The Tall Man
Jane flew down the stairs in a mad rush, duffel bag in hand. She rounded the corner and dashed out the front door of her house.
"Woah! Slow down there! We aren't going to leave without you!" her twin brother, Michael, caught her with his arm.
"Sorry," Jane gasped for breath. "I'm just really excited for our camping trip!"
"Hahaha!" Michael laughed. "So am I, but we still have plenty of time before Brynn and Eddie get here. We might as well take our time packing."
"I hope they get here soon," Jane sighed. "I want to get to the camp site before it gets dark."
"Scared of the dark?" Michael asked, teasingly.
"No!" Jane snapped back. "I just think it would be easier to set up camp while there's still daylight, don't you?"
"Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one," Michael replied, throwing Jane's duffel bag into the back of their car.
Jane gazed through the bright, June sunlight to look down the road for her friends, Brynn and Eddie. It was difficult to see through the glare, but sure enough, there they were. Eddie and Brynn ran up to Jane and Michael with excitement in their eyes.
"Ready for a weekend of fun?!" exclaimed Brynn, her brown eyes shining like stained glass windows in a church steeple.
"You bet I am!" Jane squealed. "I've been waiting for this for weeks!"
"Same here," Eddie said. "Finals were tough this year. It's nice to get to relax after a long semester."
"You guys coming or what?!" Michael yelled from the front seat of the car, interrupting their brief conversation.
"Yeah! Just a sec!" Eddie hollered back, tossing his and Brynn's duffel bags into the back of the car.
Jane, Eddie, and Brynn all clambered into the car and Michael sped down the road to the campsite. The June sunlight shined bright over their heads and everything seemed at peace. Summer was here and the world was taking a break.
"Here we are, Black Forest," Michael announced as he pulled up to a slender, dirt road.
"Black Forest?" questioned Brynn. "I thought this place was off limits to the public."
"It is," Michael replied, grinning mischievously.
"We shouldn't be here," Jane said, with panic in her tone.
"Relax, sis," Michael soothed her. "I've got everything under control. Anyway, if we went to some other campsite, there'd be a billion people there. I thought the goal of this trip was to get away from the city for a while."
"I think Jane is right," Eddie told his friend. "Weren't there, like, a bunch of disappearances in these woods a while back?"
"Nah, those are just legends," Michael replied.
"If you say so…" Jane trailed off, still unsure.
"Trust me. Have I ever steered you wrong before?"
"I can think of a couple occasions," Eddie mumbled, teasingly.
Michael shot him a look and drove off into Black Forest.
After all the gear was unpacked, the tents were set up, and the fire was lit, Brynn gathered everyone around for a scary story.
"Yeah, buddy!" Eddie cheered. "It isn't a campout without ghost stories!"
"Shhh!" Jane shushed him. "Do you want us to get caught out here?"
"Relax, Jane!" Eddie said, wrapping his arm around her. "There's no one out here to hear us. We can be as loud as we want."
"That's what worries me," Jane murmured.
"Quiet down, guys!" Michael silenced everyone. "Brynn can't tell her story with all that yapping!"
"Thank you, Michael," Brynn replied. "Now, without further ado, I present to you the legend of the Tall Man."
"Sounds weak," Eddie interrupted.
"Just let her tell the story!" Jane snapped at him.
"Sounds like someone's feeling better," Michael grinned.
"Can I please start the story now?" Brynn asked.
"Yeah, go ahead," Michael signaled for her to continue.
"Once upon a time there were twin girls, Stella and Sorina. They were brave little girls, and had no fear of the dark, or of spiders and other crawling things. Where other young ladies and even young boys would cower, Stella and Sorina would walk with their heads held high. They were good girls, obedient to their mother and father and to the word of God. They were the best children a mother could ask for, and this was their undoing.
One day, Stella and Sorina were out with their mother gathering berries from the forest. Their mother bid them stay close to her, and they listened, as they were good children. The day was bright and clear, and even as they walked closer to the center of the forest the light barely dimmed. It was nearly bright as noon when they found the Tall Man.
The Tall Man stood in a clearing, dressed as a nobleman, all in black. Shadows lay over him, dark as a cloudy midnight. He had many arms, all long and boneless as snakes, all sharp as swords, and they writhed like worms on nails. He did not speak, but made his intentions known.
Their mother tried not to listen, but she could no more disobey the Tall Man than she could forget how to breathe. She walked into the clearing, her daughters shortly behind her.
'Stella,' she said, 'take my knife, and cut a circle on the ground big enough to lie in.'
Stella, who was not afraid of the Tall Man, nor afraid of the quiver in her mother's voice, obeyed what her mother said.
'Sorina,' the mother said, 'take the berries and spread them in the circle, and crush them underfoot until the juice stains the earth.'
Though Sorina wondered why her mother asked her to do such a thing, she obeyed, because she was a good girl.
'Stella,' the mother said, 'lie in the circle.'
Stella, though she worried she might stain her clothes, did as her mother asked.
'Sorina,' the mother said, and bid Sorina cut her sister open with the knife.
Sorina could not; would not.
'Please,' her mother said. 'If you don't, it will be worse. So much worse.'
But Sorina could not, and she threw the knife away and ran home, crying. She hid under her bed, afraid for the first time in her life. She waited until her father came home from the fields, and told him of the terrible thing she had found in the woods. Her father comforted her, and told her she would be safe. He went to the woods, his axe in hand, and as he commanded, she stayed by the hearth, waiting for his return.
After some time she fell asleep. When she woke, it was to the sound of knocking on her door at the darkest hour of the night.
'Who is there?' she said.
'It is your father,' the knocker said.
'I don't believe you!' said Sorina.
'It is your sister,' the knocker said.
'It cannot be!' said Sorina.
'I am your mother,' said the knocker, 'and I told you it would be worse.'
And the door, locked tight before her father left, fell open as if it had been left ajar. And her mother stepped in, her sister's head clutched in one bloody hand, her father's in the other.
'Why?' wept Sorina.
'Because,' said her mother, 'there is no reward for goodness; there is no respite for faith; there is nothing but cold steel teeth and scourging fire for all of us. And it's coming for you now.'
And the tall man slid from the fire, and clenched Sorina in his burning embrace. And that was the end of her."
Brynn gazed out at the three terrified faces before her, obviously pleased with herself.
"I think we've had enough for one night!" Eddie exclaimed, standing up.
"If I remember correctly," Brynn giggled. "You were the one who said that my story was 'weak.'"
Eddie raised his finger as if he was going to say something, but then decided against it. Brynn grinned victoriously.
"But Eddie is right," Jane began. "It is pretty late. We should get to sleep."
"Alright guys, good night," Michael said, retreating to the tent he shared with Eddie.
"Night!" called Brynn as she followed Jane into their tent.
Snap!
Jane's eyes snapped open like the twig that she had heard break outside her tent. She remembered Brynn's story and quivered with fear. Jane slowly sat up and reached over to shake her friend awake.
"Brynn!" she hissed through her teeth. "Brynn!"
"Huh? What?" Brynn's eyelids fluttered open as she awoke.
"Shhhh!" Jane shushed her. "Do you hear that?"
Brynn and Jane fell silent to listen for sounds outside the tent. Straining their ears, they could hear the faint crunching of leaves underfoot as someone walked around outside the tent, slowing creeping closer.
Jane slowly reached for the flashlight she kept beside her sleeping back as Brynn crossed the tent to unzip the flap. The tent zipper moaned as Brynn slowly pulled it open.
"WAAHH!"
Jane and Brynn screamed at the top of their lungs and fell back inside the tent. Eddie and Michael stood over them with expressions of pure delight on their faces.
"We got you!" sang Eddie.
"Not funny!" Jane scolded them.
"You scared us half to death!" Brynn agreed.
"Oh come off it, you guys," Michael laughed. "It's all in the name of good fun."
"For you guys, maybe," snapped Brynn.
"What? Did you think we were the Tall Man?" Eddie teased.
"After that story Brynn told, yeah, I did!" Jane admitted.
Eddie and Michael exchanged a quick glance and fell on their backsides, laughing hysterically. The two girls watched them and smiled a little to themselves. Jane gazed off into the woods as she drew in some deep breaths to calm herself. She squinted a little, noticing something on a nearby tree.
"Hey, what's that?" she asked, pointing to the tree.
"What's what?" Eddie replied, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
"That thing, on the tree over there," Jane said.
She walked over to the tree and brought back a sheet of lined notebook paper with a piece of tape stuck to the top of it. There was a childish drawing of a faceless man with many streaming tentacles on the paper, along with the caption, "always watches, no eyes."
"Always watches, no eyes?" Michael read aloud from the scrap of paper. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know," replied Brynn. "You just found this stuck to a tree?"
"Yeah, I don't know what it is or how it got there," Jane said.
"Maybe this has something to do with the Tall Man," Eddie announced.
"It can't be…" Michael trailed off. "The Tall Man is only a legend."
"Did you put this there to scare us?" Jane asked skeptically.
"No! I swear we didn't do this!" Michael exclaimed.
"You sure...?" Brynn questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"I swear it wasn't us!" Michael repeated.
"Then who was it?" Jane said.
"We don't know!" Eddie exclaimed.
"I wonder if there's any more of these notes around here," Michael thought out loud.
"Could be," Brynn replied. "We should look for them."
The group pressed on through the darkness of the forest. Jane felt an increasing sense of foreboding with each step. Keeping up with the group became increasingly difficult as she longed for the sensation of her warm sleeping bag. A slight breeze whistled through the trees, sending chills up each of their spines.
"Hey! Look over there!" Brynn pointed ahead into the darkness.
Eddie, Jane, and Michael all looked where Brynn was gesturing. They saw a small shack with a van parked out in front. The shack was no bigger than a garden shed and seemed to be eroding away before their very eyes. The van's condition was no better. There was mud covering all sides of it and the paint was chipping away in many spots.
"I wonder if this thing still works," Michael said, crossing over to the hood of the van.
"Probably not," Brynn replied, analyzing the shed.
"I bet I could get it to," Michael opened the hood of the car to take a look inside.
"Guys! Check this out!" Eddie shouted from the other side of the shack. Brynn ran around to join him and Jane.
Eddie held up another sheet of notebook paper. The sloppy drawing of the Tall Man was still there, but the caption had changed to "don't look or it takes you."
"It's another one of those notes!" Brynn exclaimed.
"Don't look or it takes you," Jane read aloud. "I've had about enough of this. We should go back to camp."
"Not yet," Eddie said. "We just found more evidence. We can't quit now!"
"Evidence that the Tall Man actually exists calls for us to get out of this place, not stay and search for clues!" Jane argued.
"I agree with her," Brynn said. "This paper is a considerable distance from the last one. I'm starting to think it's not just a coincidence anymore."
"WHAT IS THAT?!" Eddie screamed, pointing into the woods. Jane and Brynn whipped around to find a slender, tall man in a dark suit. He had long, thin arms that had fingertips reaching down to his knees. Four long, dark tentacles streamed from his back and wriggled like worms in the darkness. But the worst part was his face—completely white with no facial features. The creature had no face.
"It's the Tall Man!" screamed Jane.
"Let's get out of here!" Brynn screeched.
The three of them ran around the shack to where Michael was sitting in the van waiting for them.
"Get in!" he beckoned. Brynn, Jane and Eddie all hopped into the backseat of the car. Before Eddie could get his back foot into the van, however, one of the Tall Man's tentacles wrapped around his ankle.
"HELP!" he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Jane grabbed his hand and tried to pull him into the van, but the Tall Man was stronger. Eddie was yanked from the van and disappeared into the darkness. Michael floored the vehicle and sped off into the woods.
"We lost Eddie!" screamed Jane.
"It's too late to go back now!" Michael shouted back to her.
"We have to!" Jane wailed, tears streaming from her eyes.
"We can't!" Brynn grabbed Jane's wrists and tried to compose her. "He's gone. It's too late to save him."
"It can't be…" Jane whispered. "That thing that took him…"
"It was the Tall Man, no doubt," Brynn finished for her.
"I thought he was only a legend," Michael said.
"Not anymore," Brynn replied.
The van bumped along the forest road and the three friends sat in silence. The darkness of the woods was darker than anything they had ever experienced before. The anticipation was palpable in the air. Eventually, the van spluttered and then slowed to a stop.
"It's out of gas," Brynn stated. They climbed out of the car and continued the journey on foot.
"Do you have any idea where our campsite is?" Jane asked.
"No," Michael replied. "I was just trying to get away from that thing. I wasn't paying attention to where we were going."
"Look over there," Brynn said, pointing to a cluster of dark, grey boulders. The three of them crossed over to find another note taped to the largest of the rocks. The entire sheet of paper was covered with a drawing of what appeared to be the Tall Man along with the word "follows" written vertically in capital letters.
"What's this supposed to mean?" Jane asked.
"I don't know," Michael replied. "But what I do know is—." Michael was cut off as two tentacles appeared out of the darkness and closed around his mouth.
"MICHAEL!" Brynn screamed as she tried to pry the limbs off of her friend. Another set appeared and closed around both his ankles as he tried to run. Michael fell to the ground and was dragged into the darkness.
"Come on!" Jane shouted, grabbing her friend's hand. She dragged Brynn out of danger and the two sprinted as far as they could into the woods.
"Think we got away?" Jane asked as she gasped for breath.
"I think so," replied Brynn between puffs. "The Tall Man came back. How did he find us?"
"I don't know. We aren't safe anywhere in these woods. We should keep moving."
"Seems like our only option at this point."
"He took Michael and Eddie. We need to find a way out of here."
"To do that, we probably need to find our campsite first."
"I told you it was a bad idea to leave."
"I know."
"I told you it was a bad idea to camp in these woods in the first place!"
"I know."
"I told you—."
"Okay, okay! We should've listened to you. I get it!"
"Sorry," Jane apologized. "Do you think Michael and Eddie are still alive somewhere?"
"I hate to say it, but probably not. Remember what happened to Stella and her father in the story?"
"Until I see some bloody heads, I'm just going to go on believing they're alive."
"Suit yourself, but you're getting your hopes up for nothing." The two continued to walk along in silence. The only sound was the sound of dead leaves crunching underfoot. Jane stopped abruptly as she noticed another note taped to a tree.
"It's another one of those papers," she announced.
"Another?" Brynn asked. "What does it say?"
Jane plucked the note from the tree and held it in front of Brynn's face. There was no illustration this time. The phrase "can't run" was written largely, it covered the entire page.
"I wonder who wrote all these," Brynn said. "None of them make any sense."
"Yeah…" Jane trailed off as she stared at the note. She slowly lifted her head as a sensation of apprehension washed over her. She turned around to find the Tall Man standing behind her and Brynn.
"WATCH OUT!" she screamed and grabbed Brynn's hand. The two tried to run, but the Tall Man's dark tentacle wrapped around Brynn's waist and tossed them high into the air. Jane heard a sickening crunch when they hit the ground and Brynn's grip on her hand loosened.
"NO! BRYNN!" Jane screeched, dropping her friend's lifeless hand and sprinting away from the Tall Man. Every time she checked over her shoulder to see if he was following, he was there. The distance between them closed every time she looked back.
Jane gasped for breath. Her lungs felt like they were going to explode. Eventually, she collapsed to the ground, unable to go any further. Jane's eyelids fluttered open. The Tall Man's blank face peered over her body and darkness crept into the corners of her eyes. It enclosed her until she saw nothing, thought nothing, and felt nothing.