The Stalking of a Stalker

Franklin grinned wickedly. To anyone looking on, it would seem more like a humorless grimace, he had long forgotten how to laugh with feeling. He watched them approach from his well hidden vantage point amidst the trees... a deep sense of excitement beginning in his toes and radiating upwards to the pit of his stomach.

He watched them unload their gear - laughing happily...setting up tents near the lake’s edge. The forest absorbed their voices, but he could still hear the rhythm of their joy. It grated against him like sandpaper.

There were eight of them...young, carefree, spoiled - the epitome of perfect health...probably having a last fling after graduating from college...before life began to kill their joy.

How happy they looked...thinking all was well with the world. Poor fools... They had ventured really far out of range for any phone towers to be of help...and unless they had brought satellite phones, no one could get a message out...NO ONE WOULD HEAR THEM SCREAM, he chuckled delightfully.

Franklin laughed again...a dry silent practiced grunt. The grunt that epitomised the memories of his past life.

Why shouldn't I feel bitter, he thought - begrudging them their sacred happiness...I never had the opportunity to attend college...my old man beat the crap out'a me whenever I even mentioned getting a better education.

Wasn't throwing money away on me...he said. I was nothing but a good-for-nothing waste of air.

But, I sure showed him. Two years ago was the last time he ever tried to beat me black and blue. His bones are buried, still rotting in the cellar...the old tyrant. Right beside the ghost of my mother. I found her when I dug the hole for him...he always made me think she had run away.

I wanted to murder him again. Wish I could have.

Anyway...Enough of that for the moment.

The group

Jenna was spinning like a dog trying to chase its tail. "Anyone getting any signal, I can't get even one bar".

The others followed suit...No, they all concurred, the phones had no service.

Franklin

Thank God, he had his satellite phone with him. Well, if he still believed in such a being as god, a god who would allow him to suffer so much. His mother had tried to instill religion in him - but he never really listened.

He’d lived in these woods on and off for months now, ever since the cellar incident. The silence suited him. The trees didn’t judge. The animals didn’t ask questions. But people ~~ people always thought they were safe when they weren’t.

He hated people, especially the young arrogant ones who took everything for granted.

The art of Patience

Franklin crouched behind the tree line, the damp earth pressing against his knees. The laughter from the lakeside campfire irritated his nerves, fuelling his anger - Bright, careless, young...Eight of them, all glowing with the kind of health that came from never having to fight for it.

He muttered under his breath.

“Poor fools. If only they knew. I'm really going to enjoy this.”

He adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt, the black fabric blending into the shadows. His knife caught a sliver of moonlight - a reminder of the cellar, of bones that didn’t deserve burial.

He’d been watching them for hours. The way they tossed beer cans into the lake. The way they shouted into the dark as if the forest were theirs. He despised that kind of confidence. It was the same arrogance his father had - the kind that thought pain was a lesson.

But tonight, Franklin was the teacher.

By dusk, the group had built a fire. Music spilled into the clearing, tinny and careless. Franklin ate his sandwich and drank his flavored water. No alcohol for him when he was on duty. He crouched behind a fallen pine, his breath steady, his knife gleaming faintly in the dying light. He wasn’t sure what he wanted yet - maybe just to remind them that happiness had a cost.

Then came the first spine tingling scream.

"What the holy hell". Breathed Franklin.

A female had screamed...but, he hadn’t touched anyone. Not yet. But obviously something had.

Franklin felt it before he saw it - a presence, tall and deliberate, moving between the trees. He froze, knife ready, but the air had changed. It was colder now, heavier, as if the forest itself were expecting something ominous..

He whispered, “Who’s there?”

No answer. Just the faint sound of dragging - something heavy being pulled through leaves.

He turned toward the campfire. The group was panicking now, flashlights darting like fireflies...searching for their friend. He should have felt satisfaction. Instead, he felt like the victim... watched.

It wasn’t his doing. Not yet. It came from the far tent, where one of the girls had gone to fetch her phone. The others laughed at first, thinking it was a prank. But when she didn’t come back, the laughter thinned.

Joya was nowhere to be found.

The Group

“Did you hear that?”

Maya’s voice cracked through the laughter. She was the cautious one -always the first to notice when the woods stopped breathing...holding its breath...knowing!

“Probably a raccoon,” said Tyler, worrying as he poked the fire. “Be quiet.”

But the others shifted uneasily. The forest had gone silent. Even the water seemed to pause its murmuring.

“Where’s Jenna?” Maya asked. “She went to pee like twenty minutes ago.”

“Maybe she’s taking selfies,” Tyler said, but his voice faltered halfway through the joke.

They called out her name. Once. Twice. The sound vanished into the trees.

They ran to check the tent...it was empty. The woods yielded no sign of Jenna returning. The phones did not work. Panic set in.

They searched with flashlights, calling her name. The woods answered with rustling leaves and the faint splash of water. Franklin stayed still, watching their panic bloom. He hadn’t moved. This, this was something else ... ... something far more dangerous than he was.

He wasn’t alone...and this knowledge was pissing him off.

A shadow moved between the trees, quick and deliberate. A shape way too tall for the ordinary fools, far too silent. Franklin’s pulse beat unevenly, excitedly. He had lived here long enough to know every sound, every creature. This was neither. This was different.

This was new.

The group huddled together, whispering, arguing. Franklin crept closer, knife ready. He saw the shadow again, this time nearer the firelight. It wasn’t human. Or maybe it had been once. It still walked upright.

Who or what was this thing, this feral, quiet creature who had the audacity to be robbing him of his prizes.

Franklin had no choice, he must save them from this new stalker, he would not be cheated of his new kills.

The Group

“Guys, we need to go,” Maya said. “Now.”

“Go where?” Tyler snapped. “The van’s a mile away, and the road’s pitch black.”

"Why did we park so fa..far away, we sho...should have stayed close to the van. I told you all so, now we have no pho...phones and we don't know the way in the dark". One of the girls wailed, hiccuping in tears.

“Then we stick together,” said Chris, the self-appointed leader. “Nobody splits up.”

But the forest didn’t care about their rules. A scream tore through the night - high, sharp, and final.

Jenna!!!!

They ran toward it, stumbling through roots and brush, flashlights slicing through fog, trying to stick together.

Jenna was gone. Only her 'Lightweight 1080P Digital Camera', which she thought was so 'Perfect for Travel Adventures', lay on the ground, screen cracked, still recording.

The last frame showed a blur - something tall, something wrong.

They hurried back to the campsite...trying to console each other...trying to decide whether to go or stay.

Franklin

He stepped closer to the clearing, heart hammering. The group was shouting, crying, arguing. He could see their faces now - pale, terrified, so damned human. Just the way he liked them when he was the one doing the stalking.

Then he saw it again. The damnable shadow.

It moved behind them, silent, impossibly tall.

He whispered, “No… no, you’re not real.”

The shadow paused - turned its head toward him. As if sensing his presence.

Franklin crept closer to the scared and huddled mass of youth.

"Psssst". He hissed through closed teeth.

They jumped up screaming.

"For God's sake be quiet". He whispered hoarsely.

The Group

“Who’s that?” Maya whimpered, pointing her flashlight toward the trees.

A man stood there - gaunt, hooded, knife glinting in his moonlit hand.

“Hey!” Chris croaked. “Who are you. What do you want with us. What the hell are you doing out here with a knife?”

Franklin didn’t answer. He looked past them, gesturing toward the darkness beyond.

“It's here. Run,” he yelled urgently.

“What?” Maya's voice shook.

“Run!” Franklin shouted again, much louder.

...Run, run for your lives. Come with me now if you value living".

"Why should we trust you. Who are you. For all we know, you are the one who took Joya from the tent".

"And poor Jenna is gone too". Said Mark, as he glanced around furtively.

There was a horrible howl from the woods. So spine tingling that no more questions were needed. The entire group turned and ran headlong into the beckoning Franklin...almost knocking him over.

The thing was close behind. They could hear it plowing through the woods, howling like a wounded beast.

Franklin somehow knew that the night he planned had gone to hell.

One by one, the campers pounded behind him into the dark...and one by one they began to vanish.

In The Ensuing Chaos The forest erupted.

Branches snapped.

Something lunged from the dark == a blur of limbs and shadow.

The group scattered, flashlights tumbling, screams echoing through the trees.

One young woman's arm came flying through the air, blood splattering everywhere. A splash. A muffled cry. A dragging sound. Franklin’s bitterness curdled into fear. He turned to look back, to run faster...but the forest seemed to close around him, paths twisting where they hadn’t been before.

Good God. The thing was up in the trees, swinging from the branches. The young man in front of him was swept up like a rag doll, his head fell to the earth without a body attached, it rolled sideways as Franklin almost tripped in the slime of the blood. He gagged, glanced upwards and completely abandoned any plans he had for the remaining humans rushing in vain for safety.

The screams were horrible, as one by one the group all disappeared. Franklin had given up any hope of saving anyone but himself.

The thing was near.

Franklin swung his knife, but it passed through air. The shadow didn’t bleed. It didn’t flinch. It only laughed - a low, guttural sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

He ran.

He didn’t care where.

He just ran.

He ran for what seemed like hours. The screams had stopped...but it seemed he had been running in circles.

The Clearing

He burst into the clearing where the fire had burned down to embers. The air was thick with fog.

He was back where he had started.

Exhausted, lost - Franklin stumbled closer to the embers, as if their dying warmth could shelter him from what was coming.

On the ground lay an axe - old, ivory, stained with something dark.

He knelt, trembling, and picked it up. It was still warm.

He knew this thing in his hand very well.

It belonged to his father. How in God's name was this possible.

It occurred to him that God came conveniently to one's lips when the odds were stacked against the soul.

Franklin sat down heavily on the ground.

He was past running...past caring.

From the shadows came a whisper, low and amused:

“Your turn.”

His hands shook. He dropped the axe.

And as the darkness swallowed him, Franklin understood - the game had never been his to play. He was just another fool who thought he could control the odds.

The whisper grew louder, closer.

Franklin’s breath hitched.

“What happens now?”

“The game ends.”

The shadow reached out, and the world folded inward - the trees, the fog, the firelight - all collapsing into silence.

Sadly, no one could hear him scream.

Epilogue

By dawn, the forest was peaceful again.

The tents were empty...

The only evidence that anyone had ever been there.

The lake was calm.

On the ground near the cold ashes of the fire lay the axe - ivory, bloody. Gleaming faintly in the morning light.

The last breath of poor, unfortunate Franklin Greely.

Life had not been kind to him.

Maybe, just maybe...if he had chosen differently...well, who knows.

Life can be a real BITCH sometimes.