The rain in October of 1990 didn’t just fall. It felt like it was trying to drown the whole town.

Julian stood inside a cramped highway phone booth, his breath fogging up the glass and smelling heavily of the whiskey he’d been drinking with his friends. The quarters clinked into the coin slot, and he dialed Sarah’s number. He knew he was way too drunk to drive his car home, but he didn’t expect her to be this angry when she answered.

“On a Monday night, Julian? Seriously?” Her voice sounded sharp through the static of the receiver.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Julian muttered, rubbing his eyes.

Suddenly, a sound cut him off. It didn’t come from his side of the line. It came from hers. It was a loud, wet, agonizing scream. It didn’t even sound human, but it was trying to be.

“Sarah?” Julian gripped the phone tighter, all the warmth from the alcohol vanishing. “What was that?”

There was nothing but dead silence for a few seconds. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded a little flat. “Nothing. The neighbor’s dog was just barking. I’ll call you later.”

“Wait! What am I supposed to do out here in the rain?” he yelled.

She hung up on him.

Angry and shivering, Julian decided to just walk down the road to a nearby motel called the Blackwood. The lobby smelled like damp carpet and old cigarettes. Behind the wood counter, a small television was playing a weird broadcast. The news anchor was talking about these strange entities or beings that could mimic people, tricking them into going to secluded places so they could devour them.

While Julian was staring at the screen, an eerie feeling crawled up his spine, like someone was standing right behind him. Then, he felt a cold touch on his shoulder.

He jumped, spinning around with his heart pounding. It was just the motel owner.

“Sorry about that,” the owner apologized, holding a bucket of cleaning supplies. “I was busy scrubbing a room. The last guests ran off in the middle of the night without paying or cleaning up after themselves.”

Julian paid for a room, took his key, and went straight to his bed. He took a shower to try and sober up, but his mind kept racing. He realized Sarah was probably worried, or maybe he had just overreacted. At around 1:00 AM, he decided to call her again from the motel room phone.

She answered.

“Sarah, what actually happened earlier?” he asked.

“I told you, it was nothing,” she said, her voice sounding oddly sweet over the line. “Just the neighbor’s dog barking.”

Julian paused, staring at the dark window. “Didn’t the neighbor’s dog go missing a month ago?”

The line went completely quiet for a second. Then she said, “Oh, right. They found him today. He was lost, poor guy. He must have been terrified. Anyway, how is the motel you’re staying at?”

Julian froze. “How did you know I’m at a motel?”

“What do you mean? Didn’t you tell me?”

“No,” Julian said, his knuckles turning white. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

“Well, where else could you go at this hour?” she replied quickly. “It’s a pretty average hotel, right? Tell me the location so I can come get you tomorrow.”

It felt weird, but Sarah always had a strange hunch for things. He gave her the highway info and the location, hung up, and tried to go to sleep.

At around 3:00 AM, a sharp knock on the door woke him up.

Julian crept over and looked through the peephole, but the walkway outside was completely empty. Shaking his head, he figured his mind was playing tricks on him because of the alcohol. He poured a glass of water, took a sip, and set it on the nightstand before getting back into bed.

Right as he was drifting off, he heard a soft rustling sound in the room. He snapped the light on. Nothing was there, but he noticed the glass of water was sitting on the luggage rack now, a few feet away from where he left it. His skin crawled, but he blamed the whiskey again.

Outside, the wind was getting louder, throwing tree branches violently against his window glass. Thud. Thud. It was driving him crazy. He grabbed a small knife from the kitchenette counter, opened the window into the pouring rain, and reached out to cut the annoying branch away.

The wood felt strangely soft. As he sawed at it, a thick, dark sap started leaking out, completely coating his hands. It felt warm and sticky. Finally, the branch severed and fell inside onto the carpet with a heavy thud.

Julian shut the window and went to wash his hands in the bathroom. But under the bright light, he realized the sap wasn’t brown. It was blood red.

Panic hitting him fully sober now, he ran back into the bedroom and turned on the main lights to look at the branch on the floor.

It wasn’t a piece of a tree. It looked like an incredibly skinny, gray human hand, and the fingers were still twitching.

Before he could even move, the closet door behind him slowly creaked open. From the pitch black, a voice spoke—using Sarah’s exact tone, but completely hollow.

“I told you I’d come get you.”

Julian screamed, but the sound was cut short, lost entirely into the dark forest outside.

A week later, yellow police tape wrapped around Room 107. Two detectives stood inside, looking down at a bloody knife and a severed human arm left on the floor.

The motel owner stood by the door, shaking his head. “I told you, officers. He was acting real jumpy and drunk when he checked in.”

“Classic psychopath,” the lead detective said, writing in his notebook. “He kills his girlfriend, brings a piece of her here, panics, and runs off into the woods.”

The detective looked out at the thick, silent treeline, completely unaware of the elongated, pale eyes watching them from the shadows of the trees.