This is the first part of a series of events that I experienced over the course of a summer in the state of Montana.
I grew up in northern Montana, hiking in the summer, snowboarding in the winter. It was one of the most beautiful states in my opinion. The versatility of the state was one of the best parts. It had vast trees, wild life, historic cities, farm lands, lakes, the list could go on and on.Even the people are amazing if you’re a local.
Everyone has a story to tell whether good or bad but they were all interesting.I love Montana, but recently there’s been something going on.
When it started it was nothing too out of the ordinary. Usually you’ll run into an odd human here and there, someone who fell victim to the ever growing drug problems. Or maybe an off looking animal walking on the side of the road late at night. You could never really tell if it was a dog, or maybe a coyote, or maybe even something else.
But this man was just… plain weird.
It was a normal day, working in a small shop that sold touristy things just like most places in the area. I remember being bored, watching the clock tick by, we were slow for an early june day. It was 2 p.m.
Then he walked in.
He was with two people that I’m sure he didn’t know very well based on their conversations with him. Maybe he was a tour guide.The couple walked to go look at our products. He stayed behind looking at our community board.
I didn’t pay much attention to him at first. He seemed overly normal. Forgettable. I remember even thinking that, glancing at him. ‘He’s painfully normal looking.’ That was one of my first mistakes.He snapped his head from the board to me. Almost as if he had heard my thoughts about him. It kind of felt like I was the first human he had interacted with in a while. He approached the cash register robotically.He no longer seemed painfully normal.He was inhuman and suffocating. His face held a smile that was just a little two wide.
His eyes were entirely blank, holding no emotion or thoughts.Staring him in his eyes felt like staring at evil.
He mumbled something that didn’t quite sound English to me. It was like I had imagined it.
“What was that?” I had put on my best customer service voice. His very presence was choking me.His face dropped. His inhuman smile was gone in a second. I had angered him in some way.
“Nothing.” He walked away and I could breathe again.I never saw him leave. I saw the couple exit the shop maybe 30 minutes later, but he wasn’t with them.I closed that night and he was nowhere to be seen. He never left the store.
A week later we could smell something rotting coming from the small crawl space/attic above our tea towel section. Something that had probably been baking in the June heat. My manager figured it had been a bird or squirrel that slipped through a hole in the old roof. He sent me up there to check it out.
When I went up there I half expected to see the man, or whatever he/it was, from before.
He wasn’t there.
The only thing I found was blood and an old pocket knife that was looked like it was dropped by someone doing maintenance. The rotting scent disappeared in the days after, being forgotten by the rest of the staff.
But I remember.
I remember the man that wasn’t totally human who never left and the blood in the crawl space.
Sure, maybe he had left without notice or maybe I imagined him. Maybe he had slipped out a backdoor and I was just paranoid, but he and the couple had all left together and he didn’t stay in the store.
But meeting that evil man put a fear in me. Something that was never there before. I had never really been afraid of anything. Growing up watching horror movies, loving all things spooky.
But he was someone who genuinely scared me. I spoke to evil, someone I thought was evil, and It will always be stuck with me.
That fear of people who look to normal will always be stuck in the back of my mind, gnawing on my thoughts anytime a new customer walked in. It instilled a paranoia in me I never had before. One that I don’t think I will ever be able to shake.
Days later I had to go back to that attic. Something was calling me. I’m not sure what or who.
My accention up the ladder was slow, too slow. It was like moving through syrup.
I had to know what or who was up there.
He was there.
He was in that attic or crawl space or whatever the hell my manager and the local paper wanted to call it.
Dead.
According to the police it was a drug overdose and that’s what everyone believed.
‘Man found dead in local business, drugs have taken another in the community’ was the headline.
I don’t believe it.
In my opinion drugs did not kill him.
I don’t know what did and I really don’t want to find out.