It Likes to Watch

It was a warm September night in 1986. My father had decided to take me out for a surprise camping trip, which I typically enjoyed, but because of recent events that left me rather terrified of the dark, I didn’t much feel like spending the night in the middle of a pitch-black forest. See, I had a stalker. A man who would stand outside of my window at night and just watch me. I never actually saw him, but I somehow felt his presence. I obviously couldn’t tell my father about this; he would have thought I was insane...probably carted me off to some “institution”. So I agreed to go with him. What choice did I have?

We packed up the station wagon, and headed upstate to a secluded, wooded area. For the first hour of the long trip, I didn’t say a word. I simply stared out the window into the blackness, knowing that later that night I probably wouldn’t get a wink of sleep, sitting up all alone in the tent for hours with him watching. About an hour into our drive, my father looked over and asked me what was wrong. I turned my head towards him, and was about to utter the typical teenage response of “nothing”, when I got the same strange feeling I do every night.

I whipped my head to the window once again, and I finally caught a glimpse of my stalker. At least...I thought I did. I definitely saw some shadowy figure on the side of the road, but we passed by so fast that I couldn’t get a good look. My father heard me let out an audible gasp, and he asked me what it was that caught my attention. I told him I saw a deer, and it startled me. I had to lie; not only was I imagining the presence of a stalker, but now I was having hallucinations, I was sure he’d think. I craned my neck to try to look back at the place I saw the stalker standing, but it was out of view at this point.

I turned around again, looked forward, then laid my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down. I must have fallen asleep somehow, because the next thing I knew, we were at the campsite, and my dad was asking me to help him set up the tent. The strange thing was, I don’t remember waking up, but it felt simply as though my consciousness “blinked out” for a moment, and then suddenly rushed back to me. While I was helping my father remove the tent from the trunk, I noticed that he seemed rather shaken himself. In a low voice, he asked me, “Michael, this is going to sound very strange, but...do you remember how we got here?”

I responded, “I think I fell asleep...you mean you don’t remember driving?” He told me, “That’s just it; up until a certain point, I do remember driving, but after that point, it’s all a blank to me. I’m probably just exhausted from work...I had a long day at the office. We both need some sleep.” We finished setting up the tent and got into our sleeping bags. My father was out like a light in minutes, and I was alone with my thoughts and fears, just as I knew I’d be. But I wasn’t alone for long.

The horrible feeling returned to me, and I heard rustling outside the tent. I closed my eyes as tight as I could, and whispered to myself that it was all in my imagination, but I did a poor job convincing myself of that. The hours that followed until dawn felt like the blink of an eye, and the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a cornfield with a demented face looking down upon me. It had wrinkled grey skin, its large eyes void of any color, and its gnarled teeth were covered in blood. I felt so weak, I couldn’t even scream. I turned my head to the left, and saw my father’s corpse lying next to me. I looked up again with a tear in my eye, but the strange creature was nowhere to be found. In the distance, I briefly saw a hovering light that quickly vanished from view. At this point, I finally noticed that I was bleeding from the side of my head, and my right ear was missing.

I somehow managed to crawl to a nearby house, and the owner drove me to the hospital. After I was released a few days later, I was charged by local police with a botched murder-suicide. I told them my story, but of course they didn’t believe me, and neither did the jury. I’m scheduled to be executed in a few weeks, and recently I’ve begun to experience that dreadful feeling of being watched once again. I only pray I get the needle before it comes for me again.