If It Calls Your Name... Don't Answer.

I’ve seen it everywhere, people posting on the internet about creatures in the mountains… It always seemed so silly, “If you hear your name, no you didn’t.” I mean, common, that just sounds so cheesy right? 

Right??

I can’t hear my own laughter through my hands muffling my ears. The cool linoleum tile of the bathroom floor reminds me that my laughter is probably echoing. My hand moves with lightning speed to cover my mouth. 

If I wasn’t careful that… thing, would make its way up here. 

I hear the hollow sound of my name being called from downstairs. It’s closer than it was 10 minutes ago. It’s moving through the house. 

It moves slowly, one of its legs (if you can even call it that) drags behind it as it staggers to move in a way that could almost look human. The air around me feels tight just thinking about it. 

I caught a glimpse of it when it first came into the house. I was so stupid to open the front door, so stupid to call back to it, so stupid to run, so stupid to have hiked out to see the sunset in the first place. 

It likes the chase, followed me back, just like every scary story I’d ever heard. 

The leaves in the mountains are beautiful in the fall, and the hike was so short from the air b&b I had booked that it didn’t seem like a big deal. I left with an hour to spare before sunset, leaving me with only an hour to walk back in the dark. No biggie. 

I wasn’t scared of the dark. I wasn’t scared of what was lurking in it because it was just some stupid lore. 

I’ve beaten a bruise into the side of my leg at how I could have possibly completely ignored the idea that maybe, just maybe, there was something bigger than my beliefs out there. 

The first sound was so faint, I thought it was the flap of a wing in the distance. I whisper in the wind that barely even made my head turn. 

But then it was silent. Not quite, just silent. Like everything froze entirely at once. It was enough to make me stop in my tracks. Pitch black, spare the single beam from my flashlight. Then it came again. A voice called out in the distance. I couldn’t make out what it was saying, even with the eerie silence. The twigs snapping under my boot were all too loud as I angled my body to look in the direction of the voice. 

“Hello?” I called out. My voice cutting through the stagnant air around me. A chill was creeping up my spine, but I ignored it. 

“Hello.” The voice came not even ten feet from where I was standing. I whipped around, shining my light into the shadows. There was nothing there. I looked wildly through the forest that surrounded me, my beam jumping from tree to tree, shadow to shadow. Nothing. 

I’d seen kids when I was pulling into the neighborhood earlier. Maybe it was them, I mean it is nearing Halloween, what better time to play a prank on a woman alone in the woods. 

The sounds of wildlife at night returned, and I turned back towards the path heading back to my rental. I was only about 5 more minutes away from being in the backyard. 

“Marie.” 

I felt the heat of breath against my ear. A foul stench filling my nostrils. My entire body seized with fear. My name. It said my name, and whatever it was was right beside me. 

I didn’t even bother to look, I burst into a sprint as fast as I could in the direction of the house. 

“Marie. Marie. Marie.” My name was all around me. Whispers in every direction as I stumbled my way over roots and tree limbs. Clambering to just get back to the house. As if I would be safe there. 

I didn’t stop when I got to the backyard, just continued until I burst in through the back door, falling onto all fours. I slipped into the closet just beneath the stairs. My breathing was ragged and heavy as I tried to collect myself. 

The sharp squeak of the screen door opening sent a new wave of fear rolling through my body as I realized what a fatal flaw I had made. I didn’t lock the door behind me. 

The way it said my name made my mouth water with nausea. It didn’t sound right. Like a deep guttural mockingbird, except my name bounced off every wall. It wasn’t human, it wasn’t an animal. It wasn’t anything I’d ever heard in my life, and it sent chills through every inch of my body. The door to the closet I was hiding in was just barely open. Enough that I could peak if I dared. 

I did. 

It was as if a human being had been turned inside out and elongated. Limping so much that with every step there was a thud of its one leg hitting the floor, dragging the flaccid appendage behind it. Mangled. Human, but not any person that could actually be alive. Tall to the point of grazing the ceiling. 

Where there was supposed to be a face, there were two empty sockets. I watched as it called my name. The circular shape of its mouth opening, but unmoving as its throat shook. No lips to form words, just a sickening flesh like mouth that only took the shape of an O before disappearing back into its face. 

I gagged and its body jerked, shoulders twisting in different directions while its head turned up. The sound of my name now was like nails on a chalkboard. Something so wrong I was desperate not to hear it. It was facing me, those sockets looking in my direction, but it couldn’t seem to actually see. It was like it was trying to sense me. 

I slipped off one of my shoes as quietly as I could, watching as its body continued to jerk in response. It was zeroing in. I threw open the door and hurled the shoe towards the fireplace, causing the decorations to clatter on to the floor. It was all too eager to follow. 

I couldn’t risk going back outside. This was its home, and I was prey. Going back into the dark was only going to give it even more of an advantage. 

I slipped off my other shoe before I started ascending the stairs. The idea of it falling onto all fours and chasing behind me made every step painstaking. I was biting my lip to the point of drawing blood. 

I collapsed as softly as I could into the bathroom, scrambling to close the door behind me. My body tightened as the lock slipped into place. 

For a moment it felt like I could breathe. Even as I heard the thump and dragging of it wandering through the bottom floor, at least there was a locked door between it and me. 

Now I’m here, somewhere between manic laughing and vomiting in fear. 

My phone. 

I frantically pat myself down, desperate to feel the familiar lump of it in my pockets. My boyfriend Jack, I need to call Jack. He’ll know what to do. I can call him, and he’ll come get me and everything will be okay. The thoughts race through my head in rapid succesion. 

I could cry tears of joy as my hands found my phone zipped into the inner pocket of my jacket. Thank god for wanting stupid pictures of sunsets. 

My hands shake as I squint at the screen in the dark, scrolling to find his name in my contacts. 

Tears are spilling onto my cheeks as I listen to the phone ring in my ear, thankful that I even have service, and even more grateful to hear the shuffling sound of him answering the phone. 

He doesn’t say anything. 

“Jack?” I whisper, cupping the phone to my mouth. “Jack, can you hear me?” 

There’s only static silence in return. 

The doorknob shakes in front of me, and in a voice that is and isn’t Jack’s voice comes from both over the phone and from behind the door. 

“I’m right here, Marie.”