Catch Me If You Can

Hello all, this is my first attempt at a creepy pasta and it is not based around anything inparticular more so its a story I've written to see if I have a talent for scary stories. I hope you all enjoy this first work.

Catch Me If You Can...
I wanted to be scared, to be frightened to the point where I can’t think anymore. I know how strange that must sound to those of you reading this but that’s really the kind of person I have always been. I was the kid you knew who’d seen every great horror movie by the time he was 8, knew the back story of every monster, and wasn’t afraid of bugs or the dark. When movies stopped scaring me I moved on to the games kids will play to scare themselves. I did the bloody Mary and Candyman challenges when I was 11, tried playing hide and seek alone a year later, I’ve even tried using a Ouija board but I never got any response. I’m not trying to make myself out to be some kind of badass, you understand, I’ve always enjoyed scary movies and games and now that I’m in my late teens I’m very hard to frighten.

On the day this story happened I was sitting alone in the living room of my house my parents were gone for the weekend attending the wedding of one of my father’s college friends. And not having many friends of my own I was set to enjoy a quiet weekend at home. For the better part of the day I’d been looking through a site I’d recently found where people could post stories about their experiences paranormal. Most of the stories were clearly fake, not that I was expecting them to be real in the first place, but even still they were interesting and if nothing else gave me an enjoyable way to kill an afternoon.

One story out of the bunch struck me as being different, it wasn’t very long or well written but… how do I put this? The way it was written gave me the feeling that I was reading something true, not fiction not even an exaggeration but complete and utter truth.

The writer began by claiming that the story was true and ‘Really did happen to him’, it went on to explain that as a child he always had nightmares about things in the dark chasing him but those nightmares had stopped as he aged. Recently though they had returned causing him to loss sleep and become impatient and easily aggravated. The story went on claiming that one night on his way back from work he heard something down an alleyway and noticed the street light ahead of him flickering, his mind flashed back to the dream and he snapped and began shouting into the alley as though he was shouting at whatever chased him in his nightmares. After a minute or two of letting off steam he shook his head and muttered bitterly ‘Catch me if you can’, at which point the light ahead of him suddenly shut off. The writer claimed that the noise he heard had gotten louder and he took off running. He ran all the way to his apartment hearing the whispering vices all the way there and once inside he locked the door and turned on every light. Even went so far as to flip his bed against the wall and open his closets so that there was no shadows whatever they were could hide in. All through the night he stayed in the light but swore he could hear voices in the dark outside his windows. The story ended the next morning with the writer stating that when he’d left his apartment the words ‘Almost caught you’ had been carved into the bricks outside his 5th story apartment.

The story was good, not the best written I’d seen on the site but still better as I could almost feel the man’s fear dripping off every word he’d written. I was in the middle of writing a glowing review for his work when my cell began ringing, my mother calling to check in with the clear sounds of the weddings after party behind her. The conversation was brief just her telling me that they’d be back sometime tomorrow afternoon and to be sure I got myself some dinner. I put the phone aside and went back to my review, it was still too early for dinner so once I was done I looked through a few more stories and watched a bit of tv.

I eventually went out around 7 just as the sun was starting to set, a bit earlier than I normally eat but it would take a little while to get to town. Where I live is separated from the heart of the city by a small park, normally it’s pretty empty as it’s not much more than a field with some trees surrounding it. Tonight there were a few people here and there but what caught my eye were the field lights starting to turn on, a few of the bulbs flickering brought my mind back to the story and I couldn’t stop myself. “Catch me if you can.” I said looking up at the small collection of flickering bulbs, of course nothing happened and I laughed to myself as I continued through the field and into the trees.

I walked around town for about 20 minutes before making my way back a takeout bag dangling from my hand. I was nearly through the trees and into the field when I felt something smack against my hand and gasped jerking my hand up and causing the bag to hit a tree and rip in half sending my dinner flying out. That annoyance distracted me from the black welt growing on the back of my hand, I was pissed and that anger caused me to write off what just happened as a low branch being bent by my leg and snapping back. Irritated I made it out of the tree line and into the field before stopping, the field light was off. Not only off but from what I could make out from the other light across the field the entire light pole had been ripped down and was now laying on the ground. I didn’t move for several moments, my eyes locked on the destroyed light as my mind tried to process this into something reasonable. That came to an end when I heard something behind me, like several voices all whispering at once, “Run.”

I took the advice, putting aside reason and logic I took off across the field as fast as I could, not even stopping as I felt something catch the leg of my jeans and rip part of the leg clean off. I didn’t hesitate to dive into the tree line on the other side either, rushing and ducking through the trees and branches, I heard more whispers but the blood was pounding too hard in my ears to make sense of them. I could nearly see the exit of the trees when I felt something grab my wrist and pull hard yanking me back and off my feet. I looked back for just an instant but saw nothing, not even the trees, just a wall of shadow that had hold of my arm. I pulled and twisted slipping my wrist from its grasp by letting it rip my sweatshirt off. I stumbled and rolled and crawled finally breaking through the trees and rushing across the street, nearly getting run over in the process. I slammed against my front door grabbing the keys from my pocket but dropping them, panic making my fingers clumsy. Grabbing the keys I chanced a look back at the part and nearly froze, darkness was seeping through the trees coming for me. I jammed the key in the door and unlocked it before getting in and slamming the door shut.

I went to turn on the porch light but it didn’t turn on, it was so rarely used that no one realized the bulb was dead. Swearing I rushed to through the living room turning on the three lamps and tv, the ceiling fan lights in the kitchen, the upstairs hallway, every bedroom. Soon everything that could cast a light in my home was on and glowing but as I came back downstairs intent on sitting in the light like the man in the story I saw the living room windows. With all of the lights on downstairs I should have been able to see the trees across the road clearly but there was nothing, only complete blackness covering the view. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest as I starred at the darkness before screaming and jumping, falling back onto the floor as I heard something hit the door hard, as though a person had thrown themselves against it. The sound of someone trying to break down the walls was coming from everywhere now along with whispers from the shadows and I couldn’t bring myself to get up from the floor. It was like my mind and body had turned off, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think I was just there seeing nothing and hearing things I couldn’t explain.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that but eventually I was able to stand, morbid curiously pushed me toward the window. I don’t know why I wanted to move closer there was nothing but darkness there, no shapes or faces, nothing to really see. My hand shaking I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell opening the camera and took a picture of the window, I hoped anyway as I was doing this with my hand alone, my eyes never left the dark glass.

As I starred at the glass something began dragging against it cutting into the window slowly, so very slowly, spelling out its message, ‘GOT YOU’. I wasn’t sure how to react but before I could do anything the front door burst off its hinges, the screws and dead bolt ripping right out of the wood and flying into the living room smashing two of the lamps. I screamed and jumped back as the window shattered as well, I felt pieces of glass hit me and I was sure I was cut and bleeding but fear has a wonderful habit of numbing you to pain. I scrambled away from the destroyed window toward the kitchen, sprinting to one of the cabinets I pulled out the two flashlights we own and turned them both on pointing them toward the living room just as something smashed the last lamp and the tv killing whatever light was left.

My entire body was shaking now as I moved under the three glowing lights of the ceiling fan and held the two flash lights pointed right at the living room entrance. Glancing at the windows I found the same message and the same darkness waiting for me, and I knew I couldn’t stay here for long before whatever this was figured out a way to destroy the light above me. Trying my best to force back my fear I ran toward the living room holding the flashlights in front of me hoping against hope that the somewhat feeble light the cast would be keep the darkness off me. That was quickly proven wrong as one of them was broken in half while still in my hand. I could feel my body being grabbed at, hands all over me grabbing my shirt my jeans my arms and legs even ripping at my hair. Somehow I managed to get to the stairwell at the edge of the living room and scrambled upstairs, the overhead lights still intact for now. I ran upstairs and into the bathroom slamming the door behind me as I collapsed to the floor. There were no windows or closets in this room, four light bulbs above the sink and another fixture glowing above the bath tub. Given the lights glowing against the white walls I hoped this would be my safe haven. I could hear what was going on outside the door. The whispers, the scratches, things being slammed and broken.

Eventually I must have passed out because what I woke up to weren’t strange whispers or breaking wood but police sirens and someone out asking if anyone was there. Pulling myself up I slowly opened what was left of the bathroom door, there were scratch holes on my side and as I stepped out most of the wood form the other side was gone. The house was trashed, every room had been turned upside down, lights all smashed, furniture shredded and tossed around, claw marks in the walls and doors. I stumbled downstairs finding several police officers in the living room examining the destruction, one of them actually gasped when they saw me standing there, my clothes shredded, patches of hair ripped out, cuts on my arms and face and dried blood everywhere. One of the officers helped me outside where I saw it carved into the outside of the house, deep gouges into the siding, ‘Almost Caught You’, and I passed out again.

When I woke up I was in the hospital my wounds were stitched up and there was a cop waiting by my hospital bed wanting to ask me about what happened. Realizing I couldn’t tell him what had really happened I jumped into the first lie that came to mind, I’d stumbled on some guys in the park ripping apart the light post and they’d chased me home. Any gaps in the story I attributed to my injuries saying my memory was from the time I got home and they smashed in the door after me. It’s been two months since that night, me and my parents had been living out of a hotel while repairs were made but we’ve been back home for more than a week and nothing has happened so I assume whatever game I had started with those damned words ended at sunrise.

I don’t know why I choose to share this with the online world. Maybe I wanted to warn people about what’s out there. Maybe I wanted to see if there are others who’ve experienced this. Maybe I just needed to get it all off my chest… I don’t know.