He-s Out There -

The sign at the county line had been bullet-riddled for twenty years: WELCOME TO PACKER’S CORNER. POP. 312. Now it was just a ragged metal ghost, like everything else in his memory.

And somewhere in the shadows between the trees, the thing in the plaid shirt sits in a chair that doesn’t exist, humming a song that never ends, waiting for the next one to come home.

The thing didn’t answer. It just sat back down in the wooden chair and turned away from him, facing the wall. He-s Out There

The chair turned slowly.

“Found nothing.” The thing’s face rippled, and for a moment—just a moment—Sam saw his father underneath that gray skin. Saw the panic in his father’s eyes the last time he’d seen him alive. Saw the way his father’s mouth had opened to scream his name, but no sound came out. “They looked for three weeks. Dogs. Divers. Men on horseback. And all that time, he was walking. Walking and calling your name. He never stopped. He’s still walking.” The sign at the county line had been

In the dark, Sam heard the front door swing open. He heard the crickets start up again, loud and frantic. And he heard his father’s voice, clearer now, coming from the edge of the woods.

“Dad?” His voice came out smaller than he intended. Now it was just a ragged metal ghost,

The thing in the chair had his father’s plaid shirt, the one with the torn pocket where he used to keep his Skoal. It had his father’s hands—knuckles like walnuts, the left pinkie bent sideways from a long-ago fight with a hay baler. But the face was wrong. The face was a smooth, gray expanse of skin where features should have been. No eyes. No mouth. Just two small slits where a nose might have been, flaring slightly with each of the house’s breaths.