Estimated reading time — 17 minutes

My name is Holly West, and for a decade I’ve been sent on various operations to investigate the strange, the unexplainable, and the downright horrifying.

Cryptids, sinister cults, sentient buildings. You name it. My organization deals with the things the cops can’t hope to. While my job isn’t as particularly flashy as my colleagues, I still have more than my fair share of excitement. If that’s really what you wanna call it.

There’s jobs like the one my older sister Athena has, the head of the science division over at a different facility. Then there’s the field agents, the ones who gear up, go out, and take the threats head on, and on occasion dying horribly in the process.

Then there’s my job, Field Investigator. My job is to determine if some kind of threat, be it an entity, structure, or phenomenon is actually worth taking further action on if there isn’t enough reason already.

There was one job in particular that I still think about to this day. Essentially, I was sent out to investigate a collection of missing persons cases in the Midwest. Particularly in northern Wisconsin. If you know anything about the Midwest, you know that at a lot of times, it’s a whole lot of nothing as far as urban development goes. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the more farmland the better in my book.

Regardless, the missing persons cases in the area I was looking into had some… Unusual information about them. Such as the case of a fourteen year old boy named Lenny Hund. The story that the cops passed onto us goes something like this.

Lenny’s father, Jackson Hund. Had taken him out on a deer hunting trip back on November 28th, 2007. Or one week ago as of now.

Anyway, the trip went relatively normally, although they didn’t manage to kill anything. So after a while they decide to pack it up and head home. According to the father Jackson, they were somewhere between three to four miles inside the woods, and he had felt that it was maybe the thick canopy above them, or a mistake by the news. But it was supposedly getting darker two hours earlier than the predicted sunset time for that day.

Not wanting him and his son to have to hike back that far in the dead of the night, they began to make their way back. Although at one point his son stopped them, telling his dad he needed to go pee. So Lenny goes off and does his business only fifty feet or so away from his dad.

Jackson figures he might as well relieve himself as well, and that way neither of them would have to interrupt the rest of the trip back. Jackson walks off trail, does his business, and returns after a minute or two to wait for Lenny. Only Lenny still wasn’t there after he returned.

So he continues to wait, just considering the fact that maybe he actually had to go number two as well and was just too embarrassed to say anything. Regardless, he stands there, expecting Lenny back within a few minutes or so.

But after waiting another several minutes, Jackson starts to worry, and calls out for his son. Not quite yet panicked, but enough to wanna check on him, to ensure things were alright.

“Buddy! where you at?” Jackson called out through the trees. He waited a few seconds for a response, but didn’t receive one.

Jackson then walks off the trail, and goes over to where Lenny had gone to pee. He sees his footprints just fine, leaving imprints in the fallen leaves and dirt. It was relatively warm for November at the time, and as such the ground was still soft enough for him to implant his footprints.

But he gets to the specific area where Lenny said he’d be, and there’s nothing. The footprints end at a tree that had darkened markings on the bottom of its trunk, indicating that Lenny did in fact make it there to urinate.

“Lenny! Lenny, you better answer me boy!” Jackson continued to shout, his yells now shifting into more of a desperate tone than an authoritative one. He had hoped the stern tone would draw out his son in the event this was some sort of prank or attempt to scare his dad.

There came no response to Jackson’s hollering for his son, so with his hunting rifle still in hand he walked around the area once more. Looking for any clues or indications that might’ve helped.

“Goddamn Lenny this ain’t funny! Giving your old man a heart attack isn’t funny you hear me!” Jackson continued to cry out.

After still finding no sign of where he went. Jackson ran back to the spot on the trail where they originally broke off in an effort to see if it was maybe a case of bad timing. He got back there in seconds after running, only to be met with more silence, and not his son Lenny.

With the bad signal in their location, Jackson first made an attempt to search the area himself, repeatedly calling out Lenny’s name and even firing his rifle at the ground in an attempt to ensure his son could hear him. He tried calling his cellphone too.

He spent an extra two hours out there. And by the time he had decided it was time to head to the ranger station just outside the woods entrance to report his son’s disappearance, darkness had fully engulfed the forest. And all he had was his flashlight to lead him along the way.

Jackson reports that on his way out of the woods, he reports that it was complete and utterly silent. Not even an owl made a peep. Yet he reported hearing them the previous evening before when he was out on a hike to scout out the woods for potential hunting spots.

All that could be heard was the crunching of twigs and leaves as he marched forward and shined his flashlight ahead. Hoping that one time he did, he’d see his son illuminated in the beam. But no, it was nothing but trees, brush, and dead rotting logs.

Jackson reported the feeling of being watched. Coupled with the complete silence, it was entirely possible there may have been a black bear nearby. Although when this was brought up, Jackson had told the police officer who interviewed him originally to fuck off. Because as he put it:

“I know the difference between feeling watched, and feeling hunted.”

Citing that black bears don’t hunt humans, much less stalk them over time.

Yet, when asked to provide an example of something else that could have made him feel this way, Jackson said he saw or heard nothing.

Eventually Jackson exits the woods and goes to the ranger station to report Lenny’s disappearance. Surprisingly Jackson was pleased with how genuinely concerned and quick to act the ranger who took his report was, and immediately sprung into action.

A team was quickly sent out to scour the woods for Lenny, and Jackson waited in what only could’ve been terrible anticipation. A fifty-fifty chance between great relief, or horrifying news that his son had been lost to the woods as many before him.

Regardless, after a couple hours they actually did find Lenny. Much to Jackson’s relief. When asked about where he was or where he had gone. He said he didn’t remember, but was just happy to be reunited with his dad. The ranger that found him said he discovered him laying down on a dead tree, supposedly sleeping on top of it, but was able to wake him up by yelling his name.

The first thing they noticed is that his eyes were bloodshot a bit, like he had gotten a bunch of shampoo in them. He complained about them shining the flashlight in his face, but other than that. Lenny seemed to be relatively fine. He reported not being able to remember how he got separated from his dad, or how he ended up on the dead tree.

They returned him to his father, they reunited, went to the clinic for a quick health check, and then went home, Jackson got a stern talking to from his wife a.k.a Lenny’s mother. And all seemed well. Lenny mostly stays inside his room for the next couple days.

Three days go by, it’s just after 11:00pm on this night. Jackson reports hearing footsteps coming from Lenny’s bedroom, he figured he was getting up to come downstairs to have a midnight snack. So Jackson decided to do the same for himself, it was a somewhat common occurrence between the two of them to get up to get some sort of beverage or food in the middle of the night.

Jackson began to walk upstairs, and he reported hearing Lenny simultaneously coming downstairs. Jackson’s set of steps were longer, so before he reached the top he reported hearing Lenny’s footsteps shift off the stairs into the living room.

Jackson, confused, just reached the top of the stairs. Expecting to see Lenny going for the couch or one of the padded chairs. Instead. He witnessed something that he described as something that would go on to haunt him forever.

The front door was wide open. The back of it against the immediate wall of the living room. Just in front beyond the threshold, on the front porch stood Lenny. Dressed in his pajamas. He was facing away from Jackson, and looking forward into the night-time darkness.

“Son, are you alright? Why ya got the door open?” Jackson had asked. His son turned his head, glancing at his father over his shoulder silently.

Most of his face had remained obscured, but he did catch a glimpse of the right side of it. He saw his right eye, and the bloodshot appearance had emerged again. Only this time worse than before, his whole eye seemingly bloodshot, and not an ounce of white left in his sclera, just a deep red. Only his pupils remained with their color. But even that was fading.

Taken aback, and worried by his son’s lack of a verbal response. Jackson began to cross the distance and walk over to the front door to get to Lenny. But Lenny simply walked forward, stepping off the front porch and turning the corner.

“Lenny, come here damn it!” Jackson reported shouting after him.

Jackson went out after him, stepping through the threshold of the front door and turning the corner to the front of the house to chase after his son. Only to actually get around the corner and see… Nothing. Nothing but an empty driveway and lawn. It was impossible there was no way Lenny would’ve been to have gone more than twenty to forty feet away in that timespan.

He called out for Lenny, continuously shouting his name while circling the property and waking up the neighbors in the process. Jackson looked out for any footsteps, anything that might’ve been left behind by Lenny. But he simply vanished into the night. Like he was plucked out of thin air.

And that brings the case to where it is now. Jackson was brought in for further questioning here at Site Fifteen. I was deployed out to the area in the woods where Lenny had initially disappeared, as well as checking around the house’s property area.

I wasn’t naive enough to think there was a reasonable explanation. There wasn’t, which is why we were involved in the first place. Regardless, I wasn’t able to turn up very much.

This next one is a bit more odd. More so than the last one. And most of the report comes from my very own experience.

Just one week after Lenny’s disappearance, came the disappearance of four security guards in an abandoned factory. Actually only seven miles from where Lenny had originally disappeared in the woods. It was relatively secluded.

The report sent in details that the guards were on duty like any other night. They belonged to a security company that had been hired to watch over the factory after it had been bought out by a corporation and was awaiting reservations.

Anyway, the night time supervisor over at the control center suddenly gets a call from one of the guys while they’re on duty guarding the factory. The call was marked as coming in just before 1:00am. For the purposes of this report it will be fully transcribed verbatim here:

“Hello? You there Bossman?”

“Yeah Rich I’m here, what’s goin on? You guys getting spooked? Haha.”

“No actually me and the guys were wondering about the other guy you had on the watch schedule tonight.”

“I don’t have anyone else on the schedule tonight. Should just be you four.”

“Well no disrespect but you might wanna check again because I’m at the east side receiving doors of the building and there’s another truck parked out here. It ain’t Aaron’s, Bob’s or Tim’s. Or mine.”

“Are you bored over there and just trying to fuck with me?”

“No no, honest honest. I was just curious.”

“Yeah well maybe somebody left it behind.”

“No, because it’s running. Like, keys are in the ignition and everything. I tried looking for the owner or whoever’s driving but I couldn’t find him, figured after that it might’ve been a new guy or something you didn’t tell us about and he got lost on his way trying to find us before the shift started.”

“Well just leave it alone for now and keep an eye on it. If you see whoever it is that put it there then just go ahead and let him know he’s on private property.”

“Alright, hey I gotta ask can I take an extra five on my break tonight? My wife made me another sub and it’s fucking huge, bigger than the last couple she’s made and I’m starving. Don’t wanna let her hard work go to waste..”

“What? This is the third time this month you’ve asked to do that. Are you telling her to make those sandwiches bigger on purpose just so you can have extra time on lunch?”

“No no, I actually even tried to let her know to make them a little smaller, but she don’t take no for an answer. She’s a good woman and I don’t have the heart to get mad at her for showing a little love you know?”

“Fine, take the extra five.”

“Appreciate you bossman, alright I’ll get back to-.”

The phone call ended abruptly there. Just cut off and went straight to silence. No scream, sounds of struggle or anything that would indicate a use of force. Of course it could’ve been an issue of poor signal though. That was our working theory originally.

The night time supervisor had figured the employee had simply hung the phone up a little early before finishing his sentence, and returned to his duties as normal. Didn’t think too much of it.

The night time supervisor returned to his duties as well. Going over reports, checking in with other teams at different contracted locations. Following up on the nightly duties checklist at the control center and all the other things apart of his job description.

Up until he received another phone call, from the same employee that had previously called. He answered. In the report, it details that the voice responding to the supervisor sounded similar to Rich, the employee. Except, his voice maintained a slight echo. This was written off as a result of a technical malfunction.

“What is it this time? Did the boogeyman get you in his truck?”

“…Hi there…”

“Hello, who is this?”

“…Who is this…?”

“Rich you’re not fucking funny. Quit it and get back to work.”

“…I am working. You’re working too…”

“Rich, I won’t lie when I say you’re my favorite so if you don’t hang up this phone and get back to patrol I’m going to have to write you up.”

“…No need for that…Please come to the building…”

“Rich!”

“…This is Rich… Please come here… I need your help…Bossman…”

“Rich… you.. Are you alright..? Where’s the other guys..?”

“This is not your hour, Simon…”

“What the hell? Who is this? You think you’re funny? This some sort of joke?”

Whoever was on the other end of the call proceeded to not reply any further. This prompted the supervisor to hang up and contact the police after none of the other guards would respond to his attempts to contact them. You see over time, the echo in the voice on the other end of the phone intensified, up until the point where it didn’t sound like Rich nearly at all. Nor any of the other security guards with him on duty that night.

Upon the police’s arrival, they searched the property for the four security guards. This included searching the surrounding woods. They of course were unable to find the missing guards, but something of note did end up turning up.

Each of their flashlights were found, with the bulb covers shattered in various spots around the property. Along with that, the police did discover the pickup truck Rich had spoken about. It was parked on the east side of the property. The headlights on it were also shattered.

After pulling the registration information from the truck, the police discovered it belonged to a man named Jeremy Noon. And his fingerprints were also detected inside. When the police had spoken to Jeremy’s wife, Rita Noon. She reported that she and her husband had been in an argument about a recent “reclusiveness” as she put it, that very same night.

The story goes that her husband had recently gone on a hike in the woods, and the area he hiked was not far from where Lenny and Jackson’s incident had taken place.

Jeremy had hiked alone, and supposedly he had come home a few hours later than he had originally told Rita he would be. Rita had stated that Jeremy was typically a very punctual man, and it wasn’t like him to ever be late by even a few minutes, let alone hours.

Upon his return home, he’d consistently stay inside their bedroom for the next few days, always having the curtains drawn and the lights off. He reportedly snapped at Rita for turning the bedroom lamp on, and he seemingly wanted nothing to do with the outside world.

According to Rita’s account this was also very unlike Jeremy, he was consistently patient and not quick to lose his temper. So fearing that there was something seriously wrong, she went to speak with Jeremy in their room on the evening he disappeared, see if he needed help or something along those lines.

Jeremy’s reclusive attitude had remained consistent. And he snapped at her once more, prompting an argument to break out between the couple. Which ended with Jeremy declaring that he was leaving the house in order to get away from her because she kept “hurting his eyes.”

He fled the home, got into his truck, and left, not telling Rita where it was he’d be going. Jeremy, like the others, is also still missing to this day. Any attempts to reach his cellphone have not been successful.

There is, however, one piece of information not yet mentioned. Something that the police had found inside of Jeremy’s pickup truck. His wedding ring. It was on the floor just beneath the driver’s seat.

According to the officer who discovered it, as well as the forensics team who examined it before passing the case over to us.. The ring, which originally was solid gold, had its color and texture seemingly altered, or at least, part of it.

Half the ring was what you’d expect, solid, hard, yellow gold. It felt as such, tested and resulted as such. Whatever. But then there was the other half of the ring, which had turned black, not just black, but a black that seemed to shift and pulsate slightly, as if it were tv static brought to life.

It wasn’t solid, nor a liquid, the closest thing to classify it as would be a gas. The officer who found it, and the forensic investigator were able to both put their finger right through the black static half of the ring. It didn’t deform, it didn’t move or disperse in any way that it wasn’t already, it maintained its exact form. The forensic guy tested it by putting other objects through the black half of the ring, and they all passed through with no problem. Like a needle moving through plain old air.

This particular piece of evidence, along with Lenny’s vanishing from his parents property, is what caused conventional law enforcement to pass the case over to us.

Which meant that my time had eventually come to investigate the legitimacy, to see if this was truly worth The Agency’s resources. After I finished looking around Jackson and Lenny’s house, I was deployed to the factory where Rich and all the other security guards had gone missing.

I was to do one perimeter lap around the property, interior and exterior. Of course I wasn’t left helpless, they had sent me in with forty five and extra rounds of ammunition in the event it was needed. Then there was also my portable voice recorder as well. But that was just for documentation purposes.

I arrived just after 10:00pm and did an exterior walk of the property with nothing of note happening. Just a bunch of trees, cracked bricks, and a pathway that was being reclaimed by mother nature.

The night air was cool, a slight breeze blowing. The trees surrounding the property towered over me, the brush in the forest around it was thick, concealing nearly everything behind it.

After I made it inside, I turned on my flashlight, illuminating a good chunk of the first room, a somewhat dilapidated mess of old conveyor belts, machine stanchions, and other various equipment. The roof was lined with pipes and ducts, some opened and exposed, the walls had their paint half peeled off.

I slammed my fist against a sheet of metal, hoping that the noise would spook any animals inside to reveal themselves. Some water had dripped down from the ceiling, I looked up and saw an obvious section of corroded material where the water was leaking through.

It was quiet, my footsteps tapping against the cement beneath my feet, they echoed slightly, and the building almost felt as if it had its own character, like it was alive, but asleep. Waiting for morning to arrive.

I marched forward, down through an aisle between two sets of large conveyor belts, one which had a rotted cardboard box sitting atop it. Its shape deformed, caved in on itself.

My footsteps were the only sound to accompany me next to my breathing. I couldn’t yet tell if there was any sort of other presence with me in the structure. But that would change soon enough.

Eventually I came upon the staircase leading to the second floor of the factory. An old metallic set of stairs with yellow handles that had half the paint chipped off on them. The darkness obscured the second set, which was on a thin railed platform.

The odd thing is, is that my flashlight should’ve been able to illuminate the second set from where I was standing, at the bottom step of the first set. I pointed my flashlight more directly at the darkened area, and there was still nothing.

I spoke into my voice recorder, speaking about a potential light based SN phenomena. SN standing for supernatural.

I took a few steps up, the old rusted metal of the stairs letting off a pained hum under my feet. I grabbed onto the railing, still shining my flashlight at the blackened second set of stairs above.

The darkness almost seemed to engulf it, consume it, as if the darkness itself was a physical wall that was trapping it within. I stopped when I was about halfway up the first set of stairs, my flashlight still pointed at the second set.

I heard a sudden creak, and I froze as if the metal had shifted under me. I kept my gaze held forward and I steadied my breathing. Staring into that wall of darkness was basically staring into a void.

But the void… The void stared right back.

At first I thought it might’ve been some trick, some sort of illusion produced by whatever the hell was going on. You see, my flashlight continued to illuminate nothing inside the darkness, as if it were being swallowed up by it.

But my eyes were immediately drawn to what I could only describe as two, faintly glowing dots, a pair of them, no bigger the size of nickels and no more than a couple inches apart from one another. They were a bright red in color, and my mind went to something we had previously encountered, The Pine People, humanoids with dirt skin and covered in pine needles all over their bodies, but then I quickly remembered that their eyes were yellow. Not red.

I took a step back, not because whatever entity those red eyes belong to had leapt out of the darkness, not because it tried to reach out to grab me and pull me in. No, the pair of glowing red dots remained still, fixed in their position about six feet off the ground, or where the ground should’ve been if it wasn’t consumed in an inky black void.

Instead, I looked down, and saw that the darkness itself, somehow, some way, was inching toward me. As if someone had spilled black colored syrup on an incline. The darkness inched across the floor, like hot magma traveling down the side of a volcano it had just emerged from.

I continued to step back, wanting to turn and run, but also wanting to get the job done, to learn what I could so I’d have something to report back. I got to the top step of the first set of stairs, and backed down to the second, as both the wall of darkness, and the red glowing dots continued to move forward, now slowly speeding up.

A voice had rung out from the darkness, it’s not something I can truly describe in detail, but to the best of my ability it was of average pitch, not too high, not too low with a scratchy undertone. But what made it stand out most was its echo, as if whatever was speaking, was using the voices of dozens at once, and not just its own.

It said…

“This, is not your hour, Holly.”

Once it said my name, I knew that it was time to leave, that now the danger had truly begun. I had considered myself somewhat desensitized to cryptids, to strange phenomena and occurrences. But never once had an entity I never encountered previously known my name off the jump.

I fled down the stairs. Luckily I had the voice recorder on when it spoke. And that would help me cement the fact that this… Issue, needed to be dealt with.

I didn’t scream when I ran, I didn’t shout for whatever it was to stay away. I kept my mouth shut and fled. Because somehow I knew that trying to shoot it wouldn’t work, I didn’t need to try to confirm. Common sense and my gut did that for me.

I ran through the sets of conveyor belts, blasting through them like a bat out of hell without looking back over my shoulder. I jumped over a fallen chunk of debris before ducking under one of the half collapsed door frames.

Once I was back outside, I bolted to my car, not stopping until I had hit the driver’s side and threw the door open and jumped inside. Keys were in the ignition, so I turned them. But not before looking out my windshield, giving one last look at the factory building.

On the front end were several windows, most of which sat on the top floor. Each of them possessing a pair of glowing red dots just behind the glass, or what remained of the glass when it came to some of them. Again I couldn’t see whatever it was these red eyes belong to. All I knew was that whatever it was, whatever they were, saw me.

But then I shifted my gaze downward as my car’s engine roared to life. And saw the main doorway entrance to the building. I looked forward, and spotted a figure standing in the threshold just as my headlights began to suddenly flicker.

The shape was humanoid, appearing to be a man. His body was entirely black, as if he had a skin tight suit made of a pure void on him. A shadow is the best I could describe it, a shadow that looked entirely too three dimensional to be just and only that.
Where a man’s eyes should be were the dots. The glowing red dots that pierced through the night time darkness as my headlights continued to flicker.

I looked down, and saw that this shadow man wasn’t actually standing at all. But levitating, only slightly. As his feet, also pure black, were a few inches off the ground. But going back to my flickering headlights, I flipped on my brights and this seemed to repel him, as he slowly floated backward inside the structure with his shadowy arms held up in front of his face.

But I didn’t waste any more time. I turned my car around, put my foot on the gas, and shot down the dirt road. Getting the hell out of there and not testing my luck any further.

Credit: MrMills45

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