Jack The Being

I don’t believe in urban legends. Nor do I believe in myths like God’s, creatures, demons, or anything like that. For the longest time, I have been trying to find something paranormal, or supernatural to show me that an afterlife exist but I haven’t come across anything. At least not yet. This Halloween I’m hoping to fix that. There’s a street downtown where I live Market and Sixth Street. They say on Halloween night if you wait till after midnight you can experience something. My town is a small town, so word travels fast. I believe these to be nothing more than ghost stories. Stories told by generation after generation passed down, and nothing more than that. I wouldn’t consider myself a ghost hunter or anything of that nature. I’m just someone that’s looking for a good thrill.
 
 Eleven-o-clock I gathered up everything I needed. I didn’t need much. Just my wrist watch, a flash light, and my pocket knife just in case. You never know when you’re going to need a sharp knife, and of course my phone. I grabbed my things and proceeded outside to my car. The drive downtown didn’t take long at all. I only lived about fifteen minutes away. So I had some time to kill. I made my way by the local coffee shop to pick myself up a medium coffee on the way down town. I was still ahead of schedule, but that was okay I decided to park my car within walking distance of the street I was going to be checking out. I pulled out my phone to dig up some more facts about the lore’s that happened down town at night. I pulled up a local website that was ran by a local paranormal investigator. From what I could see there were no hardcore facts on the site to back up any of his claims. Most of it just seemed like a bunch of things a regular paranormal investigator, or ghost hunter would claim:
 
  Between the hours of midnight and three-o-clock in the morning on 6th street in downtown Parkersburg West Virginia my team and I experienced some weird things. We can’t describe it as paranormal, but we weren’t able to recreate the noises and experiences me and my team had. Somewhere between these hours, we heard weird tapping noises on the concrete, almost like someone tapping a cane, and even though it would be hot outside we’d experience a weird like mist coming from the streets. Other things happened as well, but I can’t recall them considering they occurred to me. My team has decided it might be a good idea that we don’t go back there. Due to unforeseen circumstances that happened to me, I don’t remember very much, but what I do remember is waking up in a hospital with a doctor checking my vitals…Sometimes legends are real.
 
 A hand reached out of the phone and pulled my face in closer to the screen.  
“Josh I will get you!” A deep demonic voice yelled out. I dropped the phone and was quickly awaken out of sleep.
“Shit,” I said, looking down at the clock to notice the time. It was now midnight. I must’ve dozed off into sleep…somehow… I grabbed my coffee and downed it as quickly as I could. I got out of the car, doing a double take to make sure I got everything. I locked my car and made my way over to the start of the sixth street. It was easy to see why the paranormal team could easily get spooked, the scenery it’s self at night was something out of an old town, and at night it looked like a ghost town with no one around. Above me was an old train bridge that was still active, so that could’ve easily been the mist they were talking about. Just like the night the team was here I too noticed it was very humid. Everything that was in the memo was the same as the night before.

 I walked deeper into the dark street corners, turning down the alley on Sixth Street which led me in between two buildings. The alley was a mess with trash on the ground. I could easily tell the building to the left of me was still very active, but yet at this time of night, it too looked abandoned.

  I walked farther into the alley, but the deeper I went, the more my head started to hurt. I started getting a sharp pain in the left part of my head. I bent down on one knee, shutting my eye, and trying to get the pain to go away. After a few minutes I stood back up shaking off the pain the best that I could, but for some reason, the pain wouldn’t go away. I held onto the side of the wall and continued to move on down the alley…that’s when I heard it…
-Click-      -Click-       -Click-

  I looked up with one eye, still holding onto to the wall trying to get the pain in my head to go away, I noticed a figure standing at the end of the alley. I couldn’t make out much, but it was a black silhouette of a man. He couldn’t be any taller than five foot seven. He was just standing there in a top hat, with his cane in both hands, clicking it on the ground. With each click of his cane it seemed to make my head pound.
“Hello?” I called out, holding my left hand over my forehead while the other kept me balanced.

  The man at the end of the alley didn’t respond he just stood there.
-Click-     -Click-
“Could you please stop?” I cried out, but he ignored my plea. He gave three more clicks of his cane then stopped. All of a sudden my headache was gone, and so was he…I stood up straight examining my surroundings, trying to figure out what the hell happened. I took one step forward to proceed down the alley, but a cane stopped my foot on top of my shoe. Fear quickly overcame me. I slowly looked up from the rod to the hand…the hand wasn’t that of a human. His fingers were long and jagged. All of his fingers looked like little knives. His arm was long and slender. It almost looked like it didn’t have any flesh on the bone is how skinny it was. I followed his arm to his frame to notice he was a shorter man, with a small build, and wore a long trench coat that was torn at the bottom from where he let it drag behind him. My eyes made their way up to his face which scared me the most it was all white. His entire frame was all black, but his face was all white. His face defiantly wasn’t human. His eyes were gone but somehow still managed to radiate a small red tint to them. He had no nose, and the bottom of his face was just gone. From where the top of his mouth was supposed to be it looked like someone cut the bottom half of his face off, but yet he still managed to make a creepy smile from ear to ear. The top hat that sat on top of was ripped at the top but almost looked like it was attached to him.

  I tried to scream…I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I was frozen in fear. He lifted his cane tapping it once on my foot, and I fell backwards on my butt. The buildings beside of me quickly turned red; then there was no light at all in the alley. I tried to reach in the back of my pocket for my flashlight, but the man’s long slender arm reached down picking me up. His sharp fingers tore holes into my shirt as he lifted me to his face. He leaned me in putting his forehead against mine. I had visions that terrified me. The alley way was filled with dismembered body parts of women as blood ran down into the drain. Men were impaled on the side of buildings and were just left there to rot. He pulled his head back away from mine. The visions quickly went away; I was plunged back to reality as he tossed me up against the side of the building. I crept my way from the ground to my feet finally getting the courage and strength to run.
“I like it when they try and survive.” I heard his distorted voice call out to me, but I didn’t turn around I just kept running toward the other end of the alley. Before I could even make it to the other side, he was already there. I saw his shadow at the end of the alley coming toward me with that damn cane.
-Click- -click- click-

  Even though he could somehow teleport, he was moving faster. I turned back around and tried running the opposite way, but before I could take off running his face was met with mine. He smiled demonically at me.
“You can’t run. You have nowhere to run. The fighting will only make me stronger.” He said, opening up his coat he was wearing exposing his body which was far more horrifying than his face. The inside of the coat looked like it was pure flesh and out from the flesh danged three squid tentacles. I took off running, but it was already too late they were chasing after me. One snapped me on the back of the neck, and it felt like a bee sting. I felt a few more hit the back of my arm, but I felt the worst pain when I made it to the end of the alley way in my left ankle. I fell to the ground to look down at my left foot…that as no longer there. I let out a loud yell, long enough for someone to hear me, but at this hour no one was around. I crawled out of the alley way and onto Sixth Street, reaching down into my pocket for my cell phone. I dialed 911, rolling over looking for the man but he was gone…He had once again disappeared. I faded out of consciousness…

  When I came to, I was in a hospital room. I had an I.V. and room. I looked down at my bandaged-up ankle. It was a reminder of what I went through last night. A nurse and a cop approached the end of my bed.
“Glad to see you’re awake.” The cop said, pulling out his note book.

“You’ve been out for a quite some time. It’s Thursday morning.” The nurse said, smiling at me.

“What happened to me?” I asked.

“We were hoping you could tell us. When the paramedics came they found you on the ground passed out and your foot was gone.” The cop said. I sat up in my bed looking down at my foot,” Did you find it?”

“I’m sorry?” The cop looked confused.

“My foot…was it in the alley?”

“No…we couldn’t find it anywhere. That’s why we want to know what happened to you and I want you to be honest with me. But first, what were you doing in that alley at that time of night by yourself?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Son…Have you heard of the legends of downtown around that hour? We believe you may be a victim of a killer of downtown who is trying to bring those legends to life.”

“Killer? He…it wasn’t human. He reminded me of Jack the ripper in a way.”
The cop looked stunned,” That’s not possible. Jack, the ripper, has been dead for years.”

  I told the cop everything I saw and everything that happened to me. Even though he jotted it down, I could tell he thought I made it all up. I just wondered if the team before me had the same experience. I’m not really sure what happened, but all I know is that that damn clicking noise from his cane still haunts me in my sleep…