My son was only nine.

He was just going into fourth grade, and I was worried. Marco had never been the most socially active kid in the family; he had gone through 4 counselors with no such progress coming out of each visit. As far as I can remember, no traumatic or extremely bad things had happened in our household, but still, I felt like he had such a depressed mood all of the time. Before school started I signed him up for a summer camp in the hopes that he may actually have fun for once, and more importantly: make some friends.

It was only a day camp, and it lasted for only two weeks. For a little while, he would come home the same as usual. But then, something happened; he would start to come home more cheerful than usual. I though for sure that he must have made some friends. When I asked him, he told me that he had only made one friend, but for me, that was a very happy moment. One is a start, I thought.

When I told his mother, she was delighted, and she wanted to meet Marco’s new friend and the parents, but Marco told us we couldn’t, at least, not yet. At the time, I wasn’t sure what he meant. He kept coming home telling us that his friend was always there when he needed him. That just made me happier. Finally, maybe our boy would be happy. After the camp had ended, I was a little sad that he and his friend would not be seeing each other on a regular basis, but on the day camp ended, Marco told us that his friend wanted to come over the day after.

That was the day Marco’s mother died.

All day my wife and me awaited Marco’s friend, but we became skeptical as the day went on. What if this friend was just Marco’s imagination at work? A day turned to night, we decided that maybe there was no one coming over, but still Marco insisted that he was coming. After a glance at each other, we sent Marco to bed. That night, we heard strange noises coming from Marco’s bedroom. At first I though maybe I was imagining them, but as I kept hearing them, I thought I could make out Marco talking as well.

Someone was in the house with Marco.

I woke up my wife, and I grabbed the closest thing I could reach to use as a weapon: it ended up being a small pair of scissors. As me and my wife approached my son’s bedroom, I could see his light on, and feel a cold chill move through the house; I later discovered this was because his window was open. As we quickly stepped inside the room, my wife screamed as if she had seen her dead grandfather. No, it wasn’t a ghost… it was much worse.

Next to my son was some sort of horrible demented creature with a foul stench that simply reeked of death. It just stood there, with huge blood encrusted claws, standing over my child. He looked first at my son, and then at us. I will never forget those bulbous black eyes staring straight through me. I only remember the rest of that night in fragments.

My wife hastily beckoning my son over, Marco simply standing there and shaking his head. My wife then tried to go over to retrieve him from that thing, and it just stood over there and twitched. As soon as she touched him, almost the very second, that thing was on her. As quickly as it happened, it was over. I just stood there petrified as I looked down at the bloody shreds that were my wife. Her eyes were gouged out, blood pooled from her corpse, and as I looked up at the creature, I saw in his hand her intestines, half in it’s mouth, half in its gruesome claws.

I tried to move, but my feet were stone cold and glued to the floor. I tried to scream, but not a sound came out. I remember my son just standing there, like nothing at all happened, and the thing looking over at Marco. I just watched as that thing grabbed my son and leapt out of the open window.

I never really got the chance to clean up the room. I just walked out of the house. No one really believed me when I told the about the thing, and when I went to the police, they listened at first, but when they saw the room, they were dumbfounded. Even after they saw it they still didn’t believe me story of the thing. They simply sealed off the house and told me that they would investigate further.

After that, I started staying in a motel, and I also became an artist. I would draw my son, and my wife. They always seemed so happy in my drawings. I don’t know where my son is, but I think I see him in the corner of my eye every now and then. He waves at me, but I don’t wave back. And when I see him, always… that thing is standing over him.

My son was only nine.