Those who find.
Please login to continue to the checkout.
The screen was burning his eyes a little, it was getting late.
Username:
Password:
********
Address line 1:
“Ugh!” They always needed more information didn’t they? They couldn’t just leave it at your username. Sam never really considered why they needed more information, he just knew that if he wanted the books, games and whatever else the bought off the sites, he would have to let them know. What could they possibly do with the information anyway? They were a giant corporation, never any harm in giving more power to the powerful, was there? Besides, it was convenient.
Address line 2:
Address line 3:
Postcode:
Seriously, he had already given this information three times today. Maybe he should have clicked the ‘save information’ button at checkouts instead of just ignoring them, but then again, he didn’t want the information saved on his laptop in case it was stolen. Got to be careful about these things you know.
Phone number:
07437 886 990
Did he need to put a zero there if it already had ‘+44’ before it? Ah, probably didn’t matter either way.
Sam clicked continue, and entered his credit card information, paying for his items quickly and conveniently. He then sat back in his chair, sighed, and fiddled with his thumbs.
Now what? The items wouldn’t come for a whole two days, his fault for ordering at eleven at night. He decided to make his way downstairs for a drink and some snacks. His parents were out for the weekend, leaving the fridge at the mercy of his fingertips, and growling stomach.
That’s when he heard the first knock. A knock on the door isn’t something scary. A knock on the door at eleven in the night, is a little disconcerting. A knock on the door at eleven in the night whilst your parents are away sets a young man’s fight or flight instincts off in an instant. Like ripping off a plaster, Sam decided to discover the cause quickly, reset his pounding heart, and get back to his midnight snacking. The hallway leading from the kitchen to the entrance seemed to extend outward forever, the room made his stomach coil within him. He made his way forward.
No one was at the door, but there was a note on the ground, obviously having been pushed through the letterbox. Before he read anything, Sam double checked the lock on the door, and only then did he unfold the note.
Hi Sam.
You should be careful what you put on the internet. You never know who is on the other end. See you soon.
And that was it, no mention of the author, nor any real sign of authenticity. Though fear raced through his bones, Sam concluded that it was just a prank note, and made his way back to his bedroom.
His computer was still illuminating the room a pearly white, in the stead of the inactive bulbs above and by his bedside. The white light smelt of burning incense. He sat in front of it – itching his nose – and opened discord, his social application of choice. He began typing a message to his friends. As he was doing so, a message pinged his phone, sat snugly under the monitor. It was a message from Aisha on snapchat, and he hurriedly answered.
Hi.
Hey 😛 Hi is a little informal for you?
Don’t you find it weird how I can always see where you are? Snapmaps is so creepy sometimes.
Uh… Yeah I guess.
Maybe you should think about how many apps are tracking your location right now.
In addition to the note from earlier, this was obviously creeping him out. Was this just a joint effort between friends? Trying to scare him? Or was this something more sinister? He tried his best to cast away ideas of the latter
Are you in on some kind of prank? Well done, you’ve won, you’ve scared me.
We’d like you to keep thinking that.
Sam put down his phone and made his way back downstairs, checked the front door again, the back door, the windows. He made sure every bedroom was locked, and bolted the door to the garage – after grabbing the baseball bat lying in the corner of the room.
His smart watch buzzed on his wrist.
Your heart rate is increasing, would you like me to record this workout?
Sam ripped the watch from his wrist and tossed it onto the kitchen counter as he walked back into that long hallway. A gust of wind caressed the hem of his shirt as it slinked by into the kitchen.
The door was open, and the night poured in.
“Hello!? Who’s there!?” He brought the baseball bat to his ear, ready for a home run strike.
He could hear a snarling growl from his living room, and he turned to face it. Nothing was there, but his fear stank of acid and bile. He turned back to the entrance, and under the arch of his doorway, stood a thing in a cloak. It was humanoid in shape, regal in statue. It stood at an average adult height, slightly taller than Sam himself, but Sam felt dwarfed nevertheless by the pure intimidating aura that seeped out of the cloaked figure and into Sam’s heart. Upon its head sat no hair, its mouth was lipless yet filled with razors in the shape of teeth. Where its eyes and nose should have been, there was nothing but a scar running from its forehead to its cheeks, a flap of skin sown back on amateurly, like it could fall off and reveal a screaming skull at any moment.
Black mist spilled from the bottom of the figure’s cloak, and inky black tendrils lapped at the floor as it moved, almost like it was hovering, toward Sam.
He turned and ran, as we all would, straight back up the stairs. He looked down from the top, and two figures had appeared at the bottom. The lack of light obscured them, two shadows just staring up at him, unmoving.
He burst back into his room, locked the door, chucking boxes, his chair and anything he could find that was remotely heavy against the corner of the door in an attempt to blockade it. The air began to smell of rusted iron, and a crimson light spilled into his room through the window, like the moon itself had turned to blood. His synaesthesia gave him a scent of bleach that lingered as he stared at the rays flooding in through his window.
There was no banging at the door, but he could somehow feel their presence outside. Two of the doors across the landing creaked open, just loud enough for him to hear, just loud enough for him to know that they were playing with him. He breathed, sucked in a solid gulp of air, and focused his mind. An emergency. What do you do in an emergency?
He reached for his phone and dialled 999.
“Hello!? Hello! Please please god help me-“
“Go ahead caller you are connected to the police, what is your emergency?”
“I have some.. Things in my house! They’re cloaked, missing their faces they-“
“Are you hidden somewhere safe!?” The attendant seemed anxious, as she quickly shouted over here shoulder away from the phone – “when were the last trackers seen in Brighton?”
“I am, I think. The sky has turned red, I’m scared please-“
“We have dispatched a S.H.E team to your house, they will be arriving within three minutes of your location, stay hidden, stay alive.”
With that the phone clicked, no more information on what they were or how to do exactly that – stay alive.
His phone buzzed again, with a text from an unknown number.
That won’t help you.
He looked outside his window once more, and all he could see were two alabaster legs. A shadow crept into his room slowly, seeping out of a skeletal being that towered over his house. The being looked in at him, faceless, nose-less, like the creatures in his house. It burrowed into his mind, the pale stretch of skin more piercing that any eye.
Its endless limbs swayed in the wind, as it stared thoughtlessly through that window.
Sam got up, and moved the objects away from the door. He unlocked it, and let the two figures in. He turned and walked to the window, and opened that. The pale man opened his hand underneath the window and the two figures lifted Sam without resistance out of the window and into his hand.
Sam’s eyes were a solid black, his mind completely disconnected from his body. His consciousness was stuck somewhere in a black void, watching, impotent.
Outside in his garden, along with the two alabaster legs attached to the pale man that stretched above his roof, stood many many more figures. The trackers, as they were known to few, awaited, watching patiently as the pale man rose the teenager to his mouth, sniffed him with the two holes above his top ‘lip’ and tore into the hollow body with his razor teeth.
Ruby liquid splattered the emerald grass below, and the faces of the trackers, who revelled in prayer as they watched from below.
When the Special Horror Extermination team arrived with S.H.E plastered across the backs of their uniforms, they found nothing but a red garden, and a phone that read ‘The Pale Man would like to know your location.’
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