I had always had a deep-rooted hatred for door-to-door salesmen. Ever since I moved away from my family and owned a house on my own, they always seemed to come knocking at the most inconvenient of times. Mostly they would be ignored, if I knew they were salesmen. But it was hard to tell exactly why someone was knocking on my door from just the time of day.
In hindsight, I should have had a peephole, or even a security camera, installed when I moved in. Then maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in the situation I find myself in today.
They say that The Folding Man comes knocking, dressed in a dull suit, trench coat and a fedora which shields his face from view. He seems to be somewhat of an urban legend, or horror story to tell around the campfire for a cheap thrill. Specific facts about The Folding Man that i’ve heard have all varied, but there is a general consensus about the briefcase he drags around with him. It is a brown leather business case, one that looks like it should be used for filing. It folds open much akin to an accordion, and has a shiny golden clip keeping the case shut.
I woke up in the middle of the night with a jolt. Drenched in my cold sweat, I downed the rest of the glass of water, recalling exactly why I had woken up so suddenly. My night terrors had been getting worse by the day, and therapy wasn’t helping. I had considered medication, but decided against as I would probably end up forgetting to take it anyway. I would always have a recurring dream, the same one every night. Each night, it would feel more real than the last, and the pain of it would get worse and worse every time I went to sleep.
The dream consisted of me, in 1st person, standing outside my front doorway, when my limbs began to twist and contort uncontrollably. I could feel ligaments and muscle being torn apart, while my bones splintered and skin ripped. First, my arms would be snapped backwards at the elbow, folding in on themselves. Joints dislocated and tissue compressed against each other as I felt blood splattering all over my face and body. I cried out in pain as I realised that my legs were next. My knees were then snapped the wrong way by an unseen force, and my legs pressed against my figure as tightly as they could. The dream ended when my neck was snapped backwards, after I felt my skull begin to be crushed under an invisible weight. I felt my nose cartilage pierce blood vessels and teeth caving in on each other, and then my neck was snapped swiftly, attacking my spinal cord and waking me up from that hellish nightmare I can recall in finite detail.
After waking up from my restless slumber, I jumped as I heard a very loud thump. And then it happened again. And once more. Then it occurred to me- that it was someone knocking on the door.Reluctantly, I grabbed my robe and tied it lazily around my waist, combing my hands through my light brown bedhead as I made my way down the small staircase separating my living room from my upper floor. I disliked being disturbed in the middle of the night, but I had a feeling that there was a possibility that the person on the other side needed my help. And I knew better than to reject anyone in need, so I walked into the living room and opened the door.
I recoiled slightly in shock as I felt a dark presence surround me, despite the well-lit street outside illuminating everything else around my doorstep. I looked up to see a too-skinny man that towered over me and the doorframe itself, in a dull coat to conceal his figure and a hat that rested slightly askew on his head. I couldn’t make out any facial features, apart from freakishly dull skin and a sullen expression, that I would go as far as to say resembled grief, or loss, which rested on a sunken, lifeless face. Unnaturally dark freckles rested upon the little exposed skin that I could see, giving off a similar appearance to black mold when it begins to take over its victim. I could hear the man’s laboured breathing, as he picked up an object next to him and brought it closer to me, in one slow, smooth movement. When my eyes eventually focused on it and I could make out its appearance, I slammed the door on him and locked it behind me immediately.
A briefcase.
It was exactly as it had been described by anybody who had mentioned it to me, brown with a gold buckle, that opened like an accordion to hold files. I considered that this person was just dressing up as The Folding Man and walking around the neighbourhood to get a rise out of people, but I doubted anyone in a neighbourhood like mine would be decent enough at makeup and special effects to pull it off that well- let alone balance well enough on anything to make themselves look as tall as that man that was standing there. I exhaled in relief as a few seconds passed and there was no sign of the man, but inhaled sharply once more after I head three more merciless thumps against the door. This time, however, I did not answer. I simply waited, to see what would happen. He would eventually leave after I ignored him long enough, right?
I felt a pit in my stomach grow as the man would knock on my door again, every few seconds, each set of three louder and more aggressive than the last. I felt a twinge of sympathy for him as he sounded almost desperate to see me again, and show me whatever was in that briefcase. I double checked the lock on the door before making my way upstairs once again, refusing to talk to the man again tonight. The knocking did not cease, however. I could only hear it get louder and louder, and more and more frequent the more I tried to ignore it. It became agonising, to the point where it was impossible to tune out.
No matter how many doors I shut, how many pillows I put over my head, and how much I blasted music through my headphones, the volume and intensity only increased. I felt it in my body now, I was beginning to develop a piercing headache from the sheer volume, and my vision started to blur for a split second each time I heard the man thump on the wood of my door, feeling the intense and now somewhat painful vibrations in my chest . I knew that he wasn’t thumping on my door anymore, and it was driving me mad. Despite my weakened state I knew that the only way to stop it was to open the door to the man again. If he was able to do this to me, I didn’t want to know what else he was capable of if I didn’t follow his wish.
I stumbled back to the front door while covering my ears and threw it open, relieved to hear the knocking fade away and then cease completely as the same man stood there, in the same position that I opened the door to him the first time. He picked up his briefcase from beside him, still holding that same, unmoving expression, that made me wonder if he had lost something dear to him in the past. This time, I watched anxiously as he unclipped the buckle on his briefcase and let the lid fall open, and I recoiled in horror as I watched it begin to leak and spill all over the place.A thick, red slime began to drip from the edges of the briefcase and onto the ground, and I held in my own vomit as I watched something crawl out of it. I saw pieces of exposed bone and miscellaneous strips of flesh emerge from the case, gripping onto the edges with what remained of their hands before the moving pile of human remains spilled out onto the concrete step with an obscene squelching noise. I stepped back as a few droplets of blood sprayed onto my face, horrified and disgusted by the sight.
“H-hhe…..” The pile of flesh began to form words, its voice gargling on its own miscellaneous fluids. God knows how this thing could even still be alive. “He wants… a… Bring him…. an object that means… the most to you…” The thing said in-between heavy wheezes and laboured breaths.I dashed inside, fearing that I would end up like the pile of human remains that rested on my doorstep, and snatched my girlfriend’s locket off of the bedside table. She had passed away a year ago, and this locket was the only thing of hers I had, aside from photos. I felt a few silent tears roll down my cheek as I looked inside, taking one last glance at the photo inside. It was a photo of us on a ferris wheel, on our first date back in high school. I hesitated for a moment, having second thoughts about whether I really wanted to give this away to a poltergeist and a pile of flesh and bones. But my thoughts were interrupted when I heard a series of wet slapping noises rapidly approaching my location.
I grabbed the locket and ran back to the front door, where the man was waiting and I handed the necklace to his outstretched, grey-skinned hand. For the first time I had ever seen, his face contorted into a soft smile. He put the necklace into the blood-soaked briefcase, and closed it. Right as I heard the buckle on the case close, I turned around in a panic and watched the pile of meat and bones scream in agony as its mound of tissue twisted and contorted. I watched in horror, mouth gaping, as one broken bone was put back together, and then another, and another. The figure stretched and compressed, as it writhed in its place on my floor.
It looked like its formerly compressed heap of a body was being unfolded, reconstructed, right before my very eyes. The more the thing unfolded, the more I could make out its features. His formerly bloodied flesh was now a healthy tan colour, and I could make out that he had rich brown eyes and looked like he was from Hispanic descent. The man took a large breath of fresh air after his fully formed, fully healed body turned to face me, and he said softly, “Thank you.” I stood in complete shock, my pale flesh standing even paler now as I was frozen in place, still trying to process what just happened.
My new roommate Rafael was quite a nice guy. He told me a few days after arriving on my doorstep that his run-in with The Folding Man was quite a similar one to mine. Except, there was no-one there to warm him of what The Folding Man wanted, and he was Folded as a result. He explained that even though the experience was excruciatingly painful, it left no lasting symptoms or any scars of no sort. We speculated that The Folding Man was missing a part of himself, and wanted to feel whole again, maybe, and that was what drove him to take sentimental things from others.
I’m glad to have given up the necklace though. I miss my girlfriend every single day, but I know she would be proud of me for saving a life with what she had given me. My night terrors also stopped completely after being visited by The Folding Man, so I take that they were a harbinger of his arrival. I do wonder though, what will happen if he visits me again and I have nothing to offer to him. Will I end up being folded like Rafael? Until it happens, if ever, I will never know. Some say an attachment to material objects is a bad thing, but in my case, it saved my friend’s life, and my own as well. My final word of advice to anyone reading is to stay attached to your things and love them greatly just as if you were to love another person. Because even if losing it hurts, the pain might be enough to save you from an even more painful fate.