by Amy Cross
“All I'm trying to stress,” the man continues, “is that so far this thing seems to only go after children. And we're not children, not anymore. We survived.” He pauses. “It's the children we have to worry about. Not ourselves.”
“But I see him in my dreams,” the first woman stammers. “I've tried painting him, as a way of reminding myself what he looks like, but it's just no good! And then he seems to be coming to me through the paintings, like he's mocking me!”
She bursts into tears, and one of the other men puts a hand on her shoulder, to offer her a little comfort.
“He comes to you through your crappy paintings?” the second woman mutters, rolling her eyes. “Do you ever listen to yourself, Marie? You're addicted to playing the victim role, aren't you? It's the only way you know how to live your goddamn life anymore.”
“That's enough,” the man tells her. “We all know you have a different view of these things, Amanda, but it's not fair to belittle Marie. Her feelings are just as valid as anyone else's, and we all have to work together so that -”
Suddenly he turns to me, as if he sensed my presence, and the others quickly look this way too. Although I'm still in the shadows, I think the sole of my shoe just squeaked against the polished floor, and I guess I've been caught fair and square. I take a couple of steps forward, until I'm a little more in the light, and then I force a smile so that hopefully they won't think I'm just some creepy intruder.
“Are you here to join us?” the man asks, getting to his feet. “If you are, we welcome new members. Please, take a seat.”
“I'm not quite sure whether...” Pausing, I see their concerned, slightly fearful eyes staring back at me. “I'm sorry, I might have the wrong place, but...”
For a moment, I'm filled with panic. For the past few years, I've deliberately avoided groups, preferring to stay on my own or – at most – speak to people one-on-one. Group settings remind me my time at the hospital. Still, I guess I can't exactly back out now. Taking the card from my pocket, I hold it up for them to see.
“That's us,” the man says, coming toward me and holding out his right hand. “My name is Luke Knight. The others can introduce themselves to you in a moment, but if you've come looking for us, I can only assume that you already know a little about what we do here. Unless...” He hesitates for a moment. “You're not a journalist, are you?”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”
“Because we really don't want any publicity. In fact, that's something we specifically try to avoid at all costs.”
“Me too.”
“So you're a friend.” He smiles. “Welcome.”
“I really didn't mean to interrupt,” I tell him, still worried that this is a terrible idea. My people skills withered and died a long time ago. “Maybe I should just -”
“You don't have to speak,” he continues, interrupting me. “Most people just listen, at least for their first few meetings. Obviously we'd be happy to hear your experiences if you want to share them, but you're more than welcome to just hear what the others have to say. That way, you might come to realize that you're not alone.” He turns and gestures for me to take one of the empty seats. “Everybody here has their own story, but we all have one thing in common. We've all seen him, when we were children, and we've all survived.”
“So far,” the younger woman adds, watching me with a hint of suspicion. “We've all survived so far. But that doesn't mean he's not still coming for us.”
***
“I was seven,” the older woman explains a short while later, once I've taken a seat in their little semi-circle, “so I wasn't quite as young as the rest of you when I first saw him. I don't know why, I don't know what the difference was. But Jennifer was a bit like that, wasn't she? She was seven too.”
“She was,” Luke replies softly, as if he doesn't really want to interrupt.
“So I guess he doesn't have hard-and-fast rules,” she continues. “Maybe he just spots someone, takes a fancy to them, and decides they should be his next target. Maybe it's really as random and chaotic as that. Maybe there are no rules.”
Suddenly the first woman, Marie, breaks into tears. She leans forward, sobbing, and for a moment I wonder whether I should reach over and try to help. In the old days, before Charlie died, I always knew instinctively how to act around other people. Now I second-guess everything, often to an absurd degree. Before I have to make a decision, however, the man on her other side moves closer and puts an arm around her, drawing her closer as she sobs. I guess it doesn't matter who comforts her, as long as someone tries to help. Besides, I'm just a stranger.
“Should I stop?” the older woman asks, turning to Luke. “Should I give Ms. Weepy some time to make a scene?”
“I think you should continue, Amanda,” he tells her. “If you feel strong enough, at least.”
She stares at him for a moment, before glancing at the still-sobbing Marie and then turning to me.
“I was in the garden at my parents' house,” she explains, “and I remember very vividly... One morning, I saw a man in the distance, watching me. To this day, I still can't tell you what he looked like, but he was over on the other side of the street and he was simply staring at me, as if he wanted to watch while I played. Looking back, the whole thing seems so creepy, but at the time I was a kid and I just sort of... didn't mind. But that doesn't make me stupid. He does that, he has a way of putting you at ease. You don't act the way you should.”
She turns to Luke again.
“Tell her,” she stammers. “Tell her that he makes you stop worrying.”
“That's one of the possibilities, certainly,” Luke says, turning to me. “We don't know for sure.”
“It's as if your mind goes blank,” one of the other men adds. “That's the only way I can describe it. It doesn't matter how smart you are. All your fears, all your doubts, all your thoughts... They just disappear while he's looking at you.”
“I saw him several times over the next few days,” Amanda continues, keeping her eyes fixed on me. “Sometimes watching me in the garden, once or twice watching me when I was at the store with my mother. I don't know why I never mentioned it to anyone at the time, but I just... I didn't. I think he was already in my head by that point, calming my mind and making me get used to his presence. This was about a week before the first incident, and then finally on the day...”
Her voice trails off, although her lips twitch slightly, as if she wants to speak but can't.
“It's okay,” Luke tells her. “If you're finding it too hard, we can -”
“My mother took me to visit a friend,” she says suddenly, interrupting him. She seems close to tears, but there's a hint of determination in her eyes. “This friend lived on the top floor of an apartment building in Dartford. Everything seemed completely normal, until they went to the kitchen and left me alone in the front room. When my mother came back a few minutes later, she found me sitting on the window ledge, about to jump. She lunged at me and grabbed my arm just as I began to push myself off. If she'd been even half a second later, I'd have fallen eighteen floors to the concrete below. I wouldn't be here today. I survived thanks to pure, dumb luck.”
Nearby, Marie is sobbing harder than ever, and she's still being consoled by one of the other group-members.
For the next few seconds, nobody speaks.
“So you're talking about the same man, right?” I ask finally, feeling as if they're waiting for me to say something. “You saw this man on the day when you tried to jump out of the window?”
“He was down below,” Amanda replies. “Watching.”
“Right below?”
“A little way off, but pretty close. Like Carl said just now, it was almost as if he was somehow taking all the thoughts from my mind, and replacing them with what he wanted me to do.”
“And...” Realizing that everyone seems to be letting me lead the conversation, I feel a little uncomfortable. Still, I can't hold back, not now. “And did you fe
el at the time that this man was trying to lure you out of the window? Like he was somehow encouraging you to jump?”
She nods.
“But you survived,” I continue. “Somebody caught you in time, and you survived.”
“It happened a couple more times,” she explains. “Over the next week, I saw the man again and again. I tried to jump into traffic, and I tried to cut my wrists. Eventually I was taken to hospital, and while I was there I didn't see the man again. And after I came out, he was gone. I mean, at least... I haven't seen him since. And now I'm not a kid anymore, so hopefully...”
Her voice trails off.
“He always seems to try several times with each child,” Luke says after a moment. “That's why some of us still wonder if he's truly left us alone. He's persistent, although it seems that eventually he leaves and goes off to find another victim.”
“Some of us beat him!” Marie hisses, sitting up with tears still running down his face. “That motherfucker didn't get any of the people sitting in this room! We were too strong!”
“Jesus Christ,” Amanda mutters, shaking her head. “It's not about being strong, you idiot. It's sheer luck that we happened to survive.”
“Speak for yourself,” Marie replies, sniffing back more tears. “I showed that bastard!”
“You were six years old,” Amanda snaps back at her. “It's just a fluke you made it.”
“Shows what you know!”
“I know enough!”
“Let's not argue,” Luke says, and it's clear that he's both the leader and the peacemaker of this little group. “We're all here for the same reason, and we all need to get along.” He pauses for a moment, as Amanda and Marie settle down, and then he turns to me. “We don't all agree about every aspect of the situation,” he continues. “There are a lot of areas where we still don't really know what happened. All we know for sure is that each of us encountered this man when we were children, and each of us somehow survived. I don't want to pressure you to tell your story, Emily, but when you're finally ready, we'll be very happy to listen.”
Silence falls, and I can tell they're hoping that I might start talking.
“I didn't see the man,” I say finally, looking at each of them in turn. “I'm not... I'm not like the rest of you, I didn't encounter him and survive, I'm -”
Suddenly I feel like a massive liar, as if I've blundered into a sensitive situation without any discretion or tact at all.
“Then why are you here?” Marie asks, already sounding defensive again. “Are you a journalist? What do you want with us?”
“My son...”
I pause, and now there are tears in my eyes.
“My son died,” I continue, “and I've done a lot of research, and I might be wrong but... I think there's a chance that he was lured to his death by the same man who tried to kill each of you.”
I wait for someone to say something, maybe to tell me I should leave, but they're all staring at me with shocked expressions.
“So that's why I'm here,” I add finally, hoping they won't kick me out. “I'm here because if there's any chance at all that this man is real, I need to find him. And somebody has to stop him.”
***
“They're just a little defensive,” Luke explains later as we sit in a bar across the street. “Marie especially. She's jumpy as hell, and she tends to set the others off. Most of our meetings end with disagreements and arguments, but everyone always comes back the next time. If you come along again, I'm sure they'll all be a little more welcoming.”
“I really didn't mean to intrude,” I tell him. “It's just that somebody gave me your card and I figured I should drop by. I've been researching this story for so many years now, but for some reason I never found any mention of your group until very recently.”
“We don't publicize ourselves too much,” he replies, taking a sip of beer. “The last thing we want is to have a bunch of outsiders showing up to listen to our stories. Journalists, hoaxers, attention-seekers... We're a support group, first and foremost. We're not specifically getting together to hunt this man down. We just want to help each other get through what this really is, and to live with how it feels to have survived.” He pauses for a moment. “Even though it's been years since any of us saw the man, the fear never quite goes away. We're all still scared that one day he might show up again.”
“Do you really think that's possible?”
He stares at me for a moment, before shaking his head.
“In the cold light of day,” he continues, “I don't think there's a chance. I think he only goes for children, and I think eventually he gave up on each of us. We just don't interest him anymore. But the others, especially Marie, still worry that one day they'll see him again.”
As I take a sip of coffee, I can't shake a feeling of intense awkwardness. I've spent the past five years traveling the country, searching for any scraps of information that might help me better understand what happened to Charlie, and I've always had to deal with the knowledge that I'm on my own. Now suddenly I've found a group of people who all seem to agree that the strange man is very real. I guess I should be pleased by this development, but at the same time I've become so accustomed to being alone, and I'm not sure I remember how to be around other people anymore.
After a moment, I glance across the crowded bar. Marie, Amanda and the others from the church are in a corner booth, and I feel a shudder as I see that they're all staring at me. Somehow, I don't think I'm too popular.
“Ignore them,” Luke says suddenly.
I turn to him.
“Seriously,” he continues. “They're good people. Great people, actually. But they're also damaged, and paranoid, and scared. Each of them is struggling with the burden of what they experienced, and in most cases they tried to cope alone before eventually finding this group. They've all experienced ridicule, too. Most people simply refuse to believe that any of this could be real. I mean, it sounds like a dumb fairy-tale, right? A guy who lures children to their deaths? It's not easy going through these horrors while knowing that nobody believes you.”
I make eye contact with Marie for a moment, but I swear it looks like she hates me. After a few seconds, I turn back to Luke.
“What about you?” I ask.
“Me?”
“You seem more...”
I pause struggling to find the right word.
“Focused,” I continue finally. “More practical.”
“I have something that they all lack,” he says cautiously.
“Something that makes you less scared?”
He shakes his head, and now I can see the fear in his eyes.
“Something that makes me more scared,” he explains, “but which also makes me more determined to get to the truth and make sure nothing like this can ever happen again. Something that makes me realize that this is about far more than just my own life.”
I wait for him to continue, but for a moment he seems a little uncertain.
“Where are you sleeping tonight?” he asks finally. “Please, don't tell me you're planning to stay in your car. There's someone I'd like you to meet.”
Chapter Seven
“She's beautiful,” I whisper as I stand in the doorway with Luke, looking into the bedroom where a little girl is sleeping in her bed. “How old is she?”
“Ten in July.”
He pauses, before gently pulling the door until it's almost shut.
“We named her Alice, after her aunt,” he continues. “I always swore that I'd never have a child of my own, not while I was aware of this danger that exists out there somewhere in the world. It just seemed irresponsible to bring a new life into the world if there was even a slight chance that...”
His voice trails off.
“So what changed?” I ask.
“Sometimes life doesn't wait for us to decide we're ready. My girlfriend showed up at the door one day and announced she was pregnant, and the choice was taken from my hands. Then soon after Al
ice was born, she took off again. Something about a commune somewhere in Nevada, and then a couple of years later I heard she'd died in a fire. I've been raising Alice alone ever since.” He pauses again, and I can still see fear in his eyes. “The others you met tonight... They're scared the man might come back for them. I'm sure they're wrong, though, because all the evidence suggests that he only goes for children. Which is why my fear is different, because I'm terrified that one day he'll come for Alice.”
“As a way to get to you?”
“I have to at least consider the possibility. Every day, I watch her so closely, just in case I see some kind of flicker in her eyes. I home-school her. I can't explain to anyone else why they have to watch her all the time.”
We head through to the front room, where a baby monitor rests on one of the tables. I know I should say something, that I should try to make Luke feel better, but instead I simply watch as he goes to a desk in the corner and pulls open one of the drawers. When he takes out a pile of folders and papers, I feel a flash of recognition, and it's clear that he wasn't joking when he said he'd been doing some research of his own.
“You'll probably think I'm nuts when you see all of this,” he says cautiously.
“Wait 'til you see what I've got in my car,” I mutter, wandering over to join him.
“Between my day job, and looking after Alice, I don't have so much time to spare.” He opens the first folder, revealing several photocopies of old newspaper articles. He's clipped some of them together, using the same little pins that I prefer. “Still, I do my best. It's almost an obsession, in a way. I keep thinking that if I can figure out how this creature operates, I can do more to ensure that he never comes anywhere near my daughter.”
“Creature?” I reply, surprised by his choice of words.
“What do you call him?”
“Well, he's a man. That's about the only thing I know, so I just call him... the man.” I pause. “Although I've called him a creature once or twice too. Just a slip of the tongue, you know?”