“That’s the story you want to hear tonight?” asked Harry, a bit taken aback by his friends’ request.
“Well, nobody really likes to talk about it around here, not in detail at least,” said the girl seated on the ground beside Harry.
“I just assumed that most people in this town knew the tale. I never encountered anybody curious enough to ask questions…,” he said.
“We just want to know more, that’s all, and why is everyone so afraid when anybody brings it up?” Another voice spoke. This time, it belonged to a young man sitting across from Harry.
The group formed a circle around a fire, burning bright in their midst. They were seven in total, excluding Harry, that is. Each of their faces bore a feeble orange hue, courtesy of the sizzling flames that crackled soothingly nearby.
“In any case, you couldn’t have picked a better night to ask… About Jack in the corner,” Harry grinned cheerily and lifted his eyes towards the starry sky as he said that.
The rest of them instinctively copied his action. They caught sight of the full moon peeking through the tall and thick forest trees surrounding them. It was the second source of light pushing the dense fabric of darkness away from engulfing them. They all wondered what made that night such a special one for that tale but, none of them dared ask. They just wanted him to get into it… And so, he did.
“Nobody really knows who Jack is, or… What Jack is. Nobody that has ever had the miserable luck of laying their eyes on him, survived long enough to tell the end of it. And so, people are ever so careful when they utter his name, for they don’t know of the true consequences,”
Harry marked a pause during which, he filtered through the seven visages staring back at him, all of them appeared to pay very close attention to his words, clearly craving more, so he gave them more, "First, it starts as nothing more than a shadow from a corner in your peripheral vision. You will be tempted to look but, once you do, you’ll see… Simply nothing. The next day however, you’ll wake up to a small shape, standing in the corner of your room or wherever it was that you slept. It will be right where you can see it, right where you can’t ignore it. Upon initial look, you won’t be able to distinguish any facial features or any features att all for that matter. You will be left wondering if it’s a child or an abnormally small man, if it’s human or animal, whether it is going to move or not, and if it does, what will it do to you?
And when the dust starts to settle in your mind, you’ll begin to notice… Mainly how its skin had both the color and texture that resembled that of uncooked bread dough,”
“What’s the matter Carey?” a different young man from the previous one addressed his friend Carey, when he noticed that she’d turned her head away from the group, looking straight into the obscurity around.
“Nothing, I just thought… I saw somet… Nevermind,” she replied before setting her attention back onto Harry.
Harry didn’t skip a beat and proceeded right from where he stopped, "Next thing that jumps to your eyes will be the hair. The small, almost non existent amount of it you’ll see, will seem disgustingly oily and unevenly scattered across its skull. You will automatically look down towards its arms after that. Short, skinny and dry as dead wooden sticks, and its hands… Although extremely boney, still overly large compared to the size of the arms supposed to support them,” Harry went dead quiet after those words. He slowly looked down at his feet and remained in that position, seemingly concerned with something.
Until somebody called for his attention, "What about Jack’s legs? What do they look like?”
He lifted his eyes towards the voice and simply said, “They don’t, for Jack has no legs,” he paused.
“Everything alright?” asked Carey.
“Yes,” Harry said, in a second he shook whatever obstructed his flow and reset his demeanor back to its original expression, "At least not in that form he doesn’t. But you see, Jack does not linger in that shape forever, because for several unknown reasons he… Shifts and that is usually a very, bad, nasty omen for whoever can see him,”
“Why’s that?” said another boy from the group.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Well, Jack manifests to someone for a specific reason, and changes shape for yet another, not everyone goes through the same stages with him. Some go on for months, but some don’t live to see the next morning sun.
Many people reiterated their early encounters with him. All provided different reasons for his apparition, with the exception of one thing; they all agreed that no matter what you do, when you first see him, never, ever make the mistake of screaming in fear.
In fact, you must do the opposite, do your best to never let your terror show on your face,”
“Why? What would happen?”
“If by any unfortunate blunder, you let him hear your scream, he’ll immediately begin to shift.
He’ll squeal as his bones crack. He’ll twist around and about for sixty seconds on end, that interval of time might sound short, but trust me when I tell you, it’ll feel like centuries. At the end of that horrendous demonstration, Jack will have the height and build of an average man. Now his skin will look the furthest from that of a man, viscid and chewy like old slime, the color of ashes then… The smell, vomit inducing, putrid, you will never be able to smell another thing again,”
“Has nobody ever tried to kill this thing?” asked the girl who spoke at the beginning.
“What do you think?” he answered, then he continued, "Thousands of people have caught sight of Jack in this town, and that kept happening for generations, none of them lived long enough to tell what Jack does in his third stage, that was until…,”
“Until?” The group nudged him to go on.
“Well, I lied… See? Not everyone died after seeing Jack. The rumors have it that out of the thousands of those that perished, three people lived.
But I didn’t leave it at that of course, I had to go about and confirm the veracity of these rumors. I found out that, the first survivor was a man, a blind man. He wasn’t born that way, he got into a horrific accident that took his sight from him and by the same occasion, his ability to see Jack. He was already at the second stage when the accident happened. Somehow one tragedy saved him from another, from a much more gruesome fate,”
Harry was cut off again, only this time by a gasp, “What is it, Mike?” quizzed one of his friends.
“I heard ruffling coming from behind the trees and… I think I saw some movement there,”
“The second survivor was, what I called my gold mine,” Harry completely ignored Mike’s statement and carried on with the story like nothing had happened, “She was an old bat. She died of old age; can you believe that? She saw Jack and got away with it unscathed. How did she do it? You might ask,” Harry had anticipated that question through the looks on their faces and began to answer it before they uttered a word, "She was believed to be a witch, and she somehow used her practice in her favor, and apparently, that worked just fine for her.
She said that if you anger Jack enough, he moves away from his corner. He faces you. He even gives you a few minutes to wrap your head around what’s happening. If you ask me about it, it’s just plane cruel, it’s like dangling a giant knife under somebody’s nose before slitting their throat open. You have no idea of the sheer terror you’ll feel when your brain has enough time to register what will happen to you,” Harry quit speaking again, he slowly clasped his hands together in an attempt to discreetly stop them from shaking.
“What about the third survivor?” Carey asked wearily.
“When he heard of the witch’s story, he felt hopeful again. It had been weeks since he’d gotten a good night's sleep, weeks since he’d been able to just sit and enjoy a show or even hang out with his friends. He’d almost forgotten what hope meant.
He thought he could use witchcraft too, only he’d never dabbled into it and witches were really hard to come by. So, he sought help from other entities, and managed to strike a deal with one,”
“You say he, so it was another man?” said Mike.
Another tousle came from behind the trees nearby, this time loud enough for everyone to hear. All of their heads snapped that way, all except… For Harry’s.
“What was… The pact?” Carey's voice was shaky. She was afraid to ask. She was able to connect a few dots throughout his speech.
“You can’t blame him really. He only wanted to live, to grow old. You see? he swore to give an offering of seven innocent souls… No matter where. All that mattered was that it had to be done under the light of a full moon, like tonight…,”
They all froze, unsure what to make of his words. Was it a joke? In which case, they didn’t want to look silly when the reveal came, but, what if?
“That’s… Very funny Harry,” Mike chuckled nervously, trying to defuse the awkward atmosphere.
Although, his smile quickly faded when he saw Harry’s demeanor, ”I am sorry. I truly am. I was really starting to like you guys, but you know how it is… You can’t really make friends when you’re dead. No! You've got to be alive for that, am I right?”
Their hearts dropped to their stomachs when they saw Harry turn towards the twig snapping sounds. They watched in horror as the thing dangerously approached them. It matched the description of Jack he’d given them, that of his second stage.
Something Harry had omitted and that they noticed was its eyes, shining red like the open gates of hell.
Harry smiled to greet his expected guest, "Happy feasting!”