A/N: This story does not belong to any other universe at A Simple Kind of Fear or The Reluctant Monkey. It is stand-alone and contains no particular pairings or couples.
October 31, 2015
Fourteen-year-old Jesse Kingston shoved a cheap, dollar store rain poncho into his already over-stuffed backpack. It didn’t look like there were any storms eminent, but he practiced the Boy Scout motto of being prepared, despite never having had the chance to actually be a part of that organization. His dreams of joining the Cub Scouts with some friends all the way back in third grade fell apart when his mother told him they couldn’t afford all the fees and uniform costs, and so that was that.
He fastened the bright orange sleeping bag he’d borrowed from Mr. Schulnes next store to the bottom of his pack, and then lifted it from his bed, testing the weight. It was heavy. He’d known it would be, of course, but it still gave him a moment’s pause to consider that he intended to carry this on his back for the next twenty-four hours or so, minus some resting and sleeping time.
Fourteen-year-old Jesse Kingston shoved a cheap, dollar store rain poncho into his already over-stuffed backpack. It didn’t look like there were any storms eminent, but he practiced the Boy Scout motto of being prepared, despite never having had the chance to actually be a part of that organization. His dreams of joining the Cub Scouts with some friends all the way back in third grade fell apart when his mother told him they couldn’t afford all the fees and uniform costs, and so that was that.
He fastened the bright orange sleeping bag he’d borrowed from Mr. Schulnes next store to the bottom of his pack, and then lifted it from his bed, testing the weight. It was heavy. He’d known it would be, of course, but it still gave him a moment’s pause to consider that he intended to carry this on his back for the next twenty-four hours or so, minus some resting and sleeping time.
He glanced about his dreary room, with its dark brown, fake wood panel walls, old army surplus desk, and worn avocado green carpeting. If he’d forgotten anything else, he’d probably have to repack entirely and remove some items to make space. He was not an avid outdoorsman and had no experience spending anything more than a few hours in the woods on a handful of hikes he’d taken with his father years before. But it would just be for the one night, and he told himself again that he could manage that much.
He checked one more time that his phone was fully charged and that he had both portable power banks tucked away in one of the backpack’s pockets. If he was going to get photographic and video evidence that he spent Halloween night alone in the Wheelers’ game preserve, unafraid of the Shadow Man legend, he needed to be sure he had plenty of power to keep his phone and camera running.
His mother was in the den, running the vacuum cleaner as he came down the stairs. She stopped long enough to tell him to have a good time and that she would see him in the morning. He felt a small twinge of guilt. His parents believed he was going to the state park to camp with some friends, chaperoned by one of their fathers.
It was a preposterous story, but his parents believed he still had friends, so they hadn’t questioned his plans. Two years prior, everyone in middle school had turned on the short, poor, nerdy kid with the weird thrift store clothes and bad haircut, and he’d been a lonely outsider ever since.
He left the house, pretending he was only walking a couple of blocks over to meet up with his friends, and once he was sure he was out of potential sight should his mother look out the window, he cut across Fourth Street to make his way to Glen Road. He’d used Google to map his route and he knew he had a little over two miles to reach the outer edges of his destination.
The sun was bright overhead and there were plenty of people out and about enjoying the nice, cool, Autumn weather. Kids were playing in yards, probably killing time until they could finally don their costumes for an evening of trick-or-treating. He nodded to a few of the people he passed as he made his way out of town, but no one stopped him for conversation and he wondered, somewhat bitterly, if they would even remember encountering him if they were asked later that day.
He paused for a selfie at a sign welcoming people to Sleepyside and then kept walking. Twenty minutes later, he was standing at the start of a clearly marked path into the forest. He wasn’t entirely sure if this was part of the famous Wheeler Game Preserve or someone else’s land, but he supposed it didn’t much matter. He certainly didn’t own the property and his family didn’t own the property. One way or the other, he was a trespasser regardless. His shoulders were already aching from the strain of carrying his pack and he decided he would go just a little way into the woods until he found a suitable place to sit down and have his lunch.
His meal of an apple and beef jerky was simple and not completely satisfying. He tried to go easy on his water consumption. He doubted he’d have the opportunity to refill either of the bottles he’d brought along, so he had to make them last. As he ate, he recorded his first video.
“I’m here in a game preserve outside Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, New York,” he said as he slowly panned his camera around. “It’s October 31st at… 1:35 in the afternoon. Local legend says you should never come into these woods on Halloween because the Shadow Man might get you.”
He turned his phone so the camera was on himself. “I’ll be spending the night here. Alone. I don’t expect to encounter this ‘evil’ ghost, but if I do, I’ll be sure to get a good shot of him.” He grinned as he finished speaking and stopped his filming. He had no friends in real life, but on certain internet forums, this could make him famous.
He spent almost two hours wandering aimlessly, doing his best to maintain his bearings. At some point, he knew he’d need to choose somewhere to actually spend the night. He’d heard once or twice that there were cabins or other structures in the preserve, but he wasn’t entirely certain whether or not they were occupied. He took some photos, mostly of the partially bare trees and the last of their red, yellow, and orange foliage. He tried to pick up a signal to post them online but while it appeared he could probably still make a call, he did not have enough bars to transfer his data.
He was surprised when the path he was following ended and before him was a wide, dark lake. From not too far away, he could make out voices. As he watched, three young boys, probably about eight or nine years old, struggled to catch a rambunctious Irish Setter that bounced around them on the lake’s sandy shore, tail wagging briskly as it dodged their outstretched hands.
“C’mon, you stupid dog!” one of the boys exclaimed in exasperation. “We shouldn’t be here! It’s time to go home!”
Jesse only watched for a few moments longer. The boys were finally able to snap a leash on the dog’s collar and they led the animal away. He couldn’t fully hear their continued conversation, but he was sure the words “Shadow Man” were part of it.
He turned back and strolled deeper into the forest. The sun was sinking lower on the horizon, the temperature dropping along with it, and he knew he needed to find his campsite for the night. He decided he would work his way back to the clearing he’d discovered about half an hour earlier.
It was nearly fifty minutes later, after some twists, turns, and backtracking, that he broke through the tree line in what he'd thought was the same small meadow as before, but he knew right away that he was somewhere entirely new to him. An old, tumbling-down structure of some kind stood in the center. He eyed it warily. Surely no one lived in it? Although the available light was rapidly dimming, he could see the one window by the door was broken and there seemed to be a gaping hole in the roof near what looked like possibly a bell tower. Was this a church at some point? He approached the building cautiously.
“Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”
A screeching bird was his only response. It flew up from a nearby Eastern pine, angrily scolding him as it disappeared into the thick forest behind him.
He took a few minutes to make another recording, circling the structure and announcing his intention to explore the inside. The building proved to be all one room. It was, he realized with a small start, an old schoolhouse. He wondered how many decades had gone by since it had last seen students ready for class. Jesse used his phone’s flashlight to inspect the room from corner to corner. Aside from a handful of wooden benches and an old metal bucket, there wasn’t much to see. Dust and grime and small rodent tracks covered the floor, but all in all, Jesse felt like staying in this abandoned building would beat sleeping outdoors completely exposed to the elements.
He went to work unrolling his sleeping bag and setting up the small, battery-powered lamp he’d brought along. After, he set out the crackers, peanut butter, fruit cup, and sausage sticks he intended for his dinner. So focused as he was on his tasks, the voice speaking behind him startled him enough that he spun around with a high-pitched squeak, brandishing his phone as if it were some sort of weapon.
“Do I need to ask you again?” The speaker was a teenage girl he did not recognize. He guessed she was older than he was, probably at least two grades above him in school. She had short, curly blond hair and was dressed in jeans, a white blouse, and a bright red jacket. She was eying him with one brow raised. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he fired back, deciding to go with a bravado he wasn’t actually feeling.
She let out a soft snort at that. “I’m Trixie. Belden. And I’m here because I was out patrolling and was surprised to see your light bobbing around in here. Now, you answer my questions.”
He swallowed hard. “I’m Jesse and I’m, uh, camping for the night?”
“Camping. Really.” She tilted her head to study him. “Are you a runaway?”
“No! I’m just… camping. What do you mean by ‘patrolling’? You look too young to be a cop.”
“Patrolling, as in, I briefly had a job as a sort of assistant gamekeeper while the Wheelers were in need of finding someone new to employ, and I still sometimes like to keep an eye on things.” She stepped further inside and looked around. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re trespassing, for one thing, though the Wheelers can be pretty easygoing about that. But more importantly, it isn’t safe.”
“Yeah, I can tell this property is way past condemned, but I’m willing to risk it for one night.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she murmured. “Though, for sure, this is not what anyone would call a sound structure. I got trapped here once. In a snowstorm, with my brother and a… good friend. It was in rough shape then and hasn’t gotten any better since.” She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers at him, flashing a lopsided grin. “But anyway, it’s Halloween, aren’t you afraid of the ghosts and ghoulies?”
“No,” Jesse replied, rolling his eyes. “Of course not.”
Her expression suddenly changed. “You should be,” she said flatly. “And you should also go home.”
“Why? Because of the ghosts and ghoulies? Because of the Shadow Man?” Jesse asked with a small frown. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
The hard look she shot him was disconcerting in its intensity. “If I said otherwise, it’s not like you would believe me,” she retorted, “so let’s just go with the whole trespassing thing.”
“Except you already said the Wheelers aren’t big sticklers in that regard.”
“Look. Just go home, okay?”
“If you’re so scared, why don’t you go home? You go and leave me alone and I promise I’ll be gone sometime in the morning.”
She shook her head slightly and turned away, muttering something under her breath. He wasn’t totally positive, but he thought she said, “If you don’t go now, you definitely won’t be here in the morning.” She stepped to the back window. “The sun has almost completely set,” she said in a louder tone. “You really need to go.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said firmly. “Ghosts aren’t real and I… I’m making some videos of my night here.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, her expression skeptical. “You’re… recording your night camping in a barely standing, abandoned, one-room schoolhouse?”
“Yes.” He regarded her stonily, unwilling to offer any more explanation.
“Right. Great. Have fun with that.” She crossed the room again.
“Are you going now?” Jesse asked, watching as she stepped through the doorway and into the gloom of twilight.
“Uh, huh. You wanted me gone. This is me going.”
Suddenly, inexplicably, Jesse realized he wanted her to stay. But he couldn’t think of any reason to say so, so instead he waved at her retreating form. “Uh, happy Halloween!” he called as she vanished into the growing darkness. If she answered, he didn’t hear her.
Three and a half hours later, he turned off his lamp and stretched out in his sleeping bag. He thought his videos were all right. They’d need editing, but he was reasonably sure he could put together something that was suitably spooky but also showed he wasn’t afraid to challenge the Shadow Man legend.
The floor was hard. And he could hear some night creature rummaging around, a little too close for comfort. Through the hole in the roof, he could see the clear sky above, studded with twinkling stars. Now that it came to it, he knew he was going to have a difficult time getting to sleep. He told himself that it was due to a lack of a proper bed and the chill that now hung in the air, but he knew it was more than that. Despite his attempts to remain calm and rational, he felt a disquieting pang of fear. It was one thing to be brave in the warm light of day, at home with his parents on his busy street where all the neighbors knew one another and watched out for each other. It was another thing entirely to be in this long-forgotten schoolhouse in the middle of a dark forest, alone at night with nothing to keep him company but what he suspected was a hungry rat. He slid down further into his sleeping bag and shut his eyes tightly. One night. He could make it just one night.
Jesse did not recall falling asleep and only knew he had when something jerked him into wakefulness. He remained perfectly still, listening. It was eerily quiet. It felt like everything around him, even the schoolhouse itself, was holding its breath, waiting. He wondered what time it was. He could check his phone, but that would wake it from standby and light up the screen. Without knowing why, he knew he absolutely did not want to do that. Indistinct gray clouds now obscured the stars above and he was certain the temperature had dropped another ten degrees at least. He turned his head slightly toward the broken window.
It was faint, but he could definitely see there was some sort of glowing light outside and it seemed to be getting brighter even as he stared. His heart hammered in his chest and he was momentarily frozen with panic. He struggled to draw in a breath, feeling the sound was as loud as an explosion in the silence around him.
Who was there? Was it someone just out for a walk? Maybe what he was seeing was someone out for a late night walk using a flashlight? He clenched his fists. A flashlight that glowed blue? Was that even a thing?
With a gasp, he slid from his sleeping bag and crawled across the floor to the window. Something sharp cut into his palm and he winced from the sudden pain. He slowly raised himself up to peer out over the sill and for one long, horrible moment he was looking at an image he could not fully accept or process. Across the clearing, at the edge of the trees, surrounded by an unearthly blue light, stood a figure of a man, all features indistinguishable. He was little more than a black shape against a glowing background. Though the shape was motionless and made no sound, Jesse was struck hard by a sense of something cold, heartless, and purely evil.
The Shadow Man.
Jesse’s mind went blank except for a single thought. Run. He scrambled across the room to the back window. It was stuck fast and Jesse pushed at it with all his strength. Just as he was about to get the metal bucket with the absurd hope that he could use it to smash his way out, he felt something give and the window popped from its frame.
He hauled himself through, fell to the hard-packed ground, and shoved himself to his feet. Briefly, it occurred to him that he should have taken the time to grab his phone. There was no way he would be able to see where he was going. But then, he didn’t want to be seen, either, so perhaps it was for the best. He took off at a sprint, with no idea where he was headed.
Three times, Jesse looked back. The first, the Shadow Man was at the top of a ridge he had just half run, half slid down. The second, he was standing in the center of the trail Jesse had chosen at random in his mad race to get away. The third, he was under a towering oak Jesse had just himself passed. At no time did Jesse see the Shadow Man make even the slightest movement or motion, and yet each time, the figure was just a little bit closer to Jesse than the time before.
“This way!”
Jesse let out a surprised, frightened shout, but somehow his mind recognized the voice and he spun toward it.
“Come on,” Trixie cried. “Hurry!”
The moon above provided only just enough light for him to see her ahead, leading him down an overgrown path he never would have noticed on his own. Clinging tendrils snagged at his sneakers and he tripped more than once over an exposed root.
He lost sight of Trixie just as the ground seemed to drop away from him. With another startled cry, he tumbled down into a dry gully, rolling to a stop among the dead leaves as he slammed up against a fallen log. He groaned heavily as he struggled to sit up, his arms shaking with a combination of exhaustion and fear. Abject terror was clawing at him, threatening to overcome him completely.
“Shh, shh, shh.”
He stilled. Trixie was crouched down next to him. He sensed more than saw that she had her hands up in a gesture to quiet him. She wasn’t looking at him, her eyes instead directed somewhere above. He turned a horrified gaze upward and could see that awful blue glow coming ever nearer.
“Can you still move?” she whispered urgently. “Can you run?”
“I – I think so.”
“It’s not far now. We just have to get to the edge of the woods. The Shadow Man is trapped here in the preserve. He can’t go beyond its borders.” She paused, and he thought she was listening for something. “You cannot let him catch you,” she finally said. “Whatever you do, don’t get caught.”
“Okay," he rasped weakly.
“Run as fast as you can,” she told him as she slowly rose, still concentrating on the approaching blue light. “Run like you've never run before. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Just. Run.”
And he did. With Trixie leading the way, he dashed down a narrow path. Gradually, Jesse could see the trees around him thinning out. The undergrowth became less wild. He was suddenly aware of a light of some kind ahead, but it was a soft, comforting yellow light, spilling from the windows of an old farmhouse, nothing like the sick blue glow still reaching out for him from behind.
His lungs were on fire and his legs were screaming in pain, but with a last burst of strength, he practically leapt out from the cover of the trees and onto a wide expanse of lawn that ran between the preserve and what he guessed was some sort of vegetable garden. For a moment, he took in the sheer normalcy of the house and its surroundings with an uncomprehending eye. There were smiling jack o’ lanterns on the well-lit porch and he could see figures moving around in a bright, cheerful kitchen. He didn’t know for sure how long he’d been running, but somehow safety seemed like a distant, impossible thing and he couldn’t believe he had reached it.
It was then that he realized he was alone. Completely alone. The blue light had vanished. The Shadow Man was gone.
But so was Trixie.
November 2
Jesse blinked as a tall, dark-haired boy dropped down across the table from him. The cafeteria was crowded and noisy, but no one was paying them any particular attention, not an unusual occurrence from Jesse’s perspective.
The boy held out a photo. “This her?”
Jesse accepted the picture and looked down at the smiling face of a blond girl, taking in her riotous curls, bright blue eyes, and the freckles that ran across her nose and cheeks. “Yes. Yes, this is Trixie.” He frowned. The photograph seemed old. Too old. It was creased and faded and looked like it had possibly been removed not too gently from an album of some kind. “I – I don’t understand. I thought you and your parents said…?”
The boy nodded. “Yeah," he said apologetically. "You sorta caught us off guard, bursting in on us like that and yelling about the Shadow Man and Trixie being missing. Sorry about that.”
“My mom just about killed me when she came to get me. And my Dad was furious when it took me so long to find the schoolhouse yesterday, so we could get my stuff. They think I just did something stupid, had a really bad dream, and terrified myself into a ‘mindless state of total fear.’” Jesse scowled down at his lunch tray. “It didn’t help when your parents said something about how kids were always going into the preserve looking for the Shadow Man and running around lost in a self-induced panic.”
“Well, to be fair, that’s actually true,” Elijah Belden said with a small shrug. “Let me tell you a real ghost story. One I promise you, you will never, ever forget. That girl? Trixie? She’s my great-aunt. Or well, she would be. On Halloween in 1954, Trixie told her family she was going for a late afternoon walk in the preserve. She did that a lot. She liked to call it ‘patrolling,’ although there never really were any problems with poachers or anything.
“She was supposed to go to a party that night with her brothers and some friends, but she never came back from her walk. And when I say ‘never,’ I mean never. No one ever saw Trixie alive again. To this day, we don’t know exactly what happened to her.
“I was just a little boy when my dad told me about her. When he was about ten years old himself, he’d gone wandering into the preserve to collect leaves for a school project. And as he was gathering some up, this girl appeared. She told him her name and asked him to play tag with her. He chased her all the way to the edge of the preserve by our house, probably where you ended up the other night. My grandma was there and frantic. Turns out a wild catamount had been spotted. There were several people out looking for my dad and several others tracking the cat, intending to trap it if they could. When they did find it, it was really nearby where my dad had been collecting his leaves. He could have been attacked or even killed if Trixie hadn't gotten him out of there. He told me that at the time, he didn’t know who she was and it wasn’t until several years later that he found out from his Uncle Robert, Trixie's youngest brother.”
Jesse stared at Elijah. Had the other boy been telling him this story even just some time the prior week, Jesse would’ve laughed and dismissed it. Instead, he sat silently, waiting for Elijah to continue.
“Now, me, I thought it was only my dad making crap up or trying to be funny or something. But that was until about three years ago, before I tried out for the track team. I was training and I did my long distance running through the preserve whenever I could. One day, I was just jogging along, in my zone, and there she was, plain as day in front of me, right on the trail. ‘Don’t go this way,’ she says. ‘You’ll get hurt.’ And then poof! She was gone. I have no shame admitting I turned tail and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. I still have no idea what might have happened to me if I’d ignored her warning, but I am dead sure it would have been really bad. I told my Dad about it and he told me to go talk to Uncle Robert.”
Elijah paused and let out a sigh. “He died last year, but what he told me… He smiled when I mentioned Trixie. Actually smiled and said, yeah, that was his big sis, still looking out for the family like she always did. Then he got all serious and made me promise that under no circumstances would I ever get caught in the preserve after dark on Halloween night. He said there’s a great and ancient evil that comes out then, just once a year. The Shadow Man.”
Jesse couldn’t help himself. He shivered and clasped his hands tightly together under the table, his mind distantly noting that the bandaged scratch on his palm still pained him with the pressure. “I can’t even begin to really explain any of this,” he said hollowly, “but, yeah, I am sure that what I saw? Whatever it was? It was one-hundred-percent evil.”
“You aren’t the only one to encounter it. Oh, we’ve had our fair share of kooks and cranks and fools who've claimed to see the Shadow Man, but there have been a few who’ve had the same story as you. The glowing blue light. The figure that seems to follow you without ever moving… Well, almost the same story.” Elijah studied Jesse with narrowed eyes. “You’re the first to show up on our doorstep babbling about the Shadow Man and my great-aunt. Up until now, we thought she only appeared to members of the Belden clan. Any chance we’re related somehow?”
Jesse straightened, blinking somewhat owlishly. “I don’t know? Maybe?”
“Huh. Be interesting if you did one of those DNA tests.” Elijah pushed himself up from the table and picked up Trixie’s photo, slipping it into his jacket pocket.
“Uh, listen,” Jesse said, smiling uncertainly. “Thanks.”
“Huh?”
“For, I dunno. For believing me?”
“Yeah. Well.” Elijah briefly held his hands up. “I don’t pretend to understand who or what the Shadow Man really is. I don’t know why he only appears on October 31st. What I do know is something happened to my great-aunt. Something… got her. She died somewhere out in those woods and now she haunts them, doing what she can to keep others safe.”
“She saved my life,” Jesse declared emphatically. “I’m sure of it.”
Elijah slowly nodded. “Yeah. She did. I – as much as I appreciate that she’s trying to take care of us, I do sometimes think about her and wish she could maybe move on, you know? Go on to… whatever there is after all this.” He gestured vaguely around them. “Who knows. Maybe now she has. Like I said, you’re the first person we know of who ever claimed she saved him from the Shadow Man. Maybe her work here is finally done. But then, again? Just to be safe? Dude. Don’t ever go back in the game preserve on Halloween, okay? Seriously.”
With that Elijah strolled off, leaving Jesse to stare mutely after him.
He checked one more time that his phone was fully charged and that he had both portable power banks tucked away in one of the backpack’s pockets. If he was going to get photographic and video evidence that he spent Halloween night alone in the Wheelers’ game preserve, unafraid of the Shadow Man legend, he needed to be sure he had plenty of power to keep his phone and camera running.
His mother was in the den, running the vacuum cleaner as he came down the stairs. She stopped long enough to tell him to have a good time and that she would see him in the morning. He felt a small twinge of guilt. His parents believed he was going to the state park to camp with some friends, chaperoned by one of their fathers.
It was a preposterous story, but his parents believed he still had friends, so they hadn’t questioned his plans. Two years prior, everyone in middle school had turned on the short, poor, nerdy kid with the weird thrift store clothes and bad haircut, and he’d been a lonely outsider ever since.
He left the house, pretending he was only walking a couple of blocks over to meet up with his friends, and once he was sure he was out of potential sight should his mother look out the window, he cut across Fourth Street to make his way to Glen Road. He’d used Google to map his route and he knew he had a little over two miles to reach the outer edges of his destination.
The sun was bright overhead and there were plenty of people out and about enjoying the nice, cool, Autumn weather. Kids were playing in yards, probably killing time until they could finally don their costumes for an evening of trick-or-treating. He nodded to a few of the people he passed as he made his way out of town, but no one stopped him for conversation and he wondered, somewhat bitterly, if they would even remember encountering him if they were asked later that day.
He paused for a selfie at a sign welcoming people to Sleepyside and then kept walking. Twenty minutes later, he was standing at the start of a clearly marked path into the forest. He wasn’t entirely sure if this was part of the famous Wheeler Game Preserve or someone else’s land, but he supposed it didn’t much matter. He certainly didn’t own the property and his family didn’t own the property. One way or the other, he was a trespasser regardless. His shoulders were already aching from the strain of carrying his pack and he decided he would go just a little way into the woods until he found a suitable place to sit down and have his lunch.
His meal of an apple and beef jerky was simple and not completely satisfying. He tried to go easy on his water consumption. He doubted he’d have the opportunity to refill either of the bottles he’d brought along, so he had to make them last. As he ate, he recorded his first video.
“I’m here in a game preserve outside Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, New York,” he said as he slowly panned his camera around. “It’s October 31st at… 1:35 in the afternoon. Local legend says you should never come into these woods on Halloween because the Shadow Man might get you.”
He turned his phone so the camera was on himself. “I’ll be spending the night here. Alone. I don’t expect to encounter this ‘evil’ ghost, but if I do, I’ll be sure to get a good shot of him.” He grinned as he finished speaking and stopped his filming. He had no friends in real life, but on certain internet forums, this could make him famous.
He spent almost two hours wandering aimlessly, doing his best to maintain his bearings. At some point, he knew he’d need to choose somewhere to actually spend the night. He’d heard once or twice that there were cabins or other structures in the preserve, but he wasn’t entirely certain whether or not they were occupied. He took some photos, mostly of the partially bare trees and the last of their red, yellow, and orange foliage. He tried to pick up a signal to post them online but while it appeared he could probably still make a call, he did not have enough bars to transfer his data.
He was surprised when the path he was following ended and before him was a wide, dark lake. From not too far away, he could make out voices. As he watched, three young boys, probably about eight or nine years old, struggled to catch a rambunctious Irish Setter that bounced around them on the lake’s sandy shore, tail wagging briskly as it dodged their outstretched hands.
“C’mon, you stupid dog!” one of the boys exclaimed in exasperation. “We shouldn’t be here! It’s time to go home!”
Jesse only watched for a few moments longer. The boys were finally able to snap a leash on the dog’s collar and they led the animal away. He couldn’t fully hear their continued conversation, but he was sure the words “Shadow Man” were part of it.
He turned back and strolled deeper into the forest. The sun was sinking lower on the horizon, the temperature dropping along with it, and he knew he needed to find his campsite for the night. He decided he would work his way back to the clearing he’d discovered about half an hour earlier.
It was nearly fifty minutes later, after some twists, turns, and backtracking, that he broke through the tree line in what he'd thought was the same small meadow as before, but he knew right away that he was somewhere entirely new to him. An old, tumbling-down structure of some kind stood in the center. He eyed it warily. Surely no one lived in it? Although the available light was rapidly dimming, he could see the one window by the door was broken and there seemed to be a gaping hole in the roof near what looked like possibly a bell tower. Was this a church at some point? He approached the building cautiously.
“Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”
A screeching bird was his only response. It flew up from a nearby Eastern pine, angrily scolding him as it disappeared into the thick forest behind him.
He took a few minutes to make another recording, circling the structure and announcing his intention to explore the inside. The building proved to be all one room. It was, he realized with a small start, an old schoolhouse. He wondered how many decades had gone by since it had last seen students ready for class. Jesse used his phone’s flashlight to inspect the room from corner to corner. Aside from a handful of wooden benches and an old metal bucket, there wasn’t much to see. Dust and grime and small rodent tracks covered the floor, but all in all, Jesse felt like staying in this abandoned building would beat sleeping outdoors completely exposed to the elements.
He went to work unrolling his sleeping bag and setting up the small, battery-powered lamp he’d brought along. After, he set out the crackers, peanut butter, fruit cup, and sausage sticks he intended for his dinner. So focused as he was on his tasks, the voice speaking behind him startled him enough that he spun around with a high-pitched squeak, brandishing his phone as if it were some sort of weapon.
“Do I need to ask you again?” The speaker was a teenage girl he did not recognize. He guessed she was older than he was, probably at least two grades above him in school. She had short, curly blond hair and was dressed in jeans, a white blouse, and a bright red jacket. She was eying him with one brow raised. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he fired back, deciding to go with a bravado he wasn’t actually feeling.
She let out a soft snort at that. “I’m Trixie. Belden. And I’m here because I was out patrolling and was surprised to see your light bobbing around in here. Now, you answer my questions.”
He swallowed hard. “I’m Jesse and I’m, uh, camping for the night?”
“Camping. Really.” She tilted her head to study him. “Are you a runaway?”
“No! I’m just… camping. What do you mean by ‘patrolling’? You look too young to be a cop.”
“Patrolling, as in, I briefly had a job as a sort of assistant gamekeeper while the Wheelers were in need of finding someone new to employ, and I still sometimes like to keep an eye on things.” She stepped further inside and looked around. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re trespassing, for one thing, though the Wheelers can be pretty easygoing about that. But more importantly, it isn’t safe.”
“Yeah, I can tell this property is way past condemned, but I’m willing to risk it for one night.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she murmured. “Though, for sure, this is not what anyone would call a sound structure. I got trapped here once. In a snowstorm, with my brother and a… good friend. It was in rough shape then and hasn’t gotten any better since.” She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers at him, flashing a lopsided grin. “But anyway, it’s Halloween, aren’t you afraid of the ghosts and ghoulies?”
“No,” Jesse replied, rolling his eyes. “Of course not.”
Her expression suddenly changed. “You should be,” she said flatly. “And you should also go home.”
“Why? Because of the ghosts and ghoulies? Because of the Shadow Man?” Jesse asked with a small frown. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
The hard look she shot him was disconcerting in its intensity. “If I said otherwise, it’s not like you would believe me,” she retorted, “so let’s just go with the whole trespassing thing.”
“Except you already said the Wheelers aren’t big sticklers in that regard.”
“Look. Just go home, okay?”
“If you’re so scared, why don’t you go home? You go and leave me alone and I promise I’ll be gone sometime in the morning.”
She shook her head slightly and turned away, muttering something under her breath. He wasn’t totally positive, but he thought she said, “If you don’t go now, you definitely won’t be here in the morning.” She stepped to the back window. “The sun has almost completely set,” she said in a louder tone. “You really need to go.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said firmly. “Ghosts aren’t real and I… I’m making some videos of my night here.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, her expression skeptical. “You’re… recording your night camping in a barely standing, abandoned, one-room schoolhouse?”
“Yes.” He regarded her stonily, unwilling to offer any more explanation.
“Right. Great. Have fun with that.” She crossed the room again.
“Are you going now?” Jesse asked, watching as she stepped through the doorway and into the gloom of twilight.
“Uh, huh. You wanted me gone. This is me going.”
Suddenly, inexplicably, Jesse realized he wanted her to stay. But he couldn’t think of any reason to say so, so instead he waved at her retreating form. “Uh, happy Halloween!” he called as she vanished into the growing darkness. If she answered, he didn’t hear her.
Three and a half hours later, he turned off his lamp and stretched out in his sleeping bag. He thought his videos were all right. They’d need editing, but he was reasonably sure he could put together something that was suitably spooky but also showed he wasn’t afraid to challenge the Shadow Man legend.
The floor was hard. And he could hear some night creature rummaging around, a little too close for comfort. Through the hole in the roof, he could see the clear sky above, studded with twinkling stars. Now that it came to it, he knew he was going to have a difficult time getting to sleep. He told himself that it was due to a lack of a proper bed and the chill that now hung in the air, but he knew it was more than that. Despite his attempts to remain calm and rational, he felt a disquieting pang of fear. It was one thing to be brave in the warm light of day, at home with his parents on his busy street where all the neighbors knew one another and watched out for each other. It was another thing entirely to be in this long-forgotten schoolhouse in the middle of a dark forest, alone at night with nothing to keep him company but what he suspected was a hungry rat. He slid down further into his sleeping bag and shut his eyes tightly. One night. He could make it just one night.
Jesse did not recall falling asleep and only knew he had when something jerked him into wakefulness. He remained perfectly still, listening. It was eerily quiet. It felt like everything around him, even the schoolhouse itself, was holding its breath, waiting. He wondered what time it was. He could check his phone, but that would wake it from standby and light up the screen. Without knowing why, he knew he absolutely did not want to do that. Indistinct gray clouds now obscured the stars above and he was certain the temperature had dropped another ten degrees at least. He turned his head slightly toward the broken window.
It was faint, but he could definitely see there was some sort of glowing light outside and it seemed to be getting brighter even as he stared. His heart hammered in his chest and he was momentarily frozen with panic. He struggled to draw in a breath, feeling the sound was as loud as an explosion in the silence around him.
Who was there? Was it someone just out for a walk? Maybe what he was seeing was someone out for a late night walk using a flashlight? He clenched his fists. A flashlight that glowed blue? Was that even a thing?
With a gasp, he slid from his sleeping bag and crawled across the floor to the window. Something sharp cut into his palm and he winced from the sudden pain. He slowly raised himself up to peer out over the sill and for one long, horrible moment he was looking at an image he could not fully accept or process. Across the clearing, at the edge of the trees, surrounded by an unearthly blue light, stood a figure of a man, all features indistinguishable. He was little more than a black shape against a glowing background. Though the shape was motionless and made no sound, Jesse was struck hard by a sense of something cold, heartless, and purely evil.
The Shadow Man.
Jesse’s mind went blank except for a single thought. Run. He scrambled across the room to the back window. It was stuck fast and Jesse pushed at it with all his strength. Just as he was about to get the metal bucket with the absurd hope that he could use it to smash his way out, he felt something give and the window popped from its frame.
He hauled himself through, fell to the hard-packed ground, and shoved himself to his feet. Briefly, it occurred to him that he should have taken the time to grab his phone. There was no way he would be able to see where he was going. But then, he didn’t want to be seen, either, so perhaps it was for the best. He took off at a sprint, with no idea where he was headed.
Three times, Jesse looked back. The first, the Shadow Man was at the top of a ridge he had just half run, half slid down. The second, he was standing in the center of the trail Jesse had chosen at random in his mad race to get away. The third, he was under a towering oak Jesse had just himself passed. At no time did Jesse see the Shadow Man make even the slightest movement or motion, and yet each time, the figure was just a little bit closer to Jesse than the time before.
“This way!”
Jesse let out a surprised, frightened shout, but somehow his mind recognized the voice and he spun toward it.
“Come on,” Trixie cried. “Hurry!”
The moon above provided only just enough light for him to see her ahead, leading him down an overgrown path he never would have noticed on his own. Clinging tendrils snagged at his sneakers and he tripped more than once over an exposed root.
He lost sight of Trixie just as the ground seemed to drop away from him. With another startled cry, he tumbled down into a dry gully, rolling to a stop among the dead leaves as he slammed up against a fallen log. He groaned heavily as he struggled to sit up, his arms shaking with a combination of exhaustion and fear. Abject terror was clawing at him, threatening to overcome him completely.
“Shh, shh, shh.”
He stilled. Trixie was crouched down next to him. He sensed more than saw that she had her hands up in a gesture to quiet him. She wasn’t looking at him, her eyes instead directed somewhere above. He turned a horrified gaze upward and could see that awful blue glow coming ever nearer.
“Can you still move?” she whispered urgently. “Can you run?”
“I – I think so.”
“It’s not far now. We just have to get to the edge of the woods. The Shadow Man is trapped here in the preserve. He can’t go beyond its borders.” She paused, and he thought she was listening for something. “You cannot let him catch you,” she finally said. “Whatever you do, don’t get caught.”
“Okay," he rasped weakly.
“Run as fast as you can,” she told him as she slowly rose, still concentrating on the approaching blue light. “Run like you've never run before. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Just. Run.”
And he did. With Trixie leading the way, he dashed down a narrow path. Gradually, Jesse could see the trees around him thinning out. The undergrowth became less wild. He was suddenly aware of a light of some kind ahead, but it was a soft, comforting yellow light, spilling from the windows of an old farmhouse, nothing like the sick blue glow still reaching out for him from behind.
His lungs were on fire and his legs were screaming in pain, but with a last burst of strength, he practically leapt out from the cover of the trees and onto a wide expanse of lawn that ran between the preserve and what he guessed was some sort of vegetable garden. For a moment, he took in the sheer normalcy of the house and its surroundings with an uncomprehending eye. There were smiling jack o’ lanterns on the well-lit porch and he could see figures moving around in a bright, cheerful kitchen. He didn’t know for sure how long he’d been running, but somehow safety seemed like a distant, impossible thing and he couldn’t believe he had reached it.
It was then that he realized he was alone. Completely alone. The blue light had vanished. The Shadow Man was gone.
But so was Trixie.
November 2
Jesse blinked as a tall, dark-haired boy dropped down across the table from him. The cafeteria was crowded and noisy, but no one was paying them any particular attention, not an unusual occurrence from Jesse’s perspective.
The boy held out a photo. “This her?”
Jesse accepted the picture and looked down at the smiling face of a blond girl, taking in her riotous curls, bright blue eyes, and the freckles that ran across her nose and cheeks. “Yes. Yes, this is Trixie.” He frowned. The photograph seemed old. Too old. It was creased and faded and looked like it had possibly been removed not too gently from an album of some kind. “I – I don’t understand. I thought you and your parents said…?”
The boy nodded. “Yeah," he said apologetically. "You sorta caught us off guard, bursting in on us like that and yelling about the Shadow Man and Trixie being missing. Sorry about that.”
“My mom just about killed me when she came to get me. And my Dad was furious when it took me so long to find the schoolhouse yesterday, so we could get my stuff. They think I just did something stupid, had a really bad dream, and terrified myself into a ‘mindless state of total fear.’” Jesse scowled down at his lunch tray. “It didn’t help when your parents said something about how kids were always going into the preserve looking for the Shadow Man and running around lost in a self-induced panic.”
“Well, to be fair, that’s actually true,” Elijah Belden said with a small shrug. “Let me tell you a real ghost story. One I promise you, you will never, ever forget. That girl? Trixie? She’s my great-aunt. Or well, she would be. On Halloween in 1954, Trixie told her family she was going for a late afternoon walk in the preserve. She did that a lot. She liked to call it ‘patrolling,’ although there never really were any problems with poachers or anything.
“She was supposed to go to a party that night with her brothers and some friends, but she never came back from her walk. And when I say ‘never,’ I mean never. No one ever saw Trixie alive again. To this day, we don’t know exactly what happened to her.
“I was just a little boy when my dad told me about her. When he was about ten years old himself, he’d gone wandering into the preserve to collect leaves for a school project. And as he was gathering some up, this girl appeared. She told him her name and asked him to play tag with her. He chased her all the way to the edge of the preserve by our house, probably where you ended up the other night. My grandma was there and frantic. Turns out a wild catamount had been spotted. There were several people out looking for my dad and several others tracking the cat, intending to trap it if they could. When they did find it, it was really nearby where my dad had been collecting his leaves. He could have been attacked or even killed if Trixie hadn't gotten him out of there. He told me that at the time, he didn’t know who she was and it wasn’t until several years later that he found out from his Uncle Robert, Trixie's youngest brother.”
Jesse stared at Elijah. Had the other boy been telling him this story even just some time the prior week, Jesse would’ve laughed and dismissed it. Instead, he sat silently, waiting for Elijah to continue.
“Now, me, I thought it was only my dad making crap up or trying to be funny or something. But that was until about three years ago, before I tried out for the track team. I was training and I did my long distance running through the preserve whenever I could. One day, I was just jogging along, in my zone, and there she was, plain as day in front of me, right on the trail. ‘Don’t go this way,’ she says. ‘You’ll get hurt.’ And then poof! She was gone. I have no shame admitting I turned tail and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. I still have no idea what might have happened to me if I’d ignored her warning, but I am dead sure it would have been really bad. I told my Dad about it and he told me to go talk to Uncle Robert.”
Elijah paused and let out a sigh. “He died last year, but what he told me… He smiled when I mentioned Trixie. Actually smiled and said, yeah, that was his big sis, still looking out for the family like she always did. Then he got all serious and made me promise that under no circumstances would I ever get caught in the preserve after dark on Halloween night. He said there’s a great and ancient evil that comes out then, just once a year. The Shadow Man.”
Jesse couldn’t help himself. He shivered and clasped his hands tightly together under the table, his mind distantly noting that the bandaged scratch on his palm still pained him with the pressure. “I can’t even begin to really explain any of this,” he said hollowly, “but, yeah, I am sure that what I saw? Whatever it was? It was one-hundred-percent evil.”
“You aren’t the only one to encounter it. Oh, we’ve had our fair share of kooks and cranks and fools who've claimed to see the Shadow Man, but there have been a few who’ve had the same story as you. The glowing blue light. The figure that seems to follow you without ever moving… Well, almost the same story.” Elijah studied Jesse with narrowed eyes. “You’re the first to show up on our doorstep babbling about the Shadow Man and my great-aunt. Up until now, we thought she only appeared to members of the Belden clan. Any chance we’re related somehow?”
Jesse straightened, blinking somewhat owlishly. “I don’t know? Maybe?”
“Huh. Be interesting if you did one of those DNA tests.” Elijah pushed himself up from the table and picked up Trixie’s photo, slipping it into his jacket pocket.
“Uh, listen,” Jesse said, smiling uncertainly. “Thanks.”
“Huh?”
“For, I dunno. For believing me?”
“Yeah. Well.” Elijah briefly held his hands up. “I don’t pretend to understand who or what the Shadow Man really is. I don’t know why he only appears on October 31st. What I do know is something happened to my great-aunt. Something… got her. She died somewhere out in those woods and now she haunts them, doing what she can to keep others safe.”
“She saved my life,” Jesse declared emphatically. “I’m sure of it.”
Elijah slowly nodded. “Yeah. She did. I – as much as I appreciate that she’s trying to take care of us, I do sometimes think about her and wish she could maybe move on, you know? Go on to… whatever there is after all this.” He gestured vaguely around them. “Who knows. Maybe now she has. Like I said, you’re the first person we know of who ever claimed she saved him from the Shadow Man. Maybe her work here is finally done. But then, again? Just to be safe? Dude. Don’t ever go back in the game preserve on Halloween, okay? Seriously.”
With that Elijah strolled off, leaving Jesse to stare mutely after him.