Short Story: The Dark Figure

Introduction: I occasionally write short stories, mostly of the horror genre. This will be my first on this site. I hope it's worth reading. I don't like writing stories that all come together in the end, or stories that come with a pleasant ending. In my experience, that rarely happens.

The Dark Figure


I had stepped outside to smoke one last cigarette before going to bed. The first thing I noticed was the light rain falling. I didn't know it had been raining. The copper glow from the street light illuminated the drops of rain on the grass. After lighting my cigarette, I waited for my eyes to readjust to the darkness. Oddly enough, I was so captivated by the rain, I didn't think to pull my phone out. I looked across the street to see if any deer were on my neighbor's lawn. They tend to be there each night at this time, standing just outside the light. I didn't see any shapes emerge from the darkness, so my eyes began to follow the barbed wire fence along the opposite side of the street. My eyes stopped at a tree just across from the street light. After a moment, I became aware of why I had stopped at that particular tree. I was seeing something that I had never seen in my past four years of living here. It was a dark object, leaning out diagonally from behind the tree.

Is it a large tree stump? How have I never noticed it?

I immediately looked down to see if a tree had fallen. If a tree had fallen, it would've hit the fence. It would've landed in the street. I knew it wasn't a tree, despite my thoughts. I continued staring at it. It was at this point when I became convinced that it was slowly moving. This dark object was about sixty feet away, and I was standing at my front door. Despite knowing this, I was quickly overwhelmed with dread. I felt like time was moving slower. Had a car passed? Had the rain stopped? I had lost my awareness of everything around me, except for the figure. Yes, it was moving, but I couldn't recall seeing it move from one spot to another. The dark mass was beginning to swallow a portion of the fence, the barbed wire slowly pulling back as if pulled by an unseen hand. It had no definite shape or features, and I was convinced that it was approaching me, watching me. I suppose I had been overwhelmed with fear, stuck somewhere between fight and flight. I was quickly shaken by the sound of the wire popping under high tension, followed by the sound of floorboards creaking. I was engulfed in pain.