Dusk arrived over the valley, and poppa and I had finished the graves. It
was messy work. Messier still was getting the carcasses into their final
resting places. The fields where their bloated bodies had fallen stained the
grass a dull brown-red even after the rain.
We didn’t talk much through the work, but he did thank me as we walked to
the house. Supper came and went, and night thereafter.
*
Agatha slept with my parents that night. I wanted to, but I thought poppa
might disapprove. So in bed, I lay awake. I kept thinking about how tired I
would be the next day without sleep.
Nearly a day had passed since I saw that creature, since I saw the slender
man. I understood none of what I had seen, but I wanted to know its purpose.
Friend or foe? Watcher or witch?
I dozed to the dazed symphony of my own finite mind. For this night it was the
old man that saw the tall slender man. It was poppa that tried to kill it.
My poppa had been doing more than sleeping with an eye open. He had been
restless and went to the porch with his rifle. When the cows began to get
anxious poppa went to investigate.
There isn’t much that I can tell you that you wouldn’t have already
assumed. Yes, poppa caught the tall man in the pasture, amongst the cows. My
poppa hollered, cursed him (or it) and fired. Each bullet from the rifle
flashed in the moonlight of the countryside. And each one made the sound of a
lead ball hitting a pool of water. Sploosh.
Sploosh. Sploosh. Not one had an effect on the tall man.
Poppa later told me as a much older man, about that night. Well into his eighties
and dying from the abuses of a hard life, much of it spent toiling in
unforgiving hard labor; my poppa pulled me close to his bedside...
That night Reinhart, that night the tall
man might’ve killed me. Lord knows why he didn’t. If it had eyes to do so, it
would’ve looked on me with disappointment. For the way he carried his body
suggested no trace of fear, rather it was ashamed of me.
…He had never spoken of it before, and fate would make certain he never
spoke of it thereafter. Not two days later he was dead.
Timing is everything. I didn’t know that as a ten year old. Life would
teach me that much later. But I would come to know that the appearance of the
tall man wasn’t coincidence, and his mystery larger than I could’ve guessed.
*
The last time I saw the tall man was not even a week later. The attacks on
the livestock continued. Chicken coops were raided, even some crops were
destroyed. The villagers thought that they were being stalked by the devil
himself. That wasn’t untrue.
I kept thinking back to that night, the night I first saw the tall man out in
the field of dead cows. It wasn’t surveying its destruction; it paid no mind to
Agatha or me. But it did have the air of a creature that was searching
for…something. The slender rope-like tendrils on its back were pulled nearly
taught. Stretching, somehow looking for something in an alien way that I
couldn’t comprehend.
Waking softly, there was no raucous that stirred me from my bed. I was
raised by the most primitive urge of man and beast and wished to make my way to
the outhouse. It was the first time that I had woke to use it in the night
since the tall man had been sighted.
Petrification defined me. I took a lantern and with much unease headed
towards the cottage’s front door. At the table, I lit the torch and held it
aloft, hoping the flame wouldn’t burn out and leave me drowning in a sea of
darkness. Approaching the door, my small hand took hold of the knob. It was
then that the door rattled and shook on its hinges. Panicking, I doused the flame. Slinking, I crept behind the table and looked
through the window.
Though my view was partially obscured I saw something more gruesome than
the tall man. A horned demon towered at the entrance to my family home. The
malevolent looking being had eyes like that of roiling lava, black-orange pits
of hell. Through an upturned nose the thing sniffed the air around him.
Its eyes then met mine.
As quickly as I could I ducked below the window’s sill, but the monster was
on to me.
Several seconds of graveyard silence followed. I vowed not to look. Silence
was a mountain outside. Stomach churning with terror, sweat dampened every part
of my body. It couldn’t have seen me. I was too quick, or more likely was still
in bed dreaming the entire episode. I must look! The absence of noise became a
cacophony in my imagination. I resolved to freeze.
However, as with many ten year old boys, curiosity and stupidity grabbed me
hand- and-hand and my eyes rose to the window.
This beast was there before me, closer than ever. Drool coated its lips,
fangs poked out through great sagging jowls. Its eyes grew brighter with
excitement, and if I hadn’t known better I would’ve sworn the damn thing smiled
at me. It reared back, taking aim at the
window. I ducked, again and crawled away from the window.
No shattering of the glass came. As I again was lulled into the feeling
that I had dreamt all this, I became brave enough to take in the view from the
window. When I did so, I saw the hulking demon’s wrist entwined in a tangle of
black-corded sinew.
The tall man yanked backwards sending the thing off balance. The demon
roared with fury and soon after my mother, father and Agatha tumbled awake to
bear witness as well.
The demon struggled and twisted to get loose, and just when it appeared it
was gaining an advantage another dark tendril would close around an appendage.
First the left leg, then the right knee. Soon thereafter, the right hand, elbow
and massive bicep. Despite the demon’s girth, the tall man was actually pulling
the demon towards it. With every whip
of a tentacle the two adversaries became more closely entwined.
My family watched this in disbelief. When I turned to survey them I saw my
father had gone for his rifle. I looked at him, simply shaking my head. Poppa
must’ve realized the futility, for he let the rifle clatter to the ground and
returned to gawking with the rest of us.
By now, the tall man had what might’ve been hundreds of tendrils protruding
from its back, all of which were now wrapped around some hunk of demon flesh.
The two beings were face to face, they could’ve shared secrets had they
wished. The demon snarled, sending bile
and flecks of spittle that spattered the window, and made us all flinch. The
tall man had apparently been waiting for this, because at this mark, he flooded
the demon’s mouth with more tendrils, the quick strands appeared and then
danced around the struggling brute’s writhing body, and tunneled deep into the
demon’s maw.
The tall man now seemed to be exerting less effort to keep the demon held
fast. The more tendrils that spewed into the demon’s gullet, the less energy it
seemed to be able to generate. Its eyes too began fading along with its
strength. What once had been active pools of lava were now only embers of
vanishing flame. The tall man held on, and continued holding until the light in
the demon’s eyes ceased to be.
Quiet returned to the countryside. The night went on as if nothing had
happened.
It was then he, or it, finally seemed to notice us. Gradually the tendrils
uncoiled, slithering off and out of the corpse of the demon’s grisly body. As
the tall man took note of us, he seemed to have a new regard for the demon’s
lifeless body. Just behind him, a purple tear, like an unsewn seam in the night
opened. Through it, the tall man was joined by more like him. These newcomers
gathered the demon’s body and carried it into the portal. The original tall man
turned to join them. And as its scrawny body slipped past its borders, the hole
sealed behind him.
-R. Schaf
January 21st 1967
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