He is Out There

Sometimes we trap yourself. Beware of tricks.

He is out There

“He is out there you know?” I paused a moment for effect. “Always there. Waiting, watching.” Cassie eased back the curtain afraid to see, but afraid not too.

Darkness. No moon, no stars, just darkness.


My little cabin sat high upon a hill overlooking the Cliffside Cemetery. It was hard to see the cemetery from my window. The oak trees hid my view for they still held tightly to their colorful leaves. They should have shed them by now, but for some reason, they did not want to release them.

To the left of the cemetery was Hawkins pond. There was some mighty good carp fishing in that pond. It was kind of creepy at night, so folks generally stayed away, but during the day it was not so bad.

I stood from my chair by the fireplace and walked towards the window. On second thought I walked back to the end table and grabbed my binoculars. As I reached the window I whispered, “He is always there.”

I think I startled Cassie for she jumped a might. I pulled the curtain further back and looked towards the pond. Putting the binoculars to my eyes I watched the shadows dance across the pond.

Wave upon wave flowed and I wondered what was so big it would leave waves in a pond. The water flowed like that of an ocean and I could see ripples thrusting against the shore. A gust of wind blew fiercely and the trees began to shed their leaves.

Cassie grabbed my arm and held tightly. I pulled my arm away. “You cannot see him. You will not know where he is at, but he is there.” I turned her way, but I was not looking at her. I was looking straight through her.

I spoke as if talking to myself, but I knew she was listening. It was time for her to head home and now she feared leaving. I could picture her now running towards her car, dropping her keys and in a state of panic looking fearfully around.

I tried holding my laughter in. It was hard, but I managed. “He is always where death has been or is yet to come,” Almost a whisper the words came from my mouth. A haunting voice. A wary voice.

I made her believe I did not even know she was in the room. I had no clue why I wished to scare her so. Maybe it was the way she shivered at each sound in the night. Maybe it was because she was so gullible. Or maybe it was because she thought she was so much better than anyone else.

She needed to be taken down a notch or two, and I was just the one to do it. I opened the window just a touch and the wind was restless. In a matter of minutes, the leaves had fallen to the ground. A variety of colors littered the area.

I could see the cemetery plain as day. Headstones rested in overgrown weeds. No one maintained it. No one visited it. Old. Ancient. How long had it been since anyone had even thought of that cemetery?

“He is there. You cannot see him, but I will bet you can feel him.” This time, I looked directly at her. Face to face eye to eye. “You CAN feel him can’t you?” I saw the fear in her eyes. Saw her hands shaking, and fresh tears falling from her eyes.

She shook her head yes. I tried to hand her the binoculars but she would not take them. “You need to see. You need to know.” Still, she shook her head no.
I grabbed her arm and pushed her towards the door. I pushed her out and shut the door behind her. Swiftly I locked it so she could not get back in.

I watched as she looked towards the cemetery and screamed. I could not help but laugh. Now was the time for her to panic and drop her keys, but she did not. She made it to her car, cranked it up and escaped.

Oh well. It was fun while it…I screamed. He was real. He was here and trying to get in the door. She had the car and I had no escape.

I closed my eyes. Okay. I was dreaming. I opened my eyes and he was looking in the window at me. Skeletal face, sunken red eyes outlined in black, and teeth that looked as sharp as razor blades, filed close.

I could hear the wind whistle through his bones. His arthritic fingers tapped a tune on the window and his jaw bone worked in an equal rhythm.

The back door. Yes. I could go out the back door. I could out run that bony beast. I ran to the back door and jerked it open. Big mistake.

“I am here. Always here. Watching. Waiting.” He was unlike anything I had ever seen before. A combination of man and beast, life and death. Rotten flesh hung from his face and sparse tendrils of hair hung off of a skeletal head. One human eye, one soulless eye. It had four arms. Two human arms and two skeletal arms. One human leg and one skeletal leg.

He was a cross between life and death, I struggled as he grabbed me, but it did little good.

“He is still out there you know.”

Cynthia Fender Clark