The screams of sheer horror of the young woman filled the dark living room dimly lit by the TV. Ivan woke up, startled. He was met by the voice of the announcer.

“An abject horror that defies description.”

He looked around and barely registered his surroundings as he bolted from his seat, the bottle leaning on his hip fell to the floor with a loud thud.

“Vile, grotesque corruption beyond all human comprehension.”

There was, and there’s no mistake about it, a person’s laughter coming from outside. Again. He knew it, he could hear it loud as day.

“No human weapon can suppress it…”

But it wasn’t laughter this time, he realized. It was something different. Some type of chatter, a strange sort of back-and-forth between two people.

“No human brain can register it…”

He perked his neck out and looked around in the dark, trying to ignore the sound of the TV. There were people outside, talking to each other, loud and obnoxious. They were mocking him at this point, rubbing his nose in it. That wasn’t gonna do.

“No human reasoning can prepare you to face…”

Ivan strode across the living room and grabbed the shotgun off the wall, immediately cracking it open and checking the chamber.

“The Indescribable Man!”

There was no time to lose, he went for the drawer and slammed two slugs inside the chamber, leaving two more inside his coat pocket. He stormed through the front door and made his way into the cold night.

“Warning! Do not reveal the ending of this movie to your friends and family!”

Ivan sprinted through the cold night.

“Or maybe try to… If you think you can!”

With his shotgun in hand, Ivan scoured through the dense woods trying to follow the voices, determined to find their source. He was no longer afraid of what it could be; whatever it was, he was putting an end to this.

At one point, he could hear a female voice. Listening closely, he was able to make out some of the words.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

He kept listening to it, trying to understand more of what was being said.

“Can you shut the fuck up for one second?” he could hear a second voice say, this time male.

“I swear to God–” a second female voice could be heard saying, but the second half of the sentence was much quieter.

The voices seemed different, this time around. They were hushed, nervous, but still loud enough to be heard clearly. Standing perfectly still, he could hear more hushed sounds.

That was when a fourth voice came from the opposite direction.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

Ivan immediately looked over his shoulder. It was pitch black, but the light from the porch soaked the part of the woods from where he could hear the voice.

Far into the hazy dark of the trees, he could see a smokey silhouette of what seemed like a man of average height. He squinted just about enough to make out the silhouette, and he noticed when the person seemed to make a gesture.

He was confused for a second. He wasn’t sure if it was directed at him or not, as the man seemed to be way too far into the dark to be able to see him clearly. But at the same time, there was no one else he could see. It had to be directed at him. A hazy, almost ambiguous hand gesture at shoulder length, like he was pointing towards the sky, or reaching for his own face, but then…

He was waving at him?

Ivan was confused to the point he was completely sure he was not seeing it right. Why was there a person this deep into the woods simply waving at him?

The realization was so jarring that for a brief moment his mind didn’t even process the fact that he could only see the gesture because a different source of light flashed over the silhouette. Just about long enough for him to see a pale, emaciated frame raising a boney hand to eye level.

Barely a heartbeat later, Ivan instinctively looked over his other shoulder, facing the direction the other voices initially came from. He had forgotten all about them, and now he felt swarmed by all sides.

From across the trees, he could see the beam of a flashlight. He quickly braced his shotgun and shouted:

“HEY!”

“Oh shit”, said the other male voice from earlier.

“Stop right where you are!” Ivan continued.

“Oh shit, run, run”

“Please don’t shoot!”

“Who the hell are you? Who told you about this place?”

“Please sir, don’t shoot, we are just lost—”

“Bullshit”, Ivan snapped back, pointing the gun at the girl. “You think I’m an idiot? Nobody comes this far into the creek by accident, tell me what you’re doing here right now.”

“We were just looking for our friends…”

“Your friends? What friends? There’s no one here, kid, no one comes here.”

“Our friends, they got lost here last month…” the girl continued. “They were last seen near the road… We were trying to find them.”

“You do yourself a favor and you forget about your friends.”

“But… why?!”

“Because your friends are fucking dead, that’s why. They’re not coming back. They are never coming back.”

“No! We know that’s not true!”

“You don’t know shit, kid.”

“How can you be so sure? You don’t know that!”

“Are you calling me a liar, you little shit?”, Ivan said, pointing the gun at the young man.

“No, please, that’s not what I said…!”

“Get the fuck out of my property before I call the sherriff.”

“Please sir, you need to help us… Everybody is giving up already, our friends could be in danger…”

“The only thing I’m gonna do is start shooting if you don’t turn away and come back the way you came right fucking now, I swear this is my last warning.”

“You’re not gonna shoot us.”

“Trish, what the hell dude, let’s get out of here—”

“What makes you think I won’t?”

“Because you don’t shoot kids. Or women.”

Ivan paused for a second.

“Who told you that?”

“You’re Mr. B, aren’t you?”

Ivan didn’t answer.

“Who are you?”

“We’re Anya’s friends.”

Ivan said nothing.

“She told us about you.”

“That a fact?” he asked, starting to look less confident. “What did she tell you?”

“She said the stories aren’t true. You didn’t kill those people.”

Ivan thought about that for a second.

“Did you?”

“Of course not”, Ivan said, finally raising the gun. “Why? That gives you the right to trespass?”

“Good. Means we’re on the same page.”