If you see a man with crooked antlers, don't listen to the screams.

PART ONE || TWO

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“I’m going to assume that didn’t go over well.”

She rubs her arm anxiously. “I don’t know. It seemed like it went just fine. The thing left.”

“Excuse me?” I say, lowering my clipboard onto my lap. “It left? That’s it?” My hand grips my pen hard enough that my knuckles turn white. That can’t be it. She didn’t even get a look at the thing.

“It left the room,” Amanda says, in a quiet voice. “It walked into the living area, but then it stopped. It didn’t leave the cabin.” Her voice trembles. “It waited. It waited until it didn’t, and then the real horror began.”

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I let out a sigh of relief. The story sounded so promising that I knew it couldn’t have ended there. It wasn’t possible. Not if this truly was the Callous Man. I clear my throat. “What happened after he -- after it -- walked into the living area?”

“Rachel hisses at me that we should run,” Amanda says. “I remind her that her ankle’s fucked. She barely limped into the bedroom, how far does she think she’s going to get in the woods, over uneven ground that’s slick with rain? She tells me if we stay here, we’re both going to die.”

Amanda shivers. “I know she’s right. I know it, but I can’t bring myself to leave. It feels like the tent’s the only thing keeping that thing away from us. Like, as long as the canvas is between us, it can’t see us and we can’t see it. It doesn’t exist.”

It takes everything I have not to roll my eyes. Still, I flip a page on the clipboard and keep a neutral expression. Her perspective is not unlike a child’s. People often approach terror with irrational and sometimes nonsensical methods of survival. Of course, there’s nothing magical about her tent. There’s nothing about it that will save their lives.

“Continue,” I say.

“It starts with a creak of a floorboard. We hear it walking again, but it’s not coming toward us. It’s pacing back and forth, out there in the living area, and it’s snickering faster than before. Soon, the snickering gets heavier. Violent. It starts grunting, then growling.” She takes a breath, and chokes back a sob. Tears race down her cheeks, and her eyes are alight with terror.

"Then it goes silent. No movement. No grunting. No weird fucking snickering. Just the thunder outside, the howling wind, and the rain on the roof. I’m sitting there, clutching the bear mace and Rachel’s crying, and both of us are praying it’s gone. We’re praying it’s just given up. Decided to move on. And… and...”

“And what?” I press.

She meets my gaze with her own, and a hopeless horror swims in her eyes. “... And then the entire cabin shakes. Footsteps pound on the floor, and there’s this hateful, agonizing sound, like a hundred human screams mixed together and poured out of a single voice. Rachel and I lose it. We’re screaming, crawling over each other trying to unzip the door of the tent and get the hell out of there and then our world turns upside down.

“It’s like we’ve been thrown in a washing machine. My head cracks off her knee and we’re rolling around, bouncing in this cacophony of sound and fabric and then I realize the tent's been lifted off the ground. Above me, in the light of the LED lantern I see two crooked, broken antlers piercing through the canvas. That monster’s throwing us around, bucking like a damn deer.

“Soon the tent canvas tears and we fall free, crumpling to the ground in a painful heap. Rachel’s scrambling over me, holding the lantern in her hand and in the madness of it all I see her make a break for it toward the window. As she does, the light passes over that… that fucking monster.”

Amanda chokes back tears and sniffles. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just need one second.”

“Of course.” I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve a set of tissues. I pass them to her. “Here, blow your nose.”

She does. When she’s finished, both of us sit in silence for a moment. Her bottom lip quivers. “It must have been eight feet tall. It was crouched over, humanoid except its chest was covered in fur and its legs were scaly, like a bird’s. It had a long tangle of black hair and… and its antlers jutted out from its eye sockets.”

I mark the details down in excitement. Yes. Good. It’s a near-perfect description. It’s missing only a few key things. “The antlers,” I press. “Can you describe them?”

“They were crooked,” she says, slowly. “They came out at odd angles, both different, and around them was a halo of eyes. Tiny black ones.” She closes her own eyes and swallows. “I almost missed them except they all blinked in unison, and I remember thinking it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.”

“The fact that all of them blinked?” I ask.

“No. The fact that all of them were looking at me.”

“Did it attack you?” I have to know. The defining characteristic of the Callous Man is his method of attack. If she nails it, then I’ve got her. I’ve got my Link, and I’ve got him.

She shakes her head. “No. I thought he might, but then Rachel makes a racket. She’s throwing herself up onto the window ledge, and then she falls over the other side. The creature turns toward her, snickers, and launches itself at the window. It seems like it should be too big to fit, whatever it is, but it isn’t. It’s like a snake, the way its body contorts to fit itself into the window frame. It perchs there, and I see at the bottom of its scaly feet are these thick claws, and the hands it uses to grip the window have thin, impossibly long fingers. It drums them on the wall, before it launches itself after Rachel.”

My pen races across the form, filling in details and circling boxes as the information presents itself. This is very good. I’ve waited my entire life for this moment.

“I sit there for a second, in too much shock to move, and then I realize my friend is out there being chased by some… some fucking monster. I get to my feet and turn my phone’s light on, and in the distance, through the rain and swaying trees, I can see Rachel’s light, bobbing in the darkness.

“I call out to her. I shout her name, but she either doesn’t hear me or she doesn’t care. I scan the area for the monster, but I don’t see a thing. I lean out the window, looking around the cabin, using my phone’s light to illuminate as much as I can, but it’s not there. The monster’s vanished.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take your opportunity and run,” I say. “The creature was clearly more interested in Rachel.”

Amanda glares at me. There’s a stubborn defiance in her eyes, and I have to remind myself that most humans have a perverse obsession with self sacrifice. Maybe it’s the Hollywood brainwashing, maybe it’s the fact that they just haven’t suffered enough, but they can’t get enough of it. Before she even speaks, I see it in her too.

“I couldn’t leave her,” Amanda snaps. “I was the one who dragged her out there on that hike. I was the one who suggested we follow that stupid, overgrown trail. I was the one who refused to use my locator beacon before it was too late. All of this was my fault. If I walked away from her then, I could never forgive myself.” Her voice breaks. “I still can’t.”

Time to get a move on. “You went after her then?”

“Yeah… I clambered through the window and took off, following her light as best I could. I had the bear mace in one hand and my phone in the other. The light from my phone wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep me from tripping on roots or running into trees. I kept calling Rachel’s name. Kept telling her I was coming.”

“She can’t have gotten far with a twisted ankle,” I say. “Then again, adrenaline can do incredible things.”

Amanda shakes her head. “She wasn’t moving that fast, at least compared to me. I was gaining on her. I could just barely see her silhouette ahead of me, and the LED lantern bobbing up and down as she limped away. Then the light drops. Rachel’s silhouette vanishes, and I hear her scream.

“I double over, running with everything I have. My lungs are burning and my feet are slipping on the mud but I don’t care. I’m not thinking anymore. I’m acting on pure instinct, and my instincts are telling me that if I don’t get to Rachel soon, that creature’s going to kill her.”

The words stop. Amanda’s body trembles, and she breaks down. She can’t hold it in anymore. The torrent falls out of her, and her face gets ugly as she sobs into her hands. It doesn’t take long before her palms are glistening with wetness, but to the girl’s credit, she forces herself to keep going. She doesn’t quit.

“Rachel’s screams stop. I can’t see anything really. The lantern’s on its side far ahead of me, and I can just barely make out a shape in the darkness. It’s the sound that still haunts me though.I think it always will.”

“What sound?”

“This wet, tearing sound. Like skin being torn, and blood splattering the ground. It’s followed by a dull crunch, and then I hear slurping. Swallowing. I charge forward and I’m basically just adrenaline at this point. I hold my phone up as I close the distance and I see… I see it.”

She takes a sobbing breath. “I see the man with the antlers for eyes. He’s crouched over Rachel’s corpse, and one of her arm’s has been torn in half, dangling by a thin strip of flesh. It’s missing her hand. Blood is everywhere, and it’s still spurting out of her torn limb. I’m too stunned to move. Too shocked at seeing my friend, dead on the ground in front of me, being eaten by this thing.”

Her voice trembles, and she launches into another fit of tears. She brings a tissue to her nose and blows a thick wad of mucus into it, before throwing it unceremoniously onto the warehouse floor. She wipes her face with the back of her sleeve. “Then the thing rears back its head, and it tears what’s left of Rachel’s arm off. It starts to chew it.

“It’s… it’s more gruesome than anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t think we’re wired to deal with seeing that shit, as human beings, you know? Like nothing in my programming knew how to deal with that. Once it finishes chewing, it swallows the arm, and it opens its mouth again.

“Its bottom jaw falls all the way to the forest floor, its gaping maw large enough for a grown man to walk straight into. It sits there in front of her corpse for a second, and then that cacophony of screaming starts again, like a hundred anguished voices stitched together.

"A flurry of human arms reach out of its mouth, clawing toward Rachel’s limp body. They clutch at what’s left of her torn limb, her hair, her jacket. They clutch at anything they can reach. Then they start dragging her into the monster’s mouth.”

There it is. It’s just as I remember.

Amanda loudly blows into the tissue again. “Then… I hear Rachel whimper, and my fucking blood goes cold. I realize the entire time I’ve been standing there, watching this thing eat her, she’s been alive. I was watching her get eaten alive.”

“My mind goes blank. I point the bear mace and let loose a blast toward the monster, shouting at it to get the fuck away from her. It recoils, howling in that symphony of screams and shuffling back into the bushes. I take my chance and press the lantern into Rachel’s hand. I tell her she needs to hold that for us, and she nods weakly. Her face has lost all of its colour, and I know she’s not long for this world.

“I get her good arm over my shoulder, and keeping a grip on the bear mace, begin putting some distance between us and that monster. She’s groaning. She keeps saying my name. ‘Mandy.’ Over and over again, but I tell her to be quiet. She needs to save her energy, and I need to hear that thing. She listens to me.

“We don’t get far before I hear it’s thunderous footfalls pound against the forest floor. It’s running at us. I wheel around, and Rachel’s lantern illuminates the monster for only a split second before I let loose another round of the mace. It snickers in pain and brings those long-fingered hands to its eyes.

“I don’t wait around for it to recover. I keep going. I don’t know where. All I know is I need to get away from this thing, because it isn’t going to stop until it finishes what it started. Again, I hear its footsteps pound and the dirt, and again I wheel around and blast the monster. It shrieks in pain and shies away, but only a few moments later it charges again.”

Amanda keels over and starts bawling. She grips her hair, then starts pulling on it so hard I half-expect her to tear a chunk from her scalp.

“I realize,” she says, choking out the words between sobs. “I realize Rachel’s too heavy. I can’t carry her. I can’t get away from this thing because I can feel the can of mace is almost empty and every time I hit it with the mace it affects it less.”

She shakes her head, her eyes are bloodshot, her cheeks tearstained. She sniffles and wipes mucus onto her sleeve. “I have to leave Rachel. I have to. If I don’t, it’s going to kill us both. You understand, right?”

For the first time in her desperate recollection of the Event, I do understand. “Yes,” I say. “Life isn’t easy. There aren’t any real heroes, just people who pretend to be. You made a difficult choice, but a necessary one.”

Amanda stares at me, she stares at me for a long while like she’s searching my expression for something. Finally, she nods, slowly. “Yeah,” she says, wiping more snot onto her sleeve. Her voice evens out, the tears are no longer coming in torrents

“I did what I had to do. I put her down, apologizing. I apologized over and over again, and I heard that thing coming and I took off. I ran, full tilt into the woods. Behind me, I heard that cacophony of screams.”

She swallows, and her voice stutters. “I listened to that familiar sound of tearing flesh, and then the dull crunch of snapping bone. I listened to the creature chew on Rachel. I tried not to. I tried to just focus on running, or the sound of the rain, or the thunder, or the wind, but I couldn’t. All I could hear was my friend being eaten alive.”

Silence stretches between us. I clear my throat. “Is that it? You got away, ran into the SAR team on your way down the mountain?”

“No,” she says, closing her eyes. There’s a look of resigned regret in her features. “I hear another sound. I hear a helicopter. A moment later, I catch sight of its search light, beaming over the forest. I know this might be my only chance, so I start waving around my phone’s light, trying to make as much of a scene as I can.

“It works. The helicopter swings over, and it lowers a ladder with a rescue technician. He straps me to a line and asks me if I'm alone. I'm hysterical, shouting a mile a minute. I shriek that a monster attacked my friend, and I point toward Rachel’s lantern, faintly visible in the distance. I tell him it killed her.”

Amanda swallows, wiping at her eyes. “He radios in to have me brought up, and says he'll go look for Rachel. I tell him not to. I know if he does, he'll die too. It'll kill him just like it killed her, but over the wind and rain he either doesn't hear me, or doesn't care.

“I'm pulled into the helicopter, and a few minutes later I hear the man’s voice over the radio. It's desperate. Full of grief. He says he needs a stretcher down there. He says he found the other woman, and that she's still alive.”

“Have you spoken to Rachel since?” I ask quietly.

She shakes her head. “No. She um -- she’s in a coma. Both of her arms are missing, the wounds are infected and she’s developed serious pneumonia. Doctor’s aren’t sure if she’s going to make it.”

She brings a hand to her mouth and chokes back a sob. Her eyes are wide, and her body quakes. “I… I left her there to die. If I had just stayed with her a couple minutes longer then the rescue chopper would have found us. It would have scared that fucking thing away and Rachel…”

“Would still be gravely injured,” I finish. “You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know the chopper was around the corner. All that you knew was something wanted to kill you, and it was winning the battle for your life.”

Her shoulders wrack with silent sobs. “I could’ve stayed with her.” She breaks down all over again, and this time I give her all the time she needs. I’ve scarcely seen somebody so grief-stricken in all my years of doing this, and it's almost as bizarre to me as the anomalies I’ve spent my life hunting. To hate yourself for something as simple as wanting to live. It’s inhuman.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “That’s… that’s everything. Can I go now?”

I lean back in my chair, frowning. It’s not that I don’t empathize with her, but such messy reactions only serve to get in the way of actually fixing problems. In her case, getting revenge for Rachel.

She stands up, sniffling, then answers her own question. “... I’m gonna go.”

“Wait,” I say. She stops in her tracks.

“What?”

“Can you take me there?”

She stares at me with red, puffy eyes. Her face is a mask of confusion. Disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“The cabin, I mean." I lean forward in my chair. "Can you take me to the Callous Man?”

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