Find Him First

Novelty supernatural thriller, 2017

You are about to enter another dimension, a dreamscape realm of stories where the fantastical meets the tangible, but be warned. Once you cross the threshold, you may want to keep a closer eye on the things at the edge of your vision, the figures at the foot of your bed, the sounds of something in the attic or the basement, for here they may be more than a trick of the mind. Welcome... to the spooking hour. I give you a story I like to call ‘Find Him First’. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

There’s a man sitting in a dimly lit room, a glare of orange hits the page as he scans the crowd of happy faces upon it. He’s sure he’s gone over all of them several times now, but the gentleman in the striped jumper eludes him. That’s when he hears three knocks at the window.

He opens the curtain to a vast emptiness, nothing but dark swathes of fog and light drizzle, and a contorted old tree that casts terrible illusions in its shadows. The tree is close enough to the house that the wind could have knocked the branches into the window. That must be what the sound was. It must be.

The curtains are closed once more, the book is shelved, and the man shuffles downstairs. A glass is filled with tap water. A fridge is opened, it’s contents stared at intensely, and closed. Several cupboards are opened, their contents stared at intensely, and closed. The man assesses his choices carefully. The fridge is opened once more, a small midnight snack retrieved. Not the best thing to be eating at this hour, but a man convinces himself he needs energy if he’s going to work tonight.

A crash is heard upstairs, the sound of several large things being knocked over. The man freezes, his gaze darting from the ceiling to the stairs. Slow, determined footsteps begin to creak from one side of the upstairs to another. Someone is in the house. And they’re checking every room.

The man reaches for his phone, but remembers he left it upstairs. Moving as quietly as possible, constantly aware of the sounds of slow stomping upstairs, the man searches downstairs for any sign of a possible weapon. Any blunt object at all. A metal cane. That’ll do.

The man makes his way upstairs, thinking he hears the sound of movement in his office, down the corridor and out of sight. He catches sight of the reading room with the door wide open, seemingly the source of the intruder. The bookshelf is knocked over, and among the scattered books was the little red and white book he was reading. It’s open to the page he was stuck on. And on the page, scribbled in red, is a taunting message. “You didn’t find me. Now it’s YOUR turn to hide”.

The man shivers and exhales loudly. The sounds of movement in his office stop. The man freezes up again. The footsteps start moving down the corridor. The man has a change of heart, and goes running carelessly back down the stairs, mumbling “nope nope nOPe NOPE nope NOPE nope nope” all the way down. There’s a loud CRACK as he twists his ankle on the last step, tumbling loudly into the cold hard ground with a yelp of agony. Still thinking all the “nopes” at double speed, he starts crawling his way toward the front door. The sound of footsteps have reached the top of the stairs, and he can feel the glare of someone - of something - burning into his back. He risks a split-second glance over his shoulder behind, and just manages to make out a silhouette of another man. Cartoonishly, unnaturally tall and skinny. A flash of red and white. Round spectacles shining.

The man throws himself in the direction of the door, frantically spurred on by the sound of the mysterious figure shambling down the stairs behind him, and tries to pull himself up against the wall. He thrusts a hand toward the door handle, but another hand grasps the back of his shirt and pulls him back before he can reach it. An inhuman voice echoes in his mind.

“FoUNd yOooU”.

Two weeks later, a missing persons report is filed, and the police are baffled by what they find at the man's house. Some signs of upstairs rooms being ransacked, and a scuffle near the entrance downstairs. Most curiously, there are two items on the ground - a metal cane, and a seemingly ordinary ‘Where’s Wally’ book. Little do they know that on one of the pages, there’s a new happy face in the crowd.