched himself out – it was easier than imagined, for as soon as Herman began to move, the creature had vanished. He stood alone in his bedroom as if that’s how it had always been.

Herman bent forward and heaved in large gulps of air. He felt he might be sick and decided he should make his way to the bathroom. He planned to splash his face with water from the sink, then hover over the toilet, just in case. But he felt terrified at the thought of even moving. He grabbed his cell phone to use as a flashlight and began to tiptoe, moving ever so slowly across his bedroom floor. He reached for the handle of his bedroom door but froze again as he realized the door was already ajar. Herman never sleeps with his door open.

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the door knob and creaked the door open, moving at an inch a minute.

Darkness greeted him and nothing more. Silence hung in the air like a thick cloud, threatening whatever remained of Herman’s mental stability. He turned on the flashlight app on his phone and with great caution, he took a step out of his bedroom. Then another. Then another.

The bathroom door, approximately twenty feet in front of him, began to creak open. It was a slow, seeming methodical movement, the tired hinges crying out, inciting Herman to abandon all and run. The door had moved forward over a foot before it stopped, and through the darkness of the bathroom, out came into partial view was the face of yet another of the gangly monsters. This one was female – the third, different female of them that Herman had seen. Her face was partially covered by the door, and it was so low to the ground that it seemed she was squatting. Her black eye reflected the rays of his flashlight like a cat’s wide pupils would when hiding in the dark and safe underside of a bed.

“ᶜᵒᵐᵉ ᵒᵘᵗˢᶦᵈᵉ.”

Herman screamed in otherworldly terror as he threw himself back against the closet door in the hallway. He could see the silhouettes of the previous four of the creatures, all standing outside his living room window. The bathroom door began to creak open again, and Herman knew the one in there would be coming for him. But he wouldn’t play their game – he knew they waited for him on the back porch, but if he was fast enough, then maybe he could make it down the garage steps and to his car. Yes, he would have to go outside for that, but he could outrun them; he knew he could. He spun on his heel, threw open the upstairs garage door, and began to run.

***

On Saturday morning, Deputy Avey was the first to arrive. Dispatch had received a call from a Mrs. Michaels asking about a welfare check for her neighbor. He introduced himself to the elderly caller, who began to explain her concerns to him. “I’m telling you flat, Officer – Herman hasn’t been seen in three days, and I know he doesn’t miss a day of work. Maybe he’ll take a sick day once a year? But I haven’t seen him leave his house and he won’t answer when I knock on his door. Please, I think something is seriously wrong and he’s such a nice man, will you please see if he’s okay?”

“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am,” Avey responded. “I’m sure he’s just sick – really sick. You know there’s a bad case of the flu going around.”

Mrs. Michaels nodded but looked unsure as she wrapped her arms around herself.

Deputy Avey crossed the yard that divided the two houses and began to knock on the front door. “Mr. Bandey?”

No response. He hit the door harder. “Mr. Bandey! It’s Park County Sherrif’s. Can you come outside, please?”

Still no answer. He turned and looked at the old Chevy parked in front, then to Mrs. Michaels, whose frown deepened in concern. He sighed and began to suspect the worst. He clicked on his radio, saying, “Dispatch, this is S23; I believe I have a possible Code black at my location; I’m going to go walk the property and see what I can find. Over.”

“Ten-Four.” Dispatch affirmed.

The deputy moved around the house and began to see what else he could find on Herman Bandey’s property, anything that could lead to his whereabouts. The vegetation behind the house had been uncut and well overgrown; it had had the opportunity to grow tall and thick much longer than the three days in which Bandey had apparently been missing. Avey pushed his way through the thick brush until he came to a clearing, and there he saw something that made him realize there might be something much bigger to this wellness check than originally thought. It was a large patch of disturbed dirt, with the width of a large truck, as if something big had just been buried back here. “Dispatch, I’m going to need a forensics crew down here, ASAP.”

“Copy. They’re on their way.”

***

Back at the station, Deputy Avey sat at his desk, feeling beyond mystified. Behind the property of Herman Bandey’s house was a freshly filled mass grave. Inside of it were six dead bodies. There were three women and two men who, after plenty of investigative work, had been confirmed to be murdered by Bandey. There seemed to be no relation between any of these five victims, no motive for their killings – they didn’t appear to even have a history of knowing who Herman Bandey was. Each had been killed by different means, and one out of the three women had been raped; before or after being killed, Avey couldn’t say. Regardless, there seemed to be no M.O. in sight. But that wasn’t the truly bewildering aspect of this case.

What stumped Avey in his tracks, what made him question where to even begin on this ongoing investigation, was the sixth body. The sixth corpse was much, much fresher than the other five, and it seemed this victim had endured the exact same type of injury in the exact same location on its person as each of the previously mentioned five bodies. As disturbing as this was on its own, the most puzzling fact to Deputy Avey was that the sixth body was confirmed to be that of none other than Herman Bandey.