Have you ever had a gut feeling?
Like a visceral feeling that something isn’t right. That you need to run? Well that feeling is our most basic instinct. It’s almost spiritual to some. Heck, maybe it is religious, although at this point I’m not sure I’ve got a God to believe in.
What’s that old quote again? The uncanny Valley implies an evolutionary reason to be afraid of something that looks human, but isn’t. It goes something like that. But heck, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s go back to 2015 when this all started. I live out in the country. Whatever you think about living in the country it’s probably wrong. I’m not racist and I have internet. Well my cousin Jhonny’s pretty racist but we just don’t invite him to any of our get togethers and things go alright.
Anyways, I have 3 daughters: Scarlet, our oldest of the three, Jolynn, our youngest, and Laura, our middle daughter. We also have a son: Dan, but he moved out 10 years ago and it’s living with his girlfriend Hannah. My wife’s name is Dennise. That’s my little family. We have a neighbor who lives quite a distance away. An elderly lady living alone. We like to invite her for walks when we can. Her name is Matilda. But I don’t want to overload your mind, let’s just focus on what I have to say, the rest will come when it needs to.
We hunt wild animals. A lot of you might not behoove our type still exist but we do. A lot of subsistence off the land. The hunting trip I took with Scarlett in August was the first where we also took Laura. I need to teach her how to shoot like everyone in my family leaned before her. Or at least to scare off weirdos in the woods. I’ve never encountered any feral people or anything but I’ve had my fair share of Bigfoot encounters. While city folk debate us out in the country we know that not taking them seriously could be dangerous and stupid. Me? I’ve seen one three times! But again, I’m going off topic. After what I have to tell you maybe Bigfoot won’t seem so wild.
On our expedition Scarlett scored a deer and took it back home herself. I stayed to see if Laura could get us a rabbit to have some stew. Denise makes a mean rabbit stew.
I saw a flash of white and showed her how to track it without being noticed. We made sure we were down wind and I got her to point the gun at the lump of fur. The lump of fur… Fur. Where was it’s fur? It was white but that must’ve been its skin. I couldn’t identify it so I told Laura to wait. I stared at it for what must’ve been a minute before it turned to look at me. It had the most deformed face I’d ever seen. The nose was on its forehead. Its mouth was on both sides of its face with way too many sharp teeth. This wasn’t some new animal. It had to be some inbred.. Something! I didn’t like the looks of it anyways so I grabbed Laura and ran. I don’t think she had her gun with her anymore but at least I still had mine if things got hairy, I heard it screaming at us and dashing through the woods on its… Hands? Were those hands? No it couldn’t be. But it didn’t look like anything else. Strange. We were coming upon the house and I saw Scarlett drag the deer into the shed. I yelled at her “GET INSIDE NOW!”
We shut the door and locked it. I peered outside but it was gone. We were safe. That damned thing better not come back. Maybe that thought was too hopeful, I thought it was pretty reasonable. We didn’t go hunting for a few days after that. We had enough of Scarlett’s deer and some leftovers. Denise went to make something-a-rather from the deer hide but when she went to get it the thing had gone from the shed. She came in and told me about this. We were both tough as nails and spoke about it calmly. I told her it was probably a predator but for the first time in my life I saw something I’d never seen in her eyes. She said it wasn’t a predator, at least not one we’d seen. There was no blood or forced entry, the key was in the lock to the shed and the whole carcass had disappeared. She was right about the fact that something wasn’t right. This isn’t just an unusual occurrence, it was impossible. The key to the shed was inside the toolbox on our front porch.
I decided we wouldn’t go outside. The kids would play inside and I would get the truck and buy groceries in town. Out here children don’t really play inside but at least we had a Wii that was regifted. I’m not sure it worked but we could pretend it did. When I got back with my groceries I decided with the strange shed happenings and that weird inbred bunny I would check on our neighbor Matilda. I walked over and knocked on the door. I didn’t get a response. Afraid the old lady had fallen over I knocked again more frantic and I didn’t wait for an answer. I jimmyed the window open and entered the home. “Miss Matilda! Are you alright!?” Silence. I searched the whole house up and down but found nothing. Well not nothing. There was a pot still on. It was boiling and had a wooden spoon melting into it. I turned it off and left Matilda a note to call me when she gets back.
I realized I forgot to check the bedroom and decided to give it a quick look over. As I approached I heard a noise through the open window to my right. It was a strange gargle noise. I slowly approached the window trying to identify the sound.a I would have run thinking it’s Matilda but something wasn’t right. I peered out the window and saw a white figure crouched over. It turned to me and I noticed it was the same one as before. It’s mouth morphed to the middle of its face and I heard it say through gargles: “Get inside now! Get inside now!” I froze. I should have left. I should have gone home and burned the forest down or something. But I froze. I eventually broke my trance and ran out the door and all the way home. As I was leaving though I heard behind me in the house “It’s probably just a predator.”
When I got home I boarded up the windows. Denise didn’t say a word about it. I think we were all stressed. What none of us expected was the doorbell. I approached cautiously and saw, of all things, Matilda through the window. I unlocked and opened the door and greeted her asking about her absence when the pot was running. She just said “Oh I become so forgetful in my old age.” I asked where she was and she said she was on a walk. “Ok, well what brings you over?” Matilda says “I wanted to call but your note worried me, I was wondering if you’d have me for a few nights. We agreed and Scarlett took the couch. We lived together and helped each other for about a week. We tried to further the strange occurrences but knew deep down it would be wise to keep it in the back of our minds. I asked Jolynn if she wanted spaghetti and she said “YES YES!! SPAGHETER!” I laughed and began cooking. The pot reminded me of Matilda. It’s all well and good to be forgetful but the spoon was still in. It bugged me. Why was the spoon still in? That’s when I heard a crash from Scarlett’s room(currently Matilda’s). I ran over and saw her lying on the floor pointing at the window in terror. I saw the old creature again smiling at her. I grabbed Matilda and shut the door. The family gathered in the main room as we began to hear scratching at our front door. I grabbed my shot gun and we huddled together. I reassured everyone: “so long as the door is closed and locked it can’t get through.” Well that’s what I thought until I stared at a horrifying sight. Matilda got up and began to open the door…