Like you
24th of March 2011
I’m writing this in hopes of preserving what’s been happening to me. A little bit of backstory, and how I got to this point: my friend, Sasha, who was going out of town on a business trip, asked me if I could watch her house which was up in the mountains. While I was tempted to turn her down since it’s winter and I knew those mountains could be a pain in the ass to navigate and get through, she sweetened the pot enough to convince me. So I packed up my things so I could work up there and headed on up.
The drive was windy, slicked with ice and packed snow, but I managed, and got up her long, heavily wooded driveway in one piece. I transitioned my stuff into the cabin, using the key that she had left underneath the doormat to unlock the front door and get inside. Truth be told, I was a bit frightened, I had lived my whole life with neighbors, and the idea of some axe murderer or creep breaking in made my gut drop a bit. But I got over it, reassuring myself that it would be fine, and hunkering in for the night.
When the night came, I was sure to be near the fire, the cabin didn’t have heating of any kind aside from it, unless you count the stove. It was kind of nice, I got to drink hot cocoa and nestle up in a blanket while listening to a podcast. However, I needed to get into bed, no matter how much I wanted to stay by the fire, so I put it out, cleaned up a bit, and dragged the toasty blanket upstairs.
That’s when I first saw that tree, it was so perfectly shaped like a long, spindly, arm, I nearly screamed the first time I had seen it, my skeleton felt like it was about to jump out of its skin. After watching it for a second, seeing how it drifted in the wind, I realized it posed no real threat, and wasn’t someone who was tall enough to reach the second floor (silly me).
The next morning really allowed me to get used to the cabin, the wi-fi was far from great, but it worked, albeit sporadically. That night went much like the first, however, I had run out of the little amount of firewood that Sasha had set aside for me. Upon texting her, she told me that more firewood was located at the shed in the backyard. Now, I had no intention of going out in freezing temperatures, in the dark, in a place where no one was around to hear my screams, however, the alternative was to freeze in my bed and then get up and go outside in freezing temperatures, in the middle of nowhere, where nobody could hear me scream.
So I donned my heavy snow jacket and boots, pulled on my hat, and clicked on my flashlight, allowing it to shine its purifying beam ahead of me, piercing through the darkness, only obstructed by the flurries of snow. My boots hit the snow with satisfying crunches, one after the other as I moved towards the wooden shed, prying its metal latch open and tugging the door open. I reached for the first piece of wood, then another, and another, until I had a formidable stack in my arms. I kicked the door shut, not bothering to latch it, my flashlight still pointed ahead.
That’s when it shifted.
My ears perked up immediately, both my head and the flashlight swiveled in tandem as the wood shifted in my arms. The flashlight tore through the woods like a knife as I shakily jerked it, scanning for whatever had made the noise, and then I saw it. I had illuminated a skinny creature, it had to be at least 7 feet, it stood partially behind a tree, watching me with glazed over eyes, I didn’t even get a good look at it, I practically fell head over heels trying to get away, struggling against the snow like it was holding me down, I slammed the door, locking it immediately, looking out the window for it, but it was too dark to make out much. It goes without saying that I jumped at the tree again as I went up to my cold bed.
The next morning I texted Sasha about what I had seen, and she told me that I must’ve been sleep deprived, or on something, but I knew that wasn’t true, it was too close, too real for me to have just “imagined” it. I had a hard time focusing on work, I found myself anxiously tapping my foot and fidgeting with pens and silverware as the sun drew further and further down. Luckily, I had remembered to get some wood earlier in the day. I was mostly prompted by the fact that my wallet seemed to have slipped out during my fall. However, I couldn’t recover it, even though I dug through the snow, my fingers turning pink and stinging by the end of my archeological attempts.
That night, my head felt like it was on a swivel, every gust of wind or tap against the glass drew my undivided attention.
Until I heard the knocking.
A light tapping of the knuckles on the door, I slowly shifted, and, after arming myself with the fire poker, approached the door. Looking through the peephole, I saw an old woman, my mother, what was my mother doing out here? “Open up sweetie, I’m practically freezing out here.” she said, her hand letting out another tap tap tap on the door “Mom? What are you doing out here?” I asked, my hand loosening on the fire poker a smidgen. “Your friend told me that you were freaking out, talking about ‘monsters’ and the sort, so I came by to keep you company.” I reached down towards the knob, my fingers hovering over the lock before jolting away, my breath clogging my throat.
“Mom, Where's your car?”
She didn’t respond right away, it wasn’t a long pause, just a split second of hesitation, but it seemed like eternity as I waited for her response. “Well, if you must know, the driveway was far too steep and icy for my car to get up, I had to get my pant legs all wet walking beside it, and even then I nearly split my hip in two!” She had a familiar, jovial, air to her voice, it reminded me of the mother who raised me, who had watched me get my diploma, who taught me how to ride a bike, who had helped me through the worst parts of my life. I wanted to let her in so bad, I was scared of the thing that I had seen last night, and I knew how cold it was out there, I knew she had to be freezing, especially since she had no snow jacket.
She wasn’t shivering.
She didn’t even have blush in her cheeks as she stood on the porch, the light illuminating her wrinkled face. It knew, it knew that it had messed up, as it stared back into the peephole, the same dull expression in its eyes. No words had to be spoken, I dashed upstairs, the tree limb gone from the window as I locked myself in the room, slamming the door shut with what felt like a lightning crack. The screams came from outside, a roar mixed with a bleat as the ripping of meat and cracking of flesh, the screams of my mom, perfectly replicated, the only substance it had was a photo in my wallet, and it got her down to her core. I was texting Sasha, my fingers flying across the keyboard, message after message being sent, all in a panicked blur. Before I stopped, I blocked her, closing out of our messages as I heard the stomping across the first floor, growing closer to the stairs. I gripped the fire poker in my hand, standing up and smashing the window in the bedroom, grabbing the barbed window sill and I clambered out, falling way down.
I hit the ground with a heavy thud, I heard my bedroom door slam open, but I was already running around the side of the house. Fumbling with the keys, I open the car, roaring to life as not my mother, but I came running around the side of the house, perfectly calm, my blonde hair and greyish blue eyes having a dull sheen to them. I put the car in reverse and floored it, my wheels skidding slightly against the frozen driveway before gaining traction and shooting down with a lurch that sent my unbuckled self slamming into the wheel before sitting back up. I turned out of the driveway and hundreds of dead eyes, illuminated by the headlights, watched me as I began speeding down the mountain.
Checking the rearview mirror showed me the worst possible scenario, it was chasing the car, my legs and arms growing, allowing it to gallop freely as it began gaining speed. It drew closer and closer, its legs and arms working up into a heinous blur. I was met with a skidding on the ice as I tried to take a turn too quickly, causing me to slam into a tree, glass breaking and metal twisting in an attempt to absorb the impact. My ears rang, as a slow pace drew closer, a figure peered at me through the window, their eyes now alive as smoke and flames danced in their excited pupils. “Like yours” it said, its voice equal parts happy and sad as the rock in its hand grew higher before coming down with a heavy crack onto me.
But it wasn’t all sad, I now had eyes that matched theirs, I walked down the street with a cheery saunter. I had to go back to the cabin for my stuff, and to clean up of course, but as I walked down the driveway, waving into the woods, gazing at them with my eyes, my eyes that were just like theirs.