What Is It? (2016)

What Is It?

Last year I went round to Cambridge and Eton to look through the papers of M.R. James, the kindly scholar and writer of terrifying ghost-stories... I was convinced, you see, that Monty's chilling tales were more than mere fireside fiction, Christmas tales-- O, Jesus help me, I was RIGHT! ... in a dusty notebook, tucked away behind a stack of papers, I deciphered the cryptical warning he'd left behind: "Do not, if you value your sanity, venture through the sealed door in the cellar of the College Chapel, where it is justly omprisoned..."

Grinning like a moron, I rushed straight into the chapel, located the stairs down to the cellar, where I found, concealed behind a thick coat of plaster, the outlines of a door! A bag of tools was in my car, and soon I was chiseling away, afire with curiosity, heedless of the law and old Monty's warning... at length I cleared away the plaster, and my crowbar slowly pried the thick and ancient oaken portal open, hinges creaking a final warning; flicking on my flashlight, I peered into darkness blacker than any I'd ever known-- "Even darkness which may be felt"...and from that darkness a hand stretched forth, pale, hairy and skinny, with longer fingers than nature or sanity permits! I staggered backwards, my throat choked with screams I could not utter, as those obscene fingers touched my chest! I slammed into the wall opposite, yet still that hand reached out, upon an arm like a spider's foreleg, long and hairy, with two elbows at least! A scraping, hissing laughter stood my hairs up on my head and my feet finally sent me staggering up the stairs, my screams of horror unleashed at last as I ran out into the helpless day; next thing I knew I was driving, a mile or more away from Eton and the Horror I'd set free...

That was a year ago, last Tuesday--since then I've moved three times, at last leaving England for Toronto--but how can one escape that which knows no laws of Nature, God or man? I saw It first in Hyde Park, two months after my Eton misadventure--Christ, in broad daylight! It reached out from behind a tree and waved at me! I left London that very week, bought a cottage on the Sussex Downs, broad open spaces, nowhere for It to hide; seven weeks of uneasy peace I had there, till my lights went out in a storm--I lit a candle and saw It standing right beside me! Immensely long and skinny, pale, with long sharp hairs all over Its lanky form--long arms reached out to grasp me, long hideous fingers clutching at my clothes as I flung myself out into the storm, screaming for Death! moving to Edinburgh didn't help, nor Cardiff--so I put the ocean at my back and came to Canada...now here I sit, typing down my final explanation as It squats behind me with long fingers

Round--

--my--

--throat.........