Forgotten Something



Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of radio. FM mostly, but I occasionally will tune into some AM stations. I live in Ontario, Canada, just about 50 kilometers north of Ottawa, the country of Canada's capital, in a small farming community, so there really aren’t a lot of stations up here. But there are enough stations to keep you satisfied. I’ll go on long drives around these empty roads, just to listen to the radio. Though they were actually some of the best times I’ve had up here. I especially love listening to these AM stations where they talk about the universe, religion, nature, and mysteries and such.

One night, I decided to go on another drive and listen to the radio. It was 6:00 pm and fall, so it was getting dark. So I brought a flashlight, and my cell, in case anything was to go wrong. I got into my Escape, started it up, drove out of my driveway, and turned on the radio. Flipping through the stations, I came across one that was mostly static, but I could make out a faint voice. Curious, I decided to drive down a road I hadn’t been on before, to see if the signal would get stronger. And lo and behold, I was right. It started to become clearer, as I heard the voice was a man’s voice. Although it sounded like a different language. The only languages we have here are the slang farmer’s use, and English (which is similar, ha-ha). I drove down this road as the sun went down. The signal became clearer, but at the same time the dark of night began to flow out from the sky and on to the road. I recognized the language; it sounded Russian (thanks to my Russian history class I took). The man sounded scared, I could hear him yelling, but he wasn’t directly at the microphone. He was in the room, yelling for his life. Perhaps a loyal talk show host still explaining to the listeners what was happening to him. But what was happening to him?

I drove for about 10 minutes listening to this, when I started to hear him scream. I jumped up out of my seat as I heard how loud it was. I quickly turned down the volume, but at the same time I tried to hear what he was screaming. He was screaming the exact same thing over and over, It sounded like he was saying "My ruki!” I had no idea what that meant, but whatever it was, he seemed shocked about it. I eventually got so disturbed I turned the radio off completely, turned my car around and was ready to go back home.

As I was turning my car around, I began to hear a faint sound in the distance. I cautiously rolled down my window, when I heard a deathly familiar sound. It was the man, screaming. I thought to myself he must be in trouble, I needed to help him. But what if he was being killed? Or questioned by someone and tortured? I began to feel sick, either way I don’t want to be part of whatever is going on there.

But I remembered that I had been chopping some wood yesterday for my parents, and I forgot to put the axe I used back in my tool shed. I got out of my car, with my flashlight in my hand and my cell in my pocket. I opened the trunk and picked through the junk until I found my axe. “Am I really doing this?” I thought to myself. “Am I really going to take this axe and kill off whatever is in there…?” I really hadn’t wanted to be a part of this in the first place. But I am the only soul around, and that man needs help. It’s not a coincidence that I happened to be around listening to the radio station he was broadcasting on. Luck is on his side.

I began running down the road, illuminating my view with my flashlight. I came to a dead end with a small hill ending the road dead in its tracks.

“I’m getting closer.” I thought to myself.

I climbed up the hill and saw nothing more than a small building with a radio antennae on the roof, in the near-distance, with one lit window. I crouched and began to watch, as I had heard the noise stop while going up the hill.

For 5 minutes I heard absolutely nothing. He must have died; there is nothing I can do now. So I decided that I’ll go back to my car and call 9-11 and explain to them what happened. Then, for a split second, I caught something in the corner of my eye. Scared but curious, I decided look back at the shack, and I saw something standing in front of the lit window. It was just standing there. I couldn’t make out what it was, but it wasn’t moving. A chill ran down my spine as I realized it had noticed me. I was frozen in fear; I couldn’t move. It let out a terrible scream, as it began to move towards me.

I got up and ran back, leaving the axe there, I ran back to the car. I arrived at my car and didn’t bother to call the cops. Whatever it was, I had little confidence a cop would help. I drove back at speeds of about 50 km on a 20 km road. I made it to my house, got out and ran to the door. I opened it, locked it and proceeded to run to the guest bedroom in the basement, close the door and shut my eyes.

I woke up feeling extremely cold. I must have forgotten to turn on the furnace. So I went upstairs and saw that my door was in fact open. I was paralyzed with fear, but I decided to look out my door. What I saw was a pale creature, on two legs, holding a large burlap sack, which looked like it was stuffed with body parts, over its shoulder at the end of my driveway. It turned around and glared at me, then presumed to grin and walk down my street, as it cackled with laughter.

I closed the door and didn’t bother locking it, as I went to the kitchen and saw a bag and a piece of paper. I read what was written on the paper, which read; “LOOKS LIKE YOU HAD FORGOTTEN SOMETHING” with its face, crudely drawn on the paper. Grinning the same way it had earlier. As for the bag?

Inside it was the axe I had left on the hill.