Chapter 1 – I’m going to Stop Him

I have a fever as I’m writing this. I haven’t slept in days. Every time I try, he’s there, waiting for me. My mind is racing. What day is it? What year? My memories are scattered. I shouldn’t have taken it this far. I have stared into the abyss. I have fallen past the edge that separates light and dark.

We are to blame, all of us.

Approach what I’m about to tell you with caution. Anyone who reads this text will find themselves in danger. But you probably think I’m bluffing right? How could a story be dangerous? If you feel so inclined, read on to find out.

This is my final warning. If you want to live a good and decent life, then walk away. But if you stop reading now, you will live your life without knowing what’s out there, in the darkness. And if you never discover the truth, then how can you expect to fight it?

I used to be an addict. When my family rejected me, I found myself living in the forest, where I encountered a parasite. I called it the mark. You can find my story here: [Prologue: The Mark] (NSFW).

I was never the same after my experience with the mark in the forest. My arm still aches from where I cut it, to remove the parasite that was changing me into something terrible. Sometimes I feel the hunger surging back. It’s like there’s a piece of it still inside me. I didn’t get it all the way out.

But I don’t eat people, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m just tempted.

Even before that experience, I had been hearing voices. When I slept, I heard screams. They were so vivid and so haunting that they hung over my existence like a fog.

Were those screams from something real? Or from something imagined?

There are fragments missing from my memory. The things I’ve seen, I don’t think the human mind is meant to comprehend them. It’s like staring into a black hole and seeing the universe being devoured. All matter, all light, just gone. It can’t help but drive you a little bit nuts.

She called him ‘the Red Man.’ That’s what the girl told me. At first, I didn’t believe it. But she was so insistent that he was real, that he had abducted her. And she had only narrowly escaped. We agreed to meet at the coffeeshop on the corner, where the green pickup had wrecked the week before.

“You said he took you?” I asked. “Where?”

Emma kept her memories close. “If I told you, you’d never turn the lights off again.”

“And what does this have to do with me?” I had to know.

“What happened to you in the woods.” Emma tried to explain. “What you found, that parasite or whatever it was? It wasn’t some freak of nature. It was out there because of him.”

“So you’re saying this- ‘Red Man’ created the parasite? How could one man be behind something like that?”

“He is not a man. He just looks like one.”

“Then what is he?”

“I don’t know. But if you feel him, breathing on your neck. You do not look at him. Do you understand?” Emma struggled with her thoughts. “If you have to see him, you use a mirror, or something. You only look at his reflection. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?” I felt my heart reverberating inside my chest.

“You’ll have nightmares.” She insisted. “But it’s not like you think. You don’t just get to wake up whenever you want. The Red Man traps you in your worst fears. Your dreams aren’t yours anymore. They’re his prison.”

“Ok. So there are more of these- things out there? Like the mark?”

“The Red Man is a virus. He is a pathogen that infects everything around him.” Emma struggled to make the pieces fit. “The things that are bad or dark or evil come from him. He is the source.”

“You said you know something about the voices in my head.” As soon I had stopped taking drugs the voices returned. But I fought the urge to return to the old life. I couldn’t go back to the numbness.

“The drugs won’t help you. They’re just closing you off.”

“Closing me off to what?” I felt a shiver.

“I think- Some people are connected to him. I’m not sure how. But it’s like they have some sort of radio antenna in their brain that lets them hear things and see things they shouldn’t.”

“Why me? What did I do to deserve this?”

“I don’t know why it happens.” Emma was hiding something. She knew more than she was letting on about my ailment. “But I think it’s a gift. I think it might be a way to find him.”

“Hearing voices is a gift? That’s crazy.” I stammered. “And if what you’re telling me is true? The last thing I want to do is find this monster you’re talking about.” I felt the urge to run. As fast and as far away as possible.

“Listen to me.” She insisted. “There is a darkness spreading. Every day it gets worse. People are going to get hurt. They are going to die. And the Red Man is behind all of it.” Emma went on. “If we can find him. Then maybe…” She trailed off. “Maybe we can stop him.”

“And what if I don’t want to be connected to this thing? What if I don’t want to be different?”

“I don’t think you have a choice.”

Emma continued. “I’ve been doing research. There have been sightings. Abnormal things, entities, apparitions. I think they might be the key to figuring this whole thing out. But I need your help to find them.”

“No… This is bullshit.” I wasn’t having it. I had seen my share of darkness. I had been infected with the mark, and that was enough evil to last a lifetime. So I left in a hurry, my head was pounding.

That night under the overpass I heard a rustle from outside my tent. I stepped out to see a figure, standing over one of the inhabitants. At the sight of him, it felt like a vein had been opened. All the warmth I had was taken from me.

His skin wasn’t red exactly, it was more like the shade of red you’d see in the shadows, under fluorescent light. His muscles were the color of blood after all the oxygen had been stripped out. Something pulsed under his skin.

I approached the figure carefully. “Hey- Who are you?” I put on a brave face. The figure stood tall, his back to me. He began to stretch his muscles and crack the fibers of his being into place. Then the creature pointed at the man lying on the ground in front of it.

The man on the ground was me. It had my face.

And I was in his body, paralyzed. I was trapped, helpless in front of that thing. I could feel the figure breathing on me. I remembered what Emma told me. “Whatever you do, don’t look.” So I averted my gaze as the jaw of the creature hovered just inches above my neck. And the thing spoke a single word that startled me: “Nameless.” Before it vanished.

The next day I found Emma in her apartment. “What gives?” I panted. “Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

She studied me carefully. “He visited you, didn’t he?”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Ok, listen. There’s something I have to tell you.” Emma offered me a seat and I took it. “Whenever you tell someone about the Red Man, that’s it, they’re done. Once you know that he exists, that’s when he starts coming after you.”

“Holy shit… You tricked me.” I felt my ribs constrict.

“I’m sorry.” Emma looked away. “But I can’t do this alone. I need your help.”

“You didn’t give me a choice!” I felt the world spinning. “So… If I forget he’ll stop coming for me, right?” I realized how futile that sounded. Maybe I could go to the local supermarket and get a lobotomy on aisle 7.

Emma frowned. “Knowing about him is like a virus. It’s like a part of him is inside in your head, and it’s growing. The more it spreads, the closer he gets. And there is nowhere you can go where he won’t find you. Our only chance is to figure out a way to put an end to this. Before it’s too late.”

“Ok.” I settled back, feeling dizzy. I was beginning to realize I was a fly in a trap. “Where do we start?”

“There are parts of the Red Man, spread all over. Some people see them, like you did, as the mark in the forest. Other people? Maybe they see something that looks like a possession, or a demon or something. But they’re all just extensions of the original.” She went through her notes. “But I think. Someone like you? Someone with a connection to the darkness? If we find these manifestations, they might lead us to the source.”

“And what do we do when we find him?” I couldn’t imagine a creature like this would be easy to kill.

“Everything has a weakness.” She insisted. “So we find out where this thing lives. We find out what its weakness is. And we kill it.”

“Ok.” I nodded, gently. I wished I could have been as confident and she was. “But we do this together. Deal?”

I had a dream that night. It was a dream of an emptiness that waited in the ruins of hope. A torchlit lake extended beneath a cavern of craggy rocks. At the water’s edge was a throne constructed from the bones that had been discarded here.

In the dream I approached the throne. It felt welcoming somehow. I imagined that I could take my seat and reign over this hidden expanse.

But before I could sit, the throne’s true owner emerged from the ocean. I saw the body of the malevolence, not his face. I knew I couldn’t look. But I felt him pulling my eyes upwards, up towards his gaze. The creature lifted his arm and emitted something guttural. It sounded almost crocodilian.

No, don’t look! Flashes of his visage torched my soul.

Don’t look! His fingers curled around my throat. And I woke up.

I warned you about reading this story, but you didn’t listen. You know about the Red Man now. That means he knows about you. I can’t protect you, but I can give you this warning. The only thing worse than knowing is being sure. If you look at him? If you see him? You don’t want to think about what happens next.

If you see someone approaching and it doesn’t feel right, be careful. Maybe you’ll run into an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Or maybe you’ll meet a stranger in a dark alley, who seems unusually interested in you.

If something about the encounter seems wrong? If the hairs rise up on the back of your neck? Look away. Because it might be him. And once he has you, there is no escape.

I promise I will find a way to destroy this monster. But I needed to buy myself time so I wrote this.

Because the Red Man isn’t going to hunt me.

If he’s busy hunting you.