The Alley

I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 6 am like every Monday through Friday, every single week, to go to my dead-end, low-paying job. I’ve been looking for something new for quite a while now, but this town is so damn small there’s barely any place to work here. I get up, get my toothbrush, brush my teeth, and get ready for my shift at 7:00. I don't hate my job, necessarily; it's just that it’s taking me nowhere I want to go. I want to get out of this town. I work at a liquor store not far from my place, so I walk there every day.

When I was walking to work today, I saw something that I thought was just a normal man standing in the dark alley next to my work until I noticed it twitching. This thing was changing. It was becoming something; all I saw was eyes looking back at me, and before I could get any glimpse of what it was, I ran as fast as I could into the shop and locked the door behind me.

I spent the rest of the day self-doubting; it was probably just my mind playing tricks on me. I chose to stick with that belief. It was finally time for me to clock out at 3 pm and walk myself back home. When I passed the alley again, I couldn’t even bother to think about looking back at whatever I may or may not have seen. I got home safely, I lay in bed and took a nap, and that’s when my phone started ringing. Who would be calling me right now? I looked at my phone, and it was my boss.

I answered, and he said, “Hey, when Tim was working today, he had a stroke and had to be taken to the hospital. It looked pretty bad when I saw him. He was just so incoherent. I am sorry, but I’m not sure how long he’ll be out, and I’ll need to swap around your schedule for the night shift.”

Now it wasn’t all too bad; we knew of Tim having strokes, it wasn't often, and they weren’t ever that bad to where he was incoherent after one of them for as long as my boss had told me. Now for the rest of the night, I was just hoping Tim would be okay and that I wouldn’t be doing these night shifts for long, and then I thought about that alley again.

I only wanted to tell myself there was nothing there, but I constantly asked myself whether there was or not. So, the next day when I was getting ready for work, I made sure to bring my flashlight with me, and I crept up on the alley.

I made quiet footsteps to make sure that if there was anything, it wouldn’t hear me coming, and I could see what it was. I walked forward and ducked behind a barrel and looked down the alley at first without my light, and I saw nothing. I raised my light, and there was nothing there.

I let out a great sigh of relief, only for that relief to turn into curiosity about what I saw lying on the ground. I didn’t know what it was. It was a small white hairy thing with hints of light brown around it. I walked closer, and it wasn’t something I expected it to be.

When I saw it, I had to question myself all over again. What I saw was a dead rat’s skull with patches of its skin still left on it. There was some blood around, all dried up, but it could’ve been an alley cat that did it, and I continued with my job that night.

Near the middle of my shift, a customer came in, and I almost wanted to ask them if anything weird had been going on in town lately, but I came to the conclusion that I would probably sound crazy.

My shift had finally ended, and my mind was racing. Before, I wanted to ignore it, but now I feel drawn to figure out what it is.

I closed up shop for the night and crept back my way slowly to the alley. I saw a dim orange glow in the alley.

“Hello.” Someone said in a muffled voice. “Are you guys still open?”

Those words made me feel better after the feeling of goosebumps shooting throughout my body dissipated. The person started to walk towards me more into the light, and I realized it was just a woman who was having a smoke break. In the dark for whatever reason. The cigarette explained the dim glow that I saw.

I replied to her and said no, we weren’t open, and that our hours were from 7 am to 11:30 pm. She immediately changed her subject and asked if I could take her home because it was cold outside and that she wanted to feel safer walking home.

I asked her how far her house was from where we were standing, and she pointed towards the trees and said, “Over there. Just past the trees a bit.” Still with the cigarette in her mouth.

It wasn’t too far of a walk, so I accepted and started to walk her home.

As we were walking towards her place. I noticed that she was sort of odd. Her tone of voice didn’t fit that of anyone I’ve met. So, I asked, “Were you born here?”

She said yes, and that was it; she didn’t explain where exactly, and I didn’t want to bother her with a thousand questions.

I did, however, want to cut the eerie silence of walking through the woods, so I jokingly asked, “You aren’t going to drag me out here to kill me, are you?”

She just laughed, but it wasn’t really a laugh, more of a very quiet chuckle. That made me feel unsafe in the moment, and I could see her cabin ahead, so I made up any excuse I had to walk myself away from the current situation.

“Mother nature is calling, I'll be right back.”

She stood still and didn’t say anything.

I made it a good distance before I heard a bloodcurdling scream. So I started running back towards where I had left the woman, and when I had gotten close to where she was, the scream started to change.

It distorted itself and kept changing. From high pitch to low pitch. Then a child giggling. Then a man talking.

I stood still as the voices kept changing, and I didn’t know what to do. My first instinct was to run far away. So I did; I ran as fast and as far as I could until I had reached the closest property in my sight, and with it being almost midnight, all the lights were on in the streets, so it was lit up decently.

I knocked on the nearest door. No answer. I moved to the next, and then to the next, until I think 5 houses down someone finally answered.

“What the hell are you doing knocking on my door this late?”

It was an older guy, but that didn’t matter to me; I at least knew this guy was an actual person.

My mind is racing with so many thoughts; I didn’t even know if who I was with was a real person or not.

“I need to use a phone, please! Something. Just let me call the police!”

Without a second thought, the man grabbed his home phone and dialed 911.

“I need a sheriff out here immediately. There is something in the woods.”

I tried explaining the story as quickly as I could, and about ten minutes later someone arrived where we were.

I told the sheriff every detail and exactly everything that happened, including times. He didn’t believe me at all, and I knew because I could see that in his eyes he thought I was crazy.

“Can you get this damn lunatic out of my house?” The old man said.

The sheriff told him to give us a moment, and he told me to describe what it looked like.

“I can’t explain it because I couldn’t see it.”

I tried telling them over and over again that obviously I sound crazy, but I know what I heard.

I could hear the sheriff tell a few deputies on his radio to investigate where I was when it all went down: “Search for a monster.” He said in a sarcastic voice.

The man’s wife came downstairs and asked what was going on, to which he briefly explained that there was a crazy person in their house and that she could go back to bed, and she did.

I kept arguing between the two, trying to convince them, when all of a sudden glass shattered upstairs.

Everyone paused, including myself, and I told the sheriff to be careful.

He walked towards the stairs and shone his light in the passageway above and shouted out, “Miss, are you okay?”

Then the door opened slowly, squeaking.

The man's wife stepped out of the door and onto the top of the stairs, to which both the sheriff and the man asked if she was okay.

“Yes, I’m okay, just cut myself on a bit of glass.”

At that point we all noticed the blood dripping from one of her hands, and the husband asked her to come on down so he could get it all cleaned up.

Instead of listening, she stood there.

“I said come down; we need to stop the bleeding.” The guy said.

She then chuckled a bit and went back into the room.

The sheriff and the man were both visibly confused, but I had a feeling that something was off. I’ve had too many feelings of something being off, and each one resulted in something going wrong.

The lady then stepped back out of the room holding a shard of glass in her already cut hand.

The sheriff told her to drop the piece of glass, and then she twitched.

As soon as I saw that twitch, I knew.

She…

It.

Wouldn’t stop twitching.

The husband and the sheriff thought it was just a seizure.

It stopped.

It looked at me and immediately fell face forward down the stairs, falling all the way down to the husband’s feet.

Now its leg was completely out of shape, its neck broken, and a few teeth scattered onto the floor.

They tried to help it, and it jerked.

It started changing the same way I thought I had seen in the alley earlier. Its skin looked like it was shedding, but it was molding itself all back into place.

The face after it fell looked like melting plastic. Its whole body was bubbling, and the skin of it was shifting.

Loud cracks were heard as its bones went back into place.

New teeth started to grow.

The sheriff and the husband both walked back slowly.

The clothes of this thing absorbed into its skin and changed into a whole new outfit.

The skin started to mold into shape, the ears into place, the hair shortening its length.

It then got on its knees and started to stand up.

No one could believe what they were seeing, even though it had just unfolded in front of our very eyes.

At that point, I ran out the door.

I ran until I felt as far away from that thing as possible.

To this day I still run.

I have no idea if they survived that encounter.

I look over my shoulder every day now.

Are there more of those things?

I hope I never have to find out.