The first time I heard the rustling out back at night, I didn’t think anything of it. My back garden joins onto a thin strip of woodland that runs along the length of the quiet suburban street where I’ve lived for the past five years, and it isn’t uncommon for the local cats to prowl around in there after dark in search of rodents and other prey. It wasn’t until I was standing at my back door late one Friday night in June after the sun had long since gone down that I heard something that made my skin crawl.
As I was smoking a cigarette, tuned into the typical ambiance of distant crickets and the occasional passing car, a peculiar sound drew my attention past the perimeter of my garden and into the woods. It was slight, as if stifled, and in the moment I half attributed it to my own weariness following a long and particularly hot day, but then I heard it again. A cough, like someone was clearing their throat. It couldn’t have been the neighbors. All the adjacent homes were in utter darkness with their windows firmly closed. Besides, it was obvious that the sound had come from right ahead of me. Literally, it couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away, about ten into the brush beyond my small backyard.
Tentatively, I called out, feeling like an idiot for being afraid of some obscure sound that logically was probably nothing more than a trick of the mind, but then, I heard the rustling. Something big. I pulled my phone out and turned on the flashlight, aiming it into the overgrown woodland, and as I slowly advanced to get a better look, the rustling became more frantic before it eventually broke into an undeniable run. The heavy footfalls gradually disappeared into the field beyond the woods and I immediately went back inside and locked the door behind me. I didn’t call the police, instead I spent the next hour or so convincing myself that I’d imagined it all, or that a fox was prowling around, or whatever else I thought would make me feel less creeped out by it all. It worked, and at some point in the night I fell asleep.
The next morning around Ten, I decided to go and have a look for myself, if anything just to assuage the dread that hadn’t entirely disappeared from my gut. However, that wasn’t to be the case. Roughly fifteen feet from my back gate, I discovered a large impression in the grass, as if something heavy had lain on top of it for a long time. Then, I found the first piece. A scraggly hood with netting and thin thorny branches caught in the strands of green woolen twine. As I made my way through the forest and into the field, I found the rest of it. A full ghillie suit. Cheap, but a ghillie suit nonetheless. Abandoned by whoever had been wearing it. I installed sensor lights that same day. Bright ones. Everytime they’re activated in the night, I can’t help but feel a flash of panic that makes me want to vomit. I think I’ll set up a camera too.