The Pale Man Comes

That summer, I learned that you can look at something without really looking at it. It’s sort of a glance around the edges and off to the side. Yeah, you can’t read script that way, but you can sure learn a lot about it…enough to wish you hadn’t looked.

We didn’t think it was all that late when we got back from a short trail ride. Although, I’m not sure being late or not had anything to do with what happened. It wasn’t all of us, of course. Aunt Susan had taken Alice and the Twins into town for some groceries while Tim and Robert stayed back at the house. We were all a bit shocked when Robert was waiting with one of the other ranchers nearby when Ruth, Becky, Uncle Phil, and I got back to the stables.

Rudyard’s ranch sort of straddled the street starting about a half-mile north of us and went on for a while. Before you ask, yes, he was named for that Rudyard…no, I don’t know why. Only reason I know at all was his middle name and the fact he went by “Kip.” He was a sort of tall fellow in his mid-40s, and he usually got along well with Uncle Phil. He’d arrived on a shiny, new ATV and stood talking quietly with Robert. They looked up when we dismounted by the stable, and Rudyard nodded to my uncle. “Have a nice ride, Phil,” he asked.

“Sure did,” Uncle Phil replied. “Rode out to that overlook.”

Rudyard rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s a nice ride this time of year,” he mused. “Maybe I’ll make my way out there tomorrow. I’d like to look into something, anyway.”

Uncle Phil grimaced. “Somethin’ botherin’ you, Kip,” he asked.

“Well, it’s like I was telling Bobby here, I know you guys have had some problems with something out in the woods. Well, I’m thinking it might be spreading.”

Uncle Phil motioned back toward the house. “Why’s that,” he asked as they walked away.

“Cows have been avoiding the back pastures on this side of the road. I’m telling you, it might be a good idea to finally talk with that antique dealer in town.”

Their conversation faded into the distance and Robert tapped me on the shoulder. “Would be nice if Kip’d realize I’ve grown up. Heck, Army’s sendin’ me to Fort Benning in two more months,” he muttered, pointing to the horses. “Let’s get ‘em stabled for the night.”

I nodded. “Whatever you say, Bobby,” I joked.

Robert glared at me. “Don’ you start, too, now,” he grumbled and looked up to see Ruth and Becky trying to slip away. He shook his head and called out, “oh no, you don’t! Ya’ll know the rules: you ride, you brush it and put yer tack away!”

Becky and Ruth both let out exasperated sighs, but they helped us get the horses taken care of. We were all leaving the barn when it happened. Now, keep in mind that riding a horse takes a lot more out of you than you might think, especially for a bunch of kids. Add in everything else, and Ruth was getting tired enough to lag behind a little. I wasn’t about to leave my little sister out by herself with…whatever that thing was prowling around the woods this time of day. So, I was next to her when it happened.

We heard a loud, crackling snap along the woodline toward the back of the ranch not far from where we walked. It sounded like a dead tree limb breaking off and crashing through the rest of the canopy to the ground. We turned. I only saw a flash of movement and remembered not to look right at it.

Ruth…wasn’t so lucky. She stood stock-still, frozen in place and staring at that…thing. Nothing could’ve moved as quickly as it did. One moment, it was somewhere in the woodline, the next it was there only about twenty feet in front of us.

I don’t know how, but I remembered something my dad had taught me our first trip out hunting. Don’t look a bird in the eye. If you do, he’ll fly off and make noise. It’ll ripple out among the birds like a burglar alarm, and the whole woods will know you’re there. Slowly, I dared to look…not so much at the pale figure as around it, beside it. It didn’t seem to notice me. Its gaze, if you could call it that, was fixed on Ruth. “Robert,” I shouted.

Robert and Becky had either not heard the sound or not seen the figure darting around the treeline. Becky screamed and Robert started toward me and Ruth. As I turned back forward, I couldn’t help but notice that the two seemed to be moving impossibly slow.

I got a good look at the thing…well, as good a look as I could. It was roughly in the shape of a person, though with no features which would tell you if it were male or female. It was impossibly tall, I’d estimate almost ten feet, and its thin, almost emaciated, limbs were disproportionately long. Its hands hung almost to its knees, with skeletal fingers twice the length they should be and ending in half-rotted nails that looked more like claws. Somehow, all of that was the least unsettling thing about it.

Its face…I’ll never forget it.

The tall, pale figure had all of the shape you’d expect in a face: cheekbones, jaw line, temples, even the rough shape of a nose. There was just skin where its features should’ve been, though…no eyes, no mouth, no nostrils. Its ears were just holes in the sides of its head, ragged flaps of skin hanging as though they’d been ripped off.

Despite all this, it still saw us. It still knew that Ruth was staring at it somehow. I swallowed a lump that formed in my throat and looked over at Ruth. She stared open-mouthed and wide-eyed, fully transfixed by the monstrosity in front of her. And, for a while, it just stood there, cocking its head from one side to the other as if trying to figure us out. Then, it moved again. It was fast, like a blur of jerky motions that didn’t quite fit in the neat little box of what the mind would expect.

The pale figure loomed over us now, staring down at Ruth and making it even harder not to look around it without looking directly at it. Slowly, the pale figure brought its hands up to its chest, its freakishly disproportionate arms rising to parallel with the ground. It dipped its fingers into its own chest on either side of its sternum. Rather than piercing or tearing the flesh, however, the pale figure’s talons set the surface of its skin rippling like some gray, liquid mass. After a moment that seemed to drag on forever, the rippling stopped. The pale figure’s hands seemed as though they had fused to its chest, becoming a single, solid piece of the featureless mass. Then, its shoulders tensed, and it began to pull.

You would expect something like that to rip away skin. And, you’d be wrong.

An opening began to form in the pale figure’s chest, a vertical slit that spread as the figure pulled. It threw its head back and, from chin to groin, it split open, not like tearing but the opening of some great eye. There were no organs in the creature’s body, and no light from the porch or yard illuminated the bone and muscle that should have been inside the creature. Rather than a hollow space surrounded by flesh, inside it lay a vast emptiness with countless, tiny points of light swirling about like stars dotting the sky on a moonless night. Even looking off to the sides of the monster no longer felt safe. I felt my eyes being drawn to that vast emptiness, almost moving on their own. Only the flicker of movement to my side pulled me from it. Ruth had taken a step forward.

Somehow, that tiny step my sister took was enough. I grabbed her arm, closed my eyes tightly, and pulled her away. I felt as though I was pulling against the weight of a tree, as though Ruth was rooted to the ground. Another step forward, and I felt myself being dragged for a brief moment. Then, whatever had kept her planted failed, and we found ourselves sitting in the dirt.

I got to my feet and tried to get Ruth up. She had laced her fingers behind her neck and hung her head between her knees, staring down at the dirt between her feet. She was shaking and refused to move. It took a few good tugs to get her on her feet and turned toward the house while Robert and Becky finally reached us.

I risked a glance back, again looking off to the side.

The vast emptiness of the pale man was fading back behind its skin, the vertical slit closing quickly. Its skin rippled again as it pulled its clawed fingers from its chest.

I didn’t dare look anymore and turned back to follow Robert, Ruth, and Becky. That vast emptiness called to me, and I couldn’t explain how. When I turned again, though, the pale figure was gone.