Chilling Tales for Dark Nights

The old man awoke alone in the woods, his body naked, exposed to the cold autumn air. The only sound he could hear was the haunting call of crows high in the gnarled trees above. His limbs ached as he struggled to piece together his fragmented thoughts. He'd been here before... hadn’t he? But everything felt distorted, as though his memory itself was betraying him.

Why was he here? What was he doing in these woods? His caregiver, the large, unpleasant woman whose name never quite settled in his mind, was nowhere to be found. Her oppressive presence had always irritated him always telling him when to take his pills, when to rest. He couldn’t stand her.

Had he escaped her again? He couldn’t be sure. His clothes were gone, but strangely, he wasn’t cold. The ground was covered with dead leaves, brown and decaying, yet warmth clung to him as if the air itself refused to let go of his body. Was it autumn? Shouldn’t it be cold?

A voice sliced through the heavy silence, distant and unnervingly familiar.

"Thomas."

The old man turned, eyes squinting in the gloom. His vision was poor without his glasses. In the distance, he saw a figure a man, emerging from the shadows of the trees. The stranger moved with unnatural grace, his body blending into the darkness like some malevolent spirit. As he approached, crows scattered, their wings flapping frantically as if fleeing the presence of this mysterious visitor.

"Thomas," the voice called again, this time closer.

He felt a chill run down his spine. Who was this man? The figure, still far off, seemed to grow darker with each step, his features obscured by the gathering shadows.

"Yes?" Thomas's voice trembled, and his hands instinctively shielded his body.

The stranger smiled, his face now visible young, handsome, in his twenties or thirties, with dark, piercing eyes that seemed to peer into Thomas's very soul. Something stirred in Thomas's chest, a strange longing, but he quickly pushed it down. He didn’t know this man. Did he?

"Do you remember me, Thomas?" The stranger asked, his voice low and unsettling. "You found me here... years ago... in these woods."

Thomas tried to recall. The stranger's words echoed in his mind, but the memories wouldn’t come. The woods? A time when he was younger, perhaps... no, it couldn’t be. This man had no place in his past.

I don't know you." Thomas's voice cracked, fear rising like a tide. "Who are you?

The stranger’s smile never wavered as he stepped closer, his movements too fluid, too perfect. "I’m the one you found hitchhiking on the road. You brought me here, remember?"

The words hit Thomas like a wave, but still, nothing no recollection. He stared at the man, bewildered, as a fleeting image tugged at his mind. A memory of something... ugly... but it slipped away before it could take form.

The stranger’s grin widened, almost predatory. "You remember David, don’t you? The boy you brought here with me?"

Thomas’s heart skipped a beat as the stranger gestured behind him. Slowly, Thomas turned, dread pooling in his stomach. Standing behind him, half-shrouded in the shadows, was a young boy. His hair was pale, his skin sickly, his legs covered in dark, drying blood. He wore only a blue dress shirt, his lower half exposed, and his eyes... those eyes were empty, like hollow wells of despair.

Thomas recoiled in horror. The boy’s scent hit him like rotting meat, and his stomach twisted. He tried to look away, but something about the boy’s gaze held him in place, paralyzed with fear.

David was younger than Thomas had been when he met him. But there was no time for the boy to be this old, this ruined. The blood. The decay.

"You were so confident back then, Thomas," the stranger murmured, stepping closer still. "So sure of your abilities. Killing people... people your own size. You had no remorse."

Thomas staggered back as the stranger's words cut through him like knives. The memories came rushing back faint flashes of bloody hands, buried bodies, screams swallowed by the forest. The woods were where it all had happened, where he had buried his sins, deep under the earth. He had been careful. He had erased the traces.

But time had a way of unearthing what had been hidden.

"I... I don’t remember...," Thomas whispered, his voice barely audible. He tried to run, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. Panic surged through him as he spun to flee, but before he could take a step, the boy was there, blocking his path. His eyes burned with fury.

Behind the boy, dozens more appeared. Children some clothed, others not. Their skin was pale, mottled with decay, and their eyes glinted with something dark, something predatory. The crows above cawed louder, as though in judgment, their cries filling the air with an unbearable sense of doom.

The children grinned, their teeth elongated, canine-like, and ready to tear into him. The sight made Thomas’s blood run cold, his heart racing in terror.

"You can’t run, Tom," the stranger’s voice was soft, almost soothing. But the words held an undeniable threat. "Not anymore."

Tears welled up in Thomas’s eyes as he felt himself being surrounded, trapped by the ghosts of his past. The forest, the children, the stranger all of it came rushing back. And then, with a sudden, sickening clarity, he remembered.

It wasn’t the law that would catch up to him.

It was time.

The stranger’s lips curled into a twisted smile, his teeth sharp as he leaned in, so close that Thomas could feel his breath, hot and fetid.

"We all pay for our crimes, Tom," the stranger whispered. "Sooner or later."

And with that, the stranger kissed him a cold, devouring kiss that tasted of rot and blood. The children grabbed at his legs, their hands cold and clammy, their teeth sinking into his flesh as he screamed in agony.

The crows above watched in silence, witnesses to his past... and now, his reckoning.