My name is Arthur. I’m a junior in College now, but was a sophomore in High School when the events I’m about to describe took place. To this day, I still don’t know what I saw in those woods, or what caused my grandfather to disappear, or why I still feel its presence watching over me when I’m alone. I’m getting ahead of myself. We should start from the beginning. It was the summer of 2018, I was just out of Freshman year and ready for that school sanctioned two month break. That is summer of course, that feeling of freedom, no homework, no tests, no drama.
It’s safe to say I was excited and relieved to finally be done, at least for a little while.One thing I always dreaded was the week-long stay over at my grandfather’s house. Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandfather–or rather, loved–but there was absolutely nothing to do there. Granted it made sense, his house was out in the middle of nowhere. And by the middle of nowhere I mean, middle of the forest Kentucky. The way to his house was simple: pull off the highway into the dense woods down an 8 mile dirt road until you find an old wooden bridge. Past the bridge by about 2 miles you’d finally arrive at my grandfather’s house.
Apart from a few houses and shops sprinkled around along the road here and there, it was pretty desolate. And practically everyone kept to themselves. Pretty fitting for elders, at least that was what I told myself to keep from feeling like everyone around there hated each other, because it surely felt like they did. There had been a break-in a few months ago, someone was robbed and long story short, the whole community had been tense ever since.
Names were thrown around, blame was passed on and off of people, some blamed a group of rowdy teens that had come down into the valley to cause a ruckus, some thought the local drug addict finally got around to searching for money where he had no business searchin’.
But one man, my grandfather, believed it to be supernatural. Sightings of the unknown had been common around those parts since the early 80s. Sure, there were a few silly ghost stories here and there. But the primary, and to me the most terrifying one, was the story of the Nightman.
There were sightings and stories told of him. A 9ft tall man, limbs as long as tree branches, and a face so terrifying it could haunt your dreams for generations.
The stories were told as precaution, it was common knowledge in the valley that you did not go out at night. Doors were to be locked by 10PM and windows shut. Some people in the valley didn’t believe it, in fact, they laughed at it. It’s just a silly folk tale after all. People went out for groceries at night, left windows open, and nothin’ happened. So they just believed it all to be bullsh*t. Lucky ones, I say.
Except my grandfather, he took it so seriously that I was to be in bed by ten every night with the curtains shut on every window-like object in my room. And I trusted him, the supernatural always interested me, and personally, I’m not one took take chances with that sh*t. So I followed his rules, and that was that.
It was a particularly hot day when my parents dropped me off at his house. While unpacking I could feel the sweat drip off my brow, and at that point I just wanted to get inside with A/C. My grandfather helped me finish unpacking, we all said our goodbyes, and my parents left for the week. It was just me and my grandfather.
I expected a week full of board games, tv game shows, and the occasional campfire. That night my grandfather cooked dinner, we ate, and after a couple hours of Chess and TV binging, he went to bed.
I was awake still, 9:25 PM, “I’ve got time”, I thought to myself. So I pulled out one of my comic books and laid in bed for a moment to read. My lamp started to flicker and, just like that, a power outage. Not uncommon in these parts, but it would almost certainly be awhile before it was back up again. And it was getting hot. Like, really hot. You see, something you need to know about my room was that there was a glass sliding door across from my bed. The curtains on it were to stay shut at night, as was the door itself, remember the old story about the Nightman? Yeah, my grandfather didn’t play around about that door.
9:35 PM, at this point I was wildly uncomfortable. As much as it was hot, there was a cool breeze in the night. I was about to go against my own “don’t fuck around with the supernatural’ rule and I figured, “Why not? I can open the door a little bit to let some fresh air in.” I would later learn this to be a horrible mistake.
I crept slowly out of bed and across the room to the door, moved the curtains out of the way and slid it open, I looked out into the night. There was a hill behind my grandfather’s house, just small enough that you could see slightly over it into the woods behind it. The crickets chirped loudly, as the breeze came in through the door. I laid back in bed and my eyelids began to get heavy. By 9:55 PM, I was dead asleep, the breeze had finally cooled my room off. Here’s the thing though, I forgot to shut the door back.
10:25 PM. I awoke to what sounded like..breathing? To this day I still don’t know what the noise was. That was the first thing I noticed, though It was off in the distance. The second thing I noticed was that the crickets stopped, and the wind had fallen silent. I was completely unnerved. You know there’s a saying in nature that when a predator is lurking nearby, all possible prey will get incredibly silent in an attempt to not get noticed by it, whatever it is. Well that entered my mind at probably the worst possible time, which is right now, if you hadn’t noticed. And my mind was now racing with possibilities. Animal? Human? Or was it something else? “Can’t be.” I thought, “That stupid story is fake!” I whispered to myself.
The breathing was loud, and heavy, like a large animal almost. I felt defenseless, “Was my grandfather right?” I thought. I could barely move, frozen in fear I laid there for what felt like hours. Just listening, listening to whatever was out by the treeline. I could feel its gaze on me. The foot of the bed was to the door, and I had the covers up far enough that I couldn’t see it.10:35 PM, the breathing stopped, it was silent, I prayed for god to save me now, to just get me out of this one, I wanted heaven to open up and take me right then and there, so I wouldn’t have to suffer whatever fate was waiting for me outside that door, it was to no avail though, and I remained in that bed.
Then I heard walking. Incredibly slow walking, but walking nonetheless. When I say I almost died of a heart attack at that moment, I mean it. I don’t know what came over me, but I finally gained the courage to peek towards the door. And my heart sank into the depths of the earth.10:55 PM, he was there, right there. Standing at 9ft tall and hunched over, jaw slacked out, arms gangly and out-stretched. Slowly creeping towards me. It’s like he knew I couldn’t do anything, like he knew I was so frozen in fear that I wouldn’t get up to shut the door. He was making this as terrifying as possible. It was almost as if he was walking in slow motion.
My breathing sped up rapidly as I stared directly at him. Stumbling towards me, he was over the hill now, and stepping onto the back patio. He got to the door, and stopped. He just stopped. I was hyperventilating loudly out of fear. His arm was reaching into the room, and was almost over my bed. When suddenly, the power flicked back on. The lamp that had gone out earlier was back. The tall man let out a noise that will never leave my mind, a screech so loud it could wake the most tired working man from his slumber. And he recoiled. I guess the scream must’ve woken my grandfather from his sleep because he burst into my room with his rifle and started letting out shots.
In an attempt to not get hit I dropped to the floor and hid under the bed, covered my ears and closed my eyes. I heard the tall man scream and run into the woods as my grandfather chased him deeper into the forest with his rifle. The noise slowly grew more distant as time passed, until it could not be heard anymore.
I fell asleep under that bed, don’t ask, I don’t know how either. Maybe it was shock from the experience, maybe it was something else. But when I awoke the next morning, I couldn’t find my grandfather anywhere. The curtains on the sliding door were now tattered and torn from bullets. Glass was everywhere, and the door itself was still wide open. I waited in that house for the whole week, hoping for my grandfather to return from the woods. He never did. At some point in all of the time I was alone, I found a note my grandfather had written and hidden in his room, in preparation for this exact scenario.
“To whomever this note concerns, if you are reading this, I may as well be dead. In the odd case the Nightman enters this home, I will chase it out and not return. I have waited and prepared for the day he tries to attack. I have seen him stalking at night, in the treeline, when I peek through the cracks in the curtains. He waits, he is waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. And when he does, I am ready. I will chase him out of the house and into the woods with all the ammunition I have. I will most likely not return from this, as almost every encounter with this.. thing..has led to death. He has terrorized my home for too long, and will no longer. I just hope I’m alone when he inevitably makes his move, no one else should have to witness this.”
And it all made sense, I knew he wasn’t coming back now. I packed, and on the last day when my parents arrived, left. They asked where he was, and I told them, “He just walked out into the woods to find fuel for a fire tonight, said it would be a few hours.” They believed me. On our way out of the small valley community down the dirt road, I almost felt like I was being watched from the treeline. Every mile we came closer to the highway made the feeling of being watched get weaker and weaker until we were out. On the highway and headed home, finally.
When I got back to my neighborhood and home that night I laid in bed and pondered the week, where my grandfather was, and what the f*ck had attacked me in the cabin. I wouldn’t know until a few years later.
It’s 2023, as I’m writing this I am on my way back to Kentucky with a group of hunters, we all have had our encounters with this monster and seek to put an end to it. Weirdly enough, only a week ago in my dorm I began to have the same feeling, as if I was being watched. I knew the feeling immediately, it was back, and it knew we were coming. I would be lying if I said I’m not scared, but I will get revenge for what happened that night, and I will find out what happened to my grandfather, if it’s the last thing I do on this god-forsaken earth.
Wish me luck, goodbye and goodnight.