05/09/2026
Marcus thought he was just checking on the yard that night.
It was a Tuesday, close to 11pm. He had heard something outside — not loud, not dramatic, just the kind of sound that makes you stop mid-breath. A soft rustling near the back fence. He figured it was a raccoon. He grabbed his phone, unlocked the back door, and stepped out onto the patio in his socks.
The backyard was ordinary. Green lawn needing a mow, the old wooden fence running along the back, the garden hose he kept forgetting to coil properly lying across the grass, the shed sitting in the far back corner the way it always had. The porch light threw a weak yellow circle over the patio and not much further. Beyond that, shadows.
He filmed it the way people film things for no real reason — casually, panning left, then right, just to have something to show if the raccoon appeared. He never saw anything move. He went back inside after two minutes, made himself a glass of water, and forgot about it entirely.
He only found it later when he was clearing space on his phone. He almost deleted it. It was boring footage — dark backyard, the hose, the shed, nothing happening. But something made him watch it to the end.
He rewound it. Watched again. Paused it.
There. At the very edge of the frame, pressed against the base of the bush beside the shed. Small. Dark. Not an animal — the shape was wrong for that. It was crouched low with its knees bent up too high, leathery dark skin absorbing most of the light, a hunched spine visible along its back. And its face — what little was visible — was turned directly toward him. Two pale eyes, barely catching the porch light, completely still. Watching him the way something watches you when it has been watching you for a long time and is no longer in a hurry.
He told himself it was a shadow. A trick of the light against the bush.
But the next morning the garden hose had been moved. Coiled neatly by the back door. He lived alone.
That was three weeks ago. He still checks the footage sometimes, zooming in on that corner of the frame, trying to convince himself of the shadow theory. It gets harder each time.
Last night he heard the rustling again. Closer this time. Not near the fence.
Near the back door.
He did not go outside to check.
