Jack

It exists beyond your understanding; but to it you are an old acquaintance.

“What a waste of money,” I mumbled as we exited the tent. Jack gave me a disapproving, sidelong glance. “What?”

“Screw you, Mark. You don’t always have to be such a dick.” Jack shook his head as we returned to the clamour and wafting scents of the carnival. I inhaled deeply, free of the oppressive odor of lavender and smoke inside the purple tent. We passed by a sign, the words Fortune Teller painted on it. It declared a fee of a measly five dollars for all the nonsense a self-proclaimed astrologist could handle.

“I’m not always a dick,” I replied, shoving my hands in my pockets to shield them from the wind. “I just know a pile of bullcrap when I see it.”

Jack sighed.

That was three days ago. That was the first time I saw it.

We were leaving the fairgrounds. Jack had already left with his little sister, while I waited for my parents to meet me at the exit. In the midwest, podunk town of Lansbury, the carnival is the only real excitement we have all year. Everyone and their extended family show up. When I saw the figure creeping around the edge of the woods, I just assumed it was someone’s drunk cousin out for a piss.

The forest was dark. Fall had not yet robbed the trees of their leaves, and the setting sun beyond the canopy could not penetrate the dense greenery enough for me to make out the form. It was certainly humanoid; walking on two legs with two arms dangling down from a thin torso. Although I was about 100 feet away from it, on the other side of a parking lot... I could see something wasn’t quite… right. Its gaunt form was hunched forward, as if it were only bones.

At one point, it seemed to stop and turn to face me. If I could have made out its eyes in the shadows, I feel that our gaze would have met. It was in that moment that fear gripped me. Something in its stillness seemed to tell me it was surprised that I could see it. It stood motionless, with a strange curiosity that someone was watching it. I froze. After a moment, it turned away, stalking back into the forest. As it left, I took note of its peculiar proportions. The arms were not just long - they stretched from its shoulders to its ankles. It was as though it lacked a gut completely as its legs stretched up to its chest.

Although its physical form vanished back into the dim forest, the memory of that moment has haunted me endlessly, as if playing on repeat ever since.

Two days ago, I saw it again. Or at the very least, I believe I heard it. I was at home and my parents had already left for their date night. I was in the living room, watching television when I was startled by a tap on the window. Dread gripped me, tearing at my mind as memories of the creature flooded back.

Memory can be confabulated. Over time, your mind fabricates, distorts, and misinterprets the past until it’s no longer the same as reality.

Not this time. It was as if at the moment, I realized that the shadows of the forest were not as defined as I remembered. I could see it clearly now. The veil was lifted. In my improved memory, it was daylight. I was at the exit. No, the entrance. We were entering the park when I saw the creature, lurking behind one of the carnival’s tents. It watched me as its seven long fingers gripped and distorted the tent’s fabric. It’s pale, bulbous face scrutinized my movements with beady black eyes. Their piercing gaze tracked my entrance into the carnival before it stealthily released the fabric and disappeared.

At the window followed another set of rhythmic taps.

Motionless, I kept my eyes fixated on the television as I tried to pretend what I was hearing wasn’t actually real. A single booming rap ended the barrage of taps. Silence followed. I laid my head down on the couch as the television’s lights danced across me, and after a sleepless night, morning finally arrived. I checked my phone to see that my parents had sent me a text to let me know that they had booked a hotel room downtown to avoid driving home late.

I glanced up at the window, and with all my courage, I pulled back the curtains. What greeted me was a curious imprint. A bird. I could discern the head, wings, and body impressed on the glass in a chalky white color. I walked outside and saw where it had landed and scrambled around in the mulch beneath the windowsill. It wasn’t there now.

Yesterday, it came again. I was in my room, while my parents were sound asleep in their bedroom. I heard the sound of the door slowly groaning open. I wasn’t asleep and I don’t know how anyone could be. It’s deliberate footsteps grew louder, closer to me, until it stood beside my bed. I couldn’t look at it. I kept my eyes shut.

Above the blankets, I felt the cold, clammy flesh of seven fingers grab my hand. It slipped something into my palm… something metallic and a strange warm dampness.

"You weren't supposed to remember," it whispered. "You weren't supposed to see." Its voice was sweet and melodic. It wasn't like how I remembered it.

I could remember it now. The tent it hid behind while gripping its purple fabric. The fortune teller’s sign out front that had pulled my attention. It introduced itself to me, telling me its name is Jack and that it would like to take me to see the fortune teller. I was frightened, because I already knew what lurked inside. There was no carnival. There was only dusky forest, with us deep inside its unlit grasp.

I had pulled back the curtain and stepped inside when I felt Jack’s seven-fingered hand grip my arm. Terrified, I could clearly recall its voice. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t remember a thing.’ It rasped, its breath grating and deliberate. I wasn’t supposed to remember anything. I wasn’t supposed to see it. That’s why it hunted me.

That’s why it killed my parents.

——

“What do you think, Crawlly?” Captain Aimsfield’s voice was soft; sympathetic. From behind the one-way mirror, they watched him and heard his blubbering sobs.

“A psychotic break. How else would you explain it?” She took a drag of her cigarette as she looked at the captain across the table. “No fingerprints other than his own on the knife and a completely nonsensical story to boot. The fact is that Mister and Misses Gordon are dead. They’ve been dead for three days, yet he says two days ago they were very much alive and out on a date. And there’s no carnival in Lansbury - there hasn’t been one for years. Not a single person named Jack has any connection to him. You saw his written confession, didn’t you? He had a death grip on it when they found him.”

“I saw the sheet,” Aimsfield replied while tapping the table with his fingers.

“I don’t know if he even knew we were in there with him when he was talking,” Crawlly said, her eyes wandering to the preteen boy in the interrogation room. “How many times has he recited the story now?”

“Seven times.” He replied quickly.

“And each time, exactly the same recount?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t see any other option than to institutionalize him.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” The captain was massaging his temples now. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”

“What’s that?”

The captain paused, his eyes locked with Crawlly’s. “The bite marks on his neck.”