The Visitor

Entry 1

Monday, November 5th

People have started going missing around town. Bad way to start a journal, I know, but I’ve never been one for beating around the bush and I am not a writer. However, I was recently sent to the school guidance counselor because of an outburst I had in the middle of class. Well, my counselor told me to start keeping a journal; he said it can help to relieve stress. I think the whole idea’s pretty ridiculous but if I have to write this I might as well write about something that’s actually important.

Only two people have gone missing so far. The first one was about a week ago, and the second one happened just yesterday. I don’t know either of them. I think one of them was someone’s mom or something. The other one might have been an old person; I can’t remember. I haven’t heard anything more about it in school, I don’t think the police have any leads on who did it. Or if they’re even connected. Everyone in Willford is on edge about it. It’s hard to believe something like this could be happening in our town.

Entry 2

Tuesday, November 13th

A third person has gone missing. It happened today. Whoever’s doing this sure isn’t stopping. People are starting to really become paranoid and scared. And I can’t blame them, it’s terrifying. Not knowing when it will stop or who will be next or if every interaction you have with someone will be the last one you have with them. This time it was a girl from my school, a junior named Jessica Alverny. She was in my precalculus class. I asked to borrow her eraser yesterday. But she seemed strange. Freaked out.

I still have her eraser.

Entry 3

Wednesday, November 14th

Try as I may, I don’t think I’ll be able to accurately describe what happened today. I was walking outside the school, about to hop on my bike and ride home when I saw him. In the crowd, the rush to get out of the school, a man. He stood completely still as the crowd washed over him, staring at the school. As I gazed at him a horrible feeling of dread washed over me and I knew that something about him was wrong. He was wearing a black trench coat that covered his whole body and a dark grey fedora on his head. But his face was what caught me. His skin was rubbery, and appeared as if it was not actually attached to his body, but just held there by something. And all over it was marbled with yellow and blue like his entire body was a bruise.

As I watched him I found that I was practically paralyzed. Then the man kneeled down to the pavement and took a piece of white chalk out of his pocket. His skin slid unnaturally over his joints as his body moved. He drew something on the ground and then picked his body back up and just like that he was gone. After I felt like I could move again I went to see what he had draw. It was a jagged number three etched onto the pavement.

Entry 4

Thursday, November 15th

School continues as usual. When I walked in this morning I looked back for the white number three on the ground but it was gone. No one I’ve asked has said they saw the man standing there yesterday or the number on the ground. I wonder if it was a figment of my imagination.

Entry 5

Saturday, November 18th

Since the incident at school I’ve been following the news surrounding the cases more closely. The police can’t find any correlation between the missing people other than that they live in this town. Today a new missing persons case was filed for a man named Jared Foss. He worked at a gas station downtown as a sales clerk. He had a four year old daughter and a girlfriend who he wasn’t married to. And now he’s just gone, like he was never even there.

Entry 6

Sunday, November 19th

I know that the man from the school is involved in this some way. There was no way that what I saw didn’t happen. Last time he showed up to the school the day after Jessica went missing, which leads me to believe that today he will be at the gas station where Jared went missing. I’ve been riding my bike in the area around the gas station since it opened this morning at eight o’clock. So far nothing, but I have only been here for two hours. I think it’s most likely that he’ll come around the same time he did for Jessica, about 3:00 in the afternoon. I guess I’ll just have to wait around and see.

Entry 7

Sunday, November 19th

I can feel my hands shake even as I write this. I think he is gone now, but every time I recall the incident in my head I find myself looking behind my back. When 3:00 came around I waited outside the gas station and, just as I predicted, the man with the trenchcoat appeared suddenly as if he had been there the whole time. His skin was every bit as rubbery and bruised as it had looked the first time, and it appeared even more detached from his body.

As long as he had been standing there he hadn’t moved, so I figured I would try and get a closer look. I strolled over and walked behind him as if I was just another one of the many people around who didn’t seem to notice him. When I passed by I caught a whiff of the horrible stench of his body. It smelled unlike anything I had ever smelled before. As I stood behind him he began to bend down just as he had done the first time I saw him. He pulled the same chalk out of the same pocket and with the same rubbery hand, marked a white number four on the pavement in his jagged handwriting.

Then he stood up. I thought everything was fine. I backed up in preparation to bike away before he had a chance to notice I was watching. But I had looked away for a split second and when I looked back at him he had turned his body completely around and was staring directly at me. I found myself seized by a feeling of absolute terror and I couldn’t move my body. His eyes were sunken into his head and partially covered up by the skin that was unevenly stretched over his face. He opened his mouth and it sounded like a million different voices yelling all at once but in different ways. And then he was gone. And I felt that I could move again. I sped back home on my bike where I am currently.

Entry 8

Monday, November 20th

This morning I woke up and found a white number five written on the floor in front of my bed.

I don’t know what this means for me.

Missing Since Monday, November 20th

Alex Riley, 16, fifth victim in ongoing missing persons case

The mystery of the multiple missing people in Willford these past few months continues on unsolved as another victim is claimed. Alex Riley, a teen at Willford High, is the newest addition to the growing roster. Alex was last seen leaving for school Monday morning but never arrived. Police are still actively investigating and call for anyone with information on any of the missing persons to come forward.

Willford Police Department: (865) 248-1900