Thin Finley, the grey man of Bashworth Road.
I wish the first half of this tale was the backstory to The Grey Man.
I wish I could give you a choice of origins that would humanise Thin Finley.
I wish I had an explanation, but I don’t. No one does. In such a black and white town, this man’s skin matches his place within it.
The Grey Man would be a mystery on any road, but the mundane, rundown and lifeless streets of my birthplace make for an even eerier stomping ground for such a creature.
Located in the North of England, we’re an easy-to-miss smudge on the map. We’re just one of the countless towns that haven’t seen any major improvement since WWII. It’s like a time capsule with a pinch of modernity sprinkled over it and the underwhelming people being the only thing that’s changed throughout the decades.
The only real excitement me and my friends can feel as teenagers here are when discussing our dreams of escaping the boredom one day, our plans to raid Mum and Dad’s booze cabinet and meet in a nearby field on a weekend, and our homemade boogeyman who wanders Bashworth Road.
Parents would use him as a threat to their children who want to stay out late. Everyone’s uncle or distant cousin had seen him in the early hours of the morning. Bashworth Road is littered with graffiti of him and warnings of his presence.
A rail-thin man who wears a flat cap and an overcoat with the collars turned up to almost conceal his impossibly pale face, so white that it’s grey. His trousers were made for an ordinary sized man, making his stick-legs and bony knees reveal themselves through the fabric as he strides. No one knows his name, but such an appearance gave him the title “Thin Finley”.
The strangest part about him though is the noise. It’s like the muffled sound of old steel groaning. A deep vibration whenever he’s near, like that of an old oil rig, miles under the oceans surface, creaking and rusting next to ears filled with the freezing, murky water. It’s not like he’s making the noise, more radiating it. It’s said that when dogs bark into the otherwise silent night, it means they’ve heard The Grey Man’s call and he is close.
Not many can describe Thin Finley with such accurate detail. I wish I couldn’t either.
Despite the rumours, I’ve spent a lot of time on Bashworth Road. It acts like a spine for the town I live in. At about 2 miles long, Bashworth Road cuts through wealthy homes to poverty-stricken ones and then back to wealth again.
All essential shops imaginable are either on or just off the road. Locals make the joke that you can drop your kids off at school, pick up your groceries, have a check up at the doctors and get a tire changed, all without having to use your indicator.
Even with all it has to offer, Bashworth remains relatively quiet during midday, and almost deathly vacant during the night. That’s when Finley appears. That’s the only time Finley appears.
I used to walk up Bashworth every night on the way home after seeing my friends. Always late, but early enough to avoid the trauma I now have to live with.
My schedule’s structure began to crumble for a number of reasons. The school holidays must’ve effected it. Possibly hormones too, but I believe I could’ve still kept some hope, even with these factors combined. It was my stepdads death that took my daily routine with him.
Despite him being in my life for just short of 6 years, we never really found our connection.
I was grateful for his protection over my mum and he was relieved to have such an easy-going stepson as a price for living with the woman he loved, but besides that, I didn’t really have a bond to miss when he passed.
My mum couldn’t say the same.
It’s approaching a year since he left us, and it’s not hard to notice the lack of progress she’s made in coming to terms with his death.
I can tell she overcompensates for her sadness. I try to comfort her the best I can and distract her from reality, but it’s tough at my age.
One of her strange coping mechanisms is Sid.
Sid is an anxious, abused Patterdale Terrier that my mum picked up from the shelter. My stepdad always wanted a dog so I think this is her way of mourning him whilst making the house feel less empty to her.
She now spends all her free time trying to train a dog that is too terrified to make a sound. Poor little guy literally had the bark beaten out of him. It’s been months now and he still hasn’t made a single noise.
My mum is convinced that she taught him to lay down. I don’t have the heart to tell her that if you stare at any dog for an hour, odds are it’ll get tired by itself. It’s just a broken animal, masking a woman’s brokenness by being broken.
This is what drove me to start leaving the house earlier and returning later.
My day took its usual route from sunlight to nightfall; drunk and rambling to friends in a similar state.
We were drinking and smoking in some park near some place with some group. I stopped caring about how my nights went as long as they were void of sobriety.
“I don’t think I miss him, to be honest. I just don’t like seeing my mum struggle, y’know?” I slurred to Reece, a friend I’ve had since primary school.
“Yeah, I get it, bro.” I could tell he wasn’t really listening, but I didn’t really care.
Mine and Reece’s friendship was the kind that comes from being forced to be in the same room for 7 hours a day, not particularly choice.
I took a swig from someone’s mini bottle of vodka and glanced around, feeling it burn it’s way to my empty stomach.
I’d grown used to the world’s appearance as it approached midnight. I was so occupied with alcohol and self-pity that I hadn’t noticed that it had passed it.
“Ah, shit.” I groaned as I clumsily climbed to my feet.
“I need to set off. My mum will be worried.” That was a lie.
“You’re walking home?” Reece asked with a concerned, raised eyebrow.
“Bro, you’re begging to get in the back of Thin Finley’s van. It’s like 1am!” Another member of the group piped up. Think his name was Brad. Maybe Bryan. Probably neither.
“Jesus, I haven’t heard of him since I was like 10.” I laughed whilst collecting my half-empty bottles.
“Seriously, you literally live at the top of Bashworth, man. I had an uncle who lived near you that used to get drunk and walk home late and he said he’d see that grey weirdo all the time until one night he just disappeared and we never eve-“ I cut Reece off mid-anecdote.
“I’ll be fine, man. I’ve been walking home late since we started secondary. He’s just a crackhead who probably lives under the bridge at the bottom of the road. I can out-run a homeless bloke if I have to.”
The whole group exchanged an uncomfortable look with one another. It’s insane how much control an urban legend has over this place. Truth be told, I’m not surprised. If I was walking rather than staggering home, it’d probably make for a much more tense journey. These days, my drunkenness was the only reason I didn’t travel with my eyes over my shoulder and feet ready to sprint. Alcohol-drenched courage was all I had keeping my act together.
“Right, I’ll see you lads tomorrow.”
As I made for the park’s exit, I heard Reece shout “if Thin Finley gets you, I’m telling your mum that I warned you!”
And with that, I wobbled off into the night.
I reckon I could’ve seen up the whole two miles of Bashworth if it wasn’t for its slight curve. The way it’s built meant my double-vision eyes could only make out about a quarter of a mile up the road, each side twinkling with the lone streetlights and the very, VERY rare headlights of a taxi that would burn it’s way up and down the tarmac, much like the cheap vodka to my stomach.
Usually, the graffiti of the grey man sprawled up and down the road was as noticeable to me as the street signs. I’d just grown used to their image. Tonight, however, something was off.
Maybe it was the words of my friends still fresh in my mind, but the “BEWARE! THIN FINLEY CLOSE” scribbled on the side of a garden fence in red spray paint felt like more of a warning than it had ever done before.
The tall stick figure that looked like it had been smeared with a brush in black paint on the side of a bus stop felt like it was watching me.
I was now in the worst situation I could imagine; drunk enough to be incapacitated yet aware enough to be fearful.
My eyes were jolting from focus to focus faster than my spins would allow them to. Everything looked like a person before leaving my peripherals.
Bashworth had never seemed so long now that I had so much desperation to reach the top of it.
I felt the aching burn in my calves when I passed the old, rusted electric meter box. I normally used that as a sign I was about halfway there.
With nothing but the sound of lone, distant car engines roaring, I could hear the deep, electrical hum coming from the box as I speed walked past.
It grew in volume as I approached, then I passed it.
I passed it.
Why could I still hear the humming?
I knew the booze had reached my ears so I slowed my strides as I glanced back at the box. I felt my neck protrude towards it slightly as I tried listening to closer to the noise.
I realised then whilst staring back that the noise wasn’t coming from the old chunk of metal. It was coming from the other way. The way I was heading.
I darted my head back forward in search of the vibrating frequency. The growing vibrating frequency.
I locked my eyes onto the road and waited for some old bus or van’s headlights to appear from round the corner. They’d have to be driving at walking speed for them to take this long to show themselves.
I prayed to see a dim glow appear on the surrounding trees and walls. I prayed for anything other than what had been on my mind the whole walk so far. Just as the possibility of my suspicions grew stronger in my panicking brain, something took over my peripherals once more.
The image of a person in them had returned. I turned my head and looked at where my mind was playing tricks on me.
The image stayed. The image was moving. Coming round the slight bend of Bashworth, the image wore a flat cap and an overcoat with the collars turned up to almost conceal his impossibly pale face, so white that it’s grey. His trousers were made for an ordinary sized man, making his stick-legs and bony knees reveal themselves through the fabric as he strides.
The noise grew as his stiff, animatronic walk moved in my direction on the opposite side of the road.
I knew what I was seeing. I knew who I was seeing. The only thing I could bring my shell-shocked mind to do at that time was pretend I knew neither.
My knees trembled and shoulders hunched as I continued up the road, switching between staring out of morbid fascination and keeping my gaze to the floor out of fear.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just a rumour walking, but it was that damn noise. It was getting louder as he got closer, making me feel like I was desperately trying to swim away from the angry screams of a whale in the darkest depth of the ocean.
I was about 50 feet away from him now. I told myself I wouldn’t look up until he’d passed. The noise was becoming unbearable.
I could hear the click of his shoes somehow. It’s like the vibration was in my head and wouldn’t leave until he did. All I could hear was him.
I heard him go from in front of me to next to me. We were completely parallel on our separate sides of the road. I just wanted him and whatever this sound was to disappear.
I was beginning to doubt my ability to keep moving without my hands over my ears, but before I could take them from my jacket pockets, it was gone.
No footsteps. No vibration. No noise.
All that was left was the high pitch squeak my ear drums produced as they recovered from the beating.
I stopped in confusion. I glanced up the road and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I went to do the same down the road, and my stomach dropped.
He was still there. Right across the road from me. He was dead still, facing me. His hat hid his eyes, but I knew that if I could see them, they’d be locked into me.
I wanted to keep moving. Maybe I would’ve ran, but I couldn’t stop looking. His face. That fucking face.
He had the complexion of a dead man. The skin on his cheeks were sucked into the sides of his mouth. His clothes hung off of his bones.
I tried moving my legs but it was like I was lodged in the air. The world around me wouldn’t let me move.
His eyes began burning through the shadow of his flat cap. The whites of them were showing as the look of territorial anger contrasted his small frame and calm stance.
I wouldn’t know exactly what to do if I experienced this again tomorrow, but I know that what I did next was a mistake.
I felt my dry throat croak as I attempted to spit out a word of acknowledgement. Before I even knew what letters I was trying to bunch together, I realised what I had done.
I wish he lunged at me. I wish he grabbed ahold of me and attacked me. I wish I didn’t see what I did.
His legs didn’t move an inch, but he did. Those bullet hole eyes and that gravedigger face stayed locked onto me as the noise returned, but somehow louder and higher. It was like a metallic screech was soaring towards me as he glided across the road.
He moved faster than my mind could function, flying towards my frozen stance like a ghost roaming his deathbed.
I know I screamed, but my sound was drowned out by his. Those awful eyes grew colder and angrier as they got inches away from me.
It happened so fast, but I remember one side of his face began glowing as his body got close enough to touch mine. I had no idea what I was seeing, so I decided not to. I closed my eyes and flinched at what I thought were my final moments.
Suddenly, the screech stopped as sudden as a song being paused. The glow remained, but opening my eyes revealed that Thin Finley didn’t.
I heard the gentle crunch of wheels on tarmac as a taxi drove by. The glow disappeared as it’s headlights passed me. The driver looked at me confused.
I felt my knees shiver and buckle before I fell back and began weeping. I curled into the foetal position and sobbed into my knees. I’d wet myself.
I heard the distant click of shoes and sat up to see a split second of a figure disappearing around the slight bend of Bashworth. My fear turned into adrenaline and I got up and sprinted faster than my legs could handle up the road.
I’d never gotten home so fast in my life. I didn’t slow down once. Just full power until I saw my house.
I threw up on the pavement outside my house. I don’t know if it was through fear or exhaustion.
My mum was asleep on the sofa next to Sid. I took no notice of anything. Just walked into my room, got in bed fully clothed and stared at the ceiling, accepting my tired fate for the next few months.
It’s a week since that night happened. I still don’t really sleep. I’ve found forums online and probably googled our electricity bill into doubling just looking for information about Thin Finley.
A few obscure posts speak of his sound. None of the accounts have been active recently. Nothing and no one can find out what that thing is. All I know is that the eyes I stared into that night weren’t human.
I want to forget about him. I want Bashworth gone and all the graffiti with it. I never want to hear his name ever again.
I haven’t left the house since I saw him. I don’t know how I’ll ever walk Bashworth again. I just hope he’s forgotten me the same way I’m trying to him.
I doubt I ever will, so for now, I’ll stay in my room, reliving that night and still seeing that face as I am now, hours after midnight.
I want to go to sleep, but I can’t. Not because I remember his noise, but because there’s a new one. It’s in my house.
It’s Sid, barking into the otherwise silent night.