Mr. No-Eyes

Growing up there were always stories surrounding him. Every misfortune or evil deed in our small town was always blamed on him. Mr. No-Eyes. I never really knew what to believe in my younger years, I always just thought it was another silly urban legend that parents created to get their children inside when it gets dark outside. Or a story the police made up to keep all of the kids in town out of the woods that borders the town.

I was never really sure what to think until my friend Billy Shriver went missing. The morning we found out he was missing, we thought something was wrong because he wasn’t in school for the first time.. ever. Billy loved coming to school. Not really because he enjoyed learning, he just liked seeing his friends. His parents wouldn’t let him hang out unless it was supervised, so he never really left.

When the police came in and told the class that Billy didn’t come home from school the night before it felt so surreal. I really didn’t know how to feel. At lunch, my friends and I put our heads together to see if maybe any of us had any idea where Billy could be. I didn’t have the slightest clue, neither did Jose or Mikey, but we wrote down every single place we could check after school in a notebook, and agreed to meet by the statue in front of the school right after the bell rings.

The final bell dismissing the school rang out, and I scurried through the halls, gripping tightly onto my notebook. When I reached the statue, I only saw Jose. I asked where Mikey went, and Jose informed me that his mom came and picked him up and wouldn’t let him come with. Jose’s parents both worked evenings, and my parents were out of town. My sister wouldn’t care enough to come get me, so I was free to go out and look for Billy as long as I needed to.

We opened up the notebook and began going down the list. The first place was the playground by Billy’s house. We walked over to the playground. Usually the playground has at least one kid on it, but there was no one. We searched the slide, in the bathrooms, Billy wasn’t there. Went back to the list and headed to the second place, the grocery store.

We knew it seemed dumb to check all of these places, but Billy wasn’t happy at home, so we figured he may have just ran away and is hiding out at the places he usually stops at on the way home. He wasn’t at the grocery store either, or the library, or even at the comic book shop. We only had one place left on our list. The cemetery.

It was our last hope, so we made the journey across town to the graveyard that is eerily placed right in front of the darkest spot in the woods. On the way there Fatty Johnson, the school bully, saw us. He was the only other person our age out on the street. He looked over at us, covered both of his eyes and started laughing. It couldn’t be Mr. No-Eyes.. could it?

When we reached the cemetery it was almost dark out, so we agreed that we really needed to hurry and find anything we can before it got too late. We ran through the cemetery, checking behind every headstone. We regathered in the center to report our findings, to both of our dismay, neither of us had even found a clue Billy had been there. Just as we were about to give up, we heard a voice in the distant. It sounded an awful lot like Billy. We stood still, waiting for him to yell again, and after a minute we heard it again.

It was coming from the woods.

Jose was very unsure of going into the woods, so we agreed he would stay out and go for help if he hears me screaming. So I went in, the only light I had was my keychain light, but I wasn’t running home to get a flashlight. Once I reached the entrance to the woods, I got a very unsettling feeling. I couldn’t let Billy down, though.

I pressed on and began making my way through the trees, shining my keychain and occasionally yelling out Billy’s name. At first I couldn’t hear anything, but after a few minutes I heard a cry for help. I began running in the direction. The crying was getting closer, but abruptly stopped. I skid to a halt and looked around for any sign of Billy.

I started shouting his name but there was no response. I began looking behind every tree in every direction, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. Until, I found a pair of broken glasses sitting on a log in front of me. They were Billy’s. I could tell because he had custom tie-dye frames. They were smashed and almost placed there on purpose. I started getting worried, and carefully searching around for any sign of Billy.

I found him.

Sitting against a tree, not moving. The worst part of all of it is, his eyes had been gouged out. His shirt was soaking with blood, and there were cuts and scratches all over his arms and legs. He looked like he had been sitting there for a while. I screamed for Jose, I screamed and I screamed but Jose never came. I didn’t want to leave Billy there, I didn’t know whether he was alive or not but I didn’t think I’d be able to find him again.

I sat down on a log, and I tried to figure out what I needed to do. Jose wasn’t coming, Billy was most likely dead and all I had was this stupid keychain light. I cried for a solid hour straight. I couldn’t believe what had happened to Billy. I had come to the conclusion that he was dead when an hour had passed and Billy hadn’t budged an inch or made so much as an exasperated exhale.

I decided I needed to go get help. It was the only thing I could do. I tried to somehow retrace my steps. Looking for any broken twigs I had stepped on. It was almost impossible to see in the dark through my teary eyes, but I needed to tell someone. I finally managed to make it out of the woods, and when I did I saw Jose’s silhouette in front of the street lights. I shouted his name, but he couldn’t hear me.

I started running towards him, but something wasn’t right. The closer I got, the less it looked like Jose. They weren’t running towards me, and when I yelled his name out, he yelled nothing back. I slowed from a sprint to a cautious walk. I don’t know why I kept walking in the first place. I knew it wasn’t Jose, but there was something inside telling me to keep going anyways.

I finally reached the silhouette, and it wasn’t Jose. They sat on a bench with their head between their hands, and I told them I needed help. When they lifted their head up I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I guess the name Mr. No-Eyes really fits his appearance. I tried to run, I tried to scream, but I stood there, petrified.

Luckily just as he stood up and towered over me, police lights began illuminating the town behind him. He looked back at the police car speeding up to the park, and then back down at me. He turned and began to walk away. I watched him walking, and then turned to look at the police car. When I looked back at Mr. No-Eyes, he was gone.

The police officer got out of the car, and Jose came running over to me. Jose informed me that he went and got the police when I hadn’t come out after so long. I tried explaining that I had just seen Mr. No-Eyes, but they both assured me that there was no one in front of me when they pulled up. I had just been standing there, staring ahead of me with a terrified look on my face.

A few days later we buried Billy. The police ruled it as a homicide but couldn’t identify the killer. Jose and Mikey believe that I saw Mr. No-Eyes and that he was the culprit, but no one else believed me. Since then, I’ve been a firm believer of his existence. I know what I saw that night. Since then, none of the kids in the town had gone out after dark and never walked home alone again.