Part 3 Not Tonight
When Marcus looked up again, his blood went cold.
There was a man standing by the massive oak tree in the backyard of Mrs. Patterson’s property. Tall. Still. Too still. The kind of still that living things don’t do.
Marcus blinked hard.
The figure was changing. Not moving exactly, but… merging. The edges of the man’s camouflage silhouette blurred and buried into the oak tree trunk like smoke pulled into a vent. The tree and the man became one like he was sinking into it—
Marcus mind was scrambled for explanations: shadows playing tricks, someone’s new Halloween costume this year, or he just tired.
Marcus lived in this neighborhood his whole life. He knew every tree, every fence, every crack in the sidewalk.
That man was there one minute. And now he wasn’t.
Or maybe he still was.
Part 4 A Checkup Sounds Good Now
Marcus stood so fast his chair almost tipped backward. He didn’t run—running would mean admitting something was wrong—but he moved with purpose, yanking open the screen door, the sound suddenly too loud in the quiet night.
Inside, the house felt too strange, too bright, and not normal. His hands shook slightly as he locked the deadbolt.
The cold shower didn’t help as much as he’d hoped. Water pounded against his shoulders, but his mind kept rewinding: the shadow running, the log that looked alive, the man becoming the tree.
He went to the bathroom and stood there looking at himself in the mirror, then he splashed some water on face to bring him back to reality because things were starting to seem a little bit weird.