The Beloved One: Smiling Corpse

Brookings, Curry County, Oregon.
December 2019.

My colleague had been missing for a week. He’d been isolating himself for days, ignoring my calls, and even our inner circle of friends hadn’t heard a word from him. I was the first to genuinely worry. While I didn’t go to confront him directly, I called his sister, Tina, to come into town and see what was going on. One morning, I woke up earlier than usual. I didn’t reach for my phone immediately; I got up to make breakfast and watched the news for a bit. It was the same old thing. Out of boredom, I decided to switch channels. Then, my phone started ringing from the other room. It was Tina, her voice sounding uncharacteristically serious:

“Is Trevor with you?”

I answered no and reminded her of how Trevor had been acting lately. Then, Tina said something that left me paralyzed for a few seconds:

“Trevor isn’t… here.”

What did she mean, he wasn’t there? Had he vanished or something? It had to be some kind of sick joke. And then, I saw a message from him. I let out a sigh of relief—the son of a bitch had scared the hell out of me—but that relief vanished the moment I opened it. It was the photo you’re looking at now, accompanied by a single word:

“Help”

My name is Victor Knighten, and I’ve been deep in the search for my partner. As you can probably guess, that partner is Trevor Pulaski.
I know it sounds like something only a total geek would do, but Trevor and I had been investigating this entity for a long time. It was our passion. We looked for any scrap of evidence to prove its existence. I was known for being the skeptic of the two, but when it came to this, I’ll admit I was a bit paranoid. It seemed, at the end of the day, that the thing wasn’t real; our research was a dead end. Until a week ago. Trevor and I had ventured into a forest—nothing out of the ordinary, just our usual attempt to play paranormal investigators. Only this time, it was different. As we walked, a feeling settled in that something was stalking us from the shadows—a sensation we had never felt before. The vibe in the place was so suffocating that I couldn’t take it anymore. I told Trevor, my voice trembling:

“Trevor, we need to leave. Now”

Trevor insisted we keep going, arguing that it was just getting dark and everywhere feels creepy at night. I went along with it, though I wish I had pushed harder to leave. Still, I wasn’t about to leave him alone—he was a stubborn bastard. My alarms went off when the camera we brought to document everything started shutting down on its own. I knew what that meant; we were just a couple of amateur creepypasta investigators. The carefree idiot Trevor just swapped the battery, which allowed me to lower my guard, thinking maybe he was right and my fear was just because of the fading light. Everything was “fine” until we found a page, carelessly taped to a tree. It was the page that read: ‘DON’T LOOK OR IT TAKES YOU’. I didn’t care who left it—the entity, some lunatic—we had to get out of there. That note was proof we weren’t alone.

“Trevor, damn it! We have to get out of here!” I shouted, furious.

“Oh, relax! Some crazy person probably just left that as a prank. Don’t be a coward, Víctor,” he joked, letting out an uneasy laugh.

“Crazy or not, we’re leaving. Just take a damn photo and let’s go before some bear decides to maul us,” I said firmly.

Trevor started mocking me, even ripping the note off the tree. I didn’t pay much attention to his taunts; I was too focused on the surroundings. Was I being paranoid? Yes, I admit it. Maybe I was, but I beg you to put yourself in my shoes for a second. And then, the one thing I dreaded most happened. It wasn’t the appearance of an unknown entity; it was the crunching of leaves. At first, I thought it was our own weight, but then it became clear. The sound was caused by footsteps—footsteps closing in on us aggressively. I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed Trevor by the wrist and started running in the opposite direction. Trevor screamed:

“What’s happening?!”

I was the only one who had heard the footsteps. When I told him, he turned around. Whatever he saw, it made him let out a shriek of pure terror that forced me to pick up the pace. Somehow, we made it back to the car. Once inside, Trevor tried to break the tension:

“Well, that was wild…”

I didn’t laugh. I scolded him for not listening to me.

“You idiot, if I lose you, who the hell am I going to investigate this crap with?” I snapped, looking away.

“Aw! Just admit you’re in love with me,” he teased, as usual.

I let out a deep, gravelly laugh and called him an idiot again. We drove in silence until we reached a crowded area. As soon as we stopped, I broke the silence and asked him what he had seen. He described a person, probably a young guy, tall. He wasn’t like the “Slenderman” entity we had gone there looking for. He was wearing a white mask, but Trevor couldn’t make out any distinctive features because of the movement, and he seemed to be dressed in black. Trevor let out a triumphant laugh, keeping the piece of paper he’d snatched from the tree. I didn’t care about that miserable scrap of paper; I was too worried about whether that person had followed us. According to my knowledge—and my hours playing Slender games—collecting the first page is the trigger for everything. In my stupidity, I told him he shouldn’t have done that; he should have just taken a picture.

And that was what I told the police, since that was the last day I saw Trevor in person. When I showed them the photo, they distributed it through the Police Alert Network; although the suspect remained masked, it was vital to share the photo to have an idea of what he looked like. Since he disappeared, I haven’t been able to sleep well; I always stay awake staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I stay staring fixedly at the pile of clothes in my room; I feel that that thing isn’t just tangled clothes. That is why sometimes I stay awake until I see the rays of the sun come out; I am not capable of falling asleep until the faint lighting consoles me by showing me that that, is just piled-up clothes. The police let us know everything they had found in the investigation, giving the hypothesis of a possible stalking and kidnapping. But there was something that surprised me a lot: no one mentioned that he was literally a Slenderman investigator, even when I mentioned it to them they said they hadn’t found anything related in his home. I was incredulous of that, since I knew him and had been to his house many times; he kept files about Slenderman on his computer and even had a board—very cliché, and I always teased him for that—. Then, one day I went myself to his home to verify everything. Nothing; I searched in all the corners of the house, nothing, not a single trace that the investigation of Trevor and mine had been real; only there was a message—written in an aggressive manner with black crayon—on the wall of Trevor’s room that said: ‘MISS ME?’. That message froze my blood; had Trevor left it? Or maybe… someone else left it. When I informed the police about the message I had seen in Trevor’s room and showed them a photo of the message, they told me they hadn’t found any similar message the first time they investigated Trevor’s house. They interrogated me in a severe manner, reprimanding me for having entered the scene without permission, and yes, I have to admit that it was reckless. Soon, the forensic analyses confirmed what I was already saying, and I was absolved of any suspicion; despite that, the authorities only told me to close the doors and windows well; I obviously remained somewhat frustrated; I tried to ask them to put a patrol guarding my home, but they refused flatly. The frustration I felt had no name; “incompetent,” I exclaimed to my insides. As I was literally defenseless, since closing the doors and windows wasn’t going to work for much, I decided to buy Wi-Fi security cameras with integrated microphone, and also, I bought a flashlight that was actually a taser disguised as one; that just in case.

I spent the next few days this way, secluded in my room; it gave me dread to sleep with the lights turned off because I feared that there, in the darkness, was that thing that did this to Trevor—that’s how fucked up I was—; I didn’t go out for anything other than to go buy food. I believed the security cameras would help me keep myself safe, but to tell the truth, they were insufferable ones that only caused me more paranoia; at every moment I received false alarms of detected movements that were only pixels that the camera detected. But in the end, I had to go check, only to confirm that there was nothing; there never was. But, a day will arrive, a day that I don’t want to arrive, a day in which, in some way, the room will become increasingly silent. It is not pain. No. I simply didn’t go to check the alarm. Fear persists, like time; I rest, but the world doesn’t pause, it keeps on persisting, and at some moment, when I get up to see, I will no longer be totally alone. I cannot be calm while that thing—that looks with a face of anguish at the world—remains free. And then I will wake up, and upon leaving my room, the false alarm will cease to be false. I only want this to end; these 10 days without Trevor feel like the very hell. I want him to return and we can continue our investigation together.

The morning of December 24, 2019—the eleventh day of Trevor’s disappearance—, was calmer than usual, that taking into account what I had been living the days before. And despite it being Christmas Eve, it felt more like a “cursed eve” in my opinion. I didn’t even have the strength to meet up and have dinner with my family that night. The sky was stained with gray tonalities, the same as the environment submerged in the thick fog coming from the Pacific Ocean. The sky roared with thunderous claps that predicted that the rain would come. Nothing out of the ordinary in Oregon, and it’s not that it bothered me, since I didn’t think to go out at that moment. The Chetco River roared with such force that I could swear it was heard even in the city, adorning my thoughts in an overwhelming manner. I was dissociated looking at the window; after all it was Christmas Eve and I didn’t know whether to go visit my parents that night, since I feared that that thing could follow me and know the exact location of my family. This was resulting in exhaustion, so with certain slowness I went to the kitchen to prepare popcorn; I thought to do something that would distract me from all this. When the popcorn finished being made, I headed to the lounge and put on a series on the TV, not just any, it was the most 90s series possible: Twin Peaks; I thought that the weather warranted it, and also it was one of my favorite series. Several minutes of the chapter had already passed; it seemed to me that the intro was fucking long but that didn’t take away how good a series it was; since the first time I saw it, it had always hurt me the death of Laura, and it hurt me more to see how her mother reacted. I don’t know what I was thinking watching this series, it only put me more on edge. As soon as I took the remote control to turn off the series, the ringtone of my cell phone interrupted me; it was Tina.

“Victor? It’s me, Tina…” she had a voice half-broken. “God… I don’t know how to say this… they found… they found a corpse on the banks of the Chetco River; it had its face destroyed… they don’t know if it’s Trevor.”

Everything went dark for a moment; I wasn’t able to process the words I had just heard. I fell backward, not to the floor, I managed to support myself against the dining room table. Upon touching the cold wood, I saw clearly again and before me was that possibility; Trevor is dead. Trevor, the one who was always stubborn, the one who tried to make jokes to lighten tense moments. I opened my mouth, but no word came out, and then, I was only capable of saying:

“Tina… I’ll call you later…”

Everything I remember happened after hanging up the call was cloudy in my mind. I remember being in my room, screaming loudly until I became hoarse. I screamed a name, Trevor; it still wasn’t confirmed if the corpse belonged to Trevor, but even so something inside me told me that it was him. But in this type of stories, when someone disappears for days and they find a corpse, it will always be the missing person’s. I didn’t want to think about that; I wanted to believe that it wasn’t him and that I was only affected by the paranoia I was feeling these last days, but something in the back of my mind told me that I wasn’t going to see that blond kid I always played with since we were children ever again.
That night I went to see my parents, and I told them everything I was living; I didn’t know if I could go see them on Christmas Eve, so I took advantage to tell them some last words in case I didn’t see them again.

“If something happens to me, I love you. I will always love you, despite the fights we have had in the past, you are my parents and I will always love you.”

And after having stayed for a while at my parents’ house, I stupidly returned to the place that kept me from sleeping, although it no longer mattered. If I was going to die, I wasn’t going to do it at my parents’ house; I didn’t want them to see me like that; my ghost wouldn’t bear to see my mother sobbing and blaming herself for not having taken better care of me. The last thing I remember from that afternoon is staying deeply asleep, perhaps for a long time.

A tinkling, only one, it was soft and small; it was the default notification of my cell phone. It was already early morning when the notification woke me up; the light of the cell phone left me blinded momentarily, and there it was, the notification of the camera monitoring app that said:

«Motion detected in Patio Camera»

I supposed it was another false alarm; at first I wasn’t even going to check the camera, since I had too much sleep, but I forced myself to check it; everything was clear and the place was invaded by dense fog, not even something out of the ordinary was heard, only the annoying noise of the interference that the wind’s movement provoked. But then, I realized something: the patio door was open. The sleep I felt moments ago had vanished quickly; I got up with a jump and instinctively took the taser, I left my room to confirm that what I saw was real. And yes, it was real; the door was open, that thing had already entered, but how did it do it? I made sure to close everything. I began to hyperventilate; I wasn’t thinking clearly, I didn’t know where that thing was now and that frustrated me even more; I needed help. Immediately I opened the messages app—I didn’t want to give away my position—; in the message I put my address and I made sure to put explicitly that I was a protected witness with the hope that that would ensure they would arrive quickly. Now that the police were on the way, I had to hide. It occurred to me to hide in the closet, although it was a hiding place too obvious, I felt more protected inside my room, so I went back into the room, this time making sure that the door was locked. Now that I remember it, when I got up, my room door was open; I didn’t even have to open it, and I, since what happened to Trevor, always locked it.

I am a damn idiot, I thought.

Being a few centimeters from the closet, I turned slowly to see what was behind me. There was nothing. No, there was. Until my vision focused on the other end of the room, that corner submerged in an intense darkness that kept me from sleeping for days. I backed away instinctively, sticking to the corner behind me like a scared puppy, like the miserable prey that I was. Little by little, my eyes got used to the darkness of the place, only to reveal that this time—now that I finally saw well—, that pile of clothes was no longer just that. There was a huge dark stain shaped like a person, and in the place where the face should go there was a faint white shape that I couldn’t distinguish well, and then, I pointed my flashlight to see that thing in a clear manner. It moved with a speed so disturbing that I jumped from the fright for how sudden it was. It didn’t move to approach, not to attack. It hid behind the tangled clothes; I could manage to hear a small whisper that pronounced:

“No, no…”

I turned off the light; I feared that the light would alter that thing. I had in front of me the possible murderer of Trevor; I had to have evidence that that thing was in front of me. With a quick movement and with a trembling hand, I opened the monitoring app of cameras and began to screen record. In an eternal minute in which tension and silence reigned, I decided to break the silence and ask, trying to sound calm:

“Who… Who are you?”

That thing peeked, with a shy slowness that contrasted with the terror I was feeling. It looked away and then covered its face.

“I don’t like for you to see me like this… I don’t look pretty and I scared you…” it murmured with a trembling voice.

“You didn’t scare me…” I affirmed in a low voice.

As soon as I pronounced those words, that thing turned to look at me with a robotic movement. It observed me fixedly for several seconds until it began to get up carefully; it pressed its hands tenderly over its heart and began to approach slowly toward me. The faint light entering through my bedroom window made me see detailedly more aspects of him. It wasn’t a thing, it was a boy; I could recognize that mask, it was the mask with an expression of anguish from the photo Trevor sent me before disappearing. He was wearing black pajamas, although somewhat poorly buttoned, since part of his clavicle was visible, letting me see that he was a very thin young man. He was also carrying a brick in his hand that made my hair stand on end. From one moment to another he stayed still a meter from me, and then he lowered his gaze at the same time that he hugged the brick timidly as if he were seeking consolation.

“Am I pretty?…” he asked me with the timidity with which one asks someone if they want to go out with you.

“You are…” I pronounced to the air. If I wanted to have the most material possible, I had to play his game and make myself the submissive one. “You are the most beautiful boy in the world.”

The boy turned to look at me; I could look through the ripped openings where the eyes of the mask he was wearing went, how his dark eyes were adorned by an unnatural shine. He tilted his head to the right like when a puppy hears a peculiar sound. And behind the curved slit in a sad mouth of the mask, I could see, how that boy, smiled timidly.

“Oh… Victor…” he groaned almost without air. “Victor… you make me blush…”

The boy began to let out crystalline gasps that seemed like nervous laughs. With his bare feet he began to approach me with feline movements, and with a last heavy sigh he began to speak.

“Since I saw you two walking through the forest of his, I couldn’t stop thinking about you two…” he confessed with a low moan. “Oh… I know you like me, and you like me too… I love you so much you two… so much that I could skin your chests just to get inside your hearts and live inside forever.”

He spoke with a voice so tender and shy that if the scenario changed, his words would have another sense for me. But no. I was terrified while I listened to his type of confession. I had the weapon in my hands, but I was simply paralyzed. The boy finally broke the distance only to hug me. He let out a low moan; I could feel how he sniffed my neck and his breathing caused me chills. His free hand slid down my abdomen until it touched my crotch. At that moment I made a grimace of discomfort and pure fear.

“Trevor didn’t love me as much as I loved him… but… Victor, that no longer matters… you seem to me much more attractive than him…” he admitted with a thread of voice. “This is everything I wanted, we no longer need anyone else.”

He opened his mouth to recover air; I could feel how his breathing became increasingly erratic. He began to rub his body slowly against mine as if he were some type of cat in heat. My chin began to tremble from fear; I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but if I did something, I could alert him. And also, he had me trapped both arms; although I wanted to use the taser, he had me trapped.

“It feels as if every drop of my blood screamed for your name. Sorry if it sounds indecent, but I can’t wait much more time… I would like to feel every inch of you inside me…” he confessed with an excitement so genuine that it caused me fear. “And if you don’t accept, it doesn’t matter, I will tear off each one of your fingers and put them whole inside me just to feel you inside this night, and thus have a reason to moan your name. Victor… Would you be my lover?… Do you accept my confession?…”

The question floated in the air tenderly, and I could only think about what the hell I had just heard. With everything I had heard, I was finally able to realize that Trevor was truly dead; this crazy guy killed him, and that only made me feel an uncontrollable rage. I knew I was forced to say yes so he wouldn’t do something unexpected. But I doubted, because what I wanted to scream at him was to rot in hell. At that moment, I managed to get loose and hugged the young man strongly.

“Yes” I pronounced with a sigh.

The boy looked at me directly; that shine that before could result tender now seemed like that of a predator savoring its prey. He opened his mouth, not to speak, but to let out chuckles, first faint, then louder. In the end he finished laughing, not like the normal laugh of a human, but like that of a creature that was trying to imitate one. The boy was a human, but his behavior didn’t seem so. And when I thought that I was safe, he moved away from me; I could see behind the slit of the mask how his smile faded slowly. With fixed eyes he looked at me, and his hoarse voice pronounced a question that made me feel nervous.

“Why are you scared?”

How the fuck did he realize?, I thought.

“What are you talking about? I love you! Seriously…” I affirmed stammering, holding the lie with a smile.

“Why can’t you love me!? Why does no one love me!?” he began to shout with a trembling voice. “He doesn’t love me, Trevor didn’t love me, and you don’t love me!”

I was going to say something, but at that moment, he began to shout one and another time: ‘I want you to love me!’. It was like seeing the tantrum of a demon in front of you. At that moment, my patience was exhausted and I let out with fury:

“I love you!”

But that didn’t prevent him from lifting the brick, ready to let it fall over my skull. But I wasn’t going to allow it easily. In a quick movement, I stuck the flashlight into his neck and pressed the button that activated the taser. The shocks made the boy drop the brick. I don’t know how much time I left the taser on, but I wanted it to hurt him; it was to vent, to vent from what this bastard did to Trevor. But no, an electric shock wasn’t comparable to what Trevor surely felt. When I finally removed it, he fell backward to the bed. I didn’t wait a moment more; I ran until the window and threw myself against it, breaking it and falling over my arm on the grass. Some glass shards became embedded in my arm upon falling, but I didn’t care; what now mattered to me was to flee with life from there; the taser wasn’t going to last much time. I looked at my cell phone and stopped what I had recorded; when the notification appeared that said ‘Screen recording was saved in photos’, at that moment I got up with the speed with which a dove flies after being freed. I ran like never before I had done it; in the distance I could hear a harrowing scream, released with a fury almost demonic. I had made him angry. I turned for a second and gave the middle finger to the void.

Rot in hell, I thought.

I kept running through the whole neighborhood while I laughed like a madman. I think I began to cry at some point. Until I saw the lights of the patrol, which blinded me in a momentary manner. The patrol stopped upon seeing me, and almost immediately, my vision clouded and I collapsed on the floor heavily.
I woke up with my arm bandaged; to a side of me was a nurse with a serious expression, which changed to one of impression just upon seeing that I opened my eyes. She immediately left the room. I was in the hospital, that was already obvious; sitting in a corner was found an agent who guarded the window like an eagle in the heights. He headed toward me and told me not to worry and that in a moment the detective in charge of the case would come to interrogate me. In my mind I thanked God because at that moment the police had found me, but I was already overwhelmed from so many interrogations. When the detectives arrived, I was somewhat dissociated and I don’t remember much of what they asked me; they told me that by checking on my phone they found the video I had recorded and I told them that I was going to show it to them. From there on, the questions weren’t so special, although I do remember the conclusions to which they arrived; due to the boy’s conduct, it was someone with possible erotomania. Probably he wasn’t doing this alone, since he mentioned a third party to whom he only referred to as ‘He’, and this ‘He’ was the owner of the forest that I and Trevor went to explore a week before the disappearance, and he also could have been the boy’s first rejection. Due to the infantalized attitude in which he acted, probably this ‘He’ wasn’t a victim, but someone who manipulated the boy to commit murders. I could already have an idea of who could be that ‘He’, what I didn’t know was if he really was him for real or someone who was posing as him.

I spent the following hours alone—although technically I was accompanied by an agent who guarded my room—; they didn’t let my family visit me because that put the safety of them at risk. Despite remaining alone, this time I felt more at peace outside of that house. But even so, it was the same: I didn’t have anything to do; I simply stayed prostrated in the bed and occasionally I turned on the television.
Completed the 24 hours after having found the corpse, the DNA tests already had results; for more than I denied the obvious, in the end it ended up being real. It was him. Trevor Pulaski was dead. I no longer had tears to cry for him; all of them were exhausted when I received the news of the discovery of his body. But I did have something to tell him, if his ghost can hear my thoughts: Trevor, I’m sorry, I should have stayed in contact with you; if only I hadn’t abandoned you none of this would have happened; I loved you. But now, no longer remains more to do; forgive me for not having been there.
Upon seeing that the danger was real, the county police decided to move me far from Curry County. They were going to take me to a safe house, a service that the county’s economy couldn’t afford. I was safe, yes, but I felt like a leper distanced from my family and to those whom I loved the most. «While we solve the case», they said, but the truth is I don’t believe they are going to solve it. Because in this type of stories, the crazy person always finds a way to get away with it; always finds the way to be like hemorrhoids in the butt—pardon the indecent language—. Being in this safe house only delayed the end of my life a little more; at any moment he will arrive and he will no longer have mercy. When I wake up in the middle of the night I am not capable of looking back; something in me tells me not to do it; something in me tells me that if I do it, he will be there. But when I finally turn, there is nothing. Sometimes I hear him, that tender voice that groaned my name; I always end up crying because even not being here, that bastard ruins my life. Even now I hear him, behind me, groaning my name.

“Victor…”

And I don’t know if this is only a nightmare; perhaps I only should look back and see that there is nothing… Right?

Credit: Edward Palmer