Blue Boogeyman Diaries

There is something out there, something predatory, something that is pure evil. It’s been haunting my home town for decades now, maybe even longer than that. My uncle, my cousin, and even his daughter all have spoken of this thing; this creature. They call him the Pictman. According to them, it looks like a tall, pale humanoid with a crooked mouth and appears to be covered in tattoos or engravings all over its body. Hence the name. For the longest time, I thought it must’ve been some sort of familial delirious disorder or some other mental health issue.

I would lie if I said I haven't been affected myself. I don’t know if I’m being plagued by dreams or memories but for years now I’ve been experiencing visions of sorts in which I suddenly see myself in a different place. In a different reality, everything I knew at that moment just kind of disappears.

I am disassociated from the rest of my world and thrown into a dark and rocky damp space. I am walking in a straight line in an environment I cannot recognize or even properly digest; the walls are covered in dark reddish hand prints. There’s an odd smell all around me, something I can only describe as a metallic smell mixed in with cotton candy laced with shades of pus. Not entirely awful nor very pleasant. An odd scent one would not encounter regularly.

Behind me walks a shadowy figure whose features I can never make out. For some reason, I do not turn to look back either. There’s a sound coming from behind me, something that sounds like someone laughing with their mouth closed. This goes on for a while until I enter a chamber in which a small human being, incredibly skinny and flair is tied up to a cross-shaped contraption. The poor thing looks like the proverbial skin and bones kind of person. Their bones are painfully pronounced beneath their leathery yellowish skin. The creature turns its head, just barely, to face me. Its face looks more like a skull than the face of a living human, cheekbones pronounced, eyes awfully sunken, lips shriveled and cracked. I can sense a glint of fear in its eyes.

That’s when everything starts flashing before my eyes. I feel like I’m blinking fast, thus creating a movie-like effect with my eyes. I see the poor thing in front of me, tied up to its cross for a moment, then everything goes black for another, then I see a hand reaching out from behind me, it holds onto something I can’t quite make out. Everything goes black again. Once my vision returns, I can tell it has a sharp stone object in its grasp. Everything fades once more, and when my vision returns, I am holding the sharp object. It’s all black again, and when my eyesight is back it’s all red. This goes on for a while; darkness and a sea of red while agonized screaming and an ever-increasing dry and deep laughter fill my ears.

At one point or another, I snap out of this hellish dream, or vision, I say vision because my wife says I zone out from time to time in broad daylight. At first, I used to freak out after experiencing this thing, but then it became commonplace so I didn’t pay much mind, especially since I didn’t experience any health issues as a result, as far as I know.

For some reason, I’ve never bothered connecting it with The Pictman that has invaded the mind of my relatives, since well, it started happening after I left my home town, and the whole imagery while somewhat similar also seems to be very much different, to me at least.

When I met one of my current students, Seraphina Gonchar, my perception of things changed. She too is from my hometown, and she too believes something was haunting her family. Specifically, her deceased brother. After meeting her, I’ve started believing there was some sort of local folk tale about some Boogeyman people spread around my hometown. So, I’ve looked around; looking for any clues in regards to such a thing. Well, turns out there are others like Seraphina and me. All over the world, there have been cases of people remembering some sort of vaguely humanoid entity. An entity that is covered in what appears to be tattoos or engravings. They all remember it haunting their childhood.

Now that I think about it, my own weird experiences with these visions, or whatever they are, they might be some sort of repressed memory resurfacing as opposed to just a part of my imagination. A lot of people repress traumatic experiences to the point of completely forgetting about their existence. Sometimes, however, these nightmares come back to haunt us.

Anyway, I’ve taken it upon myself to gather a few of these individuals into one place to discuss the phenomenon.

The following is a group chat I’ve had with these people concerning the entity known in my hometown as the Pictman.

* +

*You have added J. Franco, Mikhail, Tommy C, Verovero, Aslanlion, Marrisa Hor to the chat.*

You: Hello everyone.

Cat lady Seraphina: Good evening, Prof, people.

Mikhail: Hey!

Verovero: Hi everyone,

Marissa Hor: Good evening.

Tommy C: Sup.

J. Franco: Top of the morning.

Aslanlion: Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

You: I hope you’re all doing fine today.

Tommy C: Yeah.

Mikhail: Right back at you.

Marissa Hor: I’m doing good, how about you Ethan?

You: I’m fine, thanks for asking!

You: Okay, let’s get to the subject at hand. I guess everyone here knows why we’re having this conversation. Just in case anyone forgot, allow me to remind you – we’re here to talk about the Pictman phenomenon.

Cat lady Seraphina: Apparently, we’ve all had to deal with that piece of shit at one point or another.

Cat lady Seraphina: Pardon my swearing, It’s just a touchy subject.

Tommy C: It’s fine.

J. Franco: Understandable… That thing fucked me up real good years ago.

You: Really, how so? That is if you’re comfortable talking about it in detail.

J. Franco: It’s fine. I haven’t spoken about it to anyone in a while. I guess it helped me get over the

J. Franco: Nightmares. I’m just glad I haven’t seen that thing… It’s just so…

Verovero: Damn… It messed you up for sure.

J. Franco: Yeah.

Aslanlion: It’s all good. Take your time, man.

J. Franco: Yeah, so I’ve started seeing that thing in the periphery of my vision at some point. I was like six-seven at the time and I’d just see this tall, pale, ugly person. At least that’s what I thought it was, just standing there and watching me play outside and whatnot. It wouldn’t do anything. It wouldn’t even move, it just stood and stared. It kept happening over and over, so I started just drawing that thing; incorporating it into my drawings. I’d tell family and friends that it’s like a guardian spirit or something.

Verovero: It’s not. Trust me, I grew up in a household where we knew all about spirits and deities and what not. That thing is not anything that pops up in myths.

J. Franco: Naturally, I guess. I was just a kid, and that was a positive concept I knew so, I went with that.

You: And then you started having nightmares about it?

J. Franco: Yeah… I started drawing that pale boogeyman and then I’d have nightmares about this thing.

Cat lady Seraphina: What kind of nightmares, if you don’t mind sharing?

J. Franco: I’d find myself in these dark, damp, cold halls and the walls would be covered in my drawings. Well twisted and overly stretched versions of them. I could hear wailing and screaming. Inhuman screams. Then I’d start running, not even knowing why. I just ran and then the screaming would grow louder and closer. I’d turn around and see that thing racing towards me on all fours. Its face

J. Franco: Contorted into the mug of an angry dog baring its teeth. The thing would chase after me and end up catching me and tossing me violently into the drawing covered walls.

Tommy C: Damn…

J. Franco: Yeah, it also felt incredibly real, I’d wake up all sore in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Naturally, though, the creature would get stuck in my head and prompt me to draw more of that. More drawings only meant that the nightmares were getting more frequent and the creature just got angrier.

J. Franco: It had gotten so bad; I was thrown around like a rag doll and woke up with bruises all over my body. The freak would look like its face was about to tear itself apart with rage.

You: Eventually, that stopped, right?

J. Franco: Yeah… Like I told you in private, at some point, I just snapped and burned all the depictions I’ve made of this Pale fucker. Haven’t seen it since. Thank God for that.

You: Well, my cousin’s daughter drew the Pictman a few times…

J. Franco: Get your cousin to burn those drawings, Ethan. I’m serious.

You: I’ll do that, thanks, Jon.

J. Franco: No problem. Fuck that thing. If it hates being seen, let’s make sure it won’t be ever seen again.

Verovero: Not to be that girl, but I guess it’s better seeing it in your dreams than being chased by it through a mist-covered forest.

J. Franco: Huh?

Verovero: Yeah… That thing, this wannabe Leshy chased me all over a forest I used to live near to.

Marissa Hor: What’s a Leshy?

Aslanlion: Russian legendary spirit of forests.

Cat lady Seraphina: What he said ^

Marissa Hor: I see.

Verovero: Yeah, I used to see that creature roaming the forest for a while, it was almost trying to lure me in.

Tommy C: Seems like it eventually did.

Verovero: No. I was actually picking mushrooms with my parents one day, and suddenly a hand grabbed at me and whisked me off my feet.

Mikhail: Picking mushrooms hah,

Verovero: I grew up in a village.

Cat lady Seraphina: Holy…

Verovero: The next thing I know, I’m somewhere in the forest, lost and alone. There’s mist everywhere. I am confused and quickly becoming scared. Suddenly I hear the voice of my mother calling my name. I follow the voice only to find nothing. I scream for my parents; I am scared out of wits. Then that sickening cackling came from behind me. I remember turning around and seeing this pale, tall goblin-looking thing staring at me and laughing. I screamed in fear and ran as far as I could. Trying to get away from it.

Verovero: The creature simply followed me wherever I went, I couldn’t escape it. No matter where I turned, I heard its steps behind me and the terrible cackling. My skin is crawling just thinking about it, by the way.

Verovero: Eventually, I managed to run away, back to the hands of my worried father. I was lost, and my parents were looking for me. When I told them what had happened, they didn’t believe me of course. They just thought I took the wrong step, got lost, and eventually found my way back to them; terrified for my life and teary-eyed. Honestly, I’m not really sure though, it had probably just let me go after having enough of its sick fun with me.

Mikhail: Jesus, you guys, you all had it worse than me.

Verovero: Huh? Why, what was your experience like?

Mikhail: Simply put, I’d see the pale tall man appear in the background of tv shows. I know he wasn’t supposed to be there, but he’d just pop up in the background and stay there for a few minutes.

Tommy C: Pfff

Mikhail: Yeah, nothing too drastic. Still weird, even weirder apparently, I’d be transfixed on the TV whenever that happened. I would completely zone out with my eyes glued to the TV, unblinking and unmoving. My parents and brothers had to pull me off the screen by force on occasion.

Marissa Hor: wow…

Mikhail: Sometimes I’d be stuck like this even after the TV was turned off. My parents thought I might be having some sort of psychiatric issue. Especially since I kept talking about a pale, tall man standing in the tv when there was apparently none. I turned out fine, just a man with a few weird memories of a thing that supposedly never existed.

Tommy C: Yeah, well, something pulled me under my bed or tried to.

You: Odd, just like that?

Tommy C: Yeah, pretty much. I just remember seeing something that night in the mirror. I thought it was a reflection or some optical illusion in the mirror. For me, it couldn’t have been a face in that mirror. You see, I was brought up in a fairy logically motivated household. Both of my parents are working in scientific fields.

Cat lady Seraphina: What did you see, there, Tommy?

Tommy C: It was a half-transparent grayish face. One eye huge, the other small, a small tuft of hair on its head, a massive underbite crooked into a painful smile. It didn’t make sense anatomically, so I dismissed it as a figment of my imagination.

Cat lady Seraphina: Sounds about right

Tommy C: I woke up in the middle of the night due to noises underneath me. The next thing I know, I’m being dragged from the bed, beneath the bed. Obviously, I screamed bloody murder and my parents came in rushing to my room. I was found passed out on the floor, half of my body under the bed, both my ankles with scratch marks on them. I was concussed, and the scratches could never be explained. We moved out of that house a few months later. While I’m sure my parents didn’t think it was some supernatural being, they probably thought there was a way for someone or something to get inside. Even though there were no holes in the wall or floor. I don’t know.

You: Damn, that’s a rough night. Seems like no matter how short the interactions with this thing are, it imprints its presence on the memory of its victims.

Marissa Hor: Yeah

Verovero: Yep.

J. Franco: Totally.

Cat lady Seraphina: It probably wants us to remember.

Aslanlion: Honestly, I would never forget that thing, I mean, I saw it humping a dog corpse in some cave in Azerbaijan.

Verovero: WHAT?!

Aslanlion: Yep. It did so and stared at me.

Tommy C: How did you even come across that?

Aslanlion: Honestly, I don’t know, I was just hiking through the area when suddenly I heard thumping and my curiosity took over. I found that thing, that scene. It happened pretty much in broad daylight, at an entrance to a cave.

Marissa Hor: I’m sorry, I just can’t…

*Marissa Hor has left the chat.*

Cat lady Seraphina: hoo boy, she ran off.

You: Let her be. Maybe it’s for the best – knowing what you’ve told me, Seraphina.

Cat lady Seraphina: I guess so, Prof.

Mikhail: What happened to you, Cat lady?

Aslanlion: Yeah, what happened to you?

You: her brother…

Cat lady Seraphina: This fucking piece of shit, it took him away, it took my brother. It took Simeon away.

Verovero: I’m so sorry.

J. Franco: Damn, sorry to hear that.

Aslanlion: Shit…

Tommy C: Sorry.

Cat lady Seraphina: It’s fine, you guys, none of your fault. I just…

You: It hurts.

Cat lady Seraphina: Yeah… I need a moment…

You: take your time.

Mikhail: You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to. It’s okay, buddy.

Verovero: Yeah, we’ve heard enough. Now we can try to figure out what the hell we’re even dealing with.

You: Yeah, that’s going to be a hard one.

Tommy C: How so?

Aslanlion: Yeah, Ethan, you seem to know a lot more about that thing than we do. Don’t you have anything in mind?

You: I really don’t know much. I know what my uncle told me. This thing, this fiend, it finds a target and stalks it for a while, occasionally. Then it gets closer and closer to its target, like an ambush predator. It usually appears in misty and stormy weather and whenever the target is alone. Sometimes it would offer candy. There’s nothing wrong about the candy, however, as far as I know.

Mikhail: Sounds like some sort of child molester between that and what Aslan said.

You: It’s something worse.

Aslanlion: Can’t be much worse than a child molester, I guess.

You: For starters, it isn’t human, my uncle encountered it over sixty years ago. The thing doesn’t age at all. It appears to be able to do all sorts of unbelievable things. It specifically targets children, and its main purpose seems to be to to torture them mentally.

Verovero: It’s like the devil.

You: except this one is real. Now the halls you saw in your dreams, Jon, that’s like a pocket dimension or something. It sometimes takes its victims there and torments them by chasing them all over the place and showing them all sorts of awful things.

J. Franco: Oh God.

Tommy C: Jesus Christ.

You: Tommy, you got lucky. This thing takes people and drags them under their bed and into this dimension, somehow. Sometimes, for some unclear reason – it kills its victims. In the most torturous ways possible. The screams you’ve heard in your dreams, Jon. They were most likely its victims.

J. Franco: Oh, for fuck’s sakes. Now, this thing can transport you to its world from your dreams?

You: I don’t know.

You: The worst of it is that it makes toys out of its victims, sometimes. Well, twisted variations of toys and hands them out to other potential victims. Ever imagined seeing your son or daughter coming home with a doll made up of human flesh and bones?

Verovero: It does that?!

You: Mhm.

You: That’s what happened with Seraphina’s brother. He saw that thing stalking him, getting closer and closer every time he saw this thing, eventually it established trust. Simeon would give his sister candies “a tall man with a funny face and hat” gave him.

Cat lady Seraphina: I was none the wiser, I couldn’t know what was going on. My older brother was giving me candies, so I took them. Then he started saying he played with this man in his room. That it was his friend and nad I didn’t do anything about it.

J. Franco: It’s not your fault.

Mikhail: You couldn’t know, don’t beat yourself up over it.

Cat lady Seraphina: Thanks guys, it means a lot.

Verovero: We’re all here for you, Seraphina!

Cat lady Seraphina: Thank you! <3

Cat lady Seraphina: Onbe day I woke up to the screams of my mother. She was standing in Simeon’s room. I remember walking inside and seeing blood all over the walls and the floor. My brother, my olderr brother. He was.

Verovero: I’m so sorry you had to go through this.

Cat lady Seraphina: He was gone. There was a

Cat lady Seraphina: Ball made of human skin.

Cat lady Seraphina: The police told my father that they found Simeon’s flayed skull inside the ball. I didn’t know what that meant at the time. I hoped that it meant they found him. I just wanted my brother back…

Aslanlion: I hope your brother rests in peace.

Mikhail: I’m so sorry for your loss.

Tommy C: Jesus fucking Christ, I’m sorry, I can’t stay here. This is making me sick.

*Tommy C has left the chat.*

Verovero: Too much… sorry to hear that Seraphina, but I’ve to go too… I can talk to you in private if you’d like.

Cat lady Seraphina: It’s fine.

Verovero has left the chat.

You: It didn’t get any easier hearing that the second time. It all makes sense though.

Cat lady Seraphina: It doesn’t.

Cat lady Seraphina: What do you mean by it makes sense though?

You: The pattern, there’s a pattern.

Cat lady Seraphina: Huh? What are you talking about, prof?

You: Nothing.

Cat lady Seraphina: Are you okay? I know what you’ve been through, and I know what it does to you. You and I, we’re a lot alike, you know that. I can tell you’re not in your element right now. There's a reason we’ve both here now, and you didn’t leave because of the Pictman.

You: Oh yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, kiddo. Just got caught up in thoughts. There’s a pattern, this thing. It makes toys out of living materials, didn’t you notice?

Mikhail: Fucking hell.

Cat lady Seraphina: Ohhhh, okay. You worried me there for a moment. Yeah, yeah I did notice that.

You: Sorry for making you worry.

Cat lady Seraphina: Sheesh

Aslanlion: Well, I guess that’s that. I don’t feel like interrupting your moment there.

You: It’s fine.

Aslanlion: Let me know if you need anything else, Ethan.

*Aslanlion has left the chat.*

Mikhail: That was something, I'm gonna get going too. See ya, was nice meeting you all.

*Mikhail has left the chat.*

Cat lady Seraphina: I’ll see you in class next week, Prof.

* +

That was the end of that conversation, we’ve concluded nothing, really. I just thought I should share this somewhere. Maybe someone out there has a better idea of what we’re dealing with here. Maybe someone has a better idea of how to put this predator down.

If you’ve been dealing with something similar or know anyone who has, please let me know.

*Edit:* Well, Marissa has contacted me and told me what had happened to her with the Pictman. I completely understand why she just left the group chat. The moment this thing was mentioned violating a dog corpse. She said she has first seen this thing in the middle of a stormy day, staring at her window. It saw her looking back at it and back away out of her field of vision. She started seeing it over and over. With each new sighting, the thing got closer, it became bolder.

Eventually, she started seeing it in her own house.

But for a moment, before she could even scream, it would disappear.

Before long, she’d see a tall, pale, tattooed man standing in the corner of her room at night. Just before she’d go to bed, it stood there rocking itself back and forth. Its chilling presence alone would mortify her. Once Marissa managed to flip her night light on, the fiend would disappear.

No one had believed her when she told them about the pale boogeyman haunting her room at night.

One night, she woke up because she felt something pressing on her body.

Opening her eyes, she saw that hideous pale face with one massive eye and an abnormally severe underbite staring right at her.

The creature placed its hand on top of her mouth preventing her from screaming as it straddled her.

She was seven at the time.

This has to fucking end!