The night was chill, and wrapped me in its dark embrace. I
had just retired from the community hall and, not being one to linger behind to
talk of trivial matters with people for whom I had no affinity, walked out into
the cold.
I hunched my shoulders and tightened my scarf against the
chill. I, a solitary man and the last remaining MacDonall in the hollow, began
my slow walk back to my home. Some called it a shack, but no matter. I needed
none of the comforts of softer people. I know who I am.
I looked down at the dirt road as I walked. My lazy left
foot made a scraping sound against the dust, for the late autumn rains had not
begun to fall. I approached the edge of the false light thrown by the hall and
plunged into the darkness of the forested path, which was only slightly lit by
the presence of a full moon.
I had been on the path from the hall to my cottage in the
woods hundreds of times in my life without any of the effect of what was about
to happen to me. Being raised in this hollow and along a path of such
familiarity there is ought to see but that which appears for a moment, and to
one given to imagination, as a specter or a ghoul or devil. Upon further
examination it is nothing but the phantom movement of a branch, or an owl
taking flight or one of the myriad creatures that inhabit such places
throughout the night which, upon hearing my disruption, my uneven gait, take
further into dark recesses.
On this deep night, the moon riding high now, the travel was
no different. I had jumped several times, the last MacDonnell in the hollow,
the terror rising with the widening of the eyes and then the chest releasing as
I see the owl take wing, or the deer crash through the underbrush. Twice a
panic began when my clothing caught on an unseen briar and I imagined it to be
fiends from hell, my departed infamous ancestors, coming for me in the night.
I, breathing hard after the second occurrence, began again to walk in the
direction of my home.
In the absence of company, one’s thoughts are free to
meander, much like the path I occupied at this time which wound through this
deep forest through which, in this section at least, no light was allowed to
penetrate. In parts of one’s mind also are tangled, impenetrable thickets
through which no sane man would pass. A sane man must find his way around such
thickets, knowing that only lunacy would follow a pass there through. Still, one’s
thoughts are prone to take water’s way in the absence of companionship,
generally speaking, wandering through the ruts and furrows of the forest path
of one’s experience. That is, unless some pressing thought, be it sane or no,
makes a special cry that insists upon one’s more cognitive focus. And then may
God help him, for that thought may take him far into brambles from which he may
never emerge.
Such were my thoughts on this painful night. For as I walked
unevenly – scrape, thump; scrape, thump – my mind caught hold on a rodent of a
thought and would not let go; an occurrence of that very evening. It was the
face of my departed uncle, a man hated and feared in this county, who, in the
shrill community gathering from whence I had just left I saw staring at me from
the corner of the room, a sinister sneer an his face. I saw it for no longer
than a second divided, just before a crowd of my peers passed in front of him,
and then when they continued on their way, he was gone. I jumped up and,
staring in the direction I had seen him, succeeded only in making titter a
group of pretty young women in front of whom he had been standing. In my astonishment
I had not considered what I must have looked like; a charlatan at best, staring
at them as though I had them in mind. I had stayed at the party only long
enough to push the nervous thought from my mind and to spill a fruit concoction
on my lapel. I had left soon after, with the rising generation laughing and
staring. But in the deep forest of my mind, he visited me again; the same
sneer, the evil visage, the deep black eyes, and bid me follow him off the path
through brambles impenetrable. Why was he here? Why had he been there? He had
been dead seven years and had gone after a long disease, punctuated by mental
illness. His maniacal laughter continues to echo in my mind.
The frosted full moon now followed me, hid partially behind
thinly veiled clouds. Occasionally a cobweb across the face or a rustling in
the bushes would pause the uneven rhythm of my gait. The walk should have taken
no more than an hour. I knew now that it had taken more than two.
I was lost. After living 40 years in this very hollow and
walking the path hundreds of times, I was lost. But that was not why I stopped.
I stopped because of the noise I heard behind me; an echo. It mimicked my own
false gait. I took a step and heard it again, not a second behind mine. Someone
was playing a trick on me, following me on a night as this!
I called out with all the venom I could muster.
“Fool! Imposter! Reveal yourself!”
My voice sounded strained and raspy, dead and without echo
in the deep woods.
A slight breeze rustled the underbrush. Other than that,
there was nothing.
I took a few more steps; each one mimicked perfectly a few
seconds behind mine. I began to walk faster and the echo quickened. I turned
and looked and saw nothing. When I brushed bushes and briars the clothing I
wore made a sound, but my pursuer made none – like a ghost he, it, traveled,
behind me. I hurried my pace as I could, such as it was. Eventually I stopped,
panting, and the footsteps did again. I looked back and, seeing nothing, turned
again to the trail and saw where it should not be, my home in the clearing, the
light from the moon illuminating.
The footsteps followed me as I hurried frantically towards my
home. My key fumbled in my hand and finally found the keyhole. As I began to
turn it I looked into the glass on my front door and that’s when I saw him
again for the third time that dark night, reflected in the glass behind me, my
departed and evil uncle, a look of devilish glee on his wrinkled visage!
I wheeled around even as I pushed open the door to look
behind me and, seeing nothing but still fearing for my life I shut it again
quickly - but he had me! I let out a scream and pulled with all my might but he
had me tight by the coat! I turned to put both hands on the caught garment to
wrench it away…and that’s when I saw that it was merely caught in the door. I
wrenched it away anyways, disgustedly. The discovery was of small consequence;
I fell back to the couch, my breast heaving.
I looked at my pocket watch. I had left the community hall nearly
three hours before. The walk had taken me treble the time it should have. I
could not account for the error, the path heretofore being to me among the
things I have known best in my life.
As I walked through the house that dark night, I noticed that
the footsteps that had followed me were not present. Chuckling to myself for my
apparently overactive imagination (although I had never been accused or thought
this of myself before now), I readied myself for bed. I slept fitfully, once
dreaming that I saw my uncle peering into my bedroom maliciously from outside
my window.
When I awoke, the sun was high and the church bells rang. I
felt no desire to face the hypocrites in the town at a church meeting, so I
stayed away as I always had. However, I did have to leave the house to get wood
for the fire.
It was with disdain that I realized that when I stepped out,
the echo started again. Where I went (once the last MacDonnell in the hollow,
but apparently no more), he followed. I never saw him again, but to this day he
is always there. Day and night, weeks, months and now years, where I walk out
of doors, he follows.
For a while I tolerated it, but no more. I have not been out
of my house now for eighteen months. The hypocrites in the community bring me
my meals and warm my home. I hate them for their condescending glances, their
insincere salutations, but I accept their charity, if you can call it that, out
of concern for their fragile and their weak society that requires them to
assist a man that will not leave his house for fear of the footsteps that will
never go away. But they do go away; as long as I am in my house, they are not.
In the unknowable mathematics of the underworld, he cannot get me in my home -
or so I thought. For although there are no footsteps as long as my feet stay in
my abode, today I heard for the first time in my home, breathing…just behind me
and to my right.
--Eric Marley, 2005
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