In the heart of a wood which lost its name long ago, is a place where a seeker of stories may go. If you've arrived in a story's your desire, come, take a seat, for what you require is a tale from the second storyteller. Undo. Welcome. I am, as ever, the second storyteller. Please have a seat by the fire and try not to mind the noise. There is really nothing that I can do about it at this moment. It's probably the plug. It's a bird's-eye-separd some kind of pass.
In any case, it's a little difficult to call somebody out to fix things when you don't have a real address. But I'm certain that once you start to hear the voice of the story, those sounds will be far less of a nuisance. I'll surely get around to dealing with those troublesome noises eventually. But not today. Not today. Now, let's see. Should have a story around here somewhere. We are in, well, a tower full of them after all, eh? So shouldn't be too tricky.
Ah, ooh, I see one askew on the shelf there. That'll do. Ah, beast. The sun was cruel and bright on the day of my nephew's service. They had to call it a service instead of a funeral because after a year of searching seemingly every corner of the planet, no trace of nine-year-old Jack Green could be found. He had been reading in his room. My sister Allison in the kitchen looking at nothing irrelevant on her phone.
When she had gone to check on him, Jack's room was empty, as though he'd accidentally stumbled through a crack in the world and was gone. I couldn't help thinking how disappointed Jack would be at the inappropriately cheery sun, Hal Bant on attending his service. Jack had been a boy full of imagination, with an affinity for stories of weird and creepy things. At school, this had the unfortunate effect of painting him as odd to his peers.
Kids have a habit of focusing only on what's in front of them, rather than potential. I think this is why he and I were so close. I loved the strange stories of ghosts and monsters that Jack seemed to pull effortlessly from the air. We kept a notebook of these stories, which grew whenever Allison asked me to watch him for the weekend, or if we found ourselves at a family party. Jack was never content to tell the kinds of stories that appeal so easily to children his age.
It always seemed that his imagination held an infinite space, which he was determined to explore to the furthest reaches of. My eyes swept to collage of photos, each showing Jack as the fun, energetic kid he had been, but I found myself unable to look at the pictures directly, knowing that such a remarkable imagination was lost was a pain without balm. Allison and I drifted toward each other without trying to.
I gave her a futile hug, which she accepted anyway, both of us feeling lost, but trying to appear human. He'd have, I'm sure he's mad about it being sunny, I offered. The smile Allison gave back was thin, but genuine. Thanks Nick, it's been well over a year. Someone tells me I need to talk about Jackie in the past tense to move on, but even if there isn't anything more that can be done to find him, these uppity bitches don't have a single fucking clue what they're talking about.
She motioned with her eyes towards the back of the room where a small flock of mothers collected each other, while their children desperately tried to find loopholes around sitting still. Honestly, they're all just here to keep up appearances. Meanwhile, their kids are the ones who used to call Jackie the creep all the time, and their defence was that my boy was too soft-hearted. Well, Jack did tell me once that he liked the nickname I offered. Allison gave me a disbelieving look.
I mean, he totally hated that gang of short thugs over there, but he told me once that being called the creep at least meant that he was different from them, and he was sort of proud of that. My sister gave me a tight hug, and for the first time I could remember since Jack's disappearance, I heard Allison laugh, just slightly. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she retrieved a book which had been sitting on a chair under her purse. This is one of Jackie's.
I'm not deluding myself, Nick. I know that Jack, I may never have him back. Allison's voice wavered, but there was a determination in her words too, an effort to show strength for her son. But it wouldn't ever feel right to talk about him like he's gone either. She gripped a cover of the thin green book tightly. I just think he'd like it if you held onto this for him. He was in the middle of reading it that day. I'm sure he wouldn't mind loading it to his uncle for a while.
Allison handed me the book. It was fairly thin with a large cover, like many illustrated children's books. The single word beast appeared in capital letters under the striking image of a lurking black form with red eyes. I couldn't place what fantastic creature it was supposed to be, so my mind simply settled on bare. I held the book tightly to my chest as though the pages were made of gold. I promised to take good care of it, I vowed, though there was something troubling.
I was no longer looking at the cover, and yet something still bothered me about the creature on it. I looked at it again, not truly a bear, but it wasn't a lion either. I found myself thinking of crocodiles with strong jaws, but also of the sharp talons of predator birds. Nick, my sister's voice snapped my attention back to my grim environment and her small smile. Thank you, she said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.
The book remained on the passenger seat of my car for a week, underneath a binder full of work documents. I hadn't misplaced it there, I knew exactly where it was. Thinking of it made the pit of my stomach thud. After all, this was something Jack had left behind. I was sure that this painful knowledge was what caused the hairs in my neck to raise when I'd spy a corner of the green cover sneaking out from under the binder of monotonous paper.
The book, Beast, finally made its way into my home about a month after I'd received it. I actually needed something in that binder, and when I dropped the heavy black tome of reference material on my desk, I discovered that I'd carried Jack's book in along with it. I took another hard look at the creature on the cover. Who would design such a thing? I knew exactly why Jack had liked it so much. The red eyes and the nightmare shape of it stirred my own imagination so easily.
Curiosity won me over, and I read the book. It was charts, only about fifteen pages or so. The story resembled a simple fable, though surprisingly there were no illustrations except for the strange creature on the cover. A boy just barely glimpsed a shadowy beast outside his window one night. Night after night, the boy searched for the beast but could not find it. Though he couldn't find it, the boy always felt as though he was being followed.
He would keep thinking he saw the beast in all kinds of places. His own shadow reflected in the mirror. In the depths of a dark room, he was reluctant to enter. The story ended with the boy finally entering the dark room. It was a chilling story. Those usually end with lessons learned, the protagonist has gained something which ties a neat little bow around the story, where parents nod knowingly and children roll their eyes. The unfinished ending of the story was simply haunting.
No proper conclusion, no way of knowing what, if anything, awaited the boy in the dark room. The story just stopped. That night my dreams were filled with words written in a cryptic, unknowable language, words that seemed vaguely familiar, like a forgotten name on the tip of your memory. The day was no better, I found myself completely distracted. At the office I was asked repeatedly if I was all right, with little memory of where my mind had been before the question had been asked.
I couldn't stop thinking of the story, I couldn't stop thinking of the book, the creature on the cover, the title, beast. The title was beast, wasn't it? I tried to think of the exact letters on the cover, but was shook out of my thoughts by loud honking and found myself holding up traffic at a green light. Green, like the sickening colour of that book. I focused my thoughts entirely on arriving home safely, I couldn't put my hands on the story fast enough, I stared at the cover, beast.
It was right there, with that image of the badger on the cover. But the moment I opened the cover and turned to the first page, the letters on the cover became jagged, confusing script in my mind. The snout of the badger was replaced in my memory with a massive, gaping mouth. I returned to the cover, beast. It was very clearly written, though when I focused on a single letter, it felt as though the other letters blurred slightly.
The creature on the front was a faceless ghoul, all teeth and puckered skin. No, it was a bear, a shadowy red-eyed bear. I closed my eyes, I took a deep breath and tried to focus. Slowly my thoughts stopped spinning, but I could still feel my curiosity being tugged at by those strange letters and that odd image. The feeling was less intense, but all the more menacing, like hearing bad news of the whisper. I opened the book again.
This time with my eyes closed, determined to focus more on the story inside and less on the cover. I opened my eyes and began to read. The boy glimpsed at the beast outside his window. I turned the page, but as it turned, I thought for sure that I saw the lettering change. I turned back. The words were clearly printed. Simple, neat, nothing strange. But the moment I turned the page, I felt for sure, like a flicker, those words changed into something wholly unknowable.
I pressed on, but each page felt the same. The moment I turned my attention to them, they were nothing more than simple sentences in a child's book. The moment I looked away, they were long and jagged things. I turned the pages back and forth frantically, but the moment I glimpsed a bizarre script it would vanish and become mockingly mundane writing. All the while that thing on the cover burned its way into my memory with its red eyes and long, thin arms ever reaching towards me.
No, it had red eyes to be sure, but it was cloaked and working. Or had it been crouched on evil claws, readying itself to spring. But the words, where were those strange words? There one moment then spirited from my eyes, like fish under murky water. I was certain they were there, but the moment that each terrible long angry lethar was right in front of me, it was torn away, replaced by childish simplicity.
I turned the pages faster and faster, spurned on by those terrible eyes, red and burning above row after row of greeting terrible, Uncle, stop! The book fell from my hands with the same speed as the hairs on my neck stood to attention, and all of my blood iced over. I was sure of it, there was no question, it had only been for a moment, but the face that had broken through my cacophony of thoughts had been Jack's, and that strange writing had become just two words, Uncle, stop!
Now these were the only things my mind could focus on. I burned the book, thanking my dear nephew, knowing that whatever means he had used to save me would be forever as mysterious as the means that had stolen him away. This is what I had hoped desperately. I realised that this account retells everything while truly explaining nothing. I find myself now and again glimpsing strange, jagged lettering in the pages of magazines.
I'll pass a billboard and feel the presence of red eyes glaring out from it, before discovering nothing more than the vacant gaze of a model selling promises. It has become increasingly frequent, whether this beast will trot behind me looking its fangs or suddenly overtake me some night as unknown. Before I am dragged to a place beyond reach, my hope is that these writings will be what remains of Jack Green.
Well, much like the protagonist in our story today, it seems I am also being confronted by something that I can no longer avoid. I am not sure how much time I have left before it becomes a problem, but likely not long. I promise to do all in my power so that on your next visit I will still have a story to share with you. Let's, until that time, please be well and carry today's story in your heart. Please tell me what you think of the story. Thank you for listening to The Second Storyteller.
If you have a prompt for a story, please send it to thesecondstoryteller at gmail.com. If your prompt is selected, your name will be credited at the end of the episode. Today's prompt was A Horror Story from Rick's. If you would like to help support the future of this podcast, please consider becoming a patron by going to patreon.com slash the second storyteller. A donation as small as a dollar is greatly appreciated and helps keep us going.
A donation of just $10 a month puts you on the list of current library card holders, and your name will be read at the end of the episode. The Second Storyteller podcast and the featured stories were written and created by Katie Chacon. The role of the second storyteller is played by Charles Scott. Today's voice of the story was provided by Charles Scott. The voice of the intro and outro is Chris Camp, and you can find the fantastic games he's worked on at ricks.itch.io. That's r-i-k-s.itch.io.
The music was written by Fintan, who can be found at garbagebag, all one word,.itch.io. The second storyteller will return next month with more magic, fun, and of course, a story to tell.