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North



Estimated reading time — 11 minutes

There was a time when I believed running might help; if I could pack up my few belongings and burn the rest under cover of darkness and flee, I could start over somewhere new. But in this bleak frostbitten place, I admit to myself, truly, that I cannot outrun him, that I can never escape him. And should I slip into the warm embrace of doubt after an unnaturally long stretch of peaceful, empty days, he will be only too happy to remind me of this.

There’s almost nothing left he can take from me. The days before him are fading like an aged photograph now, a hazy yellow dream of stability and happiness with a long future of happy possibilities stretched ahead. Today, I am huddled in the eaves of a collapsing barn in the Yukon Territory, desperately trying to start a fire with sodden and rotting hay. The more I burn now, the less I have to use as a blanket. It is a delicate balance that I have not quite mastered.

I hitchhiked across the border two months ago, and have been making my way north steadily. Going any other direction than north is no longer an option. I do not know what I will do when I reach the Artic Ocean. Perhaps continue across the sea ice, if it has not thinned to the point of breaking. What I cannot do, ever, is return to my life, to Seattle. I can never see my son again.

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It seems absurd to think that just less than a year ago, my life was unfractured, whole. The pieces of my life were trite and predictable. I was an insomniac, and used to lie awake staring at the ceiling, chewing over my doubts and secret fears: that I may not be able to keep up house payments, that I may not love my wife any longer, that I would repeat my father’s failures with my son. These phantoms of doubt and fear filled my bleeding stomach with ragged holes that I recall now with almost fond nostalgia. How easy it all was, then.

The manila envelope was stuffed in the mail slot when I rose to prepare breakfast for my son. Unlabeled, unaddressed, only my name was written on it in jagged capitals. It contained one black VHS cassette, its label long ago faded and blurred. Over the top of the label was a black ink smiley face, blindly grinning up at me.

It took me a day to find our VCR in the small attic crawlspace, bundled with a few dozen home movies of our son’s soccer games and birthday parties. Late at night, long after my family had drifted off to sleep, I connected it to our television. It whirred to life with a sharp smell of burning dust, and I inserted the tape.

For a few moments, the static leapt and fizzled on the screen, then blackness. The silent image began to brighten to a washed out shot of an elementary school parking lot at the start of day, and the picture zoomed into a small group of children among the chaos, and I recognized my son and a few of his friends. I began to wonder if I had accidentally retrieved one of our old tapes, when, almost as an answer, the camera tilted forward into the inside of a car. The zoom lens racked forward on a crisp copy of the Times and lingered momentarily on the date. Two days prior. My guts curdled with unease as the screen again went dark. A few seconds later, letters appeared, the bright and jagged electronic font of cheap in-camera titles.

YOU CAN’T SAVE HIM.

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My insides turned to ice water and I slumped in the couch, my limbs feeling distant and useless. The letters vanished in a gust of static.

I did not tell my wife, and certainly never told my son, but I drove to the police station in the morning. The heavy oppressive dread of the night before had somewhat dissipated as I handed over the tape to the jowly and half asleep officer, and answered a few mumbled questions. He registered my concern with condescending impatience, and I eventually had to clasp my jaw and walk out quietly when I realized he would never view it as anything but a harmless prank.

Two days later, with the unease in my stomach waning little, I received another tape, adorned with the same grinning cartoon. The image that this time resolved out of the static was a hallway, painted in night vision and gloom. The unseen cameraman walked slowly forward towards the last door. A little sigh of relief bubbled up in me when I could not recognize the doors and windowless walls. This was someone else’s house.

The camera tilted down to see a gloved hand twist the doorknob; the only sound in the air was the clacking spin of the VCR heads and the tape’s reels. The door opened to reveal a small and cramped bedroom and a dark, huddled form on the bed. The camera approached the form and a sleeping face soon filled the screen. It teased me with familiarity, tantalizingly close, but I could not yet recognize the face.

Two objects dropped down onto the man’s chest, thudding slightly and rousing him from his sleep. The first, a policeman’s badge, all I need in a flash of recognition to connect this slowly stirring form with the Desk Sergeant. The second sealed his identity: it was the first tape, the crude smiley face pointed perfectly upright. The policeman blinked twice and then squinted into the camera.

In the few frames before blackness, I could see the brief impression of a flash, and a symmetrical flower of blood and bone erupt from his skull, just a brief flicker of streaking colors and light. I moaned pathetically in the darkness, an animal whimper of helplessness. Like a bolt of lightning, the jagged text lit up the screen.

YOUR FAULT.

I did not move until the pale light of morning, first letting the tape play out through a further hour of static, and then later sobbing silently under the cold blue light of the idling VCR. After a few hours of that quiet delirium, doubting what I had just seen, I rewound the tape, and started it again.

It was blank. Finding a set of small screwdrivers, I dismantled the tape and gingerly separated its carapace. Inside, was a small magnet, ingeniously placed on a loose spindle inside the right spool of tape; the tape was erased the moment I watched it.

Taped firmly to the side of the black plastic housing, was a small, folded photograph. It was my wife and son, walking hand and hand out the front door of the house. On the back of the photograph, in the same blocky script as the envelope, were three letters and three sharp periods.

SHH…

————–

There were times in the following year, when I believed that only suicide would save my family. He never told me what, if anything he wanted. He never revealed himself, or his reasons. He seemed only content to watch the engine of my life to shudder to a halt. I descended into a fog of self-pity and utter horror as all my relationships dissolved around me.

At irregular intervals, always just enough time passed to make me believe that it had ended, that I had dreamt it all, I would receive a package. They each contained a half a dozen photographs on glossy paper. My son in school, doodling in his notebooks, shot through an open window. A soccer game, his leg frozen in mid swing. A front yard game with two neighbors, my son suspended in a leap, his tongue out, stuck in a mask of joy.

I received the last package a month after my wife had left me. Unable to cope with my stony, hollow eyed silence and slow motion disintegration, she had returned across the state line, to Idaho, and her mother’s house, where she made unsubtle attempts over nightly phone calls to convince our son to join her. Whatever amicability there was between us was flaking away like old paint, and I knew a court intervention was imminent.

For myself, I did not know if I could keep my son safest close to me, or whether I was dooming him by my presence. He was increasingly distant, angry at my sudden shift in personality, and inability to make his mother happy. His presence, no matter how he pouted and hid, was the one bright and shining point of that time, a silver thread to hold onto in the maelstrom. The week of the last package, he had taken a Greyhound bus to see his mother, already hinting at a desire to stay and live with her; I was in a black and foul mood when I found to the familiar manila envelope in the entryway.

It contained a single photograph, and the first video I had gotten since the policeman’s murder. The photograph was of my son, sleeping, in his bed at home. I held it my hand, clutching tight and staring, not wanting to comprehend what I was seeing and its sickening implications.

On the video, the smiley-face was gone, and its place, was a clock. I slid it into the VCR in a state of cold shock and sat at the edge of the couch, my eyes watering and my jaw hanging slack.

IT IS TIME.

YOU CAN KEEP HIM SAFE.

The jagged letters crashed through the static and captured my gaze. Frozen in place, my lungs would not expand and my vision swam dizzyingly. The letters vanished and there was blackness again, but only momentarily, as a burst of cold light brought a new sentence to the screen:

GO-

The ashtray impacted with the center of the screen, and the television tube made an audible popping sound, as glass and circuitry spilled from the wound. I hadn’t even been aware that I was throwing the heavy pewter dish, but now I felt a hot wash of anger, the helplessness and fear of the last year flared in me.

I would leave, I told myself. I would leave tonight, and tell no one. If one good thing came from my miserable shipwreck of a life, I would keep my son safe, and I couldn’t do that in the sorry state I was in.

It seemed so obvious then, with suddenly clarity: of course he was not interested in my son. It was me he had been torturing all these months. If he hated me this much, enough to slowly break me, utterly and deliberately, then he would follow me, like hunter to prey, wherever I went. So I would go.

I almost made it out that night, but doubt ate away at my resolve as I packed a few bags, and I soon succumbed to a rare desire for sleep. In the warm cocoon of blankets, the idea of recklessly fleeing seemed so rash and foolish, and I knew that a new day would bring clarity and level headedness.

I awoke to the golden light of dawn streaming into my bedroom onto a scene of unfathomable violence.

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Blood and drying viscera coated the walls in uneven splatters. The sharp copper tang in the air shook me like smelling salts to damnable clarity. The carpet was soaked and spotted with crimson, thick puddles of blood glistening in the morning sunlight.

In the far corner, where the walls were painted nearly black and the carpet invisible beneath a tiny lake of blood, was the body. The diminutive limbs were dark and smeared, stacked like cordwood; two slender arms and two legs, capped with a pair of small curled hands and two feet, so smeared in gore that I mistook them for shoes. Beside the little pile of spindly limbs was a child’s torso; momentarily I could not comprehend that this was part of the body, so surreal in its isolation and stillness.

In the farthest corner at the apex of the slaughter was the broken television on a small table, the screen fully shattered to reveal a small interior space. Inside this hollow of plastic and metal, was a child’s head, balancing gracefully on its ragged neck, and faced away from me.

It was a long time before I moved, longer still before I ceased sobbing and walked on sodden carpet and wobbling knees towards the television. I prayed that I would not see my son’s birthmark and scars on the limbs and I held my gaze straight ahead as I approached the grotesque altar. Was that my son’s hair? Was it ever so black, or is that just the light?

I reached out, slowly with both hands to gently cup the small head. I was empty now, the morning breeze blowing straight through my shell. All I had to do was turn to see my son’s face, to know that I had failed him utterly, and then I would dry out like a husk and drift away on the wind.

It was light in my hands and still ever so slightly warm. I slowly spun it to face me, angry at myself for not knowing by heart the sight of my sons ears or and jaw line well enough stop now, to prevent the inevitable rotation.

The eyes were mercifully closed, but the cheeks were slit wide and high, in grim mockery of a smile. In his mouth, jammed far back and between the ragged slices of his face, was a video tape.

A wave of pure undiluted relief was followed by a sharp pang of guilt. This was not my son. I recognized the boy behind the curtain of blood, a friend of my son, yes, but this, this was not my son.

Obediently, like in a trance I took the video to the VCR, now connected to my son’s tiny black and white set. With a wad of white paper towels, I had dried and cleaned the soiled cassette, and I now slid it into the machine and watched solemnly while the letters appeared.

THIS WAS YOUR ONE WARNING

YOU CAN STILL SAVE HIM

FIRST, CLEAN UP

It dawned on me what he means, and simultaneously, why. I thought of the drying footprints of blood I’ve left around the house, my fingertips pressed against the corpse. I tried to imagine who might believe that I had slept through that act of unbridled cruelty, but seen and heard nothing.

NOW

I jerked with a start at this screen, as if the teacher has called my name and caught me day-dreaming. I rose to my feet and stopped the tape.

When I thought my son was dead, I believed that no pain could rend me worse. I now could see the foolishness of that. If he were truly gone, then I could not be hurt any worse, and in a way, the man in the dark would have lost. But he lives. He lives for me to agonize over yet again, and this time, I don’t have to wonder about the stakes. I have to do everything I can to keep him safe, I decided. This cannot happen to him.

When I returned from the woods, carrying a shovel wrapped in a thick canvas blanket from the truck, and leaving tracks of dirt and clay, I began to pour the first gallon of gasoline on the bottom floor of my house. When the house was fully saturated, I returned to the VCR and its tiny monitor to watch the rest of the tape. I am a marionette now, dancing to a silent tune, free will no longer even a factor.

The next sentence on the screen was familiar to me; though that was truly the first time I read it. I recognized it by the shape and outline of the letters; it was beneath the ashtray a split second before the impact.

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GO NORTH

I was puzzled for a moment, a little resurgence of the self at this oddly vague and cryptic instruction. Just a direction and a command. I wondered where he meant for me to go, and how.

GO NOW. YOU WILL KNOW.

And the tape ended. And I went.

An hour later, a plume of smoke was visible to the south, fast receding behind truck. I drove as far as the truck would take me, until it lost traction on the ice somewhere in British Columbia, and ended broken axle’d in roadside culvert. From there, I walked. My wife shut access to my bank accounts weeks ago, and the small amount of cash that I still carried has long since vanished.

It’s been a month so far, homeless and trudging like a sentinel, through the darkest of winter. The snow and ice bring me comfort, the silent purity of the ground against the noonday sky, white on white. My life is only a direction now, and that anodyne of simplicity has bled into the land.

When I cannot find a house to beg shelter in, or a barn to break into, I build small covered trenches in the snow, and wrap myself in my tarp and blankets. This is more and more frequent as I travel northward and as my clothes begin to stink and mark me as a transient.

During the day, I walk; in the dark, I sleep. I sleep. Long and blissfully hours of oblivion come to with an ease I haven’t had since childhood, and I wake fully rested each day.

I am never alone of course. He is with me, as he always has been. When the last of the money was gone, the pangs of hunger only lasted a day. On the next morning, outside my small snow shelter, a pair of white rabbits lay stretched across the snow, only the red of their blood picking out their outlines on the snow.

During that past year in the fog of his nightmares, I never even considered who he might be. I never catalogued which clients might have secretly loathed me, or which elementary school victim of my bullying now wished me dead. I wonder now, how willful was this ignorance?

The sunlight is warm and unexpected on my face when I exit the barn the next morning, coat speckled with straw. It’s a few miles to the next town, and I can make it time to beg for some breakfast, and supplies for the next vacant stretch.

I call my son from each payphone I pass, direct to his mobile and listen to him get increasingly frustrated when I say nothing. Hearing him angry and alive is everything I need to keep going.

My son is safe, now that I’ve left him. As I believed he would, but for all the wrong reasons, the hunter, the man in the dark, has followed me here. He is no longer a danger to my family, and he can take nothing more from me now.

He is happy now, because we are going north, and so am I, because I know at last and truly, that I have saved my son. The cost is the pittance of my own life, and now I understand; I am grateful to give it to him. I am thankful to be pack horse to this monster, carrying us both onward.

I do not know what he wants for us here, at the top of the world, but I know when the time comes, he will make it known. So until then, I go north.

CREDIT: Josef K. / Cameron Suey

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Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

95 thoughts on “North”

  1. I don’t know why it ended… and ended that way! Make a sequel please… I really liked it! No complaints besides the weird spelling here and there ans of course what I metioned earlier… but over all so good. Oh and a little more detail would follow next of course like who he is and what he wants!!! More more moreeeeeeeeeee

  2. I think the narrator was the one sending the tapes, leaving the messages, murdering the victims, etc. If he has MPD his “other self” could have placed the tapes in his mailbox, and he’d have been able to get the boy to come home with him without any fuss since he was the father of a friend.

    By constantly moving North he’s removing himself from his son’s life and thus saving him from the secondary personality who wanted to harm the kid. There is no definite destination. He could’ve easily travelled South, East, or West instead; his goal is just to place as much distance between himself and his child as possible. He may just keep walking until he succumbs to hunger, exhaustion, or exposure to the cold.

  3. I think the monster was himself, and he had a split-personality disorder. Like, both sides are very slightly sane, and the murderer in him is subconsciously trying to save him from murdering his son by forcing him to surge onward.
    Just my opinion, however.

  4. lolgothicliterature

    This was almost exactly like Frankenstein. The monster dedicating himself to the destruction of a man’s life, by threatening his friends and family. Not quite the same, as Dr. Frankenstein’s wife, brother, best friend, and indirectly, his father die because of the monster, whereas here, only the threat of harm comes upon his family. The monster in this case being a sort of alternative self, another personality he has, is a bit like Frankenstein, as the monster can be read as the uninhibited ego of Frankenstein. And they both end up far north…

  5. Good idea, but it seemed like Mr. K was taking too long to say what could have been compressed into a couple of paragraphs. But I’m starting to see that that’s just the way he writes. Moving on, very good story, please do not complete it. It is perfect the way it is, you should not have to spoon-feed it to your readers.

    Fear the Darkness

    -Nex

  6. Absolutely loved it, but it left me with severe blueballs. I would love it for this story to be continued even though I know it probably won’t happen.

  7. Hey i read this on twocansandstring.com and i loved it. I wish I knew what happens in the end though :[

  8. Did seem like the narrator was the very monster he was running from. It’s why the dead child was killed in his very bedroom without him noticing or waking up, it was him who killed him.

  9. Okay, the “what-if” theories of the killer being his father or even himself are interesting, but they are obviously not what the author had in mind. The story was just supposed to a short, thriller-like concept blurb, and I think it was done very well. Whoever wrote this acually has some genuine talent as a writer.

  10. Ok the latter part of this was exactly like “Frankenstein.” What’s up with that? This is nearly plagerism folks.

  11. I really like all of josef’s story’s they open up the joy of horror story’s to me :3 and i dont care that its is insanely long. ;D

  12. This was really well written and had me drawn in to the end. I am glad the story had no ultimate solution. The feeling of a relentless urge to move towards an unknown destination for unknown reasons is very unsettling and is realized well in this piece.

    Well done!

  13. i havent read this yet,
    just felt the need to mention that i listen to the beastie boys when i read pasta

    oh.
    and someone jacked my name
    WHO IS FAKE ASDF?

  14. amazing story, but i wish you would go on and explain!
    who is the guy?
    is the son going to die anyway?
    will he haunt your son when you die? there are so many things to be answered!

  15. DO NOT MAKE A FOLLOW UP JOSEF!

    Ive read all of your works on your blog, and i have to say i love every single one!

    Please do not make an ending to this story, its perfect how it is!

  16. @61
    I’m debating the necessity of a followup to this, despite having some ideas for it that I like very much. The ambiguity of the ending is still alluring to me. If I tell you who the Hunter is and where they are going together, I feel like my final explanation could only be underwhelming…

  17. props to devon (#11) and Hendetta (#15)
    I also agree with that theory. Hendettas that is. Internal or external is okay with me. I find both interesting. But in this case i believe its internal. And not just because Josef K. said (#58) ^^;
    I really do like this story and is by far my favorite (mind you this is the first time ive been on here xD). With these stories i like it to end pretty vague but, have a follow-up story. I can live without sequels but, they usually do or dont confirm my crackpot theories. xD
    All-in-all very good story, bit too descriptive though. C:

    ~Peace ‘n Love
    Bagel-chan

  18. i am a heron. i haev a long neck and i pick fish out of the water w/ my beak. if you dont repost this comment on 10 other pages i will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans

  19. @50

    The story I had in mind when I wrote it was that the Hunter was an internal source; that was my main idea, the struggle for dominance over one body through fear and intimidation. The framing story about what the Hunter wants I wanted to leave vague to the point of mystery, because I didn’t feel it was really was part of the main narrative.

    It was my intent to end on a large scale mystery (what I had in mind in the North is something akin to The Shadow out of Time, but it’s a story longer than this one), and it was also my intent that all of it could be read in numerous ways, the internal vs. the external, etc. I usually write unsubtle and ham fisted plot lines, and then deliberately destroy the signs and signifiers. It’s always a lot more gratifying to me as a reader to piece things together on my own, after the story is over.

    I never had any intention of ‘finishing’ the arctic element, but I’m trying to nail down an plot for a followup…

    And thank you for your feedback!

  20. what if…(this may have already been said, since i didnt really feel like reading all of the long comments)…the stalker WAS his son?

  21. ~Um, ok. My TV is on cable right now, so I can’t see it displayed, but my VCR just turned on by itself, light blinking and the creepy motor sound like in the story and everything. It’s dumb, but honestly North freaked me out so bad I’m afraid to look and afraid to stop it at the same time. Heh….~

    Okay, that aside, amazing story, I didn’t mind the length at all. I thought it kind of had that Saw-like quality where all power has to be relinquished from the victim in order for him to survive. Nice.

    I could see the Monster being an external or internal source, either one could used effectively with me. He didn’t come across as entirely sane though, mostly because I think most people would have fought back more rather than just accepting they can’t control thier own fate, and also because I don’t think most people could completely abandon any type of normal existence like that, not even to save a son because its so hard to adapt to. I don’t know, maybe its just because I’m not a parent. I like how he calls his son to make sure he’s alright though, and I’d really like to see the story continued, cleaned up or not. It just didn’t seem over even though it ended. Was it just my imagination, Josef K? Or will you share the rest with us?

  22. I kinda thought towards the end the stalker was him… he had insomnia and sleep deprivation can make you black out… then again that’s just me

  23. good original pasta, also the outside force could be his father they don’t need to be separate I guess…that’s cheesy tho I actually thought there were things indicating the ‘hunter’ WASN’T some kind of split personality deal or anything, IE having the best sleep ever and being very refreshed but finding rabbits for your breakfast seems to indicate it wasn’t his body catching them or he would be tired….

  24. that was quite good i rather enjoyed it.
    i liked the way it was written, but yeah, perhaps it was too descriptive. i too had the ‘it’s totally him gone nutzo’ theory as well; [the last paragraph he said we and i] so that kinda confirmed my suspicions… but then i read josef’s comments and he wasn’t even thinking it. in a way that’s not comforting, i get that you like when your work is open to interpretation, but writing a story and not really knowing where you’re going with it is kinda…mmm, i don’t know.

    ANYWAY^^…that’s not gonna take away the fact that i really liked the way it was written…it had lots of potential…but it kind of went flat. maybe because i was more focused on the ‘why the fuck is he going north?!’ as opposed to ‘damn it, he’s having a break down cuz of some psychopath’.
    mmm, bravo^^ best pasta in a long ass time.

  25. Wow.

    VERY long, but good. I do dislike the whole multiple-personality thing in this though, and I’ll continue to imagine it as a different entity/person.

  26. The person formerly Known as 'Noneya'

    HOLY MOTHER OF FUCKING HELL!

    That was sooo damn epic, then POOF! Its ENDED! I dont want it to end, damn you! I want to know what the fuck happened!

    This was the most epic win of a pasta thats been through here in weeks, and it ENDED.

    Very well written, the suspense countered flowed with the creepy quite nicley, and it has that certain hint (as most pastas that dont specifically mention a paranormal being have) that it COULD happen to someone.

    DUN DUN DUN!!!

    DAMN YOU!

  27. Yes. I agree with basically everyone, really well done. I would like some kind of followup or sequel to complete what has happened, because although it is a good pasta it ahs alot of potential to be more of a short story/novel. I say write and expand more.

  28. absolutely amazing, yes it was long but it needed to be that long

    easily one of the best, if not the best, creepypasta I’ve ever read

  29. 8/10. Very descriptive and horrifying at times – face it, we only come here to be horrified – but given the length, I was very disappointed with the ending.
    It reminded me of Stephen King’s Cell; there you go, this pasta is the Cell of all pastas. :P Mind you, it’s one of the best I’ve read.

  30. Very nice! I actually liked the length though there was the occasional point where there were a few more words than necessary.

    I was having the same kind of ideas as Hendetta, though whilst that’s very creepy I’m not sure it’s as creepy as if it were someone else doing it to him… That mihgt just be because Hollywood’s done the split-personality thing way too much (and usually badly) though.

    If it were a split-personality then it boils down to him just being a crazy bastard. If it was someone else then, yeah it’s still a crazy bastard, but WHY is he destroying this mans life etc. Being a separate entity adds a lot more levels to it I think.

    I’d love to see a part two or a revision with more to the end, but even so, that’s a fantastic story! Well done Josef K.

  31. Pew Pew Laser Gun

    That was REALLY good. Somewhat disappointingly vauge, but still frigging excellent.

    The stalker/child murderer personality/etc. is a prick. :(

  32. wow I wish it had an ending but if there was like a part two, it would probably be a let down and ruin the story. Still! I wanna know what happens!!!! :@

  33. VERY well thought out and executed pasta. True it was long, but it wasn’t long in the “taking forever” way, but just the kind of long that keeps the interest up every other beat or so.

    And I like that the VHS Man was never revealed. It gives a whole psychological edge to it that would be missing if whoever – or whatever – was leaving the tapes was revealed. Awesome work.

    And personally, I think maybe the VHS Man was the Father, or rather another personality of him. He mentioned in the beginning he worried about if he would repeat his father’s failures, and his mind may have created this madman to remedy that fear. Again, fantastic pasta.

  34. Yes, well, a little explanation. Firstly, this is a rough draft written with almost no editing process.Like all the stories I’ve been writing lately, I rarely know where they are going when I start. At the time I wrote it, I hadn’t fully decided why the Hunter is driving him North. Sorry.

    I think whatever is the eventual goal, you can think of a more perfect solution than I can. I prefer a story to be a puzzle box and leave a lot open to interpretation, so I’m happy not spelling everything out for you. Also, I don’t think this is really about him going north, it’s about the process of his breakdown and surrender. Why he’s being driven north is fodder for another story, one I don’t quite know how to write yet.

    Yeah, the Hunter is definitly in the same body as the Narrator. There’s a few hints throughout to that effect. The idea in @15 is really good, and I wish I’d thought of it in that lighy; it’s better than the idea I was entertaining, that the Hunter is an outside force of some sort that needs a vessel to take him into the arctic. Still, I prefer to have these structural ideas remain vauge, I don’t think you need everything spelled out for you.

    And yes, it is definitley tl;dr. I have the bad habit of using 9 words in the place of one (evidenced by this post). That’s what the next editing pass is for. But feedback like this really helps that process, so thanks, everyone.

    1. I think if someone thinks this is tl;dr, they must be looking for instant gratification. I liked how long your story was. At this point if a pasta looks REALLY short, I don’t even read them anymore.

      I loved your horror scene. I felt like I was there. I would definitely be interested in reading the sequel.

  35. Pretty good. Not a pasta though. Lots of potential as far as short stories go. I, for one, am just damn glad something finally broke the string of artifact/ritual bullshit I just find uninteresting. If it doesn’t have at least 2 corpses it’s just not worth it :(

  36. Long, but good. Good descriptions.
    Ending was a bit too vague for my liking, but overall, still good.
    Since this was posted under insanity, I’m thinking it’s a split-personality case as well, although Devon’s theory does have merit ^_^

  37. Mother fuck! Are you really gonna sit there and draw me in with such a phenomenal pasta, (which I emphatically enjoyed) only to end it with a dumbass/vague-ass ending that leaves NOTHING to my imagination? You sir, have given me the most hurtful affront I have ever received in my life pertaining to reading.

  38. @15: I second your theory! Well, the gist of it anyways. :D

    The clincher was when he said “I am thankful to be pack horse to this monster, carrying us both onward.” I was like ‘ohshitdude the “monster” is him?!’

    But who knows…
    I personally like the vague ending.

  39. I think the “monster” making him do these things was himself. A split-personality kind of deal. he is a child murderer, and basically his other self convinced him to leave before he killed his son.

  40. Guy With Teh Face

    I don’t get what the eff was going on. I have two questions.

    1. Why? Can someone fill me in on this cliffhanger?

    2. WHO WAS STALKER?

  41. You know who the stalker was?

    Santa.

    Think about it! ‘Go North.’ Santa lives at the North Pole. The tapes and body appear without him the narrator being disturbed. Santa has avoided children for millennium without being caught. The motive? Maybe the narrator didn’t leave out milk and cookies for Santa.

    So, in my opinion, SANTA WAS STALKER!

  42. This is definitely of higher quality than much of the stuff we’ve had recently, and I’m thankful for that, but I think this story’s length and diction kill it.

    As I was reading it, it seemed to me that the author took too many words to say something simple–there was a good deal of padding.

    The other problem I see is the characterization: would a man on the run really have enough time to write something like this, and would he do it using this type of language?

    Why were the police not present at all? One would think that after the death of a sergeant and the brutal murder of a young boy, they would start some kind of manhunt or investigation.

    That aside, I felt, personally, that it was rather vague for its length. My suggestion to the author would be to either trim it up and change the POV or the diction, or to expand it into a longer story, give more detail, and keep the POV/Diction.

    1. Maybe the rest of the family was murdered with the kid and they were all muffled.

      i think he had the cheif’s phone line making fake messages continuously calling each morning that he is sick, or that he called in to quit, or that he just retired day before the death
      the last option feels quite cliche so we should probably disregard it.

  43. i hate posting what ifs, but

    what if the vhs guy was the man’s father?

    it’d be pretty believable.

    or maybe the man’s father was succumbed to the same thing that the man is doing

  44. Very sad with what had to happened to the father. What I like here is that, the other half (the one sending the tape), is the one protecting the family from the normal half – being unable to fulfill the role of a father.

    ^ That’s just my interpretation, btw.

  45. It’s well-written, and it does seem creepy as you read it, but I feel the ending was too vague. Not bad, though. I guess if it were continued further it would make an interesting short story.

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