Chapter 8: A Call from the Past

Chapter 8: A Call from the Past

The sketchbook lay on the coffee table like an open wound. Silas couldn't look away. The laws of physics, already strained to their breaking point, had finally snapped. Charcoal, fixed to paper with a chemical sealant, does not move. It does not rearrange itself. It does not creep across the page like a living thing.

But it had.

His creation, his attempt to cage the monster in lines and shadow, had become its vessel. He stared at the drawing, at the tiny, perfect silhouette of the man in the tall hat standing on the meticulously rendered lawn, and a cold, acid dread churned in his gut. This wasn't a record of what he had seen. It was a prophecy. A timetable.

His gaze was pulled, as if by an invisible string, toward the living room window. Toward the real lawn, just on the other side of the glass. The morning sun was bright, making the grass a cheerful, almost mocking green. He had to look. He had to know if the prophecy had come to pass.

Every instinct screamed at him to run, to hide in the windowless bathroom and never come out. But the need to know was stronger, a morbid, irresistible gravity. He rose from the couch, his movements stiff and robotic, like an old man. Each step across the hardwood floor was a thunderclap in the crushing silence. The short distance to the window felt like a mile-long walk to a gallows.

He reached the window, his breath held tight in his chest. His fingers, smudged with the black charcoal of his own undoing, trembled as they reached for the edge of the curtain. He didn't pull it back. He just peeled back a tiny sliver, creating a pinhole view of the outside world.

He pressed his eye to the gap.

The lawn was empty.

Sunlight. Green grass. A child’s red tricycle overturned near the sidewalk. A world that was aggressively, beautifully normal. There was no one there.

A shaky, hysterical laugh bubbled up in his throat. It was just a drawing. His mind, raw and unmedicated, was playing tricks on him again. The stress, the lack of sleep—

No. He knew, with a certainty that was colder and sharper than any fear he had yet experienced, that he wasn't wrong. The drawing had changed. The lawn was empty, not because it was a delusion, but because it wasn't time yet. The sketchbook wasn't a live feed. It was an announcement. A warning of an impending arrival.

He stumbled back, his mind racing. Who could he call? Rob was gone, and even if he were here, what could he do? Offer more useless platitudes about stress? Drag him back to Dr. Finch for a stronger dose of the blindfold? He was utterly, terrifyingly alone.

Alone, except for the family that had cast him out. His father, a man of cold, hard pragmatism, would sooner have him committed than listen to a single word of this. His mother… she would just cry, her tears another weapon in his father's arsenal of guilt.

But then there was Stephen.

His older brother. Stephen, the golden child, the one who had done everything right. Went to the right school, got the right grades, landed the right high-paying job in corporate law. Stephen, who had stood silently by his father’s side as Silas was excommunicated from the family, his expression a careful mask of disappointment. They hadn’t spoken in months, not since a brief, clipped phone call where Stephen had advised him to “just apologize and do what Dad says.”

Calling him was a desperate, humiliating act of last resort. It was admitting that he, the defiant artist, couldn't handle the world on his own. It was crawling back. But the image of the man on the lawn—the promise of his arrival—obliterated his pride.

He found his phone, his thumb hovering over his brother’s name in his contact list. He felt like he was about to jump off a cliff. He pressed the screen.

The phone rang twice, each tone an eternity, before Stephen picked up.

“Silas?” The voice was crisp, annoyed, and distant. The sound of a man interrupted.

“Stephen. Hi.” Silas’s own voice was a hoarse croak.

“Is something wrong? If this is about money, Silas, I told you, I can’t…”

“It’s not about money,” Silas cut in, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I wouldn’t ask. I… I’m in trouble. I need to ask you something.”

There was a long, weary sigh on the other end of the line. “What kind of trouble? Did you get kicked out of your friend’s place? Did you get picked up for something?”

“No! Nothing like that. It’s… it’s hard to explain. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“I already think you’re crazy, Silas. You threw away a hundred-thousand-dollar education to draw sad-looking trees. What is it?”

The casual cruelty of the remark was a physical blow, but Silas couldn’t afford to hang up. He had to push through. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Have you… have you ever heard any stories? In the family? About… someone being followed? Or haunted?”

Stephen laughed, a short, humorless bark. “Is this a joke? Are you on something? What are you talking about, ‘haunted’?”

“I’m serious, Stephen! Please. Just listen. For thirty seconds. Please.” The desperation in his own voice shamed him, but it also seemed to capture his brother’s attention. The silence that followed was expectant.

“I’m seeing someone,” Silas said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “A man. He’s following me. A tall man, in a long black coat. He wears… he wears a tall hat, a wide-brimmed one. You can’t see his face.”

The silence on the other end of the line stretched. It was no longer an annoyed silence. It was a dense, heavy, absolute stillness. For a moment, Silas thought the call had dropped.

“Stephen? Are you there?”

When his brother’s voice finally came, it was unrecognizable. The crisp, condescending tone was gone, replaced by a tight, strained whisper that was thin and sharp as a razor’s edge.

“...What did you say he was wearing?”

“A black coat,” Silas repeated, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs. “And a tall hat.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath. The sound of a chair scraping against a floor. A muffled curse.

“Stephen, what is it? Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Silas,” Stephen said, his voice now a low, urgent hiss. “Listen to me. Listen to me very carefully. Where are you seeing him?”

“Outside. In the distance, mostly. But… he’s getting closer.” The changed drawing flashed in his mind. He’s on the lawn.

Another pause, this one vibrating with a frantic, palpable energy. “Have you looked at him? Directly? Has he… have you seen his eyes?”

The memory of the roadside encounter, of the swirling white voids that had devoured his consciousness, slammed into him. “Yes! Once. On the road. There was nothing there, just… just white light…”

“Oh, God,” Stephen breathed, the words a prayer of pure terror. “Okay. Okay. Silas, you need to listen to me. This is the most important thing I will ever tell you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Silas whispered, gripping the phone so tightly his knuckles were white.

“Do not look at its eyes again. Ever. You glance at it, you see where it is, but you never, ever meet its gaze. You hear me? Never. And the second rule, the most important one… you cannot let it know that you’re afraid.”

“What? How…”

“You just don’t!” Stephen’s voice cracked, a fissure of raw panic breaking through. “You have to pretend. You have to be a stone wall. It feeds on it, Silas. It gets stronger. Fear is what draws it closer. You have to starve it.”

The words didn't make logical sense, but they resonated with a terrifying, intuitive truth. It wasn't a stalker. It was a predator, and his fear was the scent of blood in the water. The validation he had so desperately craved was here, but it was a thousand times more horrifying than his own insanity had been. He wasn't the first. This was known. This had rules.

“Stephen, what is it? Who is it?” Silas pleaded. “What do you know?”

“I can’t. Not on the phone,” Stephen said quickly. The sound of rustling papers, of frantic movement, came through the receiver. “Shit. I have to go. I have to make a call. I’ll call you back. Just… stay inside. Lock the doors. And if you see it, you look away. You pretend it’s a statue, a garden gnome, a fucking mailbox. You feel nothing. Do you understand me, Silas? You feel nothing!”

“Stephen, wait—!”

But the line went dead.

Silas stood frozen in the middle of the living room, the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the monotonous hum of the dial tone. The silence of the house rushed back in, but it was a different kind of silence now. It was filled with a new and terrible knowledge.

He was not alone in this. But he was not safe. The thing outside was not just his monster. It was his family's. And it was coming for him.

He lowered the phone, his gaze falling once more upon the open sketchbook. The charcoal figure on the lawn no longer looked like a prophecy. It looked like an appointment. And it was an appointment he now knew he had to keep.