Tall, Tattooed and Cackling

My father was abused in his childhood. The abuse left him traumatized and devoid of innocence. He’d never speak about what had happened. I learned from my mom about how he had told her at some point, but I never cared about the details. It’s really heartbreaking to know your father; that he wasn’t as strong or as steady as you imagined him to be. I never bothered asking because I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want the image I had of him ruined. For me, he was always supposed to be this tough, grizzled old man who has a soft spot for family and friends. I did not want to see him as vulnerable. Hell, even in his old age, he doesn’t seem to slow down.

Nonetheless, this ideal mental picture I had of my father had been shattered, by the man himself, no less.

I left my kids at my parents for the week; the kids wanted to see their grandparents and my folks wanted to spend time with their grandchildren. My folks live somewhat far from us, so we left the kids with them for a week. It’s not the first time, and usually, these visits go without incident. I guess this one was a little different.

My dad decided to call, and specifically at a time, he knew I wouldn’t be home. He left me a voice message I never wanted to hear; he knew I wouldn’t let him say what he told me in that message if we spoke in real time. My father opted to tell me exactly what happened to him during his childhood.

“Hey, son. I’m sorry I’m doing it like this, but I’m left with little choice. I hope you can understand me. I know you never wanted to hear this about your old man. I… I’m sorry, I love you. Please don’t worry about me. I am fine. I promise. It’s just…” He started sobbing at that point.

After a few moments of hearing my father cry into his phone, I heard him suck in air and then he continued talking, "So, as I’m sure you already know; someone kidnapped me when I was four. I was held hostage in some cave for ten days without even know that much. I didn’t know how long I was there; I had no idea where I was. All I knew, and that’s going to sound strange. But, one moment I was in my room, and the next I was being dragged into the darkness under my bed. I know I sounded crazy just now, but that’s how I remember it. My therapist at the time said it was a coping mechanism, but I doubt that – the entire ordeal was just way too… insane… for this to be a part of my imagination. Either that or my brain decided remembering an evil monster was better than remembering being molested.

"I apologize for the absurdity, son. Even if I wanted, I can’t make any of this up.

"They said I was one of the lucky victims of someone nicknamed The Pictman, a local child molester. He was nicknamed so because of all of his victims that did make it out alive describe him as having drawings all over his body. Tattoos. They never caught the bastard. There were missing children reports from the town and the surrounding area and that was going on for years. The authorities just couldn’t get anything on that son of a bitch. He was apparently too elusive, too damned good at what he did. That’s what they always excused their ineptitude.

"Let me tell you something, though, they couldn’t get him…”

There was a lengthy pause before my father continued speaking.

"They couldn’t get to it… because it wasn’t a child molester. It wasn’t even human. It couldn’t be a human. It… it… makes me shake just thinking about this thing even sixty years later. God! Remember how I described the Boogeyman to you? Inhumanly tall and lanky, pallid and covered in marks all over its body. The one huge eye and one small eye. The thunderous cackling. If you’ve ever wondered why the Boogeyman looks like he does, now you know. It was my Boogeyman. My personification of fear.

"It’s all so silly, it sounds so silly. Like the eighties’ cartoon villain, doesn’t it? I wish I could say the same thing when I saw it in person. There is just something incredibly awful about that corpse-like form. The misshapen eyes. It also had a severe underbite which forced it's mouth open, forming a constant smile of sorts. The eyes, the eyes were quite human but at the same time devoid of any emotion. It having a disgusting bushy gray beard didn’t help the appeal.

"The first time I saw this thing was in a terribly foggy day. I looked out of my living room window and saw that thing standing there. Sticking out as the only physical shape inside a cloud of thick mist. It wore a long coat that covered its whole body and a top hat. It saw me and waved. I waved back. I remember your grandmother asking me what I was waving at and I remember turning to her to tell her a nice man was waving at me from the street. She gave me a funny look and said there was no one in sight. That thing was gone.

"That’s how it all started. I paid it no mind though, being a four-year-old kid. From there on, I’d see this thing periodically. Every time I saw this thing; the weather was awful. It’s like these two came hand in hand. And each time I saw it, the thing was getting closer and closer to me.

"I know I sound like a crazy old man, but trust me, I’m fine. I swear to you, son, all of this is true.

"Everyone around me thought it was just a figment of my imagination. They couldn’t see it, and my description of a pale blue man with a disfigured head in a coat and top hat didn’t help. Everyone thought it was my imaginary friend – especially since it didn’t cause any trouble or anything. I just kept on mentioning it from time to time.

“I kept seeing it over and over; until one day it was standing behind the fence to our yard. It just appeared there when I was playing outside. Out of the blue, startling me. In response to my reaction, it let out its god-awful cackle. I’ll never forget that disgusting sound. Sounds like someone was in pain, crying and laughing in a high tone all at once. I remember falling flat on my ass and the thing exploded into full-blown laughter, but no one beside me could hear it. I just sat there staring at it, almost mortified. The creature produced something out of its pocket and reached with its bony hand to me. The cackling died down and a sweet smell permeated my nostrils. My fear went away. The creature nodded and for some reason, I placed my arm underneath its hand. The thing dropped a candy bar into the palm of my hand and walked away before disappearing. It’s like I was under a trance. I ate the candy with little thought. I don’t even know why. It just made sense… I think, at the time. I didn’t really think at all at that moment. Looking back, it was so fucked up…” He was having a hard time speaking about that, I could tell for sure, but being my old man, he pretended he was fine and sucked it up.

"It was just another candy, luckily, as nothing happened to me. Either way, it was the last time I’ve seen that thing. Life went on as usual, but instead of seeing the creepy man at the edge of my peripheral vision, I kept having these odd nightmares. I would dream of laying in my bed hearing this unbearable laughter emanating from the walls. My parents hated me for this for a while. I guess. Hah. Waking up every night cause their kid was screaming about someone laughing in their dreams must’ve been a pain in the ass. I can’t blame them if they did.

"It all culminated in a particularly shitty night. I woke up at the middle of the night to take a piss and when I came back to my room, I remember seeing a pair of shining orbs coming from under my bed. I remember looking down looking under my bed to find nothing there. So, I just sat on the bed, contemplating whether I should wake my parents up again to tell them I saw something weird or not. The next thing I know is a pair of frigid hands grabbed at my ankles. My heart sunk to my feet and when I looked down, I saw two pale blue hands attached to my legs. I wanted to scream but felt myself being pulled down and everything turned dark.

“The next thing I remember is that bloody cave system. I don’t remember much from there; I do remember the place being dark, cold, and damp. I have no clue how long I’ve been there. I was told I was gone for ten days. It felt like less honestly, maybe because I was terrified out of my wits there. I wouldn’t be surprised if I blocked out most of what I’ve seen there because there was some fucked up shit I still remember; the cries of other children begging to go home… A space filled with… filled with…” I could feel my father’s breath turn heavy and slow like he was having trouble staying afloat. I didn’t like this story one bit. It made me feel sick to my stomach, and knowing just how much trouble dad went through to tell me all of this, I didn’t want to listen but at the same time, I couldn’t just leave it at that. What if something had happened, and this was his way of telling me? I gulped down my saliva and kept on listening, I could hear him gagging as a result of what he said next.

"There was this cave… it was filled with rotten corpses strung up on… on… on… makeshift crosses. I remember bolting out of there only to see that fucking thing standing in the distance, naked. That thing looked even uglier without its outfit on, it had a bold mostly bald other than a few strands of hair sticking out.

"Displaying its disgusting pallid form to me, it just stood there; rocking back and forth and letting out that sickening cackle from my nightmares.

"I ran the other way. I don’t know for how long. I don’t know how far. I just ran.

"Occasionally, that monstrosity popped up in my field of vision, always cackling and rocking while all I could do was run, run and cry for help that never came.

"I remember seeing this doll hanging from the top of one cave. It was eerily realistic and there was definitely something odd about it. It was missing an eye exposing a reddish cavity, and the other eye was a button. The clothes and the top of the head seemed to be sewn into the body of the doll. The oddest part about it was... it was moving; its chest was moving ever so slightly up and down, on top of swaying gently from side to side.”

I heard my dad gag again, holding back the urge to throw up.

"Hahah, I just remembered the smell of that hellhole, it smelled like rot and shit. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I have no idea how I got out. All I remember was seeing that walking, laughing corpse appear in front of me after I took a seemingly bad turn. I screamed at the sight of its misshapen mug appearing right in front of me and then everything faded to black again with a sickening crunching sound following.

"I woke up in a forest clearing close to where I used to live. The search party members found me huddled against one tree. Visibly dehydrated and underfed to some extent, but other than that there wasn’t a scratch on me. I told them about what had happened, but no one seemed to take me seriously – they just thought it was me trying to drown out the pain of being abused by a child molester. I'll spare you the boring details, son. With nobody believing my story, I just tried forgetting about this thing, moving on, living life as if nothing had happened. It took a while, but eventually I did; for the most part.

"Now, six decades later, my granddaughter reminded me of the worst time of my life. She reminded me of the existence of the Pictman and thanks to her I know for sure this thing isn’t a human. Call me son, call me as soon as you hear that.”

My heart and mind racing, I dialed up his number as quickly as I could. My fingers were shaking with worry. What did Grace do to remind him of that abomination was all I could think about.

"Dad? Dad!" I yelled at my phone the second he picked up, “What happened, is Grace okay?”

"Gracie is fine now." He said, attempting to reassure me.

"So, what’s this about?" I yelled worryingly.

"She’s been talking about seeing a funny looking tall blue man that won’t stop laughing…"

We both paused for a second. I was about to explode; my mind went to the worst of places.

Dad broke the silence by saying, "This morning, we were woken up by the screams of the child; she cried there was a scary doll next to her in bed.” His tone turned deep and grim, "The moment I saw that thing I knew it wasn’t a doll… I think you should come and pick up Gracie, son."