Skipping Rocks Part One - The Perfectly Flat Rock

It was the beginning of Fall. I was walking in a forest preserve about ten blocks away from my house. Almost all of the colored leaves were on the ground and most of the animals were hibernating or had flown south for the winter. The sound of the wind whistling through the branches of the tall trees soothed my depression. About 30 minutes ago, I found out that my friend, George Maxwell, died in a car accident. We used to walk in this same forest preserve for hours, just talking and playing games. As I walked I could hear the leaves and twigs crunch beneath my feet. I looked up at the sky and all I saw were gray clouds. They reminded me of my grief. I put my head down and continued to walk. I eventually walked to a pond. The same pond that George and I would skip rocks on. I looked in the water and there was a school of bluegill fish about five feet away from me. They were the only thing I was able to catch when George and I fished. I looked down and saw a perfectly flat rock about the size of my palm. I picked it up and skipped it across the water. One, two, three, four times it bounced against the light, smooth, cold waves of the pond. I looked where my rock landed and I saw a reflection of a man in a black suit on the other side of the pond. I didn’t bother looking up at him due to my fear that he would be mad at me for disturbing the fish or something. So I just turned around and walked back into the forest.

As I walked down the trail that led out of the forest and into the field, I thought I heard an extra set of foot steps behind me. I looked behind me but my hood blocked me from seeing out the corner of my eye. I got scared, so I started walking faster. After five minutes or more of walking, I began to get a definite sense of a presence behind me. At this point I started walking even faster and taking longer steps, but the steps still followed me, so I started running, so fast that my hood flew off my head. I finally got to the field and continued running until I got to the middle of the field just outside the forest. I looked behind me to see if the person was still following me, nothing was there. I thought I was going crazy, but then I saw a black sleeve move behind a tree at the edge of the forest. I turned around and walked home, constantly looking behind me. When I got back home, I slipped off my hoodie and carelessly threw it on the floor. My grandmother called me from her room and asked how my walk was. I walked into her room and saw her laying down watching her soap opera on her small television. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and told her it was fine. Moaning came from the television and I turned to see a man on top of a half-naked woman, kissing her. “Why can’t you be a normal grandma? You know, knitting things and listening to old records?” I asked her jokingly as I gestured to the television.

“Because I’m an awesome grandma and if I did that I would be boring!” she said as she giggled and kissed my cheek.

“That’s true.”

I got up and walked to my room. On the way there, I saw a picture of my mother. Ever since she went to the hospital for hallucinations of a “Tree Man”, life has never been the same. I remember the day they took her away, I was seven years old when she tried to kill me because she said she “didn’t want the Tree Man to take me and make me one of his puppets.” My grandmother stopped her and she was taken away. After that, my grandma took me to the park to play with all of my childhood friends, including George. That’s all I can remember of that day. My grandmother got custody of me and I’ve lived with her ever since.

It was late in the evening and I went on Xbox to play some games with my friends. The first person to invite me to a party was another good friend of mine. His Gamertag was XxIcarus3567xX. He randomly got the name as a default Xbox Gamertag. He was pretty lucky, since he was obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology. But he was so secretive. He never told me his name or where he was from. I would always ask him because of his heavy accent. I told him about my day and the man in the forest. He told me not to worry about it, that it was just some guy that happened to be walking the same way I was walking. My dog interrupted my conversation with my friend by barking at the door. I got up and pulled the curtain that was covering the window of my room door, which is the side door to my house. Nobody was there. The sensor porch lights were on and I could have sworn I heard someone's footsteps on the front porch before my dog started to bark. I shrugged, made sure all the doors were locked, and continued playing Halo with my friend.

After I was done playing Halo, I laid in my bed and began to watch a movie on Netflix. My grandmother was in her room and was sound asleep, the only way I could wake her up at this point was to start shaking her arm and yelling her name. My video then froze for a second and it brought me to a page saying that I was disconnected from Xbox Live. I tried everything I could to get reconnected but it wouldn't work. I went to my computer to check to see if there was something wrong with the servers. It wouldn't take me to the Xbox Live website. Instead, it took me to a page with a message that there was something wrong with the internet. I tried restarting the modem about five times and it wouldn't work. I picked up my house phone, there was no dial tone. I looked at the back of the modem for the number and picked up my cell phone. I started dialing the number and I looked at the top right corner of my cell phone, there was no signal. My phone usually has all five bars in my room - at least four. I walked all around my room and I couldn't even get a spike. I turned off my cell phone and turned it back on, nothing happened, I started to panic. I can't manage without noise or I start hearing and seeing things. I turned on all my lights, and began to walk down the hallway to grab a DVD to play in the Xbox. I stopped and looked down the hallway and started freaking out. All the lights were off and I’m severely afraid of the dark. The feeling of total darkness makes me think of what or who could possibly be in there with me. I turned around and went on my computer. Luckily I downloaded a few good movies earlier. I started playing one, laid down on my bed with my dog lying next to me, and tried to relax.

About twenty minutes into the movie the power went out. I immediately reached for my cell phone to use as a flash light. I pressed the lock screen button and it didn’t work. My phone was dead.  It had a fully charged battery before I watched the movie and the battery usually lasts about ten hours before it dies. How is this even possible? I thought as I grabbed my flashlight and shined it on the ceiling to brighten up the whole room. Then my dog started barking. He ran down the hall and started to growl. He yelped and then there was nothing but silence for what felt like forever. I heard footsteps going down the hall towards my grandmother’s room and I heard her room door open. I then heard a quick yelp and then nothing but silence. I finally remembered that I forgot to check to see if my back door was locked! Quickly, I ran to my door with the flashlight and I struggled to unlock the door. I put the flashlight in my armpit and continued to try to unlock the door. I felt as though I couldn't breathe and my heart felt like it was about to break out of my chest. I finally got the door open and ran as fast as I could outside. I ran over to the next block on my street and went to someone's front door. I knocked and rang the doorbell, nobody answered. I started yelling and crying, banging on the door as hard as I could but still no answer.

I knocked on doors at just about every house on that street and nobody answered. I saw a car parked in the middle of the street, just sitting there, the engine was running and the door was wide open. Nobody was in it or near it and there were long skid marks behind it. I don't know why I didn't notice it before. I jumped in, slammed the door shut, sped off and headed to the police station. On the way there, there were more cars in the street just like I found this one. Empty, running and doors wide open. What the fuck is going on? I thought. I then felt myself hit something. I slammed on the brakes and looked in the mirror. Lying on the ground was a very tall, bald man in a business suit. He started to get up as I drove away. “I have no time to deal with this guy.” I looked in the mirror to see if he was okay, but he was gone. I pulled up to the police station and I heard gun fire inside. I jumped out of the car and ran in to see what was going on. Nobody was inside, only guns and bullet shells.

My legs went limp and I fell back onto the wall, trying my best to hold myself up. Then, everything started to fade into darkness and I fell to the ground. As everything was going black, I saw a black shoe step around the corner with a black pant leg. When I woke up, I saw the night sky surrounded by trees and I moved my fingers over the cold dirt beneath me. I felt a cold metal object, it was my flashlight. I slowly got up, turned on the flashlight and looked around. I recognized the area right away. I was in the forest preserve. I stumbled around trying to regain my strength. My flashlight only shined on one tree at a time and flickered sometimes. After walking around for what felt like hours, one tree my light passed over didn't look right. My arm trembled as I started to move my flickering flashlight back ever so slowly. Then I saw it, the black suit. I looked up and I saw his face, or rather, a lack of. No ears, no hair, no eyes, nothing. He was about nine feet tall and his arms reached to the middle of his shins. He walked towards me and I tried to move, either one step backwards or running a mile, but I couldn't move. Fear filled my body with each step he took towards me. Eventually he was five inches away from me. He bent over and his face was right in front of mine. Then his jaw started to drop, his skin tearing from the top half of his head more and more. It started to look as though he was forcefully making a mouth. A little bit of skin here and there was still connected and some hung loose. Then, black tentacles came out of his mouth and back, slithering out like snakes. The ones from his back grabbed me and lifted me above him as he stood up. He looked up and the tentacles from his mouth started to pet my face leaving a trail of almost burning saliva. He dropped and unhinged his jaw like a snake and he pulled me in to the black abyss that was his mouth, head first.

I woke up in my bed. My grandmother stood beside me and handed me a plate of scrambled eggs with hot sauce. I took a bite in confusion. She smiled, and walked out of my room. I looked outside and there where children walking to their bus stops and cars pulling out of the neighbors’ driveways. I heard my dog panting behind me on my bed. I went over to him and purposely dropped some eggs on the floor for him to eat. I looked over at my nightstand and on it was an invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell to attend a meeting with the police officer in charge of the investigation of George’s death. I also saw on my nightstand my flashlight, a dead leaf, and a perfectly flat rock, about the size of my palm.