The Wicked

By Cosmic Jones

All over the northeastern United States, there is a brutal killer cloaked in various masks and disguises, terrorizing whoever or whatever gets in the way of its macabre and deadly path.

With this mysterious, demonic force still on the loose, law enforcement has been baffled to find the identity of the ever-changing killer, knowing the villain and its shocking crimes only as "The Wicked".

And now the monster has turned its dreadful attention to a fragile and lonely violinist, a woman seemingly helpless against the frightening mountain of horror.

Can anybody save her, and countless others, before it's too late?  Before they all have to face the insidious wrath of "The Wicked".

"The Wicked" is a terrifying and suspenseful novel of courage, desperate survival, the confrontation of fear, and the empowerment of hope in the face of life and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cosmic Jones
• Release date: Dec 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781736344323

Cosmic Jones

Cosmic Jones is a novelist, filmmaker, musician, painter, poet, photographer, and astronomer originally from Chicago, IL USA. He is also supporter and lover of animals, nature, peace, social justice, kindness, humanity, magic, art, outer space, and wonder.His diverse backgrounds and passions are apparent in his work, as he takes his audience along with him on unique and introspective journeys.

Book preview

THE WICKED

The New Horror Novel From Award Winning Author

Cosmic Jones

Copyright © 2021 by Cosmic Jones

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover: Cosmic Jones

Interior Formatting and Design: Nonon Tech & Design

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-7363443-0-9

ISBN (Hardcover): 978-1-7363443-1-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-7363443-2-3

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Prologue

It walked through the moonlit woods with darkened footsteps. Each one of its paces rustling and crunching the leaves below with their heavy weight on the forest floor.

The black shadow of its figure moved steadily through the trees surrounding. The sounds of the night were made more silent by its looming presence.

As it walked, the faint sound of waves could be heard softly crashing from West Penobscot Bay far below the cliffs to its right. The glimmer of the moon on the water could be seen through the trees as the figure moved through the woods. But its shadow paid no mind to the light. The caliginous figure just looked straight ahead, through the tangled trees of infinity and into dark paths unknown.

Moving in seeming assurance of its destination, it walked at a steady, even pace.

Then it stopped.

Just there in front of it, a family of four opossums were passing about fifteen feet ahead, slowly across the dim, leafy ground. The figure looked down at them in still silence as they passed by, and though they were surely aware of his mysterious presence, they passed by in unhurried, deliberate fashion as opossums are usually known to do.

Their eyes shined like yellowish-red jewels as they moved, and along with their white faces it made them easy to spot in the nighttime woods.

Just as they were about to fully pass by and disappear into the covering of the trees to the left, with alarming quickness the figure went from its still position and pounced forward, and then was on top of the leading opossum in no time.

In just a split-second the giant phantom lunged, reaching down and lifting the opossum by the neck as the frightened animal squealed a terrible cry. The other opossums behind screeched in desperate fear, but the kidnapping figure was swiftly gone into the darkness and through the trees ahead with its prey.

The caught opossum now squealed and squealed, hissing at its giant captor. But with a strong squeeze of its neck, it quickly fell silent. If it was not yet dead, the animal was made silent out of a terrible, intimidated fear.

The figure walked ahead with the opossum held below by its waist, in its huge, clutching grip. The opossum still didn’t make a sound.

Through the army of forest trees the figure walked through the night for about another fifteen minutes. Then it came upon a clearing in the trees just up ahead to the left about two hundred yards or so.

As the figure approached, it could see a faint light making its way into the clearing. Not the pale light of the moon, but rather a more ambient golden light. A warmer light that glowed and began to playfully dance around the edge of the trees more and more as the lurking figure approached.

The closer the figure came to the clearing the more slowly it walked. Almost as if it was now aware of the presence of something that wasn’t a creation of these nighttime woods any longer, but rather a product of an outside world no longer insulated by the darkness and obscurity of the forest.

It approached further until it came near to the very edge of the clearing, and through the thinning trees there could then be seen, about eighty yards away, a small goldish-yellow rectangle. The rectangle was lit up in the moonlit night sky, and could be seen high up, many feet off the ground.

In front of the rectangle which was now revealing itself to be a rectangular window, and in the distance between it and the figure, was a long yard with trees lining its lawn to the left and the right all the way up to a large house. The yard was lit of a similar ambient golden color as the rectangle, and even more than the window, was emitting much of the light that had made its way through to the clearing.

The figure stepped closer and moved half of its frame behind a large tree trunk, with the silent opossum still held low in its right hand. It looked up at the golden rectangle in the distance and for a minute the figure just stared in solemn silence.

Then, below at its waist there was a crackling. It was the sound of its grip tightening and breaking the fragile bones of the opossum’s neck clean to dust. The figure just stared straight ahead at the rectangle as it squeezed, until there were no more bones to break and nothing left to make a sound.

As it still stared straight ahead at the glowing rectangular window high above, the figure lifted the limp opossum up higher and held it just to the right of its face. With a quick, ferocious power, it then took its clutching grip and smashed the already dead animal’s face into the tree, turning the opossum’s white face into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp.

Still looking straight ahead, the figure continued to smush what was left of the opossum’s face into the hardened, jagged side of the tree. Driving it almost into the bark. Then after about ten seconds, it let go of the opossum, and left it to fall with a light thud into the scattered leaves below.

The figure didn’t move as it stood and stared into the golden lighted rectangle for many more minutes. It now stood motionless, at the edge of the yard, darkening the shadows that surrounded it with the menace of its imposing presence. The trees behind it now stood even more still and silent than before.

The woods were glad to be rid of it. The light would never be the same.

Chapter 1

A worn, unkempt man lived alone by a lake; in a large, beautiful, empty mansion on a hill.

Since his loving wife Nora had passed away five years ago, he had rarely left this solitary confinement, save for the occasional trip into town for various supplies; food, toiletries, cigarettes. And, of course, for his drink. Or sometimes he left for a bit just to get into his car and drive. And for a brief time anyway, to escape.

He lived a good ten miles from where the nearest town Camden could be reached. His luxurious property sprawled out just East of Highway 1, east of Camden Hills State Park, as the back yard disappeared into the stormy canvas of West Penobscot Bay.

Maine is a quiet state by nature. The largest city, Portland, has a population of just 66,000, and folks in the state could be considered for the most part reserved, and while sometimes crusty, they were relatively friendly. Though it was known that they often kept to themselves.

Which is just the way this man, John Mapplethorpe, liked it. He wanted a place where people kept to themselves. He wanted to be left alone.

For three years after his wife’s passing he had employed a maid. His maid Sarah; a kind, warm, empathetic woman, advanced in years and approaching the ripe old age of eighty. Sarah, so very compassionate, while attentive, gave the man space. Space so he could write, grieve, think, grieve, watch old films in his projector room, and then grieve some more.

Mr. Mapplethorpe, as he was known by almost all in his ever-shrinking circle, had created a world all his own. Living on his own. With all the ‘things’ he owned. A world full of inner colors, mind wrenching dilemmas, beautiful inspirations; one where he gave rousing sermons and long, dreamy soliloquys for all the various contemplating and conflicting voices in his head.

Sarah had left just about two years ago now however. Asked to leave. Not given a reason other than Well, it just needs to be this way....

And despite her stoic hesitation and some gentle protesting, she had no choice but to leave this ever more peculiar man, this ever more tortured shell of what was, all by himself. Within the four walls of this giant house. Within the world he had created since he had lost his beautiful, glowing love Nora.

So here Mr. Mapplethorpe sat day after day, night after night, withering the hours away, and drinking those hours even further away. Remembering his beloved Nora, and reminding himself of their wonderful life together with the kind of whimsical memories that often come first to the surface in remembrance.

He had made more than enough in his time as Vice President of a large successful investment banking firm for his early and comfortable retirement. His seemingly grossly overcompensated retirement funding (even to him) plus Nora’s extraordinary family wealth, had given him many rooms to sleep in, many doors to walk through, and many walls to stare through in this house, in his chosen solitude.

This house possessed very few windows however. Whether by an oversight of the original architectural design, or by choice of the original owner, or by intention from the builder, this lavish monstrosity of a structured house had very few places for one to look out from. Into the day or into the night.

Strange...and eerie..., Mapplethorpe would often say to himself about the lack of windows, when he was in search of a convenient place to look out to, usually after hours of finding a thousand things to turn and tend his mind to; to turn his mind away from the memory of how things used to be.

The parties Nora and he would throw and attend with their well-to-do friends full of white tents, and large tables, and candles, dancing, after dinner drinks, flirting, cigars, drunken conversation, laughing, half-conscious mindless pedestrian sex, and all the wonderment that the very rich white folks find for themselves.

He remembered one particular drunken night of theirs coming home, as Nora helped him from the car to the door, and then walked him supportively up the stairs, taking him to their bedroom and gently opening the covers to their bed, and helping him lay down with a soft, loving kiss.

He remembered, before he passed into his dreams, of thinking then how much he had loved her touch. The satiny feel of her hands as they softly, yet firmly, held his head up before placing a pillow below it.

He remembered what she had said to him just then, before he passed out into his deepening golden drunken slumber. She had said, rather asked, sweetly, with a knowing smile, What are you gonna do when you have no one to put you to rest anymore J.J.?

J.J. was what she always called him (John Jacob), when she was in a playful, sparring mood. Never malicious, often funnily mischievous, and purposely harmless.

But this was before the disease spread. Before the cancer attacked her liver. Before she drifted away. In six months after it had been detected, she was gone.

Here sat J.J., John, Mr. Mapplethorpe, alone now with no one to put him to rest. So perhaps he stayed in a permanent rest, so there could never be a time where no one could put him to rest.

Perhaps it was because he was in some strange way honoring her memory, by thinking of her as often as he did throughout his darkened, sullen mind. Perhaps it was because he now just wanted to be left alone. To live the rest of his days in the place he felt most safe.

In this house with few windows. Within these strong and solid walls, to close off the outside world.

Here sat Mr. Mapplethorpe, slouched down on his luxurious velvet couch, a couch seemingly small in the giant main room. Staring up at the ceiling of his cavernous living room with an almost extinguished smoke in one hand, and drinking an almost finished Kenwood Vineyards 2006 Collection bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Falling asleep slowly, and without purpose, he lay sprawled in contortion with wine stained red teeth and gums. He began to feel the pain on the right back side of his upper teeth as he passed the time away tonight.

Just like a toothache… he thought. To come and go when it pleases with its pain and suffering.

It had been over five years since he had been to the dentist. He hated the dentist and their cutting instruments of steely horror. The push and pull, the sharp cutting, the gloved hand prying his mouth wider and wider into misshapen design.

Fortunately for him, he had found a way to beat having to go and make those nagging appointments, and face those sterile numbing Novocaine weekday morning experiences when you would rather be anywhere else than making small talk with some Dr. Andrews, or Miller, or Wainwright, in an office with its dull lighting and instrumental versions of soft classic rock music of The Eagles, Paul McCartney, or Billy Joel, or other harmless, sugary muzak selections.

The way John Mapplethorpe beat the dentist these last years was to bleed. He had once heard the way to rid an infection, any infection, was to bleed. To bleed it out. To bleed it out at the source and let the body’s healing run its course.

So that is what he did. Whenever an infection would attack his mouth, usually gradually, but sometimes suddenly, he would floss ferociously all around that area until the blood started flowing. As long as it was him, and not the dentist, he loved the pain of the high or low flossing to the root of the tooth under the gums. Primally even using his fingernails to scrape under and all around the teeth and gums. The feeling of really scraping to bleed and drain and heal the infection. To heal the temporary pain. To take that pain away for the next week or so, until the next infection.

He rather perversely thought of the experience almost sexually, as to reach deeper and deeper and feel the sensation, the tingling sensation to his brain. And when he was done bleeding the infection, he would brush and mouthwash overly thoroughly to wash away all the grime, the filth, and the lingering bits of foods that remained in unseen places.

So in a slow lift of his contorted carcass, and with a stretch of his tired decaying bones, he found the motivation to rise from the couch and head upstairs. Up the main staircase, to the master bathroom and begin the flossing ritual to take the growing pain away.

What time WAS it? he thought as yawned and rubbed his blurry eyes, moving towards the stairs. Shifting his head to the left he could faintly see the grandfather clock far across the room. Squinting to make out the hands and their location on the clock, he could see the long thin hand on top just past the center, and the thicker short hand facing almost directly right. 3:05am…, he reasoned by the outside darkness peering in from the one large window of the house at the top of the main staircase. Without that window and without that darkness, he may never have known whether it was day or night.

So he slowly made his way up the staircase, using the bright light emanating from the chandelier above the top of the stairs to guide his feet one step at a time. Stepping only with his left leg he climbed. Making the trip up even longer and more laborious. The chandelier’s light he used had been left on through the day and night before, and day and night before that. The days and nights just seemed to blend together these day for Mapplethorpe.

As he got to the top of the stairs, he looked out the huge pentagonal shaped window which must have been about fifteen feet tall and at least twenty feet wide at its widest bottom edge. The one large window in the entire design of the house. One of the only windows at all.

The vast window divided into dozens of smaller squares, and looked out at and majestically over the professionally lit, and almost seemingly never-ending backyard. Which dimly visible almost to its back edge, led through tall pines, birches, and oaks down a forest path to the Bay.

He could see the upper half of the taller pines, fairly far away, silhouetting the dark green tint in the night sky. And behind them, the expansive glow of the starlight over the Bay.

He looked up over the trees and to the left, to see the almost three-quarter full moon in its gibbous phase. He wasn’t sure if this moon was waxing its gibbous, or waning its gibbous.

If he had perhaps paid more attention long ago in his elementary school Science class at Horace Mann School in Binghamton (New York), he might have known that by its high position in the eastern sky this gibbous was waning. Waning slowly, but inevitably. But his time for learning was at its end now. At least for learning facts, figures, and things people learned to fill their heads with a build for the world’s structure. For the past years, he was now ever destructing that build. Like a post-apocalyptic town was his decaying mind, with road signs fallen and weeds growing up through the cracks in the untended streets.

Looking out now high at the nighttime moon however, he strangely felt a reflective feeling, and almost a sudden appreciation of the beauty of life, and the magic of its wonder. An appreciation of the cosmic mysteries. The largeness of space, and comfort of the smallness of existence in the scope of time.

Just for a moment, did he feel this distant, but warm feeling. Rather comforting and strangely reassuring. Then suddenly he was overtaken by a biting, cold chill. Almost as if something had taken the cool outside late Autumn air and sucked it all through the marrow of his bones. The moonlit sky seemed a bit darker now. Portraying less detail, less shapes to the treetops, less shine on the Bay.

Coldly, he stepped away from the window. Must have been a draft through the for years untended to window, as the cool night breeze blew against the panes, working its way through the smallest of cracks. With direct, cutting, organized chaos to infiltrate the warmth of the inside.

As he then slowly shuffled down the long hallway to the master bathroom, he could still feel a chill and stopped in his adjoining master bedroom to search (the floor) for a long-sleeved shirt, sweater, sweatshirt; anything to get back to his comfort leveled warmth.

He searched through a few piles, and found a light grey cashmere sweater that hadn’t been laundered in years, and he hadn’t seen in months. Wrinkled beyond repair, stained in various places, nonetheless this soft throw would do the trick.

On to the master bathroom, where he very business-like began to go through his extensive flossing process which would eventually give him some measure of relief until the next time the pain resurfaced.

Searching through the toothpaste encrusted like cement all over the porcelain counter; with its masses of years old bottles, mostly emptied hair creams, dried out skin creams, shaving cream, soiled hand cloths, and floss weaving through it all like drip lines in a Jackson Pollack work, he found one of the containers (of what were likely more than a few laying around) of fairly fresh mint floss. He always made sure to restock on new floss on his rare trips and errands into town. Tooth care was one of the few things he needed to make sure to take care of. To stop the unbearable and escalating pain. Within the long, slow and numbing pain.

And so he began. Wrapping, with the grace of a magician, the waxy strings of floss through his fingers to create a taut tightrope of pulled precision.

Starting with the back teeth, he contorted and stretched the edges of his mouth back the way a snake expands its jaws to fit its mouth over larger prey. Finding the first crevice in between the two deepest teeth was always a source of ceremonial pleasure. Digging the string in between, with mild force he rubbed across the sides of each tooth. And then down into the gum line. Digging and scraping, feeling the texture of the fairly smooth teeth, while simultaneously pulling back the gums to allow the blood to flow freely.

It was always a bit of a mystery, like a child digging in the sand to find water, when and where the blood would eventually choose to flow. After the slow, initial penetration of the back teeth, if there was no blood (yet) he would begin to rush from tooth to tooth with quick accuracy. An accuracy now from experience.

Sometimes just a little would flow, which was almost unrecognizable until it was spit out to prove of its existence. Other times, each tooth would within seconds become a bubbling gusher of blood storing in from the gums and flowing in from all directions, full of the unmistakable red, at once both hot and bright, and darkened and cool.

He was often torn on which he preferred, the empty well or the flowing geyser. If it was the empty well, it perhaps meant that things weren’t all that unhealthy, just uncomfortable, for reasons only known to the human body. But then he would still take his fingernails and go every place he could all around the gums to uncover the areas that might create a draining, sometimes finding blood flow in the unlikeliest of hidden spots.

If it was the gushing geyser however, that meant things were indeed much worse and he was lucky to have found this bleeding remedy and cure to keep things with his health above the line. For now anyway, before his homemade medical fixes could no longer help in the long term decline of his aging.

So he imagined he preferred the empty well. Though for some reason he questioned his reason and need for long term maintenance and health at all. As the fast track of a quicker death out of his despair and tortured memories sometimes seemed more appealing.

But in the vacuumed moment of his flossing rituals, oh how amazing was the gushing geyser. To see all that thick yet watery red flowing like a wild stream, haphazardly covering and temporarily staining each tooth and all of them in unison. A symphony of movement, like rushing rapids. Like a poisonous river streaming out, or a violent hidden animal in the brush now closing in, striking for the kill.

In the dirtied master bathroom, there Mr. Mapplethorpe went about his flossing practice with zeal and due diligence.

However, tonight was indeed an empty well night, emptier than any he could remember in fact. It was one thing to have very little blood, but to have next to nothing basically defeated the purpose of the whole act itself. To stop the infection, to kill the infection, one HAD to bleed.

So he continued flossing and flossing and pulling on and back the gums until finally he spit out barely a hint of a little red mixed with much more saliva. After trying again and again, basically no blood. Well, that’ll have to do… he thought as he searched for the toothpaste to do the final stages of the operation.

Funny thing though, to have such little flow... he mused in his mind, I wonder if the infection is still somewhere hiding in there. It must be....

It didn’t make much sense at all. First came the infection, then came the blood. That’s the way it always went. At least a little blood. Something. Anything. To rid the body of the infection, and the pain, the spilling of the blood was not just crucial, it was necessary.

But after the brushing and the extensive swishing rushing rapids of mouthwash, his mouth, against no blood and all reason, his teeth actually felt better.

Perhaps it was a small infection... he thought. But even as he finished thinking the thought, very little care for the matter remained in him.

Still though, he thought that more than anything this was an indication and warning sign of severe dehydration most likely.

He made a practice of that these days. Turning the failures of small situations into reimagined results as blessings in disguise. And the recognition of severe dehydration felt like a nice temporary victory for him.

As he turned off the light switch and left the soiled bathroom behind, he already had begun formulating his new long-term plan.

This plan was to be a determined Project Of Hydration. Then the blood would flow. Like a river. In an instant, he went about the particulars of the project in his mind.

Ten glasses of water a day he declared to himself. Each glass meticulously measured to ten ounces with a measuring cup, as to drink a hundred ounces of water of day. He once read somewhere that one should always make sure to drink half their own pounds body weight in ounces of a water each day.

He approximated that due to the years of neglect, and the continued expansion of his waist, he was currently probably about 200 pounds in weight. A far cry from his golden 175 pound glory days of past years.

As 6 ft. even man, with atrophied muscles and most of the extra weight concentrated in his chin(s) and belly, his flabby, pale skinned, unshaven appearance certainly wasn’t a modicum of health.

But this was a new beginning. With proper, and even more than proper hydration, came a whole number of benefits which he thought of, and ones he sorely needed and looked forward to. Clearer skin, increased energy, weight loss, flushed toxins, and a better immune system all came to his temporarily optimistic mind.

A better disposition in whole… he thought. Perhaps he might even be able to be healthy and content enough to leave. And maybe begin again on the outside.

This was another one of his favorite practices these days. To formulate little plans to be carried out in the long term. Meticulous well thought out plans. Plans that seemed to make a lot of sense in the moment. On paper. But which never, ever got carried out.

A plan is one thing. Seeing it through is another.

But now, in just the time of his slow reflective walk from the master bathroom to the main stairwell, he was inspired for his all new, wondrous plan. One with health, hope, and promise. And one which unfortunately had next to no chance of being carried out.

As he approached the main stairwell, he paused to take long look through the large hexagonal window that had given him such a cold, shuddering chill before.

Now however as he looked out at the whitened moon shining softly over the back of the property, illuminating the windswept dark, dark green beauty of tops of the tall trees in the wind, he felt a different feeling.

The wind in the trees felt alive. The outside world he had been shut out of again and again, that he had shut himself out of again and again, looked not so cold at the moment. Not worn, still and dead. But now with fresh movement, and new winds of perhaps some kind of change. Project Hydration was now in the works. A new day was now going to dawn for him in his head. One filled with change and inspiration.

He stayed fixated on the beautiful tall trees swaying in the breeze for a minute, and imagined himself going down and taking a walk down to the Bay in the morning. As he and Nora used to lovingly do. He imagined her as she nestled her head in his shoulder, walking arm in arm, slowly in wonderful relaxation. Both of them wearing heavy wool sweaters and using their body heat to keep each other extra warm. Stopping every now and then to look at the darkened branches of the trees that lined the path and wove their way deep into the forest surroundings.

With a longing smile he stood in the window and remembered.

Then, slowly waking out of his dream state, he looked up to the stars. The stars on his property always had clearness and resonance to them. This was due to the way the tall trees lined both sides of the vast back yard, canvasing and holding the light, and creating a quite illuminating effect. At once both mysterious and transparent.

But tonight they seemed brighter than ever. Which to him could only be construed as good news for his new plan of health and rebirth of inspiration.

He loved the way they and the moon shined their heavenly and celestial light on the night grounds. Showering them with their pale and gentle illumination.

He looked down to see this beautiful light and the way it wove through the countless blackened tree trunks stemming out from the ground. The light caressing each trunk, wrapping its arms around their round bases.

Looking down to the grounds, he saw these trees look like a vast still army. Patient and countless. Almost timeless and forever in wait.

Beautiful and old, but with the freshness of nature.

Just to the edge of the tree line however, just now he thought he saw something else. And he was quickly alarmed to see something quite mysterious and shuddering.

He had to squint his eyes and bend his head sideways to try to focus in properly, but about sixty yards away or so on the right side of the lit night grounds he thought he saw a figure.

The figure was half behind a larger tree trunk, but even from far away Mapplethorpe could tell it seemed to be looking up at him. Staring into him, as Mapplethorpe stood in the glowing upstairs window.

He couldn’t tell what it was from the distance. But he could tell it was huge. If not man, than larger than a man.

It seemed to be wearing what looked like a top hat. And didn’t seem to have any human skin coloring, only pale white. Like a giant mask, with a giant head. With long raven hair thinly falling down along the sides of it. And it seemed to wear a long black shawl.

Its eyes looked black from the distance. And the more Mapplethorpe squinted he could see it had long wispy mustache.

All together and at once he was both mystified and horrified. Why was this thing looking at him? What WAS it?!

Mapplethorpe stood in paralyzed fear, as he waited was going to happen next.

He didn’t have to wait long for answer.

As if the creature could definitely see him, and could see Mapplethorpe looking back at him, it seemed to read Mapplethorpe’s mind. And with a horrible speed for its size it at once proceeded to run almost straight, but a little more forward, across the back yard.

Quick as lightning it seemed to move. With a force of a small passenger train. With a loose black cape flying in the air behind almost horizontally behind its black shawl.

Across the yard it ran. When it got to the other side it disappeared behind one of the larger trees about fifty yards out.

Mapplethorpe scanned the surrounding trees on the left side to see it he had missed it moved from one tree to another. But then just mere seconds later, the thing pushed its giant head and shoulder out and peered out at him from behind one of the large trees.

For about ten seconds they stood at a dead stalemate. Staring directly into each other’s faces. Mapplethorpe staring into the black eyeholes the man-thing, and the man-thing staring right through the eyes and into the terrified, rapidly beating heart of Mapplethorpe.

Then, suddenly and without hesitation, the man-thing leapt from behind the tree and began to run back across the yard to the right side again and a bit forward, at about the same angle as before.

While still running quickly, though not quite as fast as before, again he disappeared behind an especially wide, large tree. About forty yards away now.

Mapplethorpe sweated, and nervously waited sight of the huge, terrifying figure again. He almost knew he was behind that tree. He could FEEL him now.

For a short time, he anxiously waited in paralyzing fear. Heart beating like a rapidly pounded drum. No sight of the man-thing. After about thirty seconds, the hopeful thought came in that maybe it had gone away. Praying it had gone away. That maybe it was just a bad dream, and a figment of Mapplethorpe’s murky, isolated mind.

But just then, as if on cue to extinguish all light and hope, the man-thing appeared again. Larger than ever now. And now exposing about two-thirds of its massive body out from the tree.

After continuing to stare at Mapplethorpe for some seconds, it once again leapt from the tree to run across and forward back left across the yard. This time, almost in just a brisk jog, until it reached another large tree across the yard. Its monstrous frame moved up and down in an imposing fashion like the mass and breadth of a Clydesdale horse.

Closer and even larger now, it then reappeared and stared again from the tree approximately thirty yards away, and Mapplethorpe could see more ominous details.

Its white face was heavily wrinkled, and under its long wispy mustache was seemingly painted red over the full width of its mouth, all the way up to its nose. And the closer it came, the more dreadfully horrifying it looked.

Mapplethorpe was not only motionless in fear, but his mind raced, transfixed on the mystery of this giant, mysterious figure. But while transfixed the terrible dread was always there.

Again after about ten seconds, the man-thing moved to run across the yard to the right. But this time it was just a slow jog forward and across. Its long shawl and cape brushed up and down against its huge frame, until it reached a smaller tree about twenty yards away.

There behind the small tree it stood. Facing straight ahead into the tree. Seemingly forgetting about Mapplethorpe for the moment. Its monstrosity of a body frame exposed from behind both sides of the tree. Even its giant head could be seen on both sides. Except for its pitch-black eyes.

There it stood, almost in full view of Mapplethorpe, but staring directly into the other side of the tree. Almost as if in a pause of a trance.

Mapplethorpe at this moment shook himself from his own almost trance like state, and the thought came to him to run. Hide. Anywhere. Now. Somehow stop the inevitable closing in of the man-thing.

But just as he was about to quickly move, he instead began to duck down so that only his face could be seen peering out the window. Somehow, this seemed liked some sort of first defense, with the wall hiding his body from the neck below.

Just as he ducked down the man-thing began to move from the smaller tree, back left across the yard. This time in a normal paced walk. Looking deathly grim, and reflectively straight down as it walked, as if Mapplethorpe was the furthest thing from its seemingly troubled mind. Though Mapplethorpe knew this not to be true.

He knew the man-thing was transfixed on him.

The man-thing was now in full detailed view from the light of the house, and Mapplethorpe thought, it may very well actually be a man. A man in some horrible, horrible, yet regal caped costume.

If a man though, he was one the largest, most monstrous men Mapplethorpe had ever seen. The image even extraordinarily larger by what now had to be a giant mask on its head. White and wrinkled.

Then Mapplethorpe saw it begin to move again, now walking methodically back across the yard to the right.

When the giant man or thing finally reached another large tree on the right side about ten feet away below, it went out of view, as Mapplethorpe was still ducked down with just the top half of his head exposed near the bottom of the frame of the window, twenty feet above the ground, and couldn’t see it from his position.

The man or thing, unseen by Mapplethorpe, disappeared behind a giant tree on the right close to the house, with its head still down.

As Mapplethorpe peered from the bottom of the window, he knew he must summon the strength to raise himself up about two feet or so to see if the man or thing was still there. Or if it was moving in further.

Perhaps dreadfully now to the house.

So Mapplethorpe slowly began to push himself up, very slowly, out of his crouch. Stretching his neck to stay as low as he could with the rest of his body, he just reached the view of the trees to the right just below the window.

No sight of the man or thing.

For many seconds. Then for a couple of minutes, he waited. The minutes seemed like hours.

Thoughts raced through Mapplethorpe’s petrified mind. Was it behind the trees? Had it finally had enough and left?! WHERE was it?!!!

And most horrifyingly, Had it moved towards the house?!!!

Out of a combination of dread and an illogical move of panic, Mapplethorpe somehow found himself now slowly raising his body to a full stand in the window. Closing his face in on the window. Turning and leaning his head while scanning from the view of the haunting trees below to other close areas of the yard. And back to the trees again. Hoping against hope this monster was gone. And then scanning back to the yard. And back to the trees. Where was it?!!!

Then, just as he was turning his head frantically from the yard back to the trees. Slowly, IT appeared.

With its head still down, slowly it walked, very slowly from the large tree. Straight across the yard, from the right it walked below the view of Mapplethorpe standing, jaw wide open, in the window above.

Solemnly, almost in ritual it walked, head still down. The seconds were now like hours for Mapplethorpe.

The giant man or thing looked more terribly huge than ever before as it walked. Almost seeming to dwarf and darken the rest of the vast lightened yard in the distance with his monstrous frame and terrible, haunting presence.

Then just as it reached halfway across the yard, just directly below the window, the giant figure came to a stop. The comparatively smallish figure of Mapplethorpe above stood in the middle of the window, paralyzed to even move. And the man or thing turned straight towards Mapplethorpe, with head still faced down.

Mapplethorpe could not see its ghastly face, as the wide, full brim on the tall top hat covered any view of it. The black shawl and cape looked like a tent as it draped down over the width of its impossibly wide shoulders.

There it stood, head down. On the ground twenty feet below, and just ten feet in front of Mapplethorpe.

Mapplethorpe wanted to run, far away, but was too frightened to even move a muscle. His fear had struck Mapplethorpe motionless. He was too horrified too even take his eyes, even as much as he wanted to, off the terrifying, hulking figure below.

For about thirty more seconds, which seemed like years to Mapplethorpe, the figure stood facing him, with its head still down.

Then, finally, in a slow controlled raise. The awful man or thing raised his head. And stared directly into, and through, the terrified, petrified eyes of John Mapplethorpe.

Chapter 2

Mapplethorpe couldn’t believe the terrible horrors of what he saw in that wretched face.

The giant, white, deeply wrinkled faced masked with its elderly, pursed mouth in a slight downturned frown. A frown depicting at once sadness, rage, stillness, and anger. A horrible anger.

Still too much in an absolute sea of fear to even move a muscle, Mapplethorpe just stood with his mouth open in an unmoving shock.

The huge, masked person, or maybe still a thing, stared up at him for what felt like an eternity. Even if Mapplethorpe could have moved, he most likely wouldn’t have moved a muscle anyway. As now, any movement from him might stir aggression in that horrid figure below. The way a slight movement of any kind