The Jollyman

Everyone around these parts has heard of 'The Jollyman'.

Heck, I think I was about six or seven when my older brother used to scare me with bedtime stories about him. There wasn't a kid around this neck of the woods that hadn't had their skin nearly crawl off their body to campfire tales about 'The Jollyman'. It was just one of those legends around the area that ran thicker than river mud. And just as murky.

No one really knows the right true details about it. Seemed like it changed in shades and deviations with each time it was retold, like the building layers of a ripe onion. The way I heard the story, Jollyman was a poor vagrant, a bit touched in the head that lived down by the old train tracks. He'd collect all sorts of things for barter and trade. Even the coal that fell off the engines as they rumbled by.

One fateful night, a drifter had convinced himself that ol' Jolly had cheated him in a trade for some tools. He went on down to the tracks to find the Jollyman picking up the coal like he always did, and that drifter in his rage, shoved him right in front of an oncoming train.

Or burned him up alive in his shack by the crossing.

The story is told all kinds of ways. But always ends the same.

'Stay away from the old railroad crossing near the woods on the outskirts of town. If you're down there after midnight, the Jollyman will come with the wind...and he'll want to make a bargain:

Jolly, Jolly, Jollyman...what presents you bring for the Jollyman?

And if you ain't got nothing, or if you don't answer him... the Jollyman will reach out and GET YOU!'

Those last two words were usually where my brother would yell and jump at me, making me scream bloody murder, and he'd catch quick hell from Pop for it.

"Stop telling those stupid stories to scare your brother, Todd." Pop would grumble.

"But it's a true story, Pop." Todd would whine. "I heard it from David, who heard it from his uncle. And his uncle actually knew the guy!" At this assertion, Pop rolled his eyes incredulously.

"They're just some stories to scare you damn fool kids away from the train tracks. That's all."

Pop was a man of few words, but the look in his eyes said it all. No more stories. And after a while, the stories weren't of interest to Todd anymore, nor was scaring me half to death at bedtime. He was in high school and had bigger worries about making the football team and girls. His friend David stopped coming around the house, too. Which Pop said was for the best since that kid 'had his head in the clouds too much' anyway.

I guess he never figured that I'd start telling those stories too. Maybe he thought I'd be scared off enough to just let it go.

Damn it all, I wish I had been.

It was the summer after I turned thirteen. I had just gotten a new cherry red ten-speed after what seemed like an eternity of saving up from mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. And I'd kissed Betty Ann Parsons behind the school after class one day. I was on top of the world. Life was good.

If only I'd gone straight home after school that day. Gone home and buried myself in my schoolwork, or gone out to play ball with the fellas. If I had, well, I'd not be in this mess.

Something always bugged me about 'The Jollyman' story. Like a mosquito itch that I couldn't quite reach. It twisted and dug at me. It was probably just a story, but who was to say for sure? The was one way to find out for certain, I figured, was to go down to the old tracks myself to see what was what.

"Come on, Pete." I implored Pete Simmons, my best friend and partner-in-crime. "It's just a stupid story. We go down there around midnight, see? And we stay there about ten or fifteen minutes. Then we come back to school and tell everyone how brave we were!"

"Bet that will get Betty Ann all fired up. She will swoon over you for sure." Pete sniffed. I rolled my eyes at that part, but deep down I secretly hoped he was right. "I...I don't know, Andy. My folks will be mighty sore at me for sneaking out..."

"Only if we get caught, Pete. Come on. We will be Hill Valley legends."

"... what if he comes?" Pete squeaked out in a thin voice.

"It's just a story Pete. He's not real. My Pop said so."

Fathers weren't known to lie, so any argument Pete might have had to the contrary sunk back into his throat, and he nodded reluctantly. I continued.

"So, tonight? Meet me at the corner of Jefferson and 3rd. At around a quarter till midnight. I'll wait for you by the phone booth." I sped off before Pete even had a chance to answer me. Later that night, I waited for my parents to fall asleep and snuck out the kitchen window downstairs. It never did shut right. I grabbed my bike from the lawn and headed for the meeting spot. And there was Pete, already waiting. His bike leaned up against the phone booth as he scanned up and down the road, keeping a sharp eye out for me or the sheriff.

"You ready?" I said, dust flying as I pulled up. It would be just like Sheriff Burke to come calling around this hour and muck up our plans, so I didn't want to linger. Pete kicked at the rocks near the road's edge and mumbled something.

"You... you sure you wanna do this?" he finally spoke up loud enough for me to hear. "Ain't no one knows about this but me and you! Who's gonna call us chicken if we back out...?" Pete seemed as shaken as he had been earlier, maybe even a bit more. But he'd see, when nothing happened, we'd have a good laugh about this later. About how scared we were over nothing but a campfire story...

"Come on." I was agitated and didn't wait, just pedaled off down the road. And Pete, being the best friend a guy ever had, wasn't far behind. It was about then that the wind started to pick up, kicking the dust and the willow leaves around. A warm summer wind that started rolling those heavy sort of dark rain clouds in. The moon was playing a tense game of peekaboo with the building clouds as we turned off the old pike and headed down to the junction.

The shadows thrown off the old crossing signals made for some eerie shapes. The train tracks hadn't been used in a while, not since the Interstate was built. The tracks had fallen into a sad, rusty state of disrepair. We pulled up on our bikes as the wind started to pick up a bit more, whistling down the tracks and shaking the tall grass. Pete looked up and down, chewing his lip as I slid off my bike and rested it against the signal post.

"It's way creepier than I thought..." he said.

He wasn't wrong. There weren't electric lights near the tracks anymore. Only ones from the road at the junction and they were too far away to be any help. The tracks sprawled out ahead into distant darkness; the rest of the landscape lit up by the pale moonlight that cast eerie shadows and ducked in and out of those weighty storm clouds. Suddenly, I was cursing myself for not bringing a flashlight.

And all around there was silence. Not the peaceful kind either. The sort that hangs in a pall over a graveyard. The kind that makes the air feel like it weighs a million pounds around you, like you're breathing liquid lead straight into your lungs. So, it was almost a relief when we heard the low rumble of thunder overhead, and felt the sudden sprinkling of tepid midsummer rain. I tugged my jacket closed and glanced at my watch. It felt like we'd been here for hours already.

The hands showed the nearly implausible time: 11:55pm. We'd only been here for five minutes. The longest of my young life. Pete had finally gotten off his bike, letting it rest near mine on the ground as he walked over, crossing the tracks to the other side. He picked up a stone and hurled it off into the dark, then a second and a third. The first one sounded like it landed somewhere in the tall grass. The second one hollowly struck off of a tree.

But the third... the third made no sound at all. As if the air had swallowed it up. Pete swallowed thickly, backing up onto the tracks.

"I saw something move!" he sputtered, eyes wide enough to be seen in the dark.

"It's only shadows, your mind is playing tricks...th-that's all." I looked off in the direction that he was pointing, straining to make out anything in the inky darkness. I didn't see anything but the shadows of branches swaying as the wind tossed them about. Or was it the wind? I looked down at my watch again, praying that more time had passed.

11:58pm.

The moon had peeked out long enough for me to see a scuffle of movement, a much larger shadow shifting through the grass. Pete must have seen it too. His face was corpse white. Then the moon dipped behind the clouds and it was dark again. Pete had scurried back to the other side of the tracks, headed for his bike. Then I heard it in the distance, barely over the sound of thunder. The chimes from the tower at the old town hall. Midnight. At that same moment, a peal of lightning creased the sky, lighting everything up in an unholy flash.

The trees. The tracks.

A figure in rumpled clothes, only a few feet from me.

I took a step back, but it felt as if my legs were suddenly knee-deep in syrup. As I turned to run, my shoelace got caught on the trestle and I fell. He was closer now, moving in a jaunty, broken doll kind of way. I could smell the sickly scent of ash and burned flesh that followed his every movement. A large brimmed hat sat on his head, and it tipped backwards to reveal not many facial features other than a far too wide toothy smile.

"Jolly... Jolly... Jollyman. What presents you bring for Jollyman?" His singsong voice was high-pitched, like nails on a blackboard. A bony hand extended from a coat sleeve, reaching out for my arm. The singing became louder. Higher.

"Jolly... JOLLY... JOLLYMAN! What presents YOU bring for JOLLYMAN?!"

Let me tell you something. I've been witness to some terrifying things in my life, but I was never as scared as when those bony, singed fingers touched my sleeve. The next words I blurted out, I have spent my whole life wishing I could take back.

"I BROUGHT HIM!" I glanced back over my shoulder to Pete, who had fallen in the dirt trying to free his bike from a tangle of baling wire. Burning eyes like lit coals stuffed in empty sockets rolled from from me to Pete, then back to me.

"You do good. Come back. Bring more. Or I COME FOR YOUUUUU..." I remember hearing a scream and realizing it was me before shock and unconsciousness took me. I woke up what seemed like hours later and looked around. I was alone. The storm had long passed. And I had a splitting headache. Quickly, I freed myself from the trestle and moved to the crossing signal where my bike sat, undisturbed.

I passed by Pete's abandoned bike and the drag marks left in the dirt by desperate hands made me aware of the piercing reality that it hadn't been a dream. A sick churning wrenched my stomach inside out as I got on the bike and headed for the junction. I wasn't too far from 3rd Street when I heard the whoop of a siren behind me, headlights illuminating the road and casting my shadow starkly against the pavement.

"Young man, what are you doing out at this hour?" Sheriff Burke sighed. "It's way past curfew." He glanced around to see if I had been in the company of any other unruly hooligans, and shrugged, realizing I was alone. I hadn't the fortitude to tell him what had just happened. "Well alright, let's get you home."

I honestly don't remember a lot of the ride home. The sheriff knocked on the front door once we pulled up to my house and my father, half-asleep, answered. He looked angry. The pair of grown men had a small chat before Sheriff Burke went to retrieve my bike from his trunk and let me out of the passenger side of his cruiser. He nodded to me, tipping his broad-brimmed trooper cap.

"Have a good night. You get to bed, young man. Don't let me catch you out this late again, either." He turned to my dad with a faint smirk on his lips. "Got another troublemaker on your hands, Roy. I'll see ya around."

"See ya, Charlie." My dad nodded as the Sheriff got back in his car and pulled out of our drive, leaving only a cloud of dust in his wake. I stood stock still, feeling the boring weight of my father's eyes on me. The silence between us seemed to last an eternity before he spoke.

"He was there. Wasn't he?"

I was too shaken up to be as stunned as I should have been, and tears welled in my eyes. Before I could stop them, the words spilled out.

"He's.. he's real. He's real and... he t-tried to take me.... but Pete was there and I--"

My father shook his head. As if I was conveying to him some great truth he had already known for ages. "I told you kids not to listen to those stories." Quietly, he rolled his sleeve up on his right arm, revealing three parallel marks just above the elbow. Seared deeply into his flesh like a brand.

The tell-tale marks of fingers on his skin.

He then nodded to me, gesturing to my arm. I raised my sleeve to see the same marks, florid crimson in the silver moonlight. The sight of them sent a frigid chill down my spine.

"You know what you have to do now." My father said grimly. "One a year, or he comes for you. What do you think happened to Todd's friend David? Do you think he just moved away?" I stood dumbly in stunned silence before my father put his arm around my shoulder and sighed. "Come on. Let's go inside. I'll explain everything."

From that night on, my life as I knew it was over.

Every night, in the summer for the next twenty five years, I did what I had to do to keep him coming for me. Once a year. At first, it was easy to lure other kids down there. Kids my own age. Usually on some kind of a dare. But kids start going missing around the same time every summer, and suddenly people start to ask questions.

People start believing stories.

As I got older, old enough to raise suspicion for hanging around schools, I switched to transients and winos. Ain't no one misses those folks too much anyhow. And they certainly don't question it when the new town sheriff picks them up in his cruiser and rides them out of town.

Right near the old railroad crossing.

Heck, it just means you're making the town safe, doesn't it?

One every summer. One for the Jollyman.

Things have changed though. Tonight it's different. Tonight, for the first time in twenty-five years, there ain't gonna be a bargain.

There's no kids in the town anymore. Most folks started moving away when an even newer state highway came through and the railroad completely closed down. The trains stopped coming, stopped bringing the vagrants and lost souls that had been such easy pickings. The ones that didn't move away got old and died. My Pop, Sheriff Burke... the damn cemetery has a bigger population than the town itself these days.

And me? Well, I find myself the sheriff of a ghost town.

It's a stormy summer night. Just like that first one when I was thirteen. It's well past midnight now, too. I can hear the wind outside the station, howling. I've locked myself inside. But I can tell from the burning feeling on my arm, the scratches where he branded me, I know it makes no difference. Outside on the quiet streets, just under the whistling of the wind, I hear it...

"J...o...l....l..y .....J...o...l...l...y...."

A lone figure is standing in the middle of Main Street, wearing rumpled old clothes. And a large hat.

"J...o...l...l...y...m...a...nnnn..."

With a twisted smile.

"I COME FOR YOUUUUUU!"

I reach down to my hip for my gun, but my arm hurts too much to move. The rain starts to come down hard, and there's a furious pounding at the door. Like a freight train.

All I can do now is watch, gaping in silent terror as the hinges begin to splinter and give way. My older brother's voice rings in my ears as I see a withered, scorched hand reach around the broken door.

'Stay away from the old railroad crossing... or THE JOLLYMAN WILL GET YOU!"