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I haven’t been sleeping well recently, and have pretty much started staying up reading, doing shit on the computer, whatever I can until I pass out. This started about a week ago.

I’m moving next month, but I don’t know if I can last that long. What the hell was that in my house? Who was the woman behind the door and what did she want?

It was especially dark last night. I remember noticing the streetlight outside my window sputter out just as I closed my eyes.

I live in a small apartment in a mostly commercial area of town. This carries the obvious benefit of never having to deal with neighbors. Up one flight of rickety steps, past an obstacle course of a living room (I lovingly refer to it as the foyer), through a very loud and useless sliding door, and on the other side of the kitchen, you’ll find my room. The kitchen floor is made of cheap linoleum, long since hardened and cracked like dried snake skin. A cockroach might sound like a tapdancer as it skitters across it.

Nobody else was there last night. I had closed the sliding door leading into the kitchen out of habit just before bed. I was surprised to hear it open, deliberately but not quietly, at 3:21am. Had it been my roommate, I would have expected to see the rectangular halo of light leaking in from the kitchen. I could only see my alarm clock’s dim yellow glow. Someone was in my apartment.

Of course my immediate thought, upon reaching the conclusion that I might not want to meet this person, was to get out of my room quickly and quietly. My options were terrible. One door led into, presumably, the same room this stranger was already in. The other door led to the bathroom, in turn my roommate’s bedroom, and then into the living room. Given night vision goggles and cat-like agility, I still wouldn’t feel confident seeing as the kitchen’s sliding door and my roommate’s sliding door were less than 6 feet apart. And every door in the place is squeaky, broken, or prone to sticking.

I could also go out the window. The window, naturally, is in the same state as the doors. It emits the sound that rubbing a fork on a plate does. From there, it’s a 10 foot drop to a rough stone wall and another 3 to the ground. From arm’s length, I could handle the drop. My bare feet would not take the impact well, and I could only hope that the mass of wood scraps and construction materials on the ground would be avoidable as I fell. This would have to happen with no further delay, I thought.

Only a moment had passed since I awoke. What sounded like a stampede began through the kitchen and toward my room. I couldn’t see anything. I got the blinds up halfway before my door opened and I was being tackled by at least 4 or 5 people. Clearly this was overkill, but I put up a bit of a struggle before being summarily defeated in every possible way. I was tied tightly at every joint, gagged, with something over my head, and was being carried out of my apartment. I noted that in all the chaos, somehow they made graceful work of the cluttered living room and made absolutely no noise as they took me down the stairs. I was scared out of my mind and struggling to keep my orientation as best as possible.

Other than the rustling of the cloth over my head, it was dead silent. Someone opened a case and injected me with something. I heard that happen quite clearly, and then I heard them talking about something. They sounded like cats. That’s how I remember it.

I awoke with a shiver in a small room. The drug I was injected with seemed to affect my memory, as I was completely unaware of the previous few minutes. I should be in bed, I thought.

The room was soft in multiple ways. The walls, floor and ceiling met in smooth, rounded junctions. Every surface was covered in a brown fuzz, like a shag carpet. The floor was slightly rubbery. Had I not been slowly coming to the realization that I had been kidnapped in my sleep and dumped into a weird room, I suppose I would have been comfortable curling back up and dozing off until my alarm went off.

Sitting across from me were two older women and a man I guessed to be in his mid 30s. They all had the same look on their face, which mentally I pictured myself carrying as well - it was an interesting combination of horror, confusion, and “this carpet is soft, I hope it’s not made of hair”.

I asked them where we were. The man responded in a thick French accent that they didn’t know either. (The accent explained why they were fully clothed and I was in my sleeping clothes) We didn’t talk anymore.

After a few minutes of silence, a doorway began to open directly next to me. I scrambled away from it without standing up. This is the point where I went from mostly scared and confused to just scared, one hundred percent.

In walked three creatures, about the size of tall humans. Their faces were very wide, dark and wet looking, while their bodies were thin and pale. Their eyes seemed to look in multiple directions at once and they did not blink. As far as distinguishing features or notable structures, there were none. In overall appearance they were human-like, except slightly wrong in every possible way.

They held between them a large piece of meat I eventually realized to be the upper half of a badly mutilated woman. With little fanfare or communicative attempt, they jointly tossed her into the center of the room and walked back out the way they came.
I assumed we were next. It crossed my mind that it may have been an offering or peace, or a very unappreciated meal even. The two women were crying and the man was just staring at the remains that lay in front of him.

They came back shortly thereafter, and immediately took me by the arm and dragged me down a hallway. I attempted to walk but they picked me up off the ground when I tried. Their hands dug into my arms enough to bruise me fairly severely. Soon I was placed in a room by myself and drugged with another injection.

This room looks like the last one in every way, except for the furnishings. There is a typical wooden desk and wooden chair. On the desk is an envelope, which I have already addressed to my father, a pen and a few pieces of paper. There is also a mirror. I look terrible. I’m not sure what this injection did this time, because I’m not feeling sleepy or anything, but it’s definitely kicking in full blast right now. Actually, I have to say I feel somewhat pleasant. It’s sort of funny given my situation actually. I’m not even sure where I am but I’m having a great time! Haha! This stuff is strong!

I feel like I’ve been writing for a while. I hope they send my letter. I bet my dad will like to hear about my little adventure tonight. I don’t think they are going to let me go afterall, because they keep tightening the strap around my waist. Wait, they came back in again, maybe it’s time to go! I really do hope they locked the door at my house. Ugh, I have a huge headache, that medicine is not good.

They said I have to keep writing now but I don’t want to. I wanted to watch what they were doing but they just made me write more. This isn’t fun anymore. I am writing like they told me to but they keep poking me and cutting off my legs and talking all weird. I am not feeling happy anymore at all and I think I’ve been drugged. Where is this. are they goin to mail my letter i hope it’s all ready to go. it has a stamp. i really don’t like the blood smell and i am sad about my legs. probly should put this letter in the letter so the mailmn can send it. ok i;m done

When I look back on my childhood, I’m frequently amazed at how easily entertained I was. To imagine myself truly interested in something today, with the same level of curiosity anyway, is practically impossible. I don’t generally believe this feeling is abnormal - I think it’s just what happens when we grow up. But I do wonder if what happened in that barn made me reach this point faster and with more cynicism. Curiosity killed the cat, and I killed my sister - maybe I should just be skeptical and try to eek through life as carefully as possible.

The Backdoor in the Barn

It was winter in Pennsylvania, and snow covered the field behind my grandparent’s house in leopard-like spots. My sister Ella and I stood on top of a small nearby hill with our green plastic sled and about a dozen layers of clothing. The hill was shadowed by a smallish forest, and was covered wholly by snow, making a perfect sledding surface of a few hundred yards. The hill ended a good distance behind the house, but if we could avoid the spotty patches, it was possible to land on the back porch with our combined momentum.

It took us years to get bored with the repetition to explore the hilly area for a more interesting path. It was actually Ella, only 5 years old, who came up with the idea to ignore our parent’s directive and walk up into the forest where we were no longer visible from the house. I was 8, and should have known better, but I was still young enough that I could say “I didn’t know any better” before I got spanked.

The snow was much deeper almost immediately upon entering the forest. The evergreen trees provided a decent amount of cover from the sun at ground level, and the oak skeletons hid thigh-thick roots under the loosely packed snow. It was incredibly hard to move with any meaningful speed. We had gone only a few hundred feet up the hill before Ella simply stopped caring and turned around. I agreed with the unspoken sentiment and followed her. Almost immediately, both of us saw a perfectly clear path that led down the hill to our left. It appeared to end no more than a quarter mile from the house in a nearly snowless section of the field.

We flew down the hill and spat out into a clearing with a large, sunlit barn right in the middle. I don’t know how we missed the barn from our vantage point up on the hill, but it must have been obscurred by the pines that hugged the clearing. The area opened up into the field on the other side of the barn, and we sat behind it still in our sled. Through an adorementless hole in the back wall, we could see the sun shining off of the snow and into the large front doors. The barn was maybe 60 feet long and half as wide, and the roof was corrugated metal sheeting. A fairly steady stream of water dripped off of one of the corners from melting snow.

My curiosity was piqued, but Ella was simply interested in getting home. There was little doubt that someone had noticed we were gone by now. It was only a few minutes since we left from view on the hill, but I wore a bright red jacket roughly doubling my volume, and my sister wore a painfully pink coat and hat. We looked like Skittles and were probably visible from space. She was smarter than me.

I convinced her to just run through the building, in the back and out the front. It would actually be faster than walking around the side. And there was no snow in there. She agreed with my very solid manipulation.

It was relatively dark, but not particularly off-putting. The extremely bright snow outside cast enough little streaks of light to make the floor and any obstacles visible. Maybe the first sign I should have recognized was the fact that I had to justify running through an empty barn that was clearly empty. My sister was also suddenly hesitant. I walked in and turned around to take her hand.

The door was gone. There was nothing but a wooden wall there. My heart jumped a bit as I felt around for the door. I could hear Ella talking on the other side, quizzically and without any urgency. I wasn’t scared, I was just confused. The large front doors of the barn were maybe a 5 second jog away, and I could see just enough once my eyes adjusted to see that there was no obvious danger. It was disconcerting that I couldn’t explain where the door went.

Ella effortlessly walked through the wall a few seconds later. She was absolutely covered in blood.

At first I thought she was just wet, for some reason. After a second the color began to stand out. I asked her what happened in the most emotionless voice I could produce. She didn’t seem worried or hurt, and I didn’t want to upset her until I knew what was going on. She simply asked why I was acting so weird a minute ago. She was probably referring to my concerned motions while I was trying to find the door that disappeared. I just pointed at the “door” and she turned to look. That’s when I saw her back.

From the back of her head to her ankles, there must of been over a hundred pieces of wood protruding from her skin. Most were no longer than a few inches, but at least fifteen or twenty were closer to a foot in length. Blood was everywhere. Now, I thought, it was okay to be frantic. I spun her back around and said “run home NOW”. She could tell I meant it. We ran to the front doors, and I dropped the sled to speed up a bit. I made it to the opening a second ahead of her and started orienting myself toward the house. It was not in direct view, so it took me a moment to determine its general direction as I adjusted to the shock of the bright sunlight.

I turned around and took a few steps back toward the barn to take Ella, who I could still hear running and crying. Much to my horror, where the large front doors were just then, there was only a small featureless opening. It looked exactly like the backdoor we entered through. Through the doorway, I could see Ella, running away from me toward two large doors on the other side of the barn. I called her name, but she didn’t seem to hear me. The bright green sled I had dropped was visible, and it was moving towards me. Ella was not moving, but she was running as fast as she could. The entire barn appeared to be on a treadmill.

As the sled emerged from the “back” door at my feet, it stopped. It was filled with blood. I ran around to the “front” in hopes of finding something different.

I ran to the house. I had a very difficult time explaining what had happened, but my father sensed the urgency and followed me back to barn with no hesitation. What we found was a large barn with two swinging front doors and a green sled just outside. Ella was lying in the sled face down, nearly floating, with splinters covering every inch of her body. My father and I were unable to revive her, and we emptied the blood onto the ground before placing her back inside the sled.

My father wept as he walked home, holding my hand with his left, and dragging Ella in the sled with his right.

During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, humanlike creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.

Primarily focused in rural New York state, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of thier enounters with a creature of unkown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.

In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I’ve been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some exceprts from their upcoming book.

The Rake

A Suicide Note: 1964

As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence. And once I awoke and saw his form. Once again I awoke and heard his voice, and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear of what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake. Goodbye.

Found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose, and one loose personal letter with no envelope.

Dearest Linnie,
I have prayed for you. He spoke your name.

A Journal Entry (translated from Spanish): 1880

I have experience the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow. Black. They saw me and pierced me. His wet hand. I will not sleep. His voice (unintelligible text).

A Mariner’s Log: 1691

He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the Rake.

From a Witness: 2006

Three years ago, I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving, so my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night.

At about 4am, I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets, only to wake him in the process. I appologized and told him I though he got out of bed. When he turned to face me, he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out of the bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing.

After adjusting to the dark for a half second, I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. At the foot of the bed, sitting and facing away from us, there was what appeared to be a naked man, or a large hairless dog of some sort. It’s body position was disturbing and unnatural, as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason, I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him.

My husband was peering over his arm and knee, tucked into the fetal position, occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature.

In a flurry of motion, the creature scrambled around the side of the bed, and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband’s face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds (or probably closer to 5, it just seemed like a while) just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway, leading to the kids’ rooms.

I screamed and ran for the lightswitch, planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway, the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched over about 20 feet away. He turned around and looked directly at me, covered in blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara.

The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said “he is the Rake”.

My husband drove his car into a lake that night, while rushing our daughter to the hospital. He did not survive.

Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first, and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either.

For several months, my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parent’s house. After we decided to return home, I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the Rake.

It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first 3 pages, and never mentioned it again. A ship’s log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that they were told to leave by the Rake. That was the last entry in the log.

There were, however, many instances where the creature’s visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led us to wonder if the Rake had visited any of us before our last encounter.

I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night, every night, for two weeks. I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when I woke up. By the end of the second week, I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at 8 times the normal speed. (This still took almost an hour every day)

On the first day of the third week, I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the Rake. I can’t listen to it long enough to even begin to transcribe it. I haven’t let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I’ve heard it before, and I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don’t remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason, the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment.

The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter’s head make me very upset.

I have not seen the Rake since he ruined my life, but I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I’ll wake up to see him staring at me.