Marty was obsessed with lizards. No, not dinosaurs, not dragons, just those tiny, four-legged, slithering things.

I don’t know when or why it started. One day, out of nowhere, lizards were all he talked about.

Marty was an odd kid, one who didn’t seem to fit in, and who was always interested in the most random things. He was also big, tall, almost too tall for his age. At the same time, however, he was a bit slow, shy and reserved. You could’ve called him a gentle giant, if he wouldn’t have been a fourteen-year-old boy.

I thought this lizard thing would be over soon enough. Marty was always quick to get excited about something, but after only a couple of weeks, he’d have moved on.

This lizard thing was different. He didn’t just like them; he grew obsessed with them.

We’d have to do a presentation in class and could choose our own topic? Lizards. We’d each put together our own little website during IT class? Marty’s would be about lizards. Even on Halloween, he turned up in a life-sized lizard costume.

It was the worst during biology class. He’d constantly annoy our teacher, Mrs. Grantle, with questions about lizards and would likewise uh and ah whenever they were mentioned.

Growing up, Marty and I were pretty close. He lived down the street from me and we hung out a lot. I liked him well enough, but even when we were little, I could tell he was different.

That might have been the reason his parents got him anything he asked for. His family was very well-off and Marty’s room was filled to the brim with all sorts of toys. He also owned a giant TV and pretty much any video game console you could think of.

After the lizard things started, however, his room transformed into a bona fide lizard sanctuary. Gone were the posters of superheroes, now replaced by ones of lizards. His bookshelf, once filled with comic books, was now stacked with books on lizards. He even owned a giant terrarium populated by almost a dozen of them.

The most annoying part was that he talked about nothing else anymore. I’d mention a cool new movie I’d seen, and he’d tell me about some dumb lizard movie. If we talked about superheroes, he’d bring up some obscure lizard character I’d never heard about.

I told him countless times to knock it off with the dumb lizard stuff, but he never did. Eventually, I just stopped hanging out.

While I didn’t remember how this obsession came to be, I remember when the bullying started.

Until this point, Marty had been ignored by everyone. He just sat in the back of the class, quiet, and busying himself with whatever he was currently interested in. He was pretty much invisible.

The lizard thing, however, and his irritating behavior soon put him on everyone’s radar.

One day, he even brought one of his lizards to school, and when I saw it, I knew something was about to happen.

He’d put the lizard in a tiny box, which he hid during class, but always brought out during breaks. There, in the back, he’d play with it and show it off to those few classmates who hadn’t tired of his lizard stick yet.

One of them was Stevie. Everyone knew he couldn’t care less about lizards. As he stood there, next to Marty, I could hear the sarcasm in his voice as he asked questions and said how cool Marty’s lizard was. Stevie was making fun of him, but Marty was completely oblivious to it.

During a later break, when Marty went to the bathroom, Stevie put his plan into motion. He snatched the lizard from Marty’s bag and swiftly hid it in someone else’s, a girl named Cindy.

When Marty returned, he noticed his lizard was gone and began searching for it everywhere. No one said a word, of course, not even those who’d seen what Stevie had done. For a while, Marty darted across the room in a panic, trying desperately to find it. When the bell rang, however, our teacher entered the room and commanded Marty to return to his seat. As he sat there, his face was one of misery, and I could tell he was close to tears.

Only a few minutes later, someone screamed. It was Cindy, and right there on her arm was Marty’s lizard.

“Larry!” Marty called out.

Before he could do anything, Cindy brushed the lizard off her arm, and, in disgust, trampled it.

Marty lost it completely, rushed over and started laying into her for ‘killing his friend.’

It took the combined might of our teacher and three classmates to drag Marty of her. By then, Cindy was crying, had a bleeding nose, and a painfully swollen eye.

Marty got in a lot of trouble for that. He was sent to the principal, got suspended for an entire week, and his parents had to come over for a serious talk. By this point, many of the teachers had noticed Marty’s weird obsession, and not a few of them had grown concerned over it.

When Marty returned to school, everyone had heard about the incident, about Lizard Boy’s freak-out, as they referred to him.

I knew it was Stevie who’d spread the story and came up with the name, and from this day onward, he made it a sport to tease Marty.

What started out as name-calling and silly jokes soon turned into full on bullying.

People would dump dead lizards into Marty’s backpack. He’d get beaten up after school. At one point, he was even forced to come to school in his stupid lizard costume and crawl through the hallways on all fours.

It was nasty. Yet Marty never stopped talking about lizards. I just didn’t get it.

One day, on my way home, I walked up to him.

“Why don’t you just stop it with the lizard stuff already?” I asked.

Marty turned around, and for a few seconds, he just stared at me with wide eyes, as if I’d insulted him. Then he beamed at me.

“No way, Andy, lizards are just way too cool!” he answered.

“See, that’s why everyone’s making fun of you!”

“I don’t really mind.”

“You don’t mind being bullied or beaten up?”

For a second, I could see his smile waver. Then it returned, and whatever thought had come to his mind vanished again.

“Hey, Andy, you want to see something super cool?”

“What is it?”

I was about to ask him if this was about lizards again, but before I could, he leaned in close, bringing up his face in front of mine. His expression was serious, conspiratorial even.

“If I show you, you’ve got to promise me not to tell anyone!”

I sighed, but then nodded. To be honest, I felt bad for him.

“Yeah, sure, Marty,” I mumbled.

“All right, but we got to go somewhere first!”

With that, Marty turned around and hurried to the nearby grocery store. Not knowing what else to do, I set out after him.

Once I was inside, I saw Marty rush through the aisles, using his heavy frame to push other customers aside. Here and there, I heard curses, or someone calling after him to watch it, but Marty was indifferent to it all. When I’d caught up to him, I found him standing in front of the meat aisle. For a few moments, he studied the various packages before he picked on and headed for the counter.

“Why are you getting-?” I started, but didn’t get to finish the question.

Marty stared at me with wide eyes, and put a finger over his lips, as if whatever he was doing was a secret.

Once we’d left the store, he didn’t head home. Instead, he turned in a different direction.

“Come on, Andy,” he whispered to me.

“Where are we even going?”

Once more, he shushed me. As we walked on, he tried his best to hide his heavy frame, trying not to be seen. His eyes darted here and there, watching his surroundings until we’d made it to a building at the edge of town. When Marty saw no one was around, he dashed towards a path that led to the forest next to our town.

“Hey, Marty, just tell me where we’re going!”

“It’s somewhere super cool!”

“Yeah, but what is it? Why’d you get the meat? Is it for a cat or something?”

I reasoned he might have befriended a stray, or maybe a bunch of them, and had gotten the meat for them.

“Not, it’s for the lizards!” he finally answered in an almost giddy voice.

I stopped and stared at him. Of course, this was about freaking lizards.

“Are you serious?”

He began nodding vehemently, his face full of enthusiasm.

“Yeah! Don’t you want to see them? They are, like, super cool! I found this nest out in the forest, and they look awesome! Their colors change all the time, and they are different from any other lizards. It’s like a new species or something. Come on, Andy, I bet they are hungry already and there’s probably even more of them now! I wonder if there’s even bigger ones, you know? That would be so freaking cool!”

“I should’ve known this was about lizards again.”

“Well, yeah, but they aren’t just-“

“No, Marty, I don’t care! I don’t give a shit about your stupid lizards!”

With that, I turned around and stormed off. I couldn’t believe it, but to be honest, I shouldn’t have expected anything else.

After that day, I really had enough of Marty, and soon I joined into the various jokes about him.

“Yeah, he’s probably part lizard himself,” I said to one of my friends, Tommy, as we stood in front of our lockers a few days later.

“I bet his parents are reptilians! That’s why they got so much money,” Tommy added.

We both started laughing.

“You know what he told me the other day? He said he’d found this weird lizard nest in the forest and-“

“What’s that about a lizard nest?”

It was Stevie, with his friend Connor in tow. In an instant, they pushed Tommy aside and cornered me.

“Oh, eh, hey Stevie,” I mumbled. “Lizard Boy told me he found this nest out in the forest and went to feed them or something.”

Stevie’s face distorted into a grin.

“You hear that?” he asked, turning to Connor.

“Bet he isn’t just feeding them though,” Connor brought out, laughing. “He’s a lizard lover, after all.”

I sighed. As much as I was sick of Marty’s shit, I couldn’t stand the two of them.

“So, where is it?”

“No clue, somewhere in the forest, I guess.”

With that, I tried to push myself past them, but Stevie pulled me back instantly.

“Yeah, but he showed it to you, right?”

“No, he did not. I didn’t want to see his stupid lizards.”

“You sticking up for Lizard Boy?” Connor barked at me.

“What? No, I-“

“Yeah, are you a lizard, too, Andy?” Stevie laid into me.

“Fuck off,” I yelled at him, which promptly landed me in a headlock.

“You know, Andy,” Stevie started. “Ever since Lizard Boy’s been skipping out on us, we’ve gotten really bored. Maybe we’ll start hanging out with you instead. How about that?”

“Fine! I’ll show you where he entered the stupid forest, but I swear, I’ve got no idea where the stupid nest is! I think he always goes there right after school, so if you wait for him-“

“Oh no, Andy, you’re coming, too. In case you’re lying to us.”

“Yeah, to make sure you aren’t a lizard,” Connor added, laughing.

And so, once classes had ended, I found the two of them already waiting for me.

“There he is! Are you excited about our little lizard hunt, Andy?”

Once more, I sighed, but gave him a nod, not wanting to end up in another headlock.

Marty was already gone, and had snuck out of school via the back entrance, like he so often did these days. He was probably on his way to the store already.

Instead of leading Stevie and Connor there, however, I showed them the path from which Marty had entered the forest. For long minutes, we lay in wait, hidden between the bushes, but Marty was nowhere to be seen. I could tell Stevie was growing restless, angry even.

“Where the hell is he? If you’re lying to us, I’m going to beat the shit out of you, Andy!”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s still at the store. Or maybe he’s not coming today. How the hell’d I know?”

Right away, Connor slapped me across the back of the head. I cursed in pain and glared at him.

“What’s that? You want to pick a fight?”

“Shut up, idiots! There he is!” Stevie suddenly whispered.

He was right.

Just like the day before, Marty hurried down the street, his eyes darting here and there, trying his best to stay hidden behind buildings. Then he’d made it to the dirt path and went on his way into the forest. As he walked past us, I saw how giddy with excitement he was.

For a while longer, we sat there. Then we set out after him, carefully not to be seen.

We walked for what must’ve been almost half an hour before he stopped in front of a small rock formation. For long seconds, he just stood there, but then he found what he’d been looking for: a small gap between the rocks. We watched as he approached it, and then, grunting, pushed himself through.

When we’d reached the gap as well, we saw how he approached some sort of crevice. He put down his backpack and then set down as well. He rummaged through his backpack before he pulled out a pack of meat. Then he opened it and threw piece after piece down the crevice.

“You’ve gotten really hungry, haven’t you?” Marty asked, giggling.

Right away, Stevie pushed me forward, motioning for the gap. Once I was through, he and Connor followed.

“Well, what do we have here?” Stevie brought out in a sing-song voice with a big grin on his face. “If it isn’t little Lizard Boy!”

Marty froze. Then, slowly, he turned around, his eyes wide with fear.

He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when he saw me standing behind Stevie and Connor. I could see the shock on his face at my betrayal.

I instantly looked away and shuffled around as Stevie and Connor approached him.

“We’ve missed you, Lizard Boy. Why didn’t you tell us about this place? I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“What do you want, Stevie?” Marty asked in a meek voice.

“What was that? Why don’t you speak up Lizard Boy?” Stevie yelled at him.

“Yeah, speak up, you stupid lizard!” Connor added.

“Stop screaming, you’re scaring them!” Marty suddenly brought out, in a voice much louder than anyone would’ve expected.

This outburst landed him a punch from Stevie, and he went down.

“Now let’s have a look at those stupid lizards,” Stevie said, pushing himself past Marty.

When he reached the crevice, however, an expression of disgust came over his face.

“The hell are those?” he spat.

“Leave them alone!” Marty called out, trying to get up.

By now, however, Connor had reached him and pushed him down again, restraining him.

Stevie still hadn’t moved, and driven by curiosity, I stepped up to the crevice as well.

What I saw down there were lizards, all right, but they were much bigger than those I’d seen in Marty’s terrarium.

They were strange whitish things, but I could see their scales shimmer in the light, their color slightly shifting as if they were cheap imitations of chameleons. Their heads, too, looked different. It was their eyes, I realized after a brief moment. They were in the wrong place, not at the side, but at the front of their heads. The strangest thing about them, however, was the way they moved. They weren’t so much slithering over the ground, but crawling.

I watched in fascination as one of them reached a chunk of meat. Instead of biting into it, it tore at it with one of its clawed feet. Feet that almost resembled miniature hands.

I shivered as I stared at the creatures down there. What the hell had Marty found out here?

“Those things are disgusting,” Stevie finally said.

I didn’t like him. Hell, I hated him for dragging me out here, but he had a point.

“They not disgusting! They are awesome!” Marty blurted out.

Stevie turned around, now grinning again.

“Oh, you think so, Lizard Boy? Then why don’t you go down there and play with them?”

“I can’t! They’ll get scared and run away and never come back!”

“Is that so?” Stevie asked, getting a hold of Marty’s backpack.

“Well, that’s too bad. I guess you can’t get this back then.”

With that, he threw Marty’s backpack down into the crevice. The lizards scattered and fled back to a cave at the end of the crevice, watching the backpack wearily. Then they slowly approached it.

“No, why’d you do that?” Marty called out. “If they smell humans, they might hide and never come out again!”

“What are you going to do about it, Lizard Boy?”

In an onset of anger, Marty freed himself from Connor, pushed him aside, and rushed Stevie. Before Stevie could react, Marty threw himself at him, and with surprising strength, pushed him away from the crevice and the lizards below. Stevie stumbled back a few steps before he tripped and crashed to the floor. I could hear him curse up in pain.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Lizard Boy,” he spat as he pushed himself back up.

Stevie was furious now, and I could see the mad grin on his face. In an instant, he was back in front of Marty and began laying down on him. Marty raised his arms to protect himself from Stevie’s onslaught, but I saw him backing away. He took one step, then another, and finally tripped over a rock.

Marty tumbled backward, lost his footing, and a moment later, he was gone.

Everything was quiet. The only audible sound was that of the lizards below us.

Then I heard a thump as Marty landed right between them. The strangest of sounds reached my ears. It sounded almost like a dull ‘uff,’ but also entirely different.

With weak, shaking legs, all three of us stepped forward. Marty lay on the ground, down in the crevice, not moving.

Suddenly, his eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at us with a pleading expression, which was quickly replaced by rage. He moved, was about to push himself up, but then he fell down again. His eyes fall shut, his face went limp, and I watched as a small trickle of blood ran from his mouth.

“Fuck!” Stevie brought out.

Then he and Connor turned around, dashed towards the gap, and were gone a second later.

“M-Marty?” I called out.

No answer. His eyes didn’t flutter open. He didn’t move. All I saw were those strange lizards which began circling him.

As I stared at him down there, panic washed over me. Oh god, he was dead. Marty was dead. He’d fallen and now…

Not knowing what else to do, I ran. I was scared, confused, but most of all, I felt guilty.

I thought about telling someone, to call for help. Yet I was the one who’d brought Stevie there. I was the one responsible. It was my fault. It was all my fault!

The moment I’d made it home, I locked myself in my room. I was out of it, shaking, couldn’t sit still. I tried to tell myself Marty was all right. It wasn’t that big a fall. Sure, he’d probably gotten hurt, but it wasn’t like he’d die from something like that!

When my parents called me down for dinner, I just sat there, at the table, not moving. I ate nothing, I couldn’t. After only a few minutes, I got up and went back to my room, ignoring my parents as they called after me.

I didn’t sleep that night. I just lay in bed as Marty’s fall replayed in front of my eyes. Once more, I saw him staring up at us, saw his pleading expression, his anger, and then the blood trickling from his mouth.

Still, I told myself, he was probably all right, he had to be.

All those thoughts were crushed when Marty’s seat remained empty the next day.

After school, I found myself cornered by Stevie and Connor. They, too, were out of it. But then Stevie threatened me.

“You keep your mouth shut Andy, or I swear…”

I saw him reach into his pocket, saw the switchblade he was hiding there.

“I promise, Stevie, I won’t say anything!”

“Good, and anyway, we’d just tell everyone it was you who pushed him!”

With that, the two of them left me behind, more scared than ever.

The day after, Marty didn’t show up either. By the third day, our teacher told us Marty had gone missing. She appealed to us to come forward if we knew where he might have gone or what might have happened to him.

When I heard this, I looked up, but noticed Stevie staring me down. And so, I didn’t say a thing, never did.

A few days later, Stevie approached me again and pushed me against my locker. He was angry, but I also noticed how tired and restless he looked.

“Was it you!?”

“No, I swear, I didn’t say a thing! Why’d you think-“

“What? No, not that! I’m talking about last night! You were at my window, weren’t you? Making these weird sounds, scratching over the class and acting like some freaking lizard!”

Before I could say anything, he pushed me against the locker once more, this time harder.

“Admit it, Andy! Tell me it was you, for fuck’s sake!”

“No! Why’d I…? What the hell are you even talking about?”

For a few more seconds, he seemed to probe me, but then let me go and stormed off. As he did, I could hear him curse under his breath.

I just stared after him. What the hell was he talking about? Then I thought about Marty, about his hateful expression.

What if he’d been okay after all, but hadn’t gone home? What if he’d stayed there in the forest with these weird lizards and was now coming after Stevie? No, coming after all three of us.

I told myself I was being stupid. If he’d been okay, he’d just gone home. It was freaking Marty we were talking about!

But then, about a week after Marty’s fall, Stevie didn’t show up to school.

It was Connor who told me what had happened. The night before, Stevie had sent him a message, telling him that someone had been stalking his house for the past few days. Eventually, when he saw a figure standing at his window, he’d had enough. He wrote he was going to finish Lizard Boy for good. It was the last thing anyone ever heard from him.

“What if it really is freaking Lizard Boy?” Connor asked. “What if he’s really come back and-?”

“We’re talking about Marty here!” I countered.

“Yeah, but then, who else could it be? Why’d they come after Stevie? No one else knows what we did!”

I just stared at him, not sure what to say.

“Fucking hell,” Connor spat at me, and hurried away.

Three days later, Connor was gone, too. His story, however, was different. He hadn’t just vanished. Apparently, someone had broken into his room in the middle of the night. When his parents were awoken by the noise, they stormed into his room. They found the window destroyed, the room in a state of utter chaos. Yet no hint of Connor or the intruder remained.

At this point, the disappearances caused an uproar in town. Three kids had gone missing, had presumably been kidnapped.

School was cancelled, a state of emergency was declared, and curfews were enacted.

They question all of us. Yet somehow, I didn’t come clean. I couldn’t I was too scared to say anything, to admit what we’d done. I felt guilty. If I’d said something earlier, but now…

Before long, a search was started. First by the police, but soon, many of the townspeople joined in. They found nothing.

I grew detached during these days, reclusive and retreated to my room. I was riddled with guilt, but more so, I was afraid. What if it really was Marty? What if he’d really come for them, and was now coming for me as well?

By this point, my fear had grown irrational and had transformed him into some sort of lizard hybrid. In my mind, he was a slithering, scaly monstrosity, just waiting for me to be alone so he could come and drag me away.

Before long, more people went missing. Two more kids were snatched from their homes, as they referred to it. Two kids, who, like me, had taken part in tormenting Marty. Then it was our biology teacher, Mrs. Grantle.

Eventually, even the search parties weren’t safe from Marty’s wrath. One day, eleven men set out in another search of the forest. Amongst them the fathers of Stevie and Connor. Come evening, only seven of them returned. The rest should stay missing.

Tonight, as so many times before, I lay in bed, not able to sleep. It was long past midnight when I heard something from outside. I told myself it was just the wind, repeated it over and over again. Yet the lie didn’t work. The sounds were too loud, almost like footsteps echoing from below my second-story window.

Oh god, I thought, it was Marty. He’d finally come for me!

At first, I wanted to hide, but then I went up to the window. Maybe, just maybe, I could reconcile with him, apologize and tell him to stop this crazy revenge of his.

“Marty, I’m sorry, I didn’t-“ I called out, half-crying.

Then my voice trailed off. In the dim light of the room, I could see a figure below my window. It stared up at me with cold, reptilian eyes.

Yet whoever or whatever this figure was, it was much too big for even Marty, much too scaly. Its skin was strangely white, but then, it seemed to change, to adapt to the dim light from my window.

I saw clawed, scaly hands, and a long reptilian head. The creature opened its mouth, releasing a screech before it began scaling the wall.

I screamed and scrambled back from the window. At that moment, lights went on all over the house. I heard the creature hiss, heard it let go of the wall, and watched as it slithered away into the darkness of the night.

I just sat there, on the floor, staring out the window in sheer and utter horror. When parents came into the room, asking me what was wrong, what had happened, I wasn’t able to say anything.

Marty’s words as he spoke to the strange lizards in the forest reverberated inside my mind.

“You’ve gotten so hungry, haven’t you?”

And then, another thing he’d said came to my mind.

“I wonder if there’s even bigger ones, you know? That would be so freaking cool!”

Oh god, I realized. I had it all wrong. It wasn’t Marty, it never had been.

I don’t know what Marty had discovered out there. I don’t know what those things are, but I know they aren’t just lizards.

After Marty fell, after he’d died, they’d gotten their first taste and they must’ve realized there’s more of us.

And now, they are coming for us, for all of us.

It was my cousin Bill who first told me about the Legend of Long Legged Larry.

Bill and I used to be best friends, and I always spent the long, hot weeks of summer in his small town in the middle of nowhere. In 2002, however, things changed. I guess that’s puberty for you. While I turned into a shy, reclusive nerd, Bill wanted to be known, to be one of the cool kids.

It didn’t take me long to notice how much he’d changed. His entire demeanor was different, the way he carried himself and even how he spoke. I could also tell he wasn’t too happy to have ‘that little nerd’ around, as he referred to me to his so-called friends, the cool kids he was so desperate to impress.

Whenever we met them, he’d make fun of me, and before long, I became the butt of their collective jokes. Even worse, Bill began treating me like I was an idiot, and never lost a chance to belittle me.

It was one of these friends, I later learned, who’d told Bill about the supposed urban legend.

“What’s a Long Legged Larry?” I asked when he told me about it.

Instead of answering me, Bill scoffed and made it an effort to let me know how dumb I was for not knowing.

“How can you not know about it? God, you’re so stupid…”

“I bet you just heard it from one of your friends,” I retorted.

This landed me one of his trademark thigh knocks. I cursed in pain and hobbled over to the couch in his room. While I rubbed what I knew to become a heavy bruise, he reiterated the story he’d heard.

“Nobody knows his real name, but he’s a serial killer who escaped from a nearby mental institution,” Bill started, his voice nothing but a conspiratorial whisper.

“He’s a mutant with long, spidery legs who was abandoned at birth. They say he grew up in the woods around town, but one night he came back and hunted down his entire family. He beat them all to death with his long legs. They say he’s more a spider than a man, eight feet tall and-“

“This is so freaking dumb,” I mumbled to myself as I listened.

“Oh yeah? You’ve just got no clue, that’s all!”

Yeah, sure, I thought, but kept my mouth shut.

I’d hoped that was it, that this silly legend was nothing but another story to annoy me with and to act out the superiority he felt over me. Yet Bill was desperate to prove himself to his new friends. He probably thought he could be accepted into their little clique, if he could prove there was more to Long Legged Larry.

At first, he’d merely talk about it, but soon enough, he dragged me along and made me help him with his ‘research,’ as he called it.

Day after day I was forced to trudge after him as he went through town, asking people if they’d heard about the legend.

Most people, of course, had never heard about it, and I thought it was nothing but bullshit, an elaborate joke Bill’s friends had played on him. Occasionally, though, faces lit up in recognition, and slowly, ever so slowly, we learned more bits and pieces of the legend.

An old drunk told us that Long Legged Larry had once been the main attraction of a freak show or curiosity cabinet, but escaped and now roamed the wilderness around town. A scruffy looking young man at the town’s internet cafe told us he was the result of a failed government experiment.

There were as many takes on the story as there were people who’d heard about it. They ranged from ancient horrors to athletes having turned into serial killers.

Yet they all agreed on one thing: his legs were special; either too long, too strong, or… in one case, he had too many of them.

One day, Bill struck gold. Once again, we were at the town’s internet cafe. While I was browsing what could barely be called the internet, reading up on games, Bill was busy doing research.

“That’s it!” he suddenly exclaimed from the seat next to me.

I looked over at him, eyebrows raised, and a second later, he pulled me off my seat and in front of his screen.

It was an old news story from the late 60s or early 70s. A group of teenagers had gone out into the woods to have some fun, and only one of them returned. He was out of it when police found him and said he and his friends had been hunted down by something out in the woods.

I turned back to Bill, but he gave me an annoyed expression, urging me to read on. With a sigh, I turned back and continued reading the article, not sure what the big deal was. When they questioned the teen, he eventually admitted they’d gone out to the old steel mill. When the police checked the place, they found nothing. Not a hint of wild animals, serial killers, or whatever the young man claimed he’d seen. Yet they also found none of the bodies.

“So?” I asked, turning back to Bill.

“What do you mean, so? Did you read it? He’s got to be out there! I should’ve known he’s hiding out by the old steel mill with all the talk about it and what not!”

“What do you-?”

Oh no, don’t tell me… Bill’s expression, however, had already changed.

“We’re so going!” he brought out in an overly excited voice that made what few other patrons were at the place look up.

“Oh, come on, Bill. I’m not going to some stupid abandoned place in the middle of-“

I was cut off by another thigh knock.

“Why are you always such a pussy? This is going to be awesome! Who knows, maybe we’ll even find out what happened to those teenagers that went missing!”

“That was thirty years ago. Even if someone was out there back then, he’s probably long gone, dead, or even-“

“You know, if you don’t come along, I’ll tell everyone you’re in love with Susan Kingsley!”

“Who’s Susan Kingsley?”

I could see the anger and frustration on Bill’s face. For a moment, he opened his mouth, but then closed it again.

“You know what? Fine, whatever!”

With that, he stormed off.

Once more I’d hoped this settled the issue, but Bill wasn’t one to give up easily. No, things always went his way, even if he had to make sure they did. For days, he annoyed the hell out of me, even more so than before. He started making these strange spider noises, kicked me with his legs, and even tried to scare me in the middle of the night, pretending to be Long Legged Larry.

Eventually, I had enough.

“You know what, fine. Let’s check the damned place out.”

Only an hour later, we were on our way, riding our bikes through town and then deep into the forests around it.

We could already see the first signs of the old steel mill from afar. Its giant, derelict chimneys rose high above even the tallest trees. A testament to the town’s long forgotten, industrial origins. Once we got closer, however, we saw that the once imposing building was now nothing but an overgrown ruin that had long since been reclaimed by nature. The only thing not in sheer and utter disrepair was the huge steel fence surrounding the building, sprouting a variety of ‘Do Not Enter,’ and ‘Parents Are Liable for Their Children’ signs.

“How long you think this place’s been abandoned?” I asked as we pushed our bikes into the nearby underbrush.

“You really know nothing, do you?” he started, letting out an over-exaggerated sigh, and rolling his eyes.

“It was closed down in 1946, after the end of World War II. I heard they did experiments in there, created some sort of new weapon to fight the Nazis, but then…”

I didn’t bother to listen anymore. This was another story he’d heard from one of his friends, or it was something he’d made up on the fly, hoping to impress me.

“…still off-limits. Even animals avoid the place, and some years ago, Jerry told me a squatter went missing out here.”

I heard the familiar rustling of the trees in the wind, but all other sounds had vanished. No birds, no skittering animals, nothing. It seemed, for once, at least part of what Bill had said was the truth. For a moment, I couldn’t help but be crept out. It was a warm summer day, but I still shivered.

“What if there really is someone hiding in there?” I finally asked.

“You know, there’s one thing I’ve not told you about Long Legged Larry. He likes nothing more than to eat dumb little nerds, so-“

“Shut up, Bill. It’s not funny,” I mumbled. “I mean, don’t you think something’s wrong with the place?”

When I said this, Bill gave me a cheeky grin.

“Well, in case there is, I brought this along!”

With that, he pulled out one of his dad’s hunting knifes.

“If Larry tries to get me, I’m going to stab him with this!”

As if to prove he was serious, he waved the knife around in front of my face and even made a few swift stabbing motions in the air.

I opened my mouth to tell him how goddamn stupid he was, but Bill had already turned around and made his way towards the steel fence.

“Either way, let’s find out if someone’s in there!”

With that, he began climbing the fence, ignoring all the signs fastened to it. A few moments later, he’d made it inside.

“Come on already, you pussy!”

For a few seconds, I just stood there. Once more I listened, hoping desperately to hear any signs of life, but all was quiet. For a moment, I told myself to stay where I was. Hell, I told myself to just get out of here and leave Bill to his own devices. Then I sighed and approached the fence as well. Somehow I knew this idiot would get himself hurt if I wasn’t around. If that happened, I’d be in a lot of trouble if I’d just left.

“Dammit,” I cursed and climbed the fence.

When I’d made it, Bill had already hurried to the entrance of the old steel mill. I’d only taken a few steps before I stopped again. I watched as Bill pulled open the heavy gate. A cavernous maw opened up in front of him, one that seemed to devour all light in the area.

For a moment, I half expected a multitude of twisted arms, or even legs, to appear and snag him away right in front of me. Instead of that, however, Bill bent over and picked something up he’d found lying on the ground right behind the heavy gates.

When I reached him, I saw he was holding up a page of an old, torn newspaper.

“See! I told you someone’s in here! This place’s been closed down since forever, but look at the year, look at it!”

A quick glance at the page told me it was from the year 1999, a mere three years ago.

“Bill, I think we should leave. We don’t know…”

My voice trailed off. Bill didn’t even listen to me anymore. Instead, he tore open his backpack, rummaged through the contents for a moment before he produced a flashlight. A moment later, he ventured inside.

As I followed him, I realized once more how quiet it was. No birds, no animals, and not even the sounds of the rustling trees reached us in here. All we heard was the sound of our echoing footsteps on the old, cracked concrete floor.

The inside of the steel mill was entirely empty, and must’ve been stripped bare before it was abandoned. It made the place even bigger than it seemed from the outside. It was nothing but endless darkness, stretching on impossibly far in all directions. The only things I saw were a few lonely beams holding up the high roof above us, and the occasional heap of rubble.

As Bill walked on, the beam of his flashlight jerked around wildly, darting here and there in seemingly uncontrolled motions. At first, I thought he was scared, but then I saw his face. He was giddy with excitement.

“If we find him, it’s going to be the most amazing story ever!”

Then the flashlight’s beam hit something on the concrete floor, something that had once been very much alive.

A gasp escaped mouth, and I barely contained the scream that had tried to escape my throat.

Bill, however, was already hurrying over to the bloodied remains in front of us.

“It’s a fox, but it looks like it’s been dead for a while,” he said, poking it with his foot.

“Yeah, but how did it end up in here? There are no other animals around and look, it’s been torn apart.”

“Probably Larry,” Bill mumbled.

“Shut up! This is getting creepy. Please, Bill, let’s just leave, all right?”

“You’re such a pussy! But fine, if you want to be a baby, you can wait for me outside!”

This time, I’d had it with his stupidity. This place was creepy enough, but this fox… Something was wrong here and the last thing I wanted was to run into some deranged homeless dude or squatter, or hell, even stupid Larry himself!

As fast as my steps could lead me, I made my way towards the small spot of sunlight we’d entered from.

Suddenly, I tripped over something. I cursed, trying to kick away what I thought was nothing but rubble, but when I looked down, I saw it was a heap of clothes, torn apart, half-rotten clothes. Yet what my food had hit was a bone, a long, big bone that was clearly not from a fox or another small animal. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw something else between the torn clothes on the floor. It was the remains of a broken human skull.

This time, I could do nothing about the scream that escaped mouth.

I backed away, stumbled over my feet, and crashed to the ground. Bill was with me a few moments later, his face a mixture of annoyance and curiosity.

“What happened? What did you see? Did you get scared by-?”

The moment he saw what I was pointing at, he was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper.

“He’s a cannibal.”

Before I could tell him we had to get out of here, I heard it. Footsteps. Hard, fast footsteps that echoed towards us from somewhere inside the building.

When I turned to look at Bill, he was as scared as I was. All the excitement had left his face as the reality of the situation finally dawned on him. The beam of his flashlight darted around erratically, trying desperately to find whoever was coming for us.

Then we both saw it. A disheveled, older man came dashing right for us.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he called out to us.

We both screamed in terror. Bill was already running, and a moment later, I’d made it to my feet and was right behind him. In his senseless panic, Bill wasn’t running towards the exit, but deeper into the building, away from the creepy guy who was about to murder us.

“… come back here, dammit… going to get you…” I heard his voice from behind us.

We ran as fast as we could, but with each step, the man was closing the distance between us.

And then, just before the man reached us, Bill stared right at me. His eyes were wide, all the color had drained from his face, but then a different emotion washed over it. It was guilt, and before I understood what was happening, he tripped me.

As Bill ran on, I stumbled, desperately trying to keep my balance, but after only a few steps, I crashed to the floor. For a moment, everything stopped. I stared after Bill, who was still running, continuing on deeper into the darkness of the steel mill, his flashlight beam dancing across the floor. Then I turned around. My eyes focused on the man who was coming for me, on Larry, and I knew it was too late. He had reached me, and before I could even get back to my feet, his hands closed around my arm.

I screamed after Bill, screamed for him to come back and help me, but he just ran on. I kicked at Larry, tried to fight myself free, but it was futile. In a few swift motions, he restrained me and a moment later, he pushed a hand over my mouth, cutting off my screams forever.

“Not another damned word!” he snapped at me.

Then he dragged me back towards one of the huge beams in the empty hall.

As he held me in place, he said something else. It was nothing but a whisper.

“Quiet, it will hear you, too!”

I didn’t understand what was going on. What was he talking about? Once more, I renewed my efforts to get free, but then I heard it: sounds different from Bill’s echoing footsteps.

The sounds were unlike anything I’d ever heard before. The closest I could think of was bugs, a multitude of skittering bugs. Then Bill screamed.

This time, his scream was different. It was nothing but an unintelligible, bloodcurdling wail. It was cut short a second later, but its echo traveled endlessly and lingered in the empty halls of the steel mill. All the while, the man I’d thought to be Larry held me in place, still covering my mouth.

Then something hit the floor, something wet and made of flesh and bone, something I knew had been my cousin mere moments ago. I heard clothes being torn, flesh being ripped apart, and then a sound so disgusting, I almost vomited. It reminded me of someone sucking the juices from a fruit.

The sounds continued for almost a minute before silence returned to the steel mill. All I could hear now was beating of my heart and the labored breathing of the man holding me in place. Then, the skittering returned, and for the blink of an eye, something was illuminated by the flashlight Bill had dropped.

It was a tall, bony figure, a figure so tall it almost reached the hall’s high roof. And as it moved, I saw a multitude of thin, spidery limbs. No, not limbs, I realized. Legs, legs skittering over the floor as whatever this abomination was dragged itself back to its hiding place.

For long minutes, the man kept holding me in place, not moving. His eyes focused on the lonely flashlight beam as he listened to the deafening silence all around us. As he did, I could see the terror on his face. Eventually, though, he opened his mouth again. All he said was a single, whispered word.

“Outside.”

With that, he dragged me from the dark hall and back into daylight. Eventually, he let me go, and I’d have run if I’d had the energy left. I stumbled only a few steps before I collapsed on the ground, a trembling, crying mess.

“W-what the hell was that? Was it… Long Legged Larry?”

“Long Legged… what? Is that what they call it these days?”

“What are you…?”

My voice trailed off, not even sure what I was going to ask.

“That thing in there,” the man finally said. “Whatever it is, it’s been around forever, even before I was born. There’s always been stories about it and it’s probably the reason they shut down this damned mill all those years ago.”

“But, but what is it? Some sort of freak or serial killer?”

For a moment, the man was quiet. His eyes wandered over the old steel mill in front of us before he shook his head.

“Got no clue what it is myself. Might be something that escaped from god knows where, like some stories say, might be something much older. All I can say is that it’s not human. Knew it the moment I first saw it.”

“First saw it? What do you-?”

“Came here years ago with my friends when I was still a teenager. Got drunk and high one night with my friends, and wanted to figure out if there was more to the stories. God, how dumb we were. Not that we expected to find anything, but then, that thing…”

He was quiet again, shaking his head. For a moment, his body tensed up, and I saw the guilt on his face.

“Was the one who led us here, and the only one who made it out, the only one fast enough to get away.”

When I heard it, it hit me. The news story Bill had found about the group of teenagers who went here long ago, and who all went missing except…

“The one who got away, the one from the old newspaper article?!”

He gave me a surprised look before he nodded.

“But then, why’s that thing still here? Why didn’t they do anything about this, this… whatever this thing is?”

“You know, boy, most people in town don’t believe those dumb old stories. No one’s going to believe some teenager high on drugs, talking about some spider monster that took his friends away. No, they thought I’d snapped and did god knows what to them, or that they simple ran off. Put me in the bin for a few years, but eventually let me go. Found nothing out here, no hint of what happened, and no hint of my friends.”

“But if this thing-!”

“It’s a small town, boy. No one cares. People go missing in the woods, and that’s it.”

“But if you know it’s in there, why are you here? Why’d you come back?”

As I asked this, I saw how he balled his fists, and saw the look of frustration that came over his face.

“Been watching this place for a good ten years now and put up all those sings to make sure… When I saw your bikes, I knew you’d make the same mistake I’d made all those years ago. Then I heard you screaming and knew it would come to get you. Tried my best to get you both out, but…”

Instead of continuing, he just shook his head, cursing to himself.

---

After Bill’s disappearance, an investigation was started. I told them what I’d seen, what had happened, but no one believed me when I talked about Long Legged Larry. When they eventually checked out the old steel mill, it was a half-hearted effort, and, of course, they found nothing. All signs of habitation and all the remains we’d discovered were long gone. And Bill, Bills should stay missing. Just another person who’d went missing in the woods.

All this happened over three decades ago. The old man who’d saved me that day, Jonathan, is long dead.

Even now, even to this day, the rumors of Long Legged Larry, or Sneaky Spidery Steve or whatever they call it now, persists and is shared by the teenagers in town.

While most regard it as nothing but an urban legend, as bullshit, so to speak, there are always those just like Bill. The ones who think there’s more to be found out here.

They think they’ll be famous, they’ll come back as heroes and can upload their discoveries on YouTube or TikTok. And so, I’ll make sure to keep watch, just as old Jonathan did before me. Whenever I hear those rumors, those stories, I say it’s nothing but humbug, and there’s nothing to be found at the old steel mill.

Yet, I’ve got to keep watch. Not because this thing might get out. I know it doesn’t want to.

No, I’ve got to keep watch for those dumb enough to come here, dumb enough to believe in the stories such as the Legend of Long Legged Larry.

Terrance Brown had always been in love with ghost stories. He would scour our town in search of any and all rumors regarding the supernatural.

Yet, our town was small, tiny even, and its few inhabitants shared nothing resembling even the most normal rumors or urban legends. Ghost stories or hauntings were not something the people concerned themselves with.

One day, however, as I sat with my friend Mark, eating our lunch, Terrance propped himself down next to us. His face was distorted by a never-before-seen serious expression.

“Have you guys heard about the Wailing of Willow Way?” he asked with wide eyes, and almost leaning into our faces.

“The wailing of… what?” I asked, before I took another bite of my sandwich.

“The Wailing of Willow Way!” Terrance repeated in a conspiratorial whisper.

“It says that on certain nights, just past two in the morning, you can hear strange sounds, a wailing down Willow Way. They say it’s the ghost of-“

“Who are they?” Mark cut in, laughing.

By now, the two of us were pretty annoyed by Terrance and the silly stories he tried to spread every other week.

“Old Larry told me about it. He said he saw the ghost himself a few weeks ago.”

“You know that guy’s freaking crazy, right?” Mark asked, half-amused, half-annoyed.

“Look guys, I know he’s crazy, and I know it sounds stupid, but a few nights ago, I went down there and I heard it myself. I swear it!”

“Stop making up stories, Terry,” I mumbled, getting angry.

“Well, why don’t you see for yourself? Bet you guys are too scared, anyway!”

Before we could even retort, he’d jumped off his seat and raced down to another group, most likely sharing his stupid story with them as well. I knew it didn’t matter. He always tried to make his stories stick, but usually was over them in a couple of days.

Not so the Wailing of Willow Way. For whatever reason, it took root in our small school and soon I could hear others whispering about it and the ghost responsible for it.

I even heard that another boy, Steven Miller, had been dared by Terrance, just as we had. Being the dumb but curious idiot everyone knew him to be, he actually set out one night. Believing, of course, just like us, that it was nothing but a stupid story.

He said he’d waited for almost half an hour until, by the clock, at two in the morning, he could hear strange sounds from down Willow Way. At first, he said, he thought it was just the wind, but the further he went in, the louder the wailing became. Until he saw it. Down near the end of Willow Way, a headless figure, half-hidden in the shadows and draped in what he said to be, a half-rotten sheet stood. The moment Steven got closer, the wailing started tenfold, and when the ghost finally turned in his direction, he ran.

This only helped to spread Terrance’s story, and even me and Mark became enthralled with it.

The longer the rumor persisted, the more details became known about it. The ghost was supposedly that of a young woman. She’d been murdered down Willow Way half a century ago by a deranged drifter. The man had then cut off her head before he vanished, leaving her decapitated body behind. As the story goes, the woman’s still out there, wailing and searching for her missing head. How she could wail without a head, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t an expert in ghost stories.

One day, driven by curiosity, I approached my mom about the rumors.

“Hey mom, have you heard about the Wailing down Willow Way?”

She turned, giving me a curious look.

“Now, what’s that about a wailing?”

“It’s this, eh, story about a ghost. They say a woman was beheaded down there and her ghost is haunting Willow Way.”

“Wait, what’s that about a beheading? Who tells you such stories?”

“Everyone’s talking about it at school, and I thought you might know something about it.”

“Listen, Christopher, there’s no such things as ghosts, all right? Who even came up with it?”

“It was Terrance,” I admitted. “He said he’d heard it from Old Larry, but Steven Miller went down there one night and-“

“Oh, for god’s sake, you kids shouldn’t believe anything Old Larry says. Everyone knows the man’s crazy!”

I tried to protest and tell her that Steven had actually seen the headless ghost, but of course, she had none of it and said it was nothing but humbug.

To be honest, I wanted to believe her. Ghosts were humbug, after all, weren’t they? Yet, at the same time, more and more stories were told about the Wailing of Willow Way. Apparently, two more kids had seen the ghost by now and their stories spread like wildfire.

Eventfully, Mark and I couldn’t take it anymore. We’d both taunted Terrance, but after all these stories, we wondered if it might be true.

We set out a few days later. By now, both of us were pros at sneaking out in the middle of the night and had done so multiple times before.

When we met up, I saw Mark had brought his trusty baseball bat. I stared at him and pointed at the bat.

“What’d you bring that for?”

“Well, everyone says the ghost’s trying to steal your head, so if that bitch gets near me, I whack her!”

“You’re so dumb. If there’s really a ghost, then there’s no way you can hit her!”

“Why not?”

“Because… that’s how ghosts are, all right?”

When we checked the time, we saw it was already close to two in the morning and so we quickly made our way through the town’s deserted streets.

After only ten minutes, we’d arrived at the small alleyway that was known as Willow Way. Before I could so much as check the time, a quiet, almost inaudible wailing reached my ears.

I slowly turned to Mark and when our eyes met, we could both see how scared the other was.

“Probably a stray,” I mumbled.

Mark nodded vehemently, but it didn’t help one but, we were both terrified.

Step by step, we made our way down the small alley. All the while, I tried my best to listen only to the echoes of our footsteps, but with each single one, the wailing grew louder.

We’d made it to the halfway-point, when I saw something. Ahead of us, where the moonlight was hidden by the shadow of an adjacent building, something was moving.

It’s just a stray, I told myself. It’s just a stray. Those words, however, sounded empty. Nothing but lies.

And then, the wailing suddenly changed into an almost-scream, and a moment later, a figure turned into our direction.

It was nothing but a dirty, half-rotten sheet, but then a pair of ghastly thin arms and hands pushed themselves from it. Then the thing wailed again, straightened its headless body before it set out in our direction.

Mark and I both screamed in terror. I tried to back away, but stumbled over my own feet and crashed to the floor. As I tried to get up, my eyes were glued to the approaching figure, the approaching ghost-woman of Willow Way.

I shuffled on the floor, trying desperately to get up, but my body didn’t seem to listen to me. My arms were dangling helplessly at my sides, my legs were too weak to function properly. No, all there seemed to be was the ghost-woman of Willow-Way. Finally, when I saw her hands open and close, my body relented, functioned again. I pushed myself up, turned, took a few first steps, but then I remembered Mark.

“Mark, let’s get the hell out of-“

But Mark was frozen in terror. Nothing but sheer and utter panic distorted his face. And the ghost-woman was coming ever closer, step by angry step. Her hands reached out again, opening and closing, her fingers clawing through the air in apprehension, ready to tear of our heads.

And then Mark screamed, a scream that might very well have been a wail, rushed at the ghastly apparition and swung his bat. Useless, I thought, it’s useless, you can’t hurt a ghost.

Yet, the loud thump that followed told me, you can indeed hurt a ghost and you can indeed knock it square to the ground.

Still screaming and out of it, Mark continued his enraged beat down.

By this point, a neighbor had noticed the commotion. It was an angry, middle-aged woman who stormed into the alleyway, screaming and demanding what we were doing out in the middle of the night.

“What do you think you kids are doing? You ought to be-“

She broke off when she noticed Mark, the baseball bat in his hands and the figure at his feet.

Another scream cut through the air, this time the middle-aged woman’s.

Before long, more and more people flooded outside, trying to find out what was going on and eventually the police were called.

By that point, I was still out of it, still not understanding what was happening. How could Mark beat up a ghost? Why was everyone angry? What was the police doing here?

That was, until I saw what was below the sheet.

After Terrance Brown’s death, things changed in our small town. We got told about the importance of not spreading silly rumors. Curfews were enacted and strictly enforced and before long, the whole truth came out.

As it turned out, Old Larry had never heard a thing about Willow Way, and didn’t know it even existed. There had, of course, been no crazy drifter, no murder and no decapitated woman. There had been no ghost at all. In his desperation to get everyone to believe in his ghost stories, to make them just a tad bit more real, Terrance Brown had played the role of the ghost-woman of Willow Way himself.

—

The events of that night happened over three decades ago, and most people have forgotten about them. I’m an adult now, of course, and know how silly we’d all been to fall for Terrance’s story.

Yet, I’m writing this all down, because the other day, my son hurried into the house, asking if I’d heard about the boy down Willow Way.

When I asked him what he was talking about, he told me about the boy who’d supposedly been murdered down there. As the story went, his head was bashed in so badly, he was now out there looking for a new one.

I told him it was all humbug, of course, and there was no such thing as ghosts. I even told him it was most likely someone trying to play a trick on him.

After he’d left, however, and I sat there, alone in the living room, left to reminisce about the past, I couldn’t help but smile to myself.

Maybe, just maybe, there really is a ghost down there now. Maybe it’s the ghost of a little boy who was so in love with ghost stories, he became one himself.

When we’re kids, we all believe to be invincible, immortal even. My friends and I were no different.

We all thought we were at the center of the universe. We had high aspirations, wanting to be scientists, doctors or astronauts.

I was the only one to ever get close to any of those dreams.

Not in that sense, of course. I’m the owner of my small town’s only bike store. It’s ironic, really…

It was summer, and the heat was terrible, but I still busied my old bones around the store. While I was cleaning, I noticed a group of three young boys outside. The moment I saw them, I couldn’t help but smile.

They’d gathered in front of the store, but they weren’t checking out the shiny new bikes. No, what had caught their attention was a special bike, one that I’d propped up right next to the entrance.

It was a rusty old piece of junk, almost as old as me, but over the years it had become a staple of the store.

As I made my way outside, I could already hear their high-pitched voices echoing through the air.

“Just look how old it is,” one of them laughed.

“It’s all rusty and broken,” another one added.

“I bet if you sit on it, it breaks apart right away,” the last one chimed in, barely able to contain his laughter.

“Now what are you boys laughing at?” I called out to them.

They all turned to me and I found myself at the center of their attention.

“Why are you keeping this thing around, old man? No one’s going to buy it, anyway!”

“Oh, I know, I know, this old thing here’s not for sale,” I answered.

“Then why’s it here? People will think all you sell is useless junk!”

With that, all three of them burst out laughing again.

Before I got the chance to retort anything, they all jumped on their bikes and raced away.

“Be careful now, boys,” I called after them, but I knew they wouldn’t listen to me. They never did.

As I stared after them and watched how they vanished down the road, I couldn’t help but feel like a little boy again.

Back in the day, long decades ago, I was always riding my bike. There was no internet back then, no home entertainment and our town didn’t have an arcade. So, all we did was to play outside and ride our bikes.

There were four of us, me and my three best friends: buck toothed Joey, chubby Marcus and scared little Andrew, or Scardy Andy, as we called him.

We were young, and we were invincible, immortal even, and we did many crazy things on our bike.

We’d ride downhill with our arms high in the air, we’d tease people while rushing past them and we’d jump over the heaps of trash at Old Terrance’s scrapyard.

Joey was the craziest of us and our self-proclaimed leader. He was a whirlwind of a boy and always came up with new shenanigans and crazy things to do.

It might have been because of his home situation. Joey’s mom was poor, barely able to scrape by, and a fair share of rumors about her source of money were going around.

Joey’s bike was a mess, a rag-tag piece he’d ‘tuned’ with various parts he’d found around town or stolen from Old Terrane’s scrapyard. His bell was the absolute worst. It wouldn’t ring, but make this strange scraping sound, but was still louder than any other bell I ever heard.

He always had his head in the clouds and had more dreams than the rest of us combined. Each week, he wanted to do or become something else. One week, he wanted to be a scientist, the next an explorer, and the week after the big boss at our town’s only factory.

That summer, though, Joey wanted to be like Mitch.

Mitch was our town’s troublemaker. He was the type who went to school only when he wanted, hit on all the girls, had been in more fights at fifteen than anyone else and could always get you booze.

He was the personification of a bad boy, someone who didn’t play by the rules. Joly looked up to him immensely.

During summer break, all Joey did was to try to prove that he was as cool as Mitch, imitating many of the crazy and cool things Mitch had done.

That summer, we did a lot of stupid things, dangerous things even, all because Joey wanted to impress Mitch.

But, what can I say, as much as Joey looked up to Mitch, we looked up to Joey.

One thing that Mitch did was to ride down the steep and forbid Severin’s Hill on his bike at full speed. And of course, Joey wanted to do that same thing as well.

Severin’s Hill was a large hill at the edge of our small town. There was a single, steep road that led downwards, almost too steep to be driven on. It continued down the entire hill before it led into a small, forested gorge.

It was a treacherous road, one that even cars were wary of in poor weather and it was off-limits to us kids and our bikes.

And yet, Mitch had descended it, screaming, taking his hands off the handlebar, going as fast as he could.

I later learned that he was lying. Of course he was. People like Mitch always lie. But back then, we didn’t know, and all the kids in town were in awe of what he’d supposedly done.

It was only natural that Joey had to drive down Severin’s Hill, too.

One day, after teasing old Terrance for a while, Joey led us to Severin’s Hill. After checking that no one was around, we made our way to the top.

It was summer, a hot summer, and pushing our bikes up the side of the hill was hard. Even now, I remember arriving at the top, wheezing and panting, coated in sweat.

“Why are we up here?” I asked, already expecting the worst.

“Because,” Joey started, pushing his arms to his hips. “We’re going to go down Severin’s Hill!”

There it was, I thought.

“But, my mom says we’re not allowed to,” Scardy Andy spoke up.

“Yeah, I heard it’s really dangerous,” Marcus added.

“You’re all a bunch of babies! It’s going to be awesome! Mitch did it all the time, and if he did it, we’re going to do it too!”

He said it with such enthusiasm, it was hard not to get at least a little excited.

“What if,” I was about to start, but Joey didn’t let me voice my doubts.

“We’re going to be legends, just like Mitch!”

While Marcus, Scardy Andy and I looked at each other, Joey was already pushing his bike to the steep road that led down the hill.

It wasn’t long before we all got our bikes and joined him, staring down the seemingly endless road before it vanished between the trees of the small grove.

I felt anxious as I got onto my bike, but fear didn’t seem to exist for Joey. He was all pumped. His eyes were wide open and glowing with excitement.

He was mumbling and nodding to himself as he stared down. I caught the words ‘if Mitch did it,’ from his mumblings.

Then, he jumped on his bike and hit the pedals.

“Well guys, this is it, let’s make history!” he called out as he sped down.

For a few seconds we looked at each other, unsure what to do, but we all knew Joey would never let it go if we didn’t go along with him.

I heard Marcus gulp before he rushed after him. Before I knew it, I was on my bike as well, speeding down after them. Scardy Andy followed soon after.

The feeling of speeding down the hill, the feeling of getting faster and faster, was amazing. The adrenalin pumping through my veins differed from anything I ever felt before. As my small bike rushed down the road, I couldn’t help but scream and yell in excitement. Faster and faster I became, rushing over the hot asphalt, hitting my pedals harder and harder.

Suddenly, something hit me in the eye. A bug, a damn bug, and crashed right into it. For a moment I was blind. Fear washed over me. I was terrified, and I hit the brakes to stop my bike.

While I rubbed my eye, trying to get my vision back, I heard Joey calling out to me from ahead, and soon Marcus and Scardy Andy rushed past me, laughing.

They were all screaming as they continued their descent, leaving me behind.

I was cursing, almost crying. They thought I was scared, had pussied out, and now they’d lever it go! In my anger, I jumped back on my bike and was about to rush after them.

From where I was, I could see them as they raced down the road. As I drove on, though, I saw the small gorge, the forest around it and something my friends didn’t see.

To the right side of the road, hidden behind the trees, a tractor was on his way towards the road via an old dirt path. The road my friends were speeding down on.

I screamed, called out to them, but they were too far away, too absorbed in their adrenalin-fueled descent. I sped after them, down towards the forestry gorge. But of course, I was too late.

I heard it before I saw it, three loud bangs and the grinding of metal. As I slowed down and got closer, I could finally see it. The tractor, the bikes, and the blood.

The driver was already outside, screaming, lamenting, crying.

He hadn’t seen them neither. They were hidden behind the trees and he hadn’t expected that anyone would ride down Severin’s Hill like they did.

It was nothing but chance, nothing but a stupid chance. They’d all crashed into the side of the tractor and they’d all died almost instantly.

My friends thought they were invincible, immortal even, but in the blink of an eye, reality caught up with them and sniffed their lives out forever.

And I, I’d have been with them. The only reason I survived, the only reason I’m still here, is because of that bug that got in my eye. Another chance encounter, one that also took my invincibility away because that day I learned just how feeble life truly is.

After that day, I never road my bike again, I couldn’t. But I never gave that bike away, even when my parents wanted to sell or get rid of it.

After I’d finished high school, and out of options, I took a summer job at the bike store in our small town.

Before long, a summer job turned into a steady one. My dreams and aspirations ebbed away and when the old owner retired, it was only natural for me to take over.

Even then, I still kept my old bike. I couldn’t dare give it away. It was the only memory I had of my friends and the days I spent with them. And so, once the store fell into my hands, I put it up at the store.

I don’t remember when they first showed up, those three little boys.

They’d be marveling at the new expensive bikes, but most of the time they were joking about my rusty old one.

“Why’s that old, dirty bike here anyway, old man?”

“You should throw it away already!”

And many times I’d tell them why it was still here.

“Oh, but that’s my bike, boys. I can’t just throw it away,” I’d answer, smiling.

“That old thing? It’s going to break down the moment you move it!”

“Yeah, and it’s not made for adults like you, anyway!”

“I know, I know, but perhaps, one day, I’ll ride it again,” I’d add.

“Yeah, as if, old man! Let’s go guys,” the leader of the group would call out.

He was a buck toothed little boy, and he’d race away, hitting his old, scraping bell, the loudest bell I ever heard.

Whenever they’d vanish down the road, I’d step up to my old, rusty bike, caressing the handlebar. Maybe one day, I’d ride it again.

Maybe one day, I’d ride with them again.

As a kid, there was no time I looked more forward to than summer.

It meant no school, of course, but it also meant going back to my home village.

I grew up there, but once I got into second grade, my parents moved to the city. I didn’t hate it, but it was so different.

For a kid, a village is a fantastic place. The vast grassy plains, the deep forests, the mountains, and of course the cornfields. It was a whole different world.

Each year we spent the warm summer month there. My parents had of course sold our old home but now owned a small cabin nearby.

I was always excited to go back and couldn’t wait to hear about all the things that had happened. In a city, change is ever-present. In a village, however, even the small things really mattered.

Well, what I want to say is, that those summers were special to me. That is, until I was in sixth grade. That year everything changed.

Once we’d arrived and settled in, I set out on my bike to meet up with my two best friends Mark and Tom. I couldn’t wait to hear all the stories.

I found them at the soccer field, as always. After we’d greeted each other, I started to ask them right away what I’d missed.

There was the crazy bull at old Werner’s farm that had caused a whole lot of trouble. Miss Richter had burned down half her house due to a faulty fuse. And I’d missed the big soccer match between all the sixth and seventh graders.

I’d just passed the ball to Tom when he stopped and turned to me.

“Oh yeah, there was that terrible thunderstorm a couple weeks ago. It even damaged that old man’s greenhouse!”

“What old man?”

“The evil old man!” Mark chimed in.

I looked from one to the other.

“Wait, who are you guys talking about?”

“That rich old dude who moved here,” Tom began. “He built this giant mansion!” He put all his emphasis on the word giant and held out his arms to show just how big it was.

“Yeah, but the greenhouse is even bigger,” Mark exclaimed.

“Mansion, greenhouse?”

The two of them nodded as if that was enough to explain it.

“You should’ve seen the constructions! They had all those cranes and bulldozers! They were so huge!” Tom held his arms out again. He always did that.

Mark next to him, nodded in excitement. “It took months!”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t get what the big deal was. I saw cranes and bulldozers every day on my way to school.

“Why’s he evil?” I asked, suddenly remembering Mark’s remark.

They both eyed me and got closer, answering me in hushed voices.

“It’s because he’s hiding something! Ever since his greenhouse was damaged, he’s sneaking around the place. He’s keeping watch all day every day.” Mark started.

“Yeah and Christopher Siegert said the old man’s performing weird rituals inside the greenhouse. He said he saw it from one of the broken glass panes!” Tom went on.

I listened as they rambled on, but I didn’t understand half of it. Christopher Siegert? Broken glass panes?

“My parents said they heard weird things and screams inside one night,” Mark said, turning to Tom.

“Yeah and those dark cars that go there, they must be secret agents or something!” Tom replied.

“Guys! Hold on! Slow down! I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about!” I cut them both off.

For a second, they both stared at me as if they’d forgotten that I was even there.

Tom’s face lit up in an instant. “You want to go see it?”

Moments later, we were on our way to a small hill in the center of the village. It was there that I first saw the mansion and the greenhouse next to it. I could also see a scaffold on one side of it. On the way, they reiterated all the stories and urban legends. There were probably as many as people lived in the village.

The mansion itself was a big, fancy place, but it was nothing compared to the massive greenhouse next to it.

“See, I told you! You can’t see anything!” Mark exclaimed.

“Yeah fine, whatever,” I said, annoyed.

I had questioned them over and over again what was really going on inside. All they said was that no one was able to look inside. I hadn’t believed them. I was sure it was nothing but a dumb trick to surprise me. Now I saw that they were right. The glass was milky and blurred, making it impossible to see anything.

“So no one has any idea what’s inside?”

They both nodded.

“I bet it’s dinosaurs,” someone called out from behind.

The moment I turned around, I saw Erik, one of the younger kids in the village. His friend Rick was right behind him, as always.

“Don’t be stupid, Erik, the dinosaurs are all dead,” Mark said to the little boy with a smile on his face.

“Maybe they are doing some sort of genetic experiment,” Rick mumbled more to himself than to us.

“Yeah right, idiot,” Tom yelled at him. Rick was quiet in an instant. He shuffled around awkwardly and stared at his feet. It was no secret that no one except Erik liked him.

“I bet it’s his personal zoo and he’s keeping tigers, lions, and rhinos in there!” Tom went on.

The others all stared at him, excited at prospect of having a zoo in the village.

“Maybe it’s just a dumb old greenhouse? We’ve got something like that-“

“There’s no way!” Tom yelled at me and stared me down as if I’d insulted him.

“Why can’t we see inside then?” Mark stepped up to me and questioned me.

I raised my hands to calm them down.

“Alright, alright, sorry guys, but why has no taken a look or asked him about it?”

“You can’t do that!” Erik exclaimed.

“We told you he’s evil!” Mark called out. “He’s creepy and always trying to do something to us if we get too close! Especially now, since the storm damaged some of the glass panes!”

As I listened to Mark, I let my eyes wander over the mansion and the greenhouse below. I could also make out a scaffold on one side, most likely erected to repair the damage they’d told me about. We were still so far away from it though.

“Why can’t we get closer?”

“We’d get beaten up like Phillip Müller!” Tom said.

“Who’s that now?”

“He’s from the next village over. He heard about the broke panes right after it happened and tried to sneak in.”

“Did he make it?” I asked.

Tom shook his head.

“He was beaten up by the old man real bad,” little Erik started. “I heard he can’t ever walk again.”

“Shut up, Erik,” Mark yelled at him.

“It’s true!” Erik protested. “I heard he beat the living hell out of him and chased him all the way to the cornfields!”

“Oh yeah? If he couldn’t walk anymore, how was he able to get to the cornfields?” Mark asked, smiling at him triumphantly.

“I don’t know, but it’s true Mark,” Erik said in a low voice.

“I heard it too,” Rick started, but one look by Mark shut him up right away again.

“You’re all exaggerating,” I interrupted their argument.

“He’s always watching though,” Tom said while he looked down at the mansion. “I bet he’s looking up at us even now!”

“I always take the long way home now, so I don’t have to drive by his place anymore,” Erik admitted. He was obviously a bit embarrassed about the fact.

“That’s because you’re a baby,” Mark said, laughing.

The two of them never got along. Mark was the type who enjoyed to make fun of younger kids. I liked him a lot, but at times he gave Erik a bit too tough a time.

“He really is scary though,” Tom said, while he still watched the mansion apprehensively. The rest soon agreed.

After a while, we left the hill and went back to the soccer field. As much as I tried to convince them to sneak up on the place, they all seemed to be truly scared of the old man.

It was in the early evening that I decided to head towards the place on my own. The mansion had been built on a vast empty plain next to the road connecting the lower and upper part of the village. It was this road that Erik had talked about before.

As I drove up to the mansion, I was still sure they were all exaggerating. I was surprised, though when I noticed an older man watching me from a bench at the edge of his property. The moment I stopped to look around he got up and took a few steps towards me. He stared me down with an angry expression on his face.

“Get the hell out of here, kid,” he yelled over at me,” or do I have to make you?”

With that, he started to walk towards me with hard, quick steps. I thought about trying my luck, but his eyes and the expression on his face made me drive off after all.

In the next couple of days, we often saw the old man. Whenever we drove by his place, he’d yell at us from afar to get a move on. At one point, we could even see a giant, angry dog by his side. The beast started to bark like crazy the moment it saw us. Some of the others drove faster, yelling at me that he was about to let the dog go.

A few days later, we were building a small hideout in the woods. It wasn’t long before I started to talk about sneaking up on the greenhouse again.

“There’s no way,” Tom said while he was trying to break a thick branch of a tree.

“You saw his dog didn’t you?”

“I know, but maybe if we sneak up from behind and-“

“He’s going to get you,” Tom cut me off right away.

Mark didn’t say anything. He was busy going through a toolbox from his dad’s workshop.

“He can’t watch all the time, guys!” I tried once more.

“But he does,” Tom said while pushing his whole weight against the branch.

“Why’s this not coming off,” he yelled and started to kick against it. “You stupid piece of a,” he went on.

“No way, I’m pretty sure I can make it!” I said in an optimistic voice. “Back in the city, I-“

“Shut up,” Mark yelled at me while still looking over his tools. “Don’t talk about the old dude all the time, it’s getting annoying.”

“It’s only annoying because you’re afraid of him,” I yelled back.

“So what?” Mark got up, giving me the stink eye.

“You’ve only been here for a few days! He’s been yelling at us constantly for weeks! He even chased me with that dog of his! It almost got me this one time, you know?”

I murmured an apology.

“I just want to know what’s inside,” I said in a low voice.

“We all want to know, but we tried everything!” Tom exclaimed. “There’s no way we can get any closer!”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” I said.

They all gave me a hopeless look but left it at that.

Next morning I decided to prove that I meant what I’d said.

I decided to sneak up on the place on my own. It would be easy as pie, I told myself. First I’d get close to the greenhouse. Once there, I’d rush towards the scaffold, hide behind the tarpaulin surrounding it and sneak inside.

I believed everyone’s stories, of course, and I’d seen that giant dog. Still, I was confident that the old man wouldn’t be able to catch me. I was a fast kid.

I set out on foot right after breakfast. I didn’t follow the road towards the mansion. Instead, I made my way through the grass directly into the direction of his greenhouse. That way, the massive glass construction, and the high grass would both hide me from his view.

Everything went well, and I was soon only meters away from the greenhouse.

The moment I got up and was about to hurry towards the scaffold though I heard something. It was the loud barking of a dog nearby. I’d barely taken a few steps when I saw the old man coming towards me with his dog on a leash.

“Don’t even think about running, boy.”

I froze.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded.

“I’m just-“

“Shut up, boy! I’ve seen you around, believe me! You’re not one of the local boys, are you?”

I stayed quiet. All I could do was to stare at the angry dog by his side and its bared teeth.

“I asked you a goddamn question!” he screamed at me and took a few steps closer. The dog at his side started to growl in anticipation and struggled against the leash holding it back.

I tried to speak, but couldn’t. Fear welled up in me, and I had to take a few short breaths before I was able to answer.

“I’m staying at a cabin,” I brought out in a low, shaky voice. “I’m not here to cause any trouble, sir,” I added quickly, “I was just trying-“

I didn’t get to finish the sentence as the old man suddenly gave the dog more leash. The giant beast came rushing towards me, jaws wide open and saliva flying from its mouth.

I stumbled back a step but lost my footing and fell to the ground. With each passing moment, the beast came closer. I could already see, could already feel the jaws closing around my arm or leg. I screamed up as the animal lounged itself forward and felt something wet and hot between my legs. Just before the beast was upon me, the old man jerked the leash backward, and it came to a stop only inches away from me.

I sat on the ground, shaking, crying, not able to move. The dog was still right in front of me, barking and growling. Its saliva sprayed onto my legs, and in a panic, I inched away from it.

“Get lost boy,” the old man screamed at me once more.

“Next time there’ll be no more leash!”

With that, he pulled the dog back to his side. He kept staring at me until I got up and started to walk away on shaky legs.

“Wouldn’t be the first boy that happened to,” he yelled after me laughing.

As an adult, I’m sure he’d only said it to scare me, but thirteen-year-old me totally believed him. I hurried straight back to our cabin.

For to whole day, I stayed holed up in there. I was so afraid, I didn’t even want to go outside. The image of the dog came back to me again and again. Even in my dreams, I was chased by the giant beast. Now I knew why Mark was so afraid.

It was three days after the encounter that I finally went out on my bike again. I was still a bit anxious, but I made my way to the soccer field.

“Wow, there he is,” I heard Tom exclaim when he saw me. “Where the hell have you been?”

For a moment I stayed quiet, but then I told them what had happened.

“See? We told you so,” Mark said.

He was the only one who didn’t seem to feel sorry for me. All because I’d disregarded his warning. At times I couldn’t stand his attitude.

“I bet it’s true. He probably got other kids before,” Erik said out loud.

“Yeah, I bet it is!” Tom agreed.

“Yeah, but I’m not giving up,” I said finally.

The others looked at me in confusion.

“What are you talking about? Do you want to get killed for real?” It was Mark who seemed to be seriously angry now.

“I have to find out what’s in there,” I answered.

“Yeah but the old dude is going to get you for real this time,” Tom said.

“There has to be a way to trick him,” I protested.

“You’re going to get eaten by his dog,” Erik chimed in as well.

“Oh yeah? He can’t watch the place all day, can he?”

“But he’s always out there, you know that!” It was Mark who didn’t seem to let it go.

“I know Mark, but if he’s out there all day, then what about the night?”

The others looked at me, puzzled.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked.

“I mean is he out there at night, too?”

“I’m sure he is!”

“How’d you know, Mark? Have you ever been there at night?”

“Of course not, why’d I do that?”

“See?”

“He’s probably doing worse things at night,” Erik said in a low voice.

“Shut up, Erik!”

“Stop it, Mark, don’t be mean to him!” I intervened

“Maybe he’s letting the dinosaurs he keeps inside roam around the house,” Erik continued.

“That’s stupid!”

Mark didn’t leave Erik be. I honestly had no idea what sort of problem he had with the little boy.

“He has to sleep though,” I went on.

“You don’t know that! Maybe he doesn’t sleep,” Tom cut in.

“What? No, everyone has to sleep. Also, he won’t be able to see us during the night,” I continued. “We’d probably be able to sneak up way easier in the dark.”

“And get eaten by his dog?”

“Shut up, Mark, you’re annoying,” I yelled at him, fed up with his constant interruptions.

“Whatever.”

“I really want to know what’s inside,” Tom finally said.

I nodded. Soon enough Tom said he’d come along if I went back there during the night. The moment the two of us started to make plans, Mark grudgingly agreed as well, if only to see what would happen to us. Convincing Erik was even easier. The little boy seemed to be the most excited out of all of us.

We spent a lot of days planning our nightly approach. In the end, it wasn’t just me, Tom, Mark and Erik. The little boy had talked about our plans with Rick, who wanted to tag along as well.

We were all furious. When Rick arrived one day, to learn more about our plan, we told him to get lost. The problem was, however, that he said he’d tell on us if we didn’t allow him to join in. So in the end, there wasn’t much we could do.

We’d decided on a Thursday night. We reasoned that the old man might stay up late on the weekends, so we probably had a better chance on a weekday.

Getting out at night wasn’t tough for me. I’d done it countless times before to explore the village and the cornfields at night. My parents had never found out a thing.

My friends simply told their parents they were staying over at each other’s places. I was surprised that this thing even worked.

“Eagle four has arrived,” I said in a low voice when I met up with Tom and Mark. They gave me a prearranged hand sign to show that they’d noticed me.

We’d decided to meet up at the edge of the village sometime after midnight.

I was really surprised to see Erik. He was a good two years younger than us, so I’d had my doubts that he’d be able to sneak out by himself. He was a crafty little guy.

The last one to arrive was Rick, a solid quarter hour after everyone else. To be honest, I was more annoyed that he actually came and not the fact that he was late.

We planned to set out on foot in two different teams and meet up in the grassy plain near the greenhouse. One group consisted of Mark and Tom. I was stuck with Erik and Rick.

We felt like spies or secret agents as we sneaked around corners and rushed from one building to the next. We robbed through the grass and hid between bushes and behind trees as we went on our way. I’m sure we must have looked absolutely ridiculous. I guess it was pure dumb luck that no one saw us. I’m pretty sure we’d have been safer if we’d just walked down the street the regular way.

Everyone was nervous and scared but also excited beyond belief.

The only one who didn’t seem to care was Rick. He was annoying and whined about having to sneak around constantly. I had to tell him multiple times to be quiet, but he’d just start complaining again after a while.

When we finally arrived near the mansion, Tom and Mark were already there, waiting for us.

“What took you so long,” Mark asked in a hushed whisper.

I only took a sideways glance at Rick, and he knew.

“Well it’s not my fault,” Rick complained, not to bother lowering his voice at all.

We all looked up in shock, and for a moment, we were all sure the old man must have heard us.

“Quiet,” I hushed him. “He’ll find us!”

Rick was going to complain again, but then Mark went up to him and pushed him to the ground. He didn’t say a word and simply stared down at him in anger.

This time Rick seemed to finally get the message. I looked at the mansion. The windows were still dark, and everything was completely and utterly quiet.

There was also no sign of the giant dog anywhere. We waited for another couple of minutes, listening for any and all sounds.

When nothing happened, I finally made the hand sign for ‘Clear,’ and we carefully inched closer.

As we made our way through the high grass, we were all serious. Everyone, even Rick, tried to be as quiet as possible.

One wrong noise could mean that the old man came for us with his dog. We had no idea what he might do if he found us out here in the middle of the night.

We inched forward one by one, each taking only a step at a time. It was a slow process. Every noise we heard made us freeze in fear.

Finally we’d all made it and were next to the greenhouse. It really was massive. It must’ve been at least twenty meters wide and probably twice as long.

By now we had to be quick. We might have been hidden from gazes inside the mansion, but we weren’t protected by the darkness anymore. Even long past midnight, the lights inside of the greenhouse were still glowing.

We hurried towards the damaged area, and moments later, we vanished below the scaffold’s tarpaulin.

Here we could see the damaged glass panes and the repairs that were being carried out. We’d never even considered that the repairs might already have been finished. It was pure luck that two of the large glass panes were still missing. The hole was covered by another thick layer of tarpaulin. It was stretched over the metal framing to keep the greenhouse closed off.

We tried to pull it off, but it seemed to be connected to the metal framing. Whatever we tried, there was no way to pull it off.

“What do we do now?” I whispered.

Everyone shrugged, a dire look on their faces. Except for Mark, who grinned. Within moments he pulled out a pocket knife and went forward.

He rammed the knife into the heavy fabric and started to pull it downwards. It was though and took him almost a minute, but finally, there was a hole big enough for us to enter.

The inside of the greenhouse was absolutely astonishing. In an instant, the darkness of the night was replaced, and we found ourselves in a tropical jungle.

The heat inside was almost unbearable. It had to be far above thirty degrees Celsius, and the air was heavy with moisture.

For what had to be minutes, we just stood there, looking at the lush vegetation all around us. Tropical trees rose high into the air, while thick vines entangled them. The ground was a mixture of various underbrush and strange exotic flowers.

Suddenly we heard a rustling in front of us. I cringed back instinctively, expecting a tiger, panther or hell, even a freaking dinosaur to jump us. Instead, it was a small animal, looking like a chipmunk or squirrel that rushed away as quickly as it saw us. I laughed a little, as relief flushed over me.

As we finally started walking again, it seemed as if the whole place was alive. There were many different birds in here, some were parrots, others were birds of paradise.

“Do you think there are any real dinosaurs in here?” Erik asked, excitedly.

No one was able to answer him. We were all too overwhelmed by this new, completely different world all around us. Secretly though, I think we all hoped to actually see a real dinosaur. Even if no one wanted to admit it.

As we started to explore, we soon found a little stream and right next to it a small path. It seemed to lead us through the whole place in a circle.

“Did you see anything other than birds and squirrels?” Mark asked me.

I shook my head.

“Let’s keep searching,” Tom said.

With that, we continued and followed the small path. For a while, we were still careful and tried to stay hidden between bushes and behind trees. Soon enough though, we realized there was no danger here. As we started on our second round through the place, we’d seen nothing but birds and other small animals.

“This is so boring,” Rick started to complain again.

He went over to a set of stones placed next to the path and sat down right there in the open. After a little while, Erik followed him and soon enough, Mark and I joined them. Tom was still on his way, exploring.

I was quite disappointed, to be honest. The place was amazing, no doubt, but my initial astonishment was long gone. I’d looked for an adventure, for hidden secrets and I hate to admit it, dinosaurs. As beautiful as the place was, it was plain boring.

“There has to be something here,” Mark started after a while, “otherwise he wouldn’t keep watch all the time!”

“Maybe he just enjoys scaring people?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“What do we do now?” Erik asked.

“I’m going to go home,” Rick mumbled and got up.

Before he’d barely taken a few steps, Tom came back to us.

“You guys, you guys, I found something!”

“Is it a dinosaur?” Erik called out.

“A tiger?” Mark pipped up.

“Some sort of secret hideout?” I asked, as well.

We were all excited again. Tom seemed to be a little embarrassed by all the attention he was getting.

“Well no, but there’s some sort of building over there.”

As we moved forward, we had to fight through the underbrush to make it to the center of the greenhouse. It was there that Tom had found the building. By now, we were all happily chatting with each other. The danger the place had held had evaporated entirely, and the old man had all but vanished from our minds.

“A building sounds dumb,” Rick continued to whine.

It was at this point that Mark stopped and stared at him. “Will you shut up for once!?” he yelled at him. Rick stopped talking right away and did his best to look away from Mark.

“Is that it?” I asked Tom when I saw a rectangular concrete block in front of us. Tom simply nodded.

I was disappointed once more. I’d hoped it might be some sort of secret hideout, but it seemed to be nothing but a giant concrete block. It didn’t even have a door or windows. The only visible thing was some sort of console on one side.

Maybe it was nothing but the freaking generator that powered this place. I’d seen similar things in the city.

I was about to step forward to take a closer look at the console when I heard something. It was a door opening and then falling shut again. We knew instantly what this meant.

“He’s coming for us,” Erik blurted out before he covered his mouth in shock.

As quickly as we could, we hid between the various plants and bushes, hoping he wouldn’t find us.

I knew there could only be one reason for him to be here in the middle of the night. He knew we’d sneaked inside.

With each passing second, I anticipated to see him with that giant dog and letting the beast go to get each one of us. For a moment, the memory of the dog’s fangs returned, and I started shaking in sheer panic.

Was this why he’d created this place? To lure us kids here to hunt us down?

I listened, breathing heavily as the echo of his footsteps came closer and closer. My heart beat heavy inside my chest. I desperately told myself to calm down, afraid that my heartbeat alone could give me away.

The moment I saw him though, all those thoughts vanished into thin air.

There was no hint of the dog. Instead, he was all by himself. That wasn’t all though. His attire was completely different and utterly strange. He wasn’t wearing his usual clothes but wore a sort of lab coat. In his hands, he held a variety of weird items: syringes, surgical tools, and other things. What made the whole thing even stranger, was that the old man was smiling.

Without even looking around or searching for us, he stepped up to the concrete building. It was clear to me in an instant that he wasn’t here because of us. He probably had no idea we were here at all. So, what then was he doing out here?

My question was answered when he stepped up to the console on its side. He put down the assortment of items and tools he’d brought and took out a key. He inserted it at the console, then seemed to press a few of the buttons.

A second later, one of the walls of the building vanished in the ground, revealing three big holding cells. No, I realized, cages. I watched with wide eyes.

He stepped up to the first of them and took out a small device. He pressed down on it, and moments later, the cage opened.

His face started to be distorted by an unnaturally wide grin, and he was beaming with happiness.

“Oh my dear, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? You must’ve been so, so lonely,” he said in a voice filled with pure excitement and not just a bit of malice.

I leaned forward in anticipation to see what was inside the cage. Then we all heard the sounds.

At first, it was nothing but a moaning, but it soon changed to a sort of low scream. I could hear something moving and soon the clatter of metal. I was both scared and almost as excited as the old man.

“Now then, why don’t you come outside? Or do I have to… make you?” he called towards the cage.

It wasn’t long before something stepped outside.

I don’t know why or how, but I knew instantly that the creature was no normal animal. Something was completely wrong with it. Its shoulders, upper arms, and legs were covered in fur, the rest, however, was hairless. For a moment, it reminded me of a human being, but there were too many things wrong with it to justify such a comparison.

As the thing moved, I saw that its arms and legs were weirdly twisted, as if the joints were put together the wrong way round. The body looked scrawny, yet muscular. The worst, however, was the things face. There was no visible nose. The mouth was nothing but a dark, empty hole with no discernible teeth. The eyes were deep-sitting, bloodshot, and endlessly tired. A deep sadness seemed to emanate from it.

The closest way to describe the creature would be to call it a deformed, mostly hairless ape.

As the creature stepped towards the old man, I saw the shackles around its legs and the chains connected to them. I saw dried blood around its ankles. Once more, it made a sound that could’ve almost been called human. I got shivers all over my body when I heard it. The creature dragged itself forward, moving slowly. A moment later, however, it rushed the old man. I already saw it jumping him, but then it was yanked back by the chains and stopped a meter in front of him.

For a moment, the smile on the old man’s face vanished. It was replaced by his oh so common expression of pure anger. Then the smile returned, but this time, it was different. There was no happiness in it. There was only pure malice.

Once more, he took out the small device I’d seen and he pressed down on it again. The creature screamed up in pain and started twitching and writhing.

“One would’ve thought you’d learned by now, my dear,” he said, laughing. The way he said the last word made me feel sick to my stomach. He stepped up closer to the creature, putting his foot on its head. For a moment, he pressed down hard with a sardonic grin on his face. The thing opened its mouth, but all that escaped was a soft, painful moan.

“Well, that’s what you get for not behaving,” the old man continued before he took his foot away.

I saw the eyes of the creature look up at him. They were filled with anger, but they also seemed to be pleading with him. Another sound escaped the ravaged mouth. It was a long and dragged out scream. To this day, this sound was one of the creepiest and saddest things I’d ever heard. It was so close to that of a human, yet so different. I almost gasped when I heard it, but quickly covered my mouth.

Erik, who was only a few meters to my right, was too shocked to do so and a short, high-pitched scream escaped his mouth.

In a moment, the old man jerked around his face distorted by tremendous anger. When he saw the little boy trying to hide between the bushes, he was upon him in an instant.

“How dare you,” he pressed out, his face almost purple with anger. “You little shit!” he screamed at Erik. The little boy was too scared to run or do anything, and in a moment, the old man pulled him out in the open.

“What the hell are you doing here? How the hell did you get in?”

When Erik didn’t say a thing, the old man started beating and kicking him.

I watched, got up on shaky legs, but I didn’t know what to do. At this moment Mark of all people rushed forward. Soon after Tom and I followed him. Only Rick stayed back, not taking more than a few steps.

The old man’s expression turned to surprise when more kids came running towards me.

“Let go of him!” Mark screamed. Moments later we were all upon him, trying to pull him off, Erik. The old man was in such a rage now that he didn’t even seem to notice our efforts and continued to beat down on our friend. It must’ve taken us half a minute to push him off.

“Run away, Erik!” Mark screamed at the little boy, but Erik wasn’t moving. His little face was swollen and covered in bruises.

“Come on, Erik, get up,” I started as tears streamed down my face. When Tom and I tried to pull him up, his whole body felt wrong, and his head dangled in a weird angle.

Then, my friends, the old man I all looked up as the creature behind us screamed again. It was a scream of triumph and excitement. When I turned around and saw its mangled body from nearby, I realized that the creature had to be female.

Then I saw them, the shackles. They were lying on the ground next to the creature.

When the old man saw what had happened, his face changed to a visage of pure terror. He held up his hands but noticed he wasn’t holding the small device anymore. He must’ve dropped it when we charged him.

“Where the hell did it go goddamnit?!”

He was out of it. He fell to his knees, desperately searching and rummaging through the lower vegetation around him. A second later, he picked something up, but all the color drained from his face when he saw that the small device was completely crushed.

He didn’t get to lament or curse because right then the she-beast was upon him. A bloodcurdling scream cut through the air before the beast opened its mouth impossibly wide and closed it around the old man’s throat.

His face changed to sheer and utter terror as he started clawing at the thing, but his attempts were futile. The beast’s mouth might have been toothless, but its jaws pressed down harder and harder on the old man’s neck.

There was the disgusting wet sound of something breaking, following by a gurgling before his body grew limp.

The beast released the mushed neck and a moment later it raised its arms high into the air before it brought his fists down on the old man’s head.

I heard the crunching of bones and blood splattered all over the vegetation around. Over and over the thing beat down at the old man’s body.

When I could finally rip myself away from the sight, a new horror awaited me.

The other two cages had opened up as well when the device was destroyed.

Two more creatures emerged soon after. They were different, more deformed and horrible than the she-beast. Yet, they too showed the same similarities to human beings, but they were pitiful and nightmarish caricatures.

One’s body was so twisted that it had to crawl out, dragging its lower appendixes behind. One look at its head made me shudder. Where the face was supposed to be was nothing but scar tissue and a gaping maw.

The other creature was much larger and overtook the crawler in an instant. It was walking on its four appendixes. They were long and bony, while the rest of its body was thick and bloated. It gave the thing the appearance of a four-legged, humanoid spider.

Pure terror befell us when we saw the other creatures. Rick was the worst. He was in utter hysterics, screaming louder and louder as he rocked back and force on the forest floor.

Suddenly the she-beast stopped beating the remains of the old man, and in a moment she jumped towards Rick. The creature grabbed hold of his shoulders. It let out a bellowing scream before it started beating him in a sudden frenzy.

I stood there, unable to move at all. I saw the spider-beast tumbling towards me. For a moment, its empty eyes stared at me before it noticed Erik’s lifeless body. It went closer, and I saw its jaw unhinge. There was no sound of chewing or flesh tearing, it was devouring him whole.

It was Mark that finally took me out of my trance, as he crashed into me. He screamed at me, but it was all incoherent and made no sense. Then he started to pull me into the jungle around us, and soon we were both running.

I saw Tom next to us as well. Tears were streaming from my face. My vision was blurry, and I had no idea where I was going. I stumbled after them before I suddenly crashed right into the glass panes of the greenhouse.

We looked around, but there was no sign of the entrance anywhere. For all I knew we were completely trapped.

Suddenly another scream of the she-beast cut through the air. It was followed by the sounds of it tearing through the vegetation of the greenhouse. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do, but then in sheer desperation, I threw myself against the glass. Again and again, I did it, but it was much sturdier than I’d expected.

Then Tom threw a heavy stone against the glass. It didn’t break, but there was a small crack. Each one of us picked up whatever we could find close to us and threw it against the glass pane.

The sound of glass breaking was mixed with the sound of the she-beast bursting from the jungle behind us.

I threw myself forward. The sharp edges of the glass scrubbed along my arms, leaving long gushing cuts behind, but I didn’t even feel it. I was out first, followed back Mark.

“Tom! We’ve got to-” I started, but Tom’s screams cut me off. They lasted for no more than a few seconds.

Mark and I didn’t look back. We simply ran, and once we couldn’t run anymore, we stumbled forward until we were back in the village.

What happened next is nothing but a blur. The village erupted into chaos when they found us. We were both bloody from the glass, screaming and crying. We must’ve rambled on about the old man, the greenhouse, the monsters, and our friends.

When the police arrived, they found the corpses of the old man, Rick, and Tom, as well as one of the creatures inside the greenhouse. Erik’s body, however, was never found.

I spent the rest of summer either answering questions or at the office of a therapist.

Of course, they didn’t tell us anything, we were kids, after all.

The story itself made the local news, but it was quickly and discreetly swept under the carpet.

It was years later that I put the official story together from bits and pieces. The she-beast was deemed a female gorilla. Police caught it a few days after in a nearby forest and safely disposed of it. The other creature that they’d found in the greenhouse was an adolescent one, they said.

The old man must have acquired them illegally and kept them as pets in the greenhouse. The night we entered, the two animals got loose due to our fight with the old man and n the rampage that followed everyone but Mark and I was killed.

In the month after the event both the mansion and the greenhouse were locked form the public. Important people came and went before the place was stripped and eventually abandoned. It still stands even now, a grizzly reminder of what happened that night.

I needed therapy for years. Even now, my dreams are haunted by the creatures I saw that night. My therapist keeps reminding me that something like those creatures couldn’t exist. It had most likely been my fear that had transformed the gorillas into the nightmarish things I saw.

Here’s the thing, however. The official stories only ever talked about two of the creatures. The she-beast and the crawling one that died inside of the greenhouse.

The third one, the one that had devoured Erik’s body, was never mentioned.

For years I’ve looked up news about my home area. There are the occasional reports about livestock being killed and half devoured remains of animals. The official stories blame it on wolfs or other wild animals.

Yet, I can’t help but wonder. It’s been two decades, but what if that third thing is still out there even now.

They call childhood the happiest time of your life.

This was true for me too, at least until a specific day. After that nightmares, guilt and therapy replaced my happiness.

I grew up in a small rural community. It used to be one of the many small farming communities of the area and consisted of no more than a dozen houses.

As you can imagine there weren’t many kids there either. The few of us though were close. Altogether there was four of us, all between the ages of nine and twelve.

My best friend Jan and I were the oldest, both twelve years of age. Eric was a year younger than us and Sven, the youngest, was nine.

We referred to us by silly names like ‘The Glorious Four’ or other similar ones. They were all taken from or based on Saturday morning cartoons.

We spent most of our free time on either the local soccer field or the playground. Every once in a while we also went exploring the area and the small forests around the village.

In summer and early autumn that changed. During that time it drove us to the local cornfields. The tall and thickly planted stalks of corn were an entirely different world. It was always an adventure to venture into the fields. At times we searched for secrets inside. At others, we’d build small hideouts, to the displeasure of the local farmers.

To clear things up beforehand: Cornfields in Germany are generally not as vast as the American counterpart. The ones around our village measured only a few kilometers in length. Sure, to us kids they seemed huge, but in reality, they were pretty small.

Our chances of getting lost were almost non-existent. We could walk into any random direction and would end up at the edge of the field after no more than an hour.

—

During the summer holiday’s my friends and I would meet up right after lunch. We left our bikes at Jan’s home and set out for the fields.

On our adventures, we’d find all sorts of things: shiny stones, rusty tools, old newspapers and once in a while, even a coin or an old piece of clothing.

In typical kid’s manner, we’d make up all sorts of stories about these things. Rusty tools were left behind by farmers who ran from scary monsters, coins had been dropped by bank robbers and newspapers belonged to people who were hiding from the police.

In our imagination, we uncovered criminal conspiracies and proved the existence of monsters lurking in the fields.

One day during the second week of the year’s summer vacation we were out in the fields again. That day my friend Jan found something interesting.

It was something shiny on the ground that proved to be a small, heart-shaped necklace. It was laying in the middle of a rough path that cut through the corn.

Now small natural trails through the fields were not uncommon, but this was different. Here, the stalks were either pressed to the ground or ripped apart.

My thoughts turned to treasure in an instant. If there was a necklace here, then a group of thieves might have created this path!

As we followed it along, we noticed that it wasn’t a straight line. Instead, it was a wild zig-zag that tore through the field. It added to the impression of a group of people rushing for their hideout.

I was a bit surprised when the path led us to the edge of the cornfield and not to a hideout in the middle of the field.

What was even stranger though, was where we’d ended up. We’d followed the path in roughly the same direction all this time. This should have made us end up near the neighboring village. Instead, we found ourselves in front of a small vale surrounded by endless meadows. At its end, the vale led to a huge, dark forest.

We should be near the neighboring village, shouldn’t we? How had we ended up here?

I had explored every notch and cranny around the village and never seen this place.

After a while though, I accepted things as they were. Maybe this area was usually cut off by cornfields? Perhaps this vale was in the center of the cornfield? Or the field was larger than it had been during the other years? Who knows, I said to myself, we were here for treasure!

As I started to look around for a bit, I noticed something. The path we’d followed through the field continued down into the vale. Even from where I was I could see something else laying not too far away from us.

It was only a couple meters ahead and turned out to be a small leather pouch. It was empty though. There were no signs of jewelry, coins or diamonds.

Finding this pouch proved to me though, that we had to be on the right track. As I followed the path with my eyes, I saw that it led straight to the forest below.

“There’s no doubt,” I blurted out, “that the hiding place of the treasure must be down there!”

I nodded to myself and set out in the direction of the forest.

Jan and Eric followed me right away, but Sven stayed back.

“That forest looks scary. I wanna go home,” he said with a weak voice.

“That’s because you’re a scaredy cat, Sven!”

I was never the sensitive type, especially with my friends around. Soon I started to laugh and moments later Jan joined in. When both of us were teasing him, he finally kept quiet and agreed to come along. Peer pressure at its finest…

As we made our way through the vale, I noticed how unclaimed the place was. The grass was growing thick and reached almost up to my knees. Small trees and bushes here and there made it seem as if the forest was hard at work extending itself into the vale.

As we walked on, I felt cold all of a sudden. A fresh breeze had come up and only as I looked did I noticed how dark it had gotten. Thick, grey clouds that hid the sun filled the sky. Hadn’t it been a perfectly clear sky when we’d walked through the cornfields?

At the edge of the forest, I first thought the path stopped there. My hope was already fading, but Eric pointed at a few broken off branches nearby. Scanning the area revealed some unearthed trees and many scattered leaves.

I pointed in the direction and we continued on. The forest ahead of us started out normal enough, but with each step, it grew darker. As we made our way deeper and deeper inside, I started to become a bit more anxious.

The first thing I noticed was the light. By now it seemed as if we were walking in a sort of twilight. The world had changed from bright green and brown colors to an almost colorless grey unison.

Looking back, I am not sure why I continued deeper into the forest. I guess it was a mixture of curiosity and not wanting to admit how anxious I was in front of my friends.

I heard Sven talking to Eric in a low voice. It sounded like he was out of it and barely held back his tears.

This was enough, I said to myself. I stopped and looked around and then at my friends. I only noticed now how quiet things were around us. I’d lived near forests my whole life and knew that you were supposed to hear birds and the rustling of trees. Here in this grey twilight, there was nothing.

Everything started to feel wrong and for the first time, I felt alone. I knew my friends were there, right next to me, but it didn’t give me the comfort it usually did.

When Eric poked me in the back, I jerked around to yell at him, but I saw that he was pointing at something.

With a strange feeling of premonition, I looked at what he was pointing at. It was a sort of construction nestled between a few trees. It was no more than thirty meters away, but so easy to miss.

For a moment I scanned the area around us in a surge of panic. Was there someone else here? This day had started out as just another little adventure. Pretending to hunt criminals and searching for treasure was one thing. Now though, in this forest, the danger started to feel very real.

I had enough of this whole thing. We should go back, I thought. I was about to suggest it when Jan took the first step in the direction of the weird construction.

“Let’s check it out,” he whispered with a grin on his face.

“What are you…?” I started but then nodded. I didn’t want to admit that I was afraid. So, against my own feelings that things were wrong, I followed him. Eric tagged along after a while, but Sven stayed where he was. I couldn’t blame him.

As we got closer, I saw that it was a sort of hut. It was constructed from nothing but sticks and branches of various size. The roof was covered by leaves, grass, and dirt. Only now did I see how big this whole thing was.

The whole area in front of it was devoid of grass. It looked as if even the forest vegetation was retreating from the place. My skin started to crawl as I followed Jan. This was wrong a voice in my head said over and over again.

This was not a natural thing or some animal den. No, this must be someone’s hiding place. I could even see a fire pit in front of the hut.

What if there was someone out here? What if they were dangerous? What if they were inside right now, waiting for us to get closer?

I stopped, but Jan walked on as if nothing was wrong. I cursed in my mind. Why did that idiot have to go closer?!

I stepped forward, to tell him once and for all that we should all get out of here now. At that moment I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at the hut and my heart skipped a beat. There was a large open entrance and there was something right inside of it. My first thought was that it really was a person lurking in there.

I already imagined someone getting up and running over towards me. In fear, I took a step back and bumped into Jan. I almost ran away, but then I saw that nothing over there was moving.

“What are you doing?” he asked in annoyance. My eyes grew wide and I raised my hand to motion for him to be quiet.

“What is-” but he broke up when I pointed at the inside of the hut. The two of us both watched. Then we went closer one step at a time. Our eyes were focused on whatever was inside.

After a few steps, I realized that it was way too small to be a person. After some more steps, we saw that it was a tiny heap, covered by a dirty, old blanket.

Jan went forward to the small heap and I reluctantly followed him. Behind us, I heard Eric continue on in the direction of the fire pit.

“G-Guys?” I heard Eric call to us from outside in a shaken voice.

I turned to look and I saw him standing near the fire pit, his mouth was wide agape, looking down at something. I took a step outside, when Jan, still holding onto the blanket, stumbled into me and fell to the ground. His face was white as a sheet and when he started screaming my eyes moved to what he’d revealed.

My heart dropped. My breathing stopped. The world came to a halt. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find words. After a few more moments my voice returned and I started to scream as well.

Looking back at me were the empty eyes of a little girl. I stood there, in the middle of this dark hut, unable to move or look away.

She was younger than us, dirty and covered in bruises. Her clothes were torn. There was no movement. There wouldn’t be. Somehow, even at my young age, I knew that she was not alive anymore.

Her body was twisted, almost folded together to fit under the blanket. I don’t know how long I was looking at it. Jan was next to me, pulling at me, but I was dazed.

After another second I was able to turn to him and look what he was pointing at now. It was another heap in a corner near the entrance. This one wasn’t covered. It consisted of only one thing: shoes.

There in the corner was an innumerable amount of tiny shoes. It must be hundreds of them, I thought, hundreds of children’s shoes.

As I stumbled outside, I saw Eric still standing next to the fire pit.

He wasn’t moving at all, just staring at something. Only as I came over did I see the real horror of this pit.

In its center, I saw a variety of bones. I saw at least two human skulls in-between the mess and knew what kind of bones they must be.

I touched Eric’s arm, but he wasn’t reacting. I noticed only now that he wasn’t looking down at the bones in the fire pit. He was frozen in place, shaking and look at something between the trees ahead.

At that moment I saw it too. Something was moving over there. Oh shit, I thought, someone must have heard mine and Jan’s scream. It must be the place’s owner. I imagined it was some crazed, haggard serial killer. Or considering the pit, a cannibal.

The reality though proved to be much, much worse. I noticed it right away, the size didn’t match. Whatever was over there was much too tall for a person. Was it some sort of animal?

Then I caught a glance of something. I saw long grey arms, an assortment of legs and what I could only think of as huge bulking bodies.

I thought it was multiple creatures. There were too many arms and legs, but then I realized it was all an entangled, twisted whole. It made its way through the trees a good hundred or so meters ahead of us as if searching for something.

From where I stood I could only watch the horrific nightmare creature in a dazed state. This was not real. It couldn’t be. In wonder and shock, I stood there and watched. For a moment I wondered when I’d wake up from this dream.

Then I saw that the creature was holding something. I told myself it was a small animal, that it was a rabbit or a deer. I said it to myself over and over again. It didn’t help.

I saw the tiny arms, the tiny legs. I saw the empty blue eyes. Finally, I saw the clothes and the little shoes at the end of the legs. What the creature was holding in one of its many arms, was the limp body of a child.

“Oh god no, oh god no,” I heard Eric mutter next to me.

Right at that moment Jan came over to us and saw the thing too.

“What the hell’s that!?” he screamed up.

With that the thing noticed us. It let out a weird, distorted scream of its own, that made my ears ring before it came crashing towards us.

Branches splintered against the grey monstrosity’s bulking body. I saw how it used two of its arms to push tree trunks aside as if they were nothing. Its many legs were moving in a hypnotic, disjointed way.

I was still in shock. For a few moments, I could only watch as the surreal beast came closer and closer with each second.

As I remembered the shoes, the bones in the fire pit and finally the dead girl, I realized this would be me too. I saw the rest of my friends. Jan was tumbling backward, Sven was standing ten meters behind, crying, but turned to run. Only Eric and I were still standing here. Finally, I snapped out of it and pulled him after me.

As we started running the thing screamed once more. With each passing second, I knew it was coming closer. I could feel the ground shaking with each step of its many legs. I turned around, sure to see the thing reach out for me, but no, it had stopped in front of the hut. It must be the things hideout.

It dropped its prey and then it started to move its head around. It looked as if it was… sniffing the air? Was it blind? I had no idea and kept running.

What the hell was that thing? Where were we? My legs ached and my lungs burned. For a short moment, I slowed down to catch my breath. As if to answer this decision the creature screamed once again.

“Oh please no. Just stay there!” I prayed to myself.

I didn’t have that much luck. The noise behind me was enough to know that it was coming after us again. It sounded as if a truck, or better a tank, was crushing through the forest behind us. I heard the splintering of both trees and branches. It was as if nothing could stop the thing.

Finally, I saw the edge of the forest ahead. Then I reached it and then I rushed outside into the small vale. My friends were all ahead of me, even Sven.

I didn’t get to focus on them. Only seconds after me, I heard something huge explode out of the forest as well. Branches and twigs came raining down all around me.

I looked over my shoulder once more. I saw the sickly, grey and leathery skin of the centauric monstrosity only a dozen or so meters behind me.

This time I was able to make out the deformed head. There were a gorging maw and a weird bony hole above it. Where the thing’s eyes should have been, was only grown together scar tissue.

The things four arms were all reaching out for me. I remember that its hands had too many fingers. I don’t know how many there were. They were almost as thin as twigs but much longer as if they had too many joints.

Right at this moment, I tripped over a hidden stone in the tall grass. For a few more steps I went on before I crashed straight to the ground.

Jan, who must have seen me fall to the ground, turned towards me. Our eyes met, grew wide and he screamed at me:

“Get up! Get up! Get up!”

Right then the creature behind me turned around. It focused its attention on Jan. I saw how it rushed over to him on its many legs. Then, only moments later, the long, thin fingers reached out for him.

The thing let out a triumphant scream as it caught my friend’s squirming body in one of its hands. He screamed up in pain, fear, and confusion. I saw tears streaming from his eyes. He struggled against the grip and then reached out his arms towards me.

“Tom help me! Tom! Tom! Help me!”

He screamed my name over and over and over again, as the fingers closed around him.

I watched, shook my head, and the only thing on my mind was not me.

Oh dear god, the thing has not gotten me! I can’t let it get me! I have to get away!

I jumped back to my feet and started running again, all the while Jan was still screaming after me.

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I only ran on. I didn’t stop.

I fought my way up at the end of the vale towards the edge of the cornfields. Finally, in a last ditch of effort, I made it and fell to the ground. My whole body was trembling with pain.

Eric was there, Sven arrived soon after. They were both crying.

For long seconds I lay there shivering. Any moment from now, I thought, the creature would appear to get us too. Then I realized it must have given up.

That’s when I remembered Jan. I turned to look down towards the vale and the forest. It had happened right next to me, but I didn’t want to accept it as a reality. I hoped, no prayed, for my friend Jan to come running up here as well. Instead, I saw only the greyish monstrosity, as it made its way back.

It was almost at the forest now. It wasn’t running anymore. Its many legs moved in a steady trot.

Even from this distance, I could see that it was holding something in one of his overlong hands. It was something small that was now limp.

This was Jan, I realized. Jan who had called out for me to get up. I was unable to take my eyes away from the sight as tears streamed down my face.

It would have been me. I was the one who had tripped and fallen right in front of that thing. If Jan hadn’t called out, it would have dragged me back into this ghastly forest.

He had saved me and I hadn’t done anything. Right as the thing had grabbed him, I ran away and ignored him.

No, I’d abandoned him.

—

Once we were able to move again, we started on our way back through the cornfield. None of us said a thing. Sven was still crying, even now. Eric was as lethargic as I.

No one said a word. No one mentioned that as soon as we made it out of the vale, the sky was clear once again and the sun was shining down at us.

In our confused state, it took us hours to find our way back. Each sound we heard made us turn around in fear of the creature. When we finally made it home, it was already late in the evening.

At first, no one in the village believed our story. When Jan stayed missing though, the adults couldn’t ignore it anymore.

They talked about criminals and kidnappers hiding in the forest. When we told our story, they all disregard it. They attributed the monster and everything else to our imagination and fear.

A police search was started. They combed the whole area, searched through the forests and the meadows. Finally, they even checked the cornfields.

They found nothing. There was no hint of the tiny vale or the thick, dark forest behind it. It seemed as if this entire area, as well as the monster, had never existed.

It was the same for Jan. They never found a hint of him. No body. No remains. Nothing. He too had all but vanished.

I grew older and finally moved to leave all this behind. There was one thing I couldn’t though, my memories. For years I went to therapy, but it didn’t help.

Many nights I wake up, covered in sweat. In some, I see the monster and its gaping maw again. In others, I hear my friend screaming out for me and see his pleading eyes again.

There are also those nights, on which I lay in bed, wide awake. Wishing my friend would have not called out for me.

---

Memory. It’s such a strange thing. We never truly forget, it’s only the connections that erode and eventually vanish. Yet, if we’re able to restore the connections, then we also get back the memory, we thought lost.

The process can be triggered by returning to places of significance. We might revisit our childhood home or an old school and flooding back come those precious first memories.

This happened to me not too long ago when I visited my Aunt Maria.

She never married and still lives in the same house she was born in, my grandparents’. It’s a huge, old farmhouse in the center of a tiny village.

I grew up a city child, but I spent many of my summers there.

My grandma died when I was only two years old, so I never got to know her. What I lack in memories about her though, were made up by the ones about my grandpa. A life of farming and taking care of livestock had made him into a sturdy, but happy old man. When I remember the time I spent with him, I always have to smile.

There was one thing I always found strange. I never remembered what happened to him. One day, out of nowhere, he was just gone. Sure, I remember his funeral and his grave is right next to my grandma’s. But there’s this nagging feeling that I’m missing something.

During my latest visit at what was now Aunt Maria’s home, I stumbled into grandpa’s old workshop. The place had always been in pristine condition when he was still alive, but now it was coated by a heavy layer of dust.

Smiling I stepped inside.

Right in front of me was his big, sturdy workbench. To the right was the little hatchet he’d used to cut firewood. And over to the left should be his old, rawhide boots.

Yet, I found the spot empty.

When I wondered if Aunt Maria had gotten rid of them, the memories of a particular summer day returned to me.

---

I was sitting in front of the TV watching Saturday morning cartoons and munching a sandwich.

When grandpa stepped into the room asking if I wanted to go mushroom hunting with him, I jumped right off my chair. Spiderman and breakfast were forgotten.

“Now, now, hold on, hold on,” he said laughing while I’d already started to put on my shoes.

“Let this old man get his things first. I’m not as fast as you anymore.”

When we were both ready, grandpa sat me down for a moment.

“Now Simon, where should we hunt for mushrooms today? The meadows around the village, or do you want to go to Richter’s Forest?”

My eyes grew wide.

“Richter’s Forest, grandpa? But mom and Aunt Maria said-“

“What they said is humbug, Simon!”

“But, I’m not allowed to go there and if they find out then-“

“Then it’ll be our little secret,” he said in a whisper giving me a wink. Then he beamed at me.

“Well? Where do you want to go?”

“The forest! The forest!” I exclaimed in a loud, booming voice.

Richter’s forest was a vast and sprawling mess of huge, old trees a bit further away from the village. It derives its name from the family that used to own it back in the day.

There are many strange tales about the old forest. It’s stories of people getting lost after straying off the paths or seeing strange things between those old, gnarly trees.

There’s one tale in particular that stands out between all the rest. It’s about a local boy, Johannes, who up and vanished in the forest more than a decade ago. He was never found again, and no one knows what happened to him.

Mom and Aunt Maria, gave me a long, stern lecture about never going there. It didn’t matter if I was alone or with friends, Richter’s Forest was off-limits.

When grandpa told me we’d go there, I was surprised, excited, but also a tad bit anxious.

“Isn’t it going to be dangerous?”

“Now don’t you worry about a thing, Simon! This old man here’s been to the forest countless times, and he’s still around, isn’t he? Danger? Pah!”

I smiled and nodded. If grandpa said it was all right, then it had to be true.

It was not even nine in the morning when we went on our way and half an hour later we’d arrived at Richter’s Forest.

I was about to hurry inside, but grandpa sat down on a faded, old bench that was placed at the edge of the forest. He motioned for me to sit down next to him.

“You know Simon, your grandma Ursula loved this spot here. We used to sit here and talk for hours when we were young,” he said in a reminiscing voice.

I didn’t know what to say, so instead, I looked out at the vast meadows and the distant, tiny village.

“All alone like this…” I heard grandpa mumble to himself next to me.

We sat there quietly, but after five long minutes, I protested.

“Let’s go already, grandpa! This is boring!”

Grandpa looked up and laughed.

“Now aren’t you an eager little one,” he said patting me on the head.

I sulked and bit my lip when he did this.

“I’m not little anymore! I’m already seven!” I protested.

As soon as we followed the path into the forest, my good mood was restored.

“Now let’s find some mushrooms! You must help this old man out, my eyes aren’t what they used to anymore.”

I beamed at grandpa and started to search the area in front of us right away. I scanned the ground and made my way through the underbrush next to the path. When I was about to rush deeper into the forest, grandpa was quick to stop me.

“We’d better stick to the path. We don’t want to get lost in here, do we?”

I nodded and from then on followed grandpa’s lead as we ventured deeper into the forest. The forest floors around us was covered in various mushrooms. We found boletus, chanterelle, and many other common ones. As time passed, our backpacks filled up.

After a while, I noticed that the underbrush seemed to be different. When we’d entered, it had only comprised a few lonely bushes here and there, but by now it had become thick and heavy. I stopped searching for mushrooms for a moment and looked around. The surrounding forest had become thicker too. Before I’d seen the blue sky and the sun’s rays had illuminated the forest ground. Now, everything was hidden by the heavy canopy above us and the forest was much, much darker.

“Grandpa? Can we go back?” I asked, scared.

For a moment he stayed quiet and his eyes darted around. He too had noticed the changes. After a few seconds, he noticed me staring at him and a bright smile showed on his face.

“Well, I guess we’ve got more than enough mushrooms anyway,” he said and shook his now heavy backpack a little.

Even as a seven-year-old boy, I noticed the alarm in his voice. Soon his smile was replaced by a concentrated look as he scanned the forest.

“Let’s go,” he pressed out, took my hand and we started back the way we’d come from.

With every step we took, the surrounding forest grew darker. Soon enough grandpa stopped and turned in a different direction. A mixture of fear, confusion, and something else I couldn’t quite place contorted his face.

As he dragged me on, I noticed how quiet the surrounding forest had become. Before there had been the rustling of the trees, the chirping of birds and the noises of other small animals. Now everything was quiet, unnervingly quiet. The only sounds that remained were our own, muffled footsteps. Each step, each breaking twig echoed endlessly between the surrounding trees.

Suddenly grandpa stopped again and cursed to himself. I didn’t know what was happening and opened my mouth to say something, but then I saw that the path ahead of us had vanished. Where it should lead on was now nothing but an entangled, grown together mess of bushes and shrubs. Even the trees around seemed to have closed in on us, almost as if they tried to suffocate us with their presence.

Right then, I thought I saw something moving nearby. I jerked back a step and my hand slipped from grandpas. In an instant, he turned towards me and gripped my hand again with such force that I winced.

“Don’t you dare!” he yelled at me, furious.

It was the first time I’d ever heard him like that and his loud voice echoed through the dark, quiet forest. I choked back my tears and nodded.

Grandpa’s eyes were darting left and right as he held my tiny hand, desperately searching for the path. As I stood next to him, I noticed something between the trees again. I told myself it was the heavy branches, but then I saw them. The many dark, twisted shades that slithered from tree to tree only to vanish again.

I pushed myself against grandpa and told myself there was nothing there. What I’d seen was the shadows of the trees, nothing else.

When I saw another one out of the corner of my eyes, I quickly closed them and told myself it wasn’t real. I pressed grandpa’s hand, then pulled on it, but he didn’t react to me.

“Grandpa, I’m scared!” I whined at him but got no reply.

He was staring at the thick forest ahead of us with wide eyes.

At that moment reality shimmered and for a moment I could make out a clearing in front of us. When I blinked, it was gone again, replaced by nothing but trees. Then I saw it again, but I also saw the trees. It was almost as if the clearing was there, but at the same time, it wasn’t.

“Grandpa!” I yelled at him again, but he still didn’t react.

“You came…” I heard him whisper.

I wanted to call out to him again, but right at that moment, I saw one of the many dark shades between the trees ahead of us.

“Ursel, it is you,” I heard grandpa gasp.

At first, I didn’t understand what he was saying. Then I remembered that my grandma’s name was Ursula, or as he used to call her, Ursel. But she’d died years ago, hadn’t she?

“Ursel,” he said again, smiling. Then he took the first step into towards the not-clearing in front of us.

“No, grandpa, it’s,” I tried, but he ignored me.

“Oh, I missed you so much,” he mumbled. Tears were streaming from his eyes now.

I yelled at grandpa again and again. I tried to pull him back, but there was nothing I could do. For a few steps, he dragged me along before my hand slid off and I fell to the ground. Grandpa didn’t even turn back to me.

For a moment the shade vanished and an elderly woman stood in its place. At the same time though, I saw the formless, shadowy abomination. Long feelers stretched out towards grandpa while the illusion of my grandma motioned for him to come closer.

The moment grandpa stepped into the clearing it was gone, and grandpa with it. Nothing but trees and underbrush remained and all hints of the clearing had vanished. The same was true for grandpa.

I yelled and called out for him as the tears started streaming hot from my eyes, but there was no answer. No, there was no sound at all except for that of my voice.

The trees had grown even closer now. They were pushing against and twisting around each other, forming an almost impenetrable wall. As I looked up, there was no end to them. They stretched further and further into the sky endlessly. The entire forest seemed to have become one, cohesive entity.

The clearing I remembered. If I’d find it, I’ll find grandpa. I rushed forward to the underbrush ahead of me and tried desperately to make my way through it. I ripped away twigs, broke off branches, but it was futile. It had become too thick.

Finally, I fell to the ground, sobbing and exhausted, my hands covered in cuts.

Right at that moment, I heard a warm, caring voice.

“Oh Simon, my poor, poor boy. You must be so scared.”

When I turned around, I saw my mom standing on the path behind me. The tears stopped in an instant. I was saved! She smiled at me and motioned for me to get closer.

All my fears were blown away as I took the first step into her direction.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, kid!” I heard someone scream at me.

Suddenly everything around me was different. The forest was normal again. The trees were as scarce as when we’d entered and the underbrush comprised nothing but small bushes.

“Goddamnit, are you deaf?!”

Finally, I noticed a man on a moped ahead of me. I stared at him in confusion and watched as he leaned his moped against a tree and stomped towards me. When he reached me and noticed the state I was in, his face changed from anger to worry.

“Hey, what’s wrong, kid? What are you even doing out here?”

“My mom,” I started, “she’s right at-“ but I broke off. Wasn’t mom at home in the city? She couldn’t be here. And what about grandpa?

“Grandpa? Where are you?” I called out again and scanned the surrounding forest.

---

In the end, the man on the moped drove me home. I’d tried to tell him what had happened, but I was too exhausted and irritated to form a cohesive story.

When Aunt Maria heard when the man had found me, she was furious. She reiterated her warning, but then noticed the look on my face and the many cuts on my hands. Her anger went away and instead, she hugged me and told me everything would be all right.

“Do you know where grandpa is, Simon?” she asked when I’d calmed down. Right away the tears streamed from my eyes again.

I told her everything, but I could tell she didn’t believe my bizarre tale. When the sun set and her father still hadn’t returned, she got worried.

She tried her best to hide it from me, telling me that grandpa was still out in the forest, carrying all those mushrooms we’d gathered. Before I knew it, he’d be home again. Of course, I believed her. By then, I’d already half-forgotten about the weird events of the day.

As I lay in bed, I heard Aunt Maria on the phone. I didn’t understand what she was saying or who she was talking to, but I noticed how serious her voice was.

In the days to come a search for grandpa was organized. By that time I was already back home, at my parents’ place in the city. Each day I hoped for news about grandpa. I hoped for Aunt Maria to call and to tell me he’d gotten lost or had forgotten the time and was back.

Days became weeks, but my hope never wavered. The call, however, never came.

Grandpa had vanished in the old, sprawling woods that were Richter’s Forest.

I always hated hallways, but after today, I never want to enter any of them ever again.

What happened tonight scared me beyond anything and twisted some of my sweetest childhood memories into a nightmare.

When I was little, I lived in an old farmhouse with the rest of my family. My grandparents had been farmers their whole life, but when I was born, they’d already retired.

The farmhouse was huge, more than thirty meters in length. When I was little, I used to sleep in my mom’s bedroom. Once I was a bit older, though, I got my own room. I loved it. It was big, had a couch, a bed and all my toys were there.

There was one problem with the room though: It was located in the middle of the building.

To go anywhere, I had to follow a long hallway that led through the whole building. This was fine during daytime since large windows on both ends allowed the sunlight to enter.

At night, however, this hallway became my own personal hell. It was creepy, and both sides ended in nothing but darkness. The worst was the light switches. They were located on either end of the hallway, where stairways connected it to the ground floor.

Whenever I had to go to the toilet at night, I had to walk down the hallway for about ten meters. What made it even worse, was that the farmhouse was more than a century old. Noises were a common thing. The creaking of old beams or the floor boards, often made me shake in fear.

It was terrible, and walking those ten meters at night was the worst part of my young life.

Whenever I had to go, I’d open the door of my room all the way to illuminate the hallway. It didn’t help much. The only thing it did was to fill it with long shadows and to transform the small cupboards into lurking monsters.

I had a savior though, my grandma.

My grandparents had their own bedroom a few doors up the hallway. After one of my nightly visits, I’d told them all about my fears. I’d complained about how afraid I was to go to the toilet at night. All they said was, ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s all in your head.’

When I had to go the next night again, I saw a dark silhouette at the end of the hallway. I’d have screamed had I not heard the familiar voice of my grandma.

She told me everything would be fine, but pleaded me to close the door. The bright light wasn’t good for her old eyes. Once I’d done that I heard her walk towards me. She said all this would be our little secret. No one had to know that she was here. If I were quiet about it, everyone would think I’d overcome my fears all by myself.

It was only natural that I took her advice. I was a child, after all. When she held out her hand in the dark, I grabbed it. Then she walked me to the toilet, waited for me to be done, and we returned back to my room.

Before she went back to hers, she’d always ask me if I wanted to come along and sleep in her bed. Each night she’d ask me this same question.

By then, I thought of myself a big boy. I told her, I could handle the darkness of the night all by myself and went back to my own room. At times I would look after her though, as she vanished into the darkness. Occasionally she’d repeat her invitation even after I couldn’t see her anymore.

I’d have to lie if I said it was never tempting. Yet, I never went after her.

The first few months I’d dreaded nothing more than to go to the toilet at night. I hate that dark hallway and even this new room. Once grandma was there, though, things got better.

The only thing I was a bit perplexed about was that grandma always knew when I had to go to the toilet. Did she hear all the ruckus I made when I got up and walked to the door? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was always there.

The whole thing continued till mom, and I moved to the city.

That last year, holding hands with grandma felt a bit weird. I was already eleven years old at the time. I might have even told her that she didn’t have to do it anymore. Yet, deep down, I was happy that she was still there. I knew that without her, I’d be scared to death.

I’m now twenty-four years old. I’ve never been back in this house much. Mom and I only used to visit my grandparent’s during the holidays. Even then, we could never stay overnight, because mom was so busy with her work.

Grandma died when I was sixteen years old, and my grandpa died three years ago. After that, mom moved back into the old house. By that time, she was self-employed, so things didn’t change much for her, and I was already in college.

At the moment I’m taking a little break from my studies. I decided it would be an excellent idea to visit mom and to spend some time at my childhood home. It’s the first time I’m back here for more than an afternoon.

When we’d moved, we had left most of the old furniture behind. I was amazed when I saw that my old room was still in the same state. Mom was about to prepare the guest room for me, but I decided to stay right here.

After she had gone to bed, I decided to browse the internet for a bit. At one point, though, I had to go to the toilet.

“Great, time to relive some old memories,” I said to myself.

I knew mom hadn’t bothered to put up new light switches or even a lamp for that matter.

Well, I wasn’t a kid anymore. I got up, opened the door, and carefully peeked outside like I’d always used to.

At the end of the hallway, I saw a familiar dark figure.

Only now, as an adult, did I realize how tall, almost towering the shape was. It filled out the entire hallway. At the same time, it seemed to be hunched over, leaning forward in my direction. I saw long, dangling arms that stretched from the top of the figure almost down to the floor.

As a little kid, it must’ve seemed reasonable that grandma was taller than me and that her arms were so much longer than mine.

As I stared at the figure, one of its impossibly long arms reached out to me. It ended in a bony hand so large, it would easily enclose mine. Then I heard a somewhat distorted, almost giggling version of my grandma’s voice:

“Everything is going to be fine, my dear, little boy.”

Over two decades ago, when I was ten years old, I saw Alexander the Magnificent’s Magnificent Puppet Show. What happened back then still haunts me to this day.

It was summer break, and I was as typical as a ten-year-old boy could’ve been. Ever since I was in second grade, I spent many of the warm summer months at my friend Martin’s house. We were in the same grade, but he was almost a year older than me. He was my best friend and you could say I was looking up to him a little. Well, not just a little, if I’m honest.

Martin was the popular type and had many friends in town. I on the other hand was a shy, reserved type. His friends, most of which I knew from school, accepted me well enough, but I still felt I didn’t belong to their group.

We spent most of our days on the town’s vast soccer field.

It was there that we first noticed Little Tony. The small boy, who couldn’t have been older than six, was eying us from afar curiously.

It took him a while to approach us and it was already evening when he asked if he could play with us. We all laughed at the little, awkward boy, but eventually, we let him join us.

While we played, Little Tony would go on and on about how amazing his dad was.

“My dad is the best dad in the world!” he’d say smiling brightly or “No one’s as amazing as my dad!”

It was comical, to be honest, and even as a ten-year-old, I found his behavior erratic.

“What about your mom? Is she awesome too?” one of the others teased him.

Little Tony shook his head, but his smile didn’t waver.

Then, out of nowhere, he stopped and raised his arms to get our attention.

“Why don’t we all go to my place? My dad’s cool and I have all the toys in the world and we can play together and hang out and have fun!”

He babbled on like this, but soon our attention turned back to our game. We didn’t care about his toys or his dad for that matter.

Right at this point, he said something different though.

“Oh,” he exclaimed suddenly, “you could watch the puppet show!”

I stopped in my track and turned towards him. Others did the same thing.

“What puppet show?”

“My dad’s puppet show,” he answered matter-of-factly.

Little Tony kept talking about it and we learned that his father was a famous puppeteer. He’d come to our small town to perform his puppet show. If we came with him now, we could watch his rehearsal of tomorrow’s show. He said his dad was known far and wide and was one of the best puppeteers in the whole wide world.

We were sure he was exaggerating, but the prospect of getting to see a free puppet show convinced us in the end.

Puppet shows were popular in the area I’m from. You could say they are an enormous part of our cultural landscape. Most of the kids in the area grew up watching them and loved them ever since. There were many types. Some were more tailored to adults. Others told adventurous tales and local legends to the delight of children.

Some of Martin’s older friends rolled their eyes, pretending not to care, but I could tell they were as excited about it as I was.

So soon enough we all joined in and went on our way, Little Tony in the lead.

Unfortunately, the small boy didn’t have a bike, so we were forced to walk and push our bikes along with us.

His father stayed at a small, old cottage outside of town. I think these cottages were once a popular holiday attraction aimed at city folks. Even when I was a kid though, many of them were in disuse and some of them were run down or completely abandoned.

There weren’t just the two of them though, Little Tony said, there were all his siblings, so it was never boring.

The walk there was annoying enough, but Little Tony made it even worse. He kept going on and on about his dad and how great the puppet show would be. It got on my nerves, and many others seemed as annoyed as I was. No matter how often we told him to be quiet though, he rambled on, almost mechanically.

The moment we made it to the cottage, a middle-aged man sprouting the biggest mustache I’d ever seen welcomed us. He ignored Little Tony, who walked on, past his father without so much as saying a word.

The man introduced himself as Alexander the Magnificent. With his flaming red robes and his black cylinder, he gave off the impression of a magician and not a puppeteer.

“Ah, I bet you’re here to see the puppet show,” he said in a loud booming voice and snapped his fingers. A tiny firework shot out from between them. We were all impressed by this.

From a distance, we could see a few other kids, which we assumed to be Little Tony’s siblings. None of them gave us any attention as Alexander let us to an enormous stage next to the small cottage he lived in.

We all oohed and aahed when we saw the impressive construction. He spread out his arms in a grand gesture and pointed at a row of seats in front of it.

“The show will begin in but a few moments, my dear guests,” he said in the same booming voice.

He bowed again before he hurried towards the stage.

As we waited for the show to begin, we noticed that the sun had started setting. One of the younger kids in our group complained. It was late, and he had to get home or he’d be in trouble with his parents. Peer pressure is a powerful thing, especially between kids, so it took only a few words to shut him up.

It wasn’t long before the curtains opened. Pompous music played, and light flooded the stage.

Alexander stepped forward to greet us again.

“Welcome to Alexander the Magnificent’s Magnificent Puppet Show, the most amazing puppet show in the whole wide world! You will see and experience unbelievable things tonight!”

The man’s entire demeanor was one of pomp and grandeur and again I couldn’t imagine him to be a puppeteer.

He threw his head back, lifted his arms high into the air, and once more fireworks went off above him. The curtains fell shut again and a moment later the music cut out.

For a few seconds, everything was quiet before a happy and fun melody started to play.

When the curtains opened again, the stage’s background had changed. There was now a canvas showing a green hill with a tiny house on it.

“There was once a boy named Jack,” Alexander narrated.

I was psyched to see the puppets, squirming on my chair, but to my surprise, a little boy around my age entered the stage. This was supposed to be a puppet show, right? Weird, I thought, but kept watching.

The little boy made his way to the center of the stage and I noticed right away how weird and stiff his movements were.

“Jack wanted nothing more than to marry Jane.”

With that, a little girl entered from the other side of the stage. She almost skipped to the middle, but her way of moving was similarly stiff.

“When Jack told her though,” Alexander continued in a tragic tone. “Jane wasn’t interested.”

On the stage, the little boy moved towards the girl, but she shook her head and turned away from him. The little boy gasped before he turned to the audience, an expression of misery on his face.

“Now what could Jack do to get Jane’s attention? Could he win her heart over with a present?”

The little boy looked around before he plucked a flower from the scenery and gave it to the little girl. She looked at it before she shook her head again and threw the flower away.

The boy reacted in abject misery again.

The entire ordeal repeated for a few more times, getting more comical as it went on.

“Finally,” Alexander narrated, “our hero Jack set out on an adventure to find a present worthy of her love.”

With that, the first act ended, and the curtains fell shut.

I wasn’t the only one who’d enjoyed the show so far. Some other kids seemed to be as excited as me. Martin and two of his older friends seemed to be bored, rolling their eyes at the play, and I was embarrassed about my excitement.

It was only a minute before the curtain opened again. Eerie music was playing, and the scenery had changed to that of a dark forest.

“Jack had traveled far and wide, but eventually he found himself trapped in a thick, old forest.”

With that, the little boy entered the stage again.

“He didn’t know,” Alexander said in a gloomy, foreboding voice, “that he was being watched the entire time.”

At this point, I made out the lurking ominous figures behind some trees on stage. The music got creepier and now all of us were hooked. As if on cue, the sun behind us vanished and twilight arrived.

First, the lurking figures only watched the boy, but soon they reached out for him and followed him from tree to tree. Finally, one of them jumped out and landed right in front of him. It was another little boy, dressed up as a wolf.

I looked up, but not in shock at the wolf’s sudden appearance. The way he’d jumped out had been unnatural. It wasn’t so much a jump, but it seemed more as if he’d been yanked forward. It reminded me of a puppet being moved on strings and as I watched him I noticed he was moving in the same stiff manner.

I looked over to my friends, but it seemed I was the only one who’d noticed or was bothered by it. I wanted to say something to Martin next to me, but I was too afraid he’d be mad at me for something as silly as that.

As the act went on, it was revealed that all the lurking figures were forest animals. One after another they jumped out from behind the trees and soon the boy was captured and brought to the king of animals.

The king was a bizarre mixture of various animals. He was covered in a mixture of fur and feathers and mighty antlers seemed to protrude from his head.

“The king of animals demanded to know what brought Jack to their forest.”

“Jack, courageously, told him he was out to seek a present for the one he loved.”

“The king thought about Jack’s word for a moment before he made him an offer. If Jack was to help them get rid of the evil hunters, he’d reward him with a magic crystal. A crystal that would grant him anything he desired.”

The little boy nodded a few times and soon enough he went on his way with some animals in tow.

With that the curtains fell, and the second act ended.

The third act was set at the edge of the forest. The boy and his new animal friends were hiding between a few trees on the right side of the stage.

In the center, three figures, dressed up as hunters, set around a campfire.

“Finally our hero Jack and his friends found the evil hunters!”

As the boy and the animals watched, the three hunters laid down to sleep. Soon after, the boy and the animals set out into their direction.

Alexander’s voice became a whisper and the music too turned quiet, becoming almost inaudible.

“They inched closer and closer, but the hunters were not only evil, they were also prepared.”

With that one of the animals was caught in a trap and in an instant, the three hunters jumped back to their feet.

The music turned into a loud crescendo as a battle emerged on the stage.

It was portrayed in an over the top, comical way. The animals clawed and bit the hunters, who in turn beat them with their clubs.

They all moved in the same stiff way, making the entire battle look unnatural. What was even weirder were the sounds. When the kids hit each other, the sounds were too loud, almost wooden, reminding me of old superhero movies. My friends laughed at the goofiness of it all, but I sat there awkwardly.

Soon the first hunter fell to the ground. He didn’t stagger, he just went limp and crashed to the floor, his arms and legs spread out in weird angles. The same happened to other participants who were defeated. All of them fell to the ground in a way that reminded me of real puppets being dropped to the floor. It was bizarre and even as a kid, I realized something was wrong about this situation.

I looked away from the ruckus on the stage for a moment, my eyes wandering upwards. There he was. Alexander was atop the stage, leaning over it as a puppeteer would. As the battle on the stage raged on, I could see his hands moving frantically, as if he was a real puppeteer.

Had he been up there the entire time?

As I watched, I didn’t understand what he was doing. Was he pretending to be a real puppeteer to make it seem like this was an actual puppet show? Was this why all the kids moved in this stiff, wooden way?

It was such a strange idea.

And then I saw something shimmering in the air. I could only make them out for a moment, the countless strings that came from Alexander’s hands, and were connected to the kids on stage. I saw how he moved two of his fingers upwards and the boy jumped, no was yanked forward, to attack the last of the hunters.

When the hunter dropped to the floor, the strings were already gone, invisible to my eyes yet again.

I didn’t understand what I’d seen. I poked Martin next to me again and again to get his attention, but his eyes stayed on the stage before he finally glared at me.

“What’s your problem?” he demanded.

“Something’s wrong! He’s controlling them,” I tried to explain, but broke up when Alexander’s loud thunderous voice announced the end of the act. When I pointed to the top of the stage however, the curtain had already fallen and the man was nowhere to be seen.

Martin turned away again, calling me a weirdo, and I was left sitting there, confused.

As the fourth act started I saw him up there again, moving and weaving his hands through the air to move the kids on stage. I poked Martin again, but instead of turning to me, he poked me back. Finally, I yanked at his arm and pointed to the top of the stage.

“Look!” I whispered into his ear.

Martin tried to shake me off before he saw the man up there. He watched him for a second before he glared at me once more.

“What’s your problem? Stop being so weird!”

With that, he yanked his arm free and before I could continue talking to him Little Tony walked up to me.

“Isn’t the show just the greatest thing ever?”

I tried to ignore him, telling him to get lost, but he’d stay right where he was, all the while smiling at me.

“I can’t wait for the ending,” he went on.

“I don’t care about the ending!” I shushed him and tried Martin to listen to me again, but Little Tony wouldn’t leave me alone.

“It’s the best part of the play. I’m so excited!” he chirped on.

“Leave me alone,” I yelled back at him once more.

“Martin,” I started, but he shushed me to keep quiet and soon a few of his friends joined in.

I hate to say it, but I was never one to put up a fight.

So I sat there and turned back to the stage. I saw that the little boy was back on his way home, the magical crystal in hand.

The back of the stage was moving as he walked on, changing from the forest to a grassy plain before he returned to the green hill. I noticed that the tiny house on the mountain was now destroyed. The little boy looked around before he found another kid, dressed as an old man, lying on the floor.

Alexander began narrating the end of the play.

“The moment Jack returned home, he learned from the old man that the hunters had been protecting the village. Now that they were gone, the wild animals had eaten all the villagers, leaving only the old man to tell the tale.”

The boy on the stage started crying, but then he looked at the crystal in his hand.

“So Jack held up the magical crystal, whispering his solitary wish. ‘I wish everyone was brought back to life.’ There was one thing the crystal couldn’t do though, it could never bring the dead back to life. And so Jack learned that he’d been tricked, had been used by the animals and become nothing but their puppet.”

With that, the curtains closed and fireworks went off once more. The so-called puppet show was over.

On the stage, the curtain opened again and all the kids were there. The boy named Jack, the girl named Jane, the animals, the hunters and the old man. On top of the stage, a light went on, and finally, everyone could make out Alexander.

The kids on stage all came forward and bowed to the audience, moving in the same wooden way.

My eyes went up to Alexander’s hands. I’d hoped they’d be resting on top of the stage, that what I’d seen before had been nothing but my imagination.

But it wasn’t.

Moving his hands gracefully, he controlled every one of the kids and once more the shimmering threads were visible. Martin was watching it now too and I could see that he didn’t understand what he was seeing either. I saw another one of my friends raise his arm, pointing at Alexander.

Finally, all the kids bowed for the last time. Two of my friends were clapping excitedly, some only a little, unnerved by what they’d seen.

Martin and I were quiet. By now I wanted nothing more but to get out of there.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Martin who seemed to be frozen in his seat next to me. Before he could answer Alexander spoke up again.

“Well, it seems some of you,” he started, eying me and Martin, “didn’t quite enjoy our little puppet show. This makes me very sad because we performed it just for you. Perhaps some of you are interested in giving us a little feedback? Or maybe,” he paused, his mouth twisting into a grin, “would like to join us and help improve it?”

I started shaking my head vehemently.

“I just want to go home,” I mumbled.

“You should join. It’s so much fun!” he piped up.

All the kids on stage were just standing there, their heads resting on their chests and their arms hanging at their sides.

Alexander laughed.

“It seems we have to insist.”

And right then he yanked his hands upwards and the kids on stage sprang to life again. With another jerk of his hands, they all jumped from the stage in unison, landing right in front of us. As they took another leap towards us, I stumbled over my chair screaming in terror. I got back up, turned away from them, and ran. After only a few meters though, my arm was caught, and I was yanked backward. I crashed to the ground and saw Little Tony hanging on to it. He was still smiling as he held on to me with an iron grip.

“You can’t leave yet,” he said in his happy little voice.

I tried to yank my arm free, but that didn’t do a thing. All it did was to make his grip tighten and his smile going ever brighter.

As I watched, I saw that the other kids had reached my friends now.

I struggled against Little Tony’s grip, tried to get free, but to no avail.

Finally, in a sudden flash of inspiration, I raised my arm above the little boy’s head. Even if I couldn’t see them, I felt the invisible strings. I yanked at them as hard as I could and felt them snap. Little Tony’s body became powerless in an instant.

What happened next though still makes me shudder in utter despair.

Do you know what happens when you remove the strings from a wooden puppet? It falls apart. That’s what happened with Little Tony.

His arms and legs fell off his torso and his little head rolled a few feet away. There was no blood, no wounds. His body simply separated into its various parts. There was still skin though, the places where his body parts had been fused moments ago were all covered in normal skin.

Each part of him seemed to be his own, distinct… thing, made of flesh and bone and covered in skin.

I stood there for a second, staring at the pieces that had once been Little Tony. His face still wore the same joyful smile as before.

When I looked up, I saw Martin. He was being held down by another puppet. He was squirming and crying, trying to get free. For a moment he stared at me, his face a mask of confusion and terror.

I stood there, confused, took one step forward, but I couldn’t seem to move any further. Then something shimmered in the air and moved towards his body. The strings made contact, seemed to dig into him. His eyes grew wide, his mouth opened and his entire body shook before it went limp.

By now Alexander had noticed that I’d destroyed one of his puppets and the one that had held down Martin came for me. It jumped high, flew right towards me and I barely avoided it from landing on top of me.

I ran and rushed from the stage. For a moment I saw another one of them out of the corner of my eye. It was gliding next to me, inches above the ground, its arms stretched out trying to get to me. For a moment I felt his cold, stiff fingers brush over my shoulder before it was yanked backward.

Alexander’s strings, I realized. They couldn’t reach any further!

I don’t know what happened afterward. I must’ve taken my bike and drove right home as fast as I could. Not to Martin’s home, but all the way to my parents’. They were confused when they found me outside, more so when they saw the state I was in.

I learned later that it had been long past midnight. I’d arrived crying and shaking, hitting the door and screaming for them to protect me from the puppets.

—

My friends went missing that summer. Seven kids, including Martin, were never seen again. I was questioned countless times and needless to say they didn’t believe a thing I told them. They probably thought I was too shocked, or worse, that I was downright lying.

They still checked the cottage, but they found no trace of anything I’d described. No Alexander, no puppets, and no stage.

I told them that everything must’ve been hidden away. Alexander the Magnificent must’ve left, but no one had heard about a man like that or his infamous puppet show.

In the end, my friends stayed missing. They still are to this day.

As the years passed, I put this story away, hid it in the depth of my mind, telling myself it was nothing but a terrible dream.

A week ago though, I saw something on my way through town. It was a little boy, approaching a group of kids on the soccer field.

“Hey there,” I heard him pipe up to them. “I’m Little Martin. You should all come to our puppet show this evening!”

When I turned over and saw his face, I froze in terror. It was Martin’s face. He looked exactly like he had over two decades ago and was smiling as brightly as Little Tony had.