Narrator: Marcus D. | Oregon, USA
The first time my wife mentioned somebody standing behind the back fence, I got irritated. We had argued about buying a place that backed onto woods, and I thought this was her way of reopening it.
I went out with a flashlight. About twenty feet beyond the fence, a pale face was visible between two trunks. It didn’t duck when I hit it with the beam.
I shouted that I was calling the police. The face moved to the next gap. There was no body crossing the space in between. I could see the ferns under it the whole time.
I walked left along our fence. It kept pace. Each time a trunk blocked it, it appeared on the other side a little closer to the ground. Eventually it was level with the bottom rail, looking up at me through a split in the wood.
I went inside and called the police for real. An officer walked the tree line and found no one. He was perfectly decent about it, which made me feel worse for having expected him to laugh.
We put up a solid fence. I told the contractor it was for the dog we were planning to get. We’ve lived here three years now and haven’t got one. My wife doesn’t bring that up either.
