It’s Still Watching

Tic-tic-tic, the rhythmic sound of the raindrops ticking on the glass was relaxing enough to made me lean my head against the windowsill. I was in the passenger seat, drifting slowly to sleep, a lazy smile pressed on my lips. The basses of the house music busting in the car were so strong that I could feel the vibrations on my face slowly growing numb. Everyone was vibing, from my best friend Charlie, singing in the back with Nate and Seth, to my new boyfriend Matt, driving at my side. 

It was November 18, a typical Saturday night for me and my friends. We were driving home from a rave at the Dome, a popular club just outside of Boston. 

It was 3 in the morning, and we were all high as kites, riding the euphory of a perfect night at the club. 

I remember it all started with me and Charlie trying to drown our shyness with alcohol. After a couple of cheap margaritas and several shots of vodka the trick was done. We were dancing in front of the DJ like we didn’t know half of the people in the club. I am not sure how I ended up, buying some Molly from the bar back guy, but before I knew it, me and Char were in the bathroom rolling pills under our tongues. 

But the best part of the night, was when my forever crush, Matthew Graham, came to dance with me. The time slowed down, the lights rolled over, and for a brief second, we locked eyes, and suddenly it was only us there, together, in a sea of sweated bodies.

Was it for the drinks or the pills, or was it because of something I said, but somehow, we hooked up, and afterwards he asked me to go out with him. It was like a dream. I wondered if the next day I would wake up and realized it was all in my head.

Matt leaned in the car seat feeling confident. He left one hand holding casually the wheel, and the other resting on my knee. He smiled softly at me, and I smiled back. It was a wonderful night. The kind of perfect night that one could never forget. 

The glowing lights from the streetlamps outside were dancing in the rain, swaying their bright hats to our passage. Their bright yellow washed away in the water down the storm drain. 

But as we drove away from the city, the lights spread out thin, and the last traces of civilization left space to the thick woods, while the skyline disappeared behind a massive road sign. 

For a long time, the only things that we could see beside the road, were tall pine trees, huddling close to each other, as they held endless darkness. I gazed beyond the first line of trees, imagining what kind of secret they were hiding. What kind of wild animals were prowling unnoticed. 

A sudden white flash teared the sky, thunder following right after. 

The downpour seemed to intensify, rain ticking on the roof of the car more persistently, the delicate tapping turned quickly into a loud drumming. 

-Shit! It’s really coming down! - cursed Matt under his breath. 

With the headlights as the only light source, under the growing storm, the visibility was greatly reduced. 

-Should we stop on the side until it calms down? –

Matt snorted -Don’t worry babe, I’ve been hitting this road a hundred times now, even with worst weather. – And to show his confidence he pressed his feet on the gas. Charlie behind them wooed excited, and the other two guys laughed. -Come on Matt! Pump it up! –

I gripped the handle as Matt speeded up, his car roaring as to overcome the sound of the rain. He raised the volume of the music so high that I could barely heard Charlie yapping and laughing under the basses. 

The world outside was pitch black. Another rumble in the sky, followed by another lightning. And it was then that it happened. When we saw it.

There was something standing in the middle of the road. I couldn’t see clearly what it was. But in that fraction of second we all saw a tall man, stark naked with ghastly white skin, paler than sheets. He turned to look at us, standing there, motionless. Too startled to move out of the way. 

The last thing that I remember, was Matt hitting the brakes to avoid the man, but instead he lost control of the vehicle. The car steered on the curb and flipped over before smashing against a tree.

. 

I woke up. My ears still ringing, and my head is pounding painfully. 

I didn’t know how much time had passed since the moment of impact. As I tried to straighten up in my seat, I felt sick, my sight becoming blurry. As I touch my forehead, I feel something wet and warm. Just then I realized that I am bleeding. Probably I hit my head against the windscreen when the car smashed against the tree. 

I closed my eyes, trying to slow down my breath, waiting for the world to stop spinning. When I felt a little better, I opens them again checking on the others. 

Matt’s driver seat is empty, the door swung open. I thought with a sigh of relief that maybe he got down the car to seek for help. But when I turn my stomach twisted. Seth’s body is slumped against the seat. His jaw cracked, hanging on the side, blood dripping down from his lips. His eyes were wide open staring into nothingness, as death had caught him by surprise and froze him with that ridiculous expression. I couldn’t see Nate very well since he was crumpled against my seat, his skull cracked open against the window. Bloodied pieces of shatter glass sticking out of his scalp. 

I swallowed the bile roiling up my throat, and I force myself to get out of the car. I had to look for Charlie, she wasn’t in the back with Matt’s friends. 

When I opened the car door the heavy rain hit me in the face with all its might. By the time I walked in front of the car I was already completely soaked. 

The windshield was completely shattered, and Charlie was laying against a far tree. Her back leaned against the trunk, and her head was tilted to the side, her eyes shut. 

I staggered towards her with a lump in my throat. I fell on my knees as tears welled inside my eyes. I heard myself called her softly a couple of times. I didn’t recognize my voice, hoarse and cracking. One of her arms is gruesomely bent on itself, a broken bone spiking out. The whiteness of it seemed almost fake against the striking deep blood red of her teared muscles.

No, no, no, this is not really happening.

Charlie wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when the car crashed, and she slammed hard against the windscreen, her body went airborne.

-Char, please…- 

As I took her face between my hands I can feel the coldness of her skin. I am about to lose all hope when I felt her pulse. It’s very faint but it still there. Her breath too, weak but constant. 

-Oh my God. Thank you! – 

I crouch at her side, looking frantically for my phone inside my pockets. 

-911. What’s your emergency? -

-Hello? Please send an ambulance. There was an accident and me and my friends need a doctor! I think two of them are already dead. – 

I felt my voice breaking. I was shaking so much that I almost dropped the phone. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I felt the cold of the rain soaking inside my bones, and the pain throbbing in every inch of my body.

-Please Ma’am, calm down. I need you to tell me in what conditions your friends are and your address so I can send you an ambulance asap. –

-Yes. Of Course. My friend is… -

After I explain her Charlotte’s status, she guides me to check if she had suffered major trauma at the head or her spine, and to not try to move her if I thought she had it. After I told her the address, the lady reassures me that she just sent an ambulance our way.

Only then I remembered of the stranded man, and I told her what happened.

 She fell silent for an instant. Then, she told me that I needed to not move from where I was. 

-Absolutely don’t go out there alone. The police would be there soon, and they’ll be looking for your friend. - 

-Do you understand? Don’t move, for any reason, the police it’s on their wa-

The call was cut off abruptly. I tried to dial the emergency’s number again, but I couldn’t hear anything from the other side. No service. Damn!

I wiped Charlie’s face from the sticky blood with my sleeve and waited there under the incessant downpour. The time stretched endlessly, and my leg started twitching.

The more I thought about that stark figure in the middle of the road, the more I was worried for Matt. As I left my eyes wandering around the car, I noticed something that I hadn’t before. 

There was a trail in the mud, near the driver seat. It began at the car ending into the woods. What was strange about it, was that it looked like something heavy was dragged out of the car and pulled into the forest. 

As I stood up and got close, I saw something even more disturbing. Mixed into the mud seems to be traces of blood, but because it was dark and mixed with water, I couldn’t tell for sure. 

I turned my eyes from the tracks to Charlie back and fort a couple of times. I was growing anxious again. Then a thought hit me, and I walked up at the side of the road to check. No sign of the creepy pale man. A shiver ran down my spine.

I couldn’t leave Matt alone. Quickly I turned the torch on my phone following the trail disappearing into the woods.

I was holding my phone with two hands, because I was shaking so much that I couldn’t keep the torch straight, and I could barely see anything.

I didn’t walk for too long when I found the end of the tracks but looking around there was no trace of Matt nor the suspicious man.  

Drip-drip-drip

Amidst the heavy down pour of the rain there was a strange sound, almost unnoticeable. But nonetheless it was there. I turned left and right, the torch unsteadily revealing just the woods around me. But then something caught my eye. 

As I walked close, I found a white sneaker half-hidden inside a bush.

I picked up the shoe and I recognize is one of Matt’s.

Drip-Drip-Drip

Crimson droplets fell on the white sneaker, one after the next. One drips on my cheek. Confused and unsettled I pull the torch above my head.

But I wasn’t ready for it.

Breath caught down my throat as my eyes stretched impossibly wide, terror-stricken.

Something was hanging from a branch. A body. No, not exactly a body, only half of it. 

The torso was cut just under his waist leaving it disemboweled, its intestines spilling and dangling across the ground. Its arms limping on the sides.

Maybe it was for the shock, maybe was because it looked so fucked up that I couldn’t believe it. But I couldn’t bring myself to rise the torch to its face. I couldn’t even consider it a person. My brain was telling me it’s just a dead thing, like it didn’t belong to someone alive before. 

Even though I recognized that bright yellow hoodie. I knew who the snicker that I was holding belonged to.

I was just there, frozen in front of it. I wanted to scream, to turn and ran away, but the shock was too great. I was just standing there, looking at it.

But then its arm twitched, and I almost drop my phone. Slowly I raised my phone, the light revealing his shoulder, then the neck. And something else.  

In that instant I wished I had listened to the emergency lady and stay back at the car.

A sickening wet sucking sound, gnawing on raw flesh, crunching bones… 

There was a tall white skinned creature holding Matt by his shoulders. Its long and bony fingers clawing firmly Matt’s body, while its face was buried into his neck. Though at first it looked like a man, it wasn’t. Itsbody was slender and lanky, its limbs stretched inhumanly long as well as its hands and feet. The naked body was completely hairless, and its round head bald. He had sunken dark eye sockets, like they had been scooped out of its skull. And its cold grey eyes were covered by a thin transparent layer like those of a dead fish. 

When the creature realized that he wasn’t alone anymore it stared at me. Those big milky eyes searching deep into my soul. Then he bared his bloody teeth in a low hiss that was far from human. 

I stop thinking and I start to run as fast as I could. As far away as I could from that monster. 

I didn’t dare to look back; I couldn’t bring myself to check if it was still behind me. I put all the strength left in my legs. I flew into the woods.

I was so terrified that I didn’t even know in which direction I was running. 

I could feel the icy damp air filling into my lungs, burning. My heart pounding into my ears.

A long screech ripped throw the darkness, I could hear the branches behind me groaning under the weight of its body.

 It was chasing me! 

A misstep. The undergrowth was wet and slippery because of the rain. Before I knew, I was rolling down a ditch. I stop abruptly when my head smacked against a rock. I felt dizzy, my eyelids growing heavy. I could hear it getting close, leaves rustling under its feet. Closer, and closer. 

With a pained cry I strained myself to get on all four. I was so damn exhausted, so freaking scared.

I pull up just in time before the creature jumped at me from the tree above.

I scramble on the steep side of the ditch, trying to make my way up. But it was so slippery that I kept losing my footing. I couldn’t hold a scream of frustration as I tried to grab a plant or a root, but as the seconds are ticking, the monster behind me, was preparing to charge. 

I thought I was done for, when I finally found a prominent branch swaying. I throwed myself at it pulling up and praying that it didn’t break. One step, another one, another one…

I emerged from the dirt and mud, grabbing whatever I could find, dragging my body out of that hole. But just when I saw the road peeking behind the pine trees something grabbed my ankle and pulled me down again. 

Slender and cold fingers wrapped around my feet, claws digging painfully though the skin.

I screamed, and I kicked with all my strength left, until I finally hit its face, and it released me. I trudge my way up again, scrambling to my feet, making my way out of the woods. 

A police car was heading in my way. Without even a second to think, I threw myself in the middle of the road waving like a crazy person. I slumped on my knees as I start crying. 

The next thing that I remembered; I was sitting in the back of a parked ambulance. A warming blanket wrapped around my shoulders, and two police men asking questions.

-So, you are saying that you were attacked by… can you describe us again this… pale man? -

-It wasn’t human! It killed Matt! It-it was eating him…- My shrill voice sounded estranged even to me. -It’s still there! –

As they looked at me, I could tell they didn’t believe me, but if they just went into the woods, they would have seen it too.  -I know I sounds crazy, but you must believe me! That thing it’s still out there! –

But one of the medics that visited me before called one of them over. I couldn’t hear what he was telling him as he pointed my way, but then he showed him a folder. Then a little surprised the police man nodded to the doctor and came back to me clearing his throat. 

-I saw your blood test results just now miss. I know it may seem that you saw something. The shock from the car crash, added to seeing your friends in that state. Plus, the drugs and alcohol that you’d taken…  -  

-But it’s true… if you only could check on Matthew. –

No matter what I said afterwards. They never believed me. I hugged myself trying to keep from falling apart. They must had felt pity for me because one of them touched gently my shoulder. 

-Some of my men are searching the area as we speak. We will find your boyfriend, one way or another. You should rest now. – 

But no matter how long the police looked for Matt’s. His body was never found it, and the case is still open to this day. 

Sometimes, as I wake up in the middle of the night screaming, I can still see it. It is still there in the woods, still watching me.