Creeps, true stories from Reddit (Second book)

If you look for him, you'll find him.

Everyone here knows about him, though only some of us know how to find him. Our general understanding of him is fragmented, with each person carrying a discrete piece of information, some tips or advice. Or maybe they'll carry some anecdotal evidence, like when the kid who sits next to you in math class swears his cousin's girlfriend's brother saw him... but only after he did this one specific thing you've never tried.
He's a staple in our town, though few have actually seen him, or perhaps those who have just rarely return to tell the tale. He's just a man, but that doesn't stop children from whispering tall tales to each other about him, about how he can grant wishes – like a genie, but not. I heard he can make Santa give you the best toys for Christmas, Sandra claimed on the kindergarten playground, her eyes wide and full of the uninhibited wonder that belongs only to small children. I heard he made an iPad appear out of nothing, my best friend Jimmy insisted in the fifth grade, flapping his hands with excitement. I heard he got Matt laid, Paul cackled as we changed into our gym clothes on the first day of seventh grade.
I'm in eighth grade now, and all of us kids still talk about him just as much as we did when we were just little kids, when our only concern was if Mrs. Peters would let us out to recess on time. We talk about him like we know him, but not like a friend – more like our cool distant cousin who rides a motorcycle or is in some band, or that kid from sleep away camp we were best friends with one summer but now can barely remember, or that substitute teacher we had that one time in first grade who brought her snake to school.
Our parents, though, they don't talk about him anymore – they know it's safest to keep their mouths shut. One kid lost is enough to scare the rest of the grownups into silence, and it's said that Tommy Baker was lost to him.
Kids, though, even older kids like me... we're curious, and usually not about the stuff they teach in school. Before I found him, I was a loser – girls turned their noses up at me, I didn't get nearly enough allowance to buy the things I wanted, I had no friends except for Jimmy. I was just a curious kid, down on my luck, with nothing to lose.
So, I went looking for him.
"Go to that part of town, you know, the place where your parents would kill you if they ever found you there. Walk up and down the street three times," said Sandra, rolling her eyes as she looked up from her book. "If you look for him, you'll find him."
"What street?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Leave me alone, I'm reading."
I asked every kid in class with no answer, not until Paul.
"It doesn't matter what street, dumbass," he said, shaking his head as if it were obvious. He thought he was real hot shit because he was captain of the school lacrosse team, but he lost a lot of popularity when he got braces last year. Even Chelsea broke up with him, and they'd practically been dating since the third grade. "Pick any street in that part of town. Go after dark. Oh, and don't forget – bring a pocket full of change."
Some kid I'd never even talked to found me in the library later, tapping me on the shoulder to whisper, "jingle the change in your pocket every six steps" before walking away, back into the graphic novel section.
Jimmy had me over to play games later. "Once you've walked up and down the street three times, turn away from the corner and drop a penny," he said over the rapid clicking of the buttons on our controllers. "It's gotta be face up. Don't know how you can make that happen, but I sure as shit know you don't wanna find out what happens if it doesn't."
"Do not kick over his cup," my older sister insisted over dinner that night, her tone hushed, while our mom got up to refill her wine glass. "Missy said that's what happened to Tommy Baker. She's a pathological liar, so I wouldn't believe anything she says, but still."
Once I was confident that I knew how to find him, I did exactly as I was told. Jimmy covered for me, saying I was coming over for a sleepover. But really, I emptied the last twenty or so coins from my change jar, stuffing my pocket full of the loose change. I walked out the front door as soon as the sun started to dip low into the horizon, down to the area I was strictly forbidden to ever set foot in.
I chose a random street to turn onto, walked up and down the sidewalk three times, jingling the change in my pocket with every sixth step. When I made it back to the corner, I flicked a penny out of my pocket behind me. I held my breath as it hit the ground, bouncing a couple times before settling flat on one side with a metallic ringing sound. I turned around to pick it up, relieved to see it'd fallen face up. Bending over, I pinched my fingers around the coin.
As I straightened my back up again, I saw him in the light of the streetlamp on the corner. I knew it was him because he hadn't been there before, hadn't appeared until I picked up the penny. He looked just like a normal guy in a pair of frayed jeans and a grey sweatshirt, sitting on the sidewalk with his back propped up against the fence behind him. His legs were bent and drawn close to his body, one arm wrapped around them, the other arm outstretched and clutching a worn paper cup in his hand. He had shaggy brown hair and his head was down, face resting against his knees.
At that moment, I realized I had no idea what to actually do once I saw him. I just stared at him for a few long moments until he moved – honestly, it scared the shit out of me. Without looking up, he just shook his cup, the coins inside rattling loudly.
Hesitantly, I shoved my hand in my pocket and plucked out a few more random coins – a dime, a nickel, and a quarter – and tossed them into his cup along with the penny, not wanting to get too close. He brought the cup closer to his body, folding his arm around his knees to match the other one. He covered the top of the cup with his hand, my coins still inside.
And with that, I left, racing to Jimmy's house to tell him that I'd found him, what I'd done. His mom was surprised I'd come over alone after dark, but she ordered us a pizza and we played games all night. When I got home in the morning, my coin jar was full to the brim.
Soon, I was visiting him almost every day.
The next time I saw him, I got close enough to see he had things other than change in his cup – some small trinkets, something that maybe looked like a locket, a baby tooth. I tossed five bucks in his cup and came home to a birthday card from my aunt with fifty dollars tucked inside. She hadn't sent me anything for years.
A week later, I dropped my lucky eraser in his cup and got an A on my science test even though I hadn't studied at all and Mr. Robert's test questions were impossible.
I threw a piece of candy in his cup a few days later, and despite eating all the sweets I wanted on Halloween, I came back from the dentist with no cavities.
I returned the next day, cradling one of my most prized possessions in the palm of my hand. Reluctantly, I pitched the trinket – my dad's favorite monopoly piece, the boot – into his cup. Later that night, my dad came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed while I slept, even though he died when I was only six. He told me he loved me, that he hadn't stopped looking out for me just because he was gone from this world. I thought it'd all been a dream until I found a pair of his work boots in the corner of my room the next morning.
I plucked a few strands of Sandra's hair from the hood of her sweatshirt and went to visit him again a couple days after that. I planned on asking her to the eighth grade dance, but I wanted to make sure she'd say yes. I wrapped the stolen hair up in a rubber band, then placed the bundle carefully into his cup. I waited for him to accept the offering like he always did, by covering the top of the cup with his hand.
Instead, he shook the cup loudly, the coins and various items inside clanging against each other. For a few seconds I just stood there, frozen, until he did it again, the tinny metallic sounds coming even louder as he continued to jerk the cup around, over and over again with growing intensity. Loose coins shot out of the cup with each agitated motion and crashed onto the sidewalk.
I took a step back, losing my footing on the curb behind me, tumbling down onto the street as he lifted his head from his knees. I scrambled backwards across the pavement on the palms of my hands, and that's when I finally saw his face.
I wouldn't have recognized him if it wasn't for the massive, pink birthmark that covered his left cheek – the one I'd always thought looked almost exactly like the country of Brazil. We were studying world geography when he went missing last year. I didn't really know him because he was a high school kid, but I'd seen his face printed on the missing person posters that'd littered the neighborhood.
He was Tommy Baker, but he was different. Instead of the piercing green eyes I'd seen so many times on those posters or on the news, two nickels were lodged deep into his eye sockets, red and enflamed. The edges were caked with blood, dark and dried.
"Tommy –" I stammered, but he didn't respond to his name, just went on rattling that cup and staring me down with his shining silver glare.
A menacing smile came across his face as he got off of the ground and started the chase. I jumped to my feet and ran as fast as my feet would carry me, the jarring noise of jingling change close behind with each panicked lunge. The awful sounds stopped several blocks before I made it home, but I was only convinced I was safe once I was back inside my room, covers pulled up over my head as I panted and wheezed, trying to catch my breath.
Call me crazy, but I went back again the next day.
I had to, because Sandra never came back to school. I'd made a new bookmark for her – neat block letters spelling out Will you go to the dance with me?, its shape cut out of bright green construction paper and carefully laminated with tape. I tried to find her on the steps of the quad eating lunch, or in the library with her nose tucked in a book during breaks. Her parents released a desperate plea for any information of where Sandra might be, and I figured he could help.
He had helped me before.
With the bookmark tucked in my back pocket, I performed the ritual all over again – up and down the street three times, rattling the change in my pocket every six steps, penny dropped before bending to pick it up. The figure appeared, just like it always had, with the knees tucked close, one arm wrapped around them, paper cup in the other hand, face down, forehead resting on the knees. But something was different this time – his hair was no longer shaggy and brown, but instead bright blonde and long, perfectly combed with a sparkling headband neatly tucked behind the ears.
It was not his hair, it was her hair, Sandra's hair.
She wept miserably, a guttural moan rising from the pit of her stomach. But when I called her name, she stopped immediately, and responded only with a violent shake of her cup.
Before Tommy Baker was him, there was another, and now that he's taken Sandra, he's no longer him, he's her – and the kids of the town picked up on the change almost immediately. Maybe she'll get Price an iPhone so he can get rid of that piece of shit he calls a cell phone, said Paul, his braces whistling as he snickered, punching his lacrosse buddy in the shoulder. I bet she could get my mom to finally let us play the new Grand Theft Auto, said Jimmy as he pulled me into GameStop, a hopeless attempt to cheer me up.
And Sandra said nothing – she'll never say anything again. Just a forceful shake of her cup.
I think of her often – not just her, but Sandra – and what she said to me the day before I first found him. If you look for him, you'll find him, she said, irritated that I'd bothered her during her favorite chapter of her favorite book. I was happy just to see her face, even if it was crumpled up in annoyance. She laid her book flat on the table, face down, as she added, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

Posted by u/hercreation