Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - The Brittle Man | Part 2

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Haunted by the loss of his son and dragged back into the twisted Crooked Wood, a haunted man must face the Brittle Man—a grotesque, skin-wearing monster born from the souls of murdered children. As ancient darkness spreads from a cursed lighthouse, he battles to stop a cosmic evil that threatens to snuff out all light and hope from the universe. Author: J.G. Martin Check out the author's new book Crooked Gospels here: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Gospels-Stories-Supernatural-Nightmare/dp/1963107322⁠ * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content not limited to intense themes, strong language, and depictions of violence intended for adults. Parental guidance is strongly advised for children under the age of 17. Listener discretion is advised.  #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We actually made it! The girl scoffed. Of course we did. You think I'd have Let Us Die back there? I jogged to a stop, keeling over with my hands on my knees, panting with exhaustion. I didn't know how long we'd been running for. Might have been minutes, might have been days. What I did know was that we'd found ourselves under clearing, surrounded by steepening trees.

And there in the center was an anomaly that stole the breath from my lungs. A lighthouse. It rose up and up, a shambling tower of rotting wood. It was a travesty of planks crisscrossed atop each other, hammered in with crooked, rusted nails. It looked like it had been assembled by a chamblinged. child, or a madman. Certainly nobody who'd ever held a hammer. And yet this swaying monstrosity reached dozens, even hundreds of feet into the sky. And there at its apex was that ghostly flame

I'd seen before. Winter blue, a light without a glow. Crap, said the boy, emerging from behind the lighthouse. It isn't here. The girl bit down on her lip, worried. Wait, I said, stumbling forward. What isn't here? We've got no way inside. It's fine, said the girl, shuddering her eyes as though thinking of their next move. We knew this might happen. That means we'll have to break in. The wards. They're out back, down by the river. Break them and the door should appear. The boy cocked an eyebrow at her.

What about you? I'll keep a lookout. If I spot the brittle man, I'll, I don't know, scream or something. Just go. I can already smell his putrid coat on the wind. I looked between the two of them, utterly lost as to what either was talking about. The boy waved me forward. Come on, I'll fill you in on the way. He led me past the lighthouse, down a sloping field of yellowed grass that crinkled with our every step.

Then we came upon a trail lined with dimming lanterns. Inside were bottled fireflies, though most of the most of the same. looked to be dead, just like the groundskeeper that once replaced them. We slipped past a jutting copse of trees, through a cave that wept, then found ourselves upon the bank of a river, only the water didn't look the shade it should have. It was red, not blue. It chucked, slow and viscous, like blood clotting in an artery. And there, in the distance was a waterfall greater than any on earth. It poured from the clouds themselves. or so it seemed, until those pale clouds shifted.

And I saw the river pouring from the gaping wound of that fractured moon. Jesus Christ, I whispered. Already tried that, said the boy, grunting behind me. He won't pick up. Pretty sure it's just us down here. Want to give me a hand with this? I turned to find him pushing against a slab of concrete sunk into the shore. It rested atop a great stone cylinder, ornate in a way the shambling lighthouse couldn't

compared to. Images had been chiseled into its surface. Creatures with wings like doves, wielding swords with six blades. They're in here, the boys said as I pushed against the lid. The wards, I mean, the brittle man hides him here to, uh, look, it doesn't matter. What's important is we have to bust him apart. The lid fell to the stones with a deafening slam, cracking in two. I looked inside to find a collection of velvet bags, paler than the moon. moon. They were all tied shut by cords that looked to be human hair. My stomach nodded. Bust them apart? Yeah, like, stomp on them, shoot them, whatever works. I reached down, plucking them out one by one. What's inside of them? I asked, a familiar sensation of unease

crawling across my skin. Anything I should know about? The boy opened his mouth to answer. But before he could get off a word, a scream tore through the air. The girl, she was raising the alarm. He's here! She shrieked in the distance. He's coming for you! All the way down by the river. That click-clack of yellowed fingernails.

That graveyard wheeze. It was coming from above. Up there, in that shifting abyss of leaves the moonlight couldn't pierce. The brittle man, he'd found us. The boy, usually carefree to a fault, froze up with dread. His voice became a stammering. mess. He shouted a slurry of directions, none of it making much sense. But I heard enough in that mash of words to understand his wish. Stomp on the wards, break them as fast as I can. If I didn't,

we would all die. He stood over one, his foot slamming down on it over and over. But as a spirit, it seemed he couldn't exert much force in the material realm. His shoes slid off the fabric, as if it were woven titanium. My turn. I lifted my boot, then brought it down. It crashed through the velvet bag with a crunch that turned my stomach, and whatever I'd broken turned the bag of dark crimson. All the while, the boy cried out. The girl screamed. The brittle man's fingernails click-clacked closer and closer, his putrid coat making my nostrils curl and disgust. I didn't know what was inside the bags. There wasn't time to check. It was life for death, and so I kept stomping over and over. It was all I could do to protect the children,

to save their souls from the mutilation that the brittle man would no doubt deliver upon them should we fail. I'd already let down everybody in my life, my wife, my son, Charlie. I couldn't let the boy down too, or the girl. Not when we were so close to ending this nightmare for good. So I stomped and I stomped until the stones ran red, and my chest burned with exhaustion. until the last bag of veil velvet lay before me. And then I stomped again. This time as my heel cleaved through the sack, that knot of hair tying it tight came undone.

The contents spilled out onto the riverbank, staring up at me with eyes I recognized. An entire face, or what remained of it. Charlie! The word fell from my lips as I fell to my knees. Charlie, what are you doing here? I tried to scoop him up then, the head of my childhood friend.

the bloody mulch that he'd become, that I'd made him into. I looked around at the other bags, each of them bleeding upon the shore. Heads. All of them were heads. That's what the brittle man used for his wards. The decapitated remains of the children he slaughtered. Oh, God! I choked out, a sob, breaking my voice. Charlie! I'm so sorry.

But the boy wrenched on my arm, desperate and stern. Yeah, it's real tragic. Believe me, I get it. better than anyone. But now ain't the time, dude. We gotta move. I looked down at the demolished face of my best friend, now little more than crimson mash dripping from my boot. Horror, disgust, shame. All of it cut through me like a butcher's knife, and I collapsed onto my hands, hurling onto the stones. But the boy kept pleading. The damn kid didn't seem to get it. I'd failed everybody in my life. Every last person that put their trust in me ended up dead. And these kids would be no

different. Only for them, it'd be a fate beyond death. Oh, crap, crap, crap. The boy stumbled backwards, falling over onto the stones. His eyes were fixed on the swaying trees high above. His voice caught in a revolving loop of terror. He's here! He sputtered. He's here! He's here! He's here! And I heard it then, clear as the ache in my heart. The machine gun rattle of fingernails rioting through the trees. The he-ha-breathing of a monster closing in, its every moment. It's every movement a rattle of bones and the riverbank exploded. I lifted my arm on instinct, fast enough to feel what might have been a stone, or maybe a piece of some child's shattered skull, cut across my palm. The whole shore rained pebbles in blood. The force of the impact threw me

backward, slamming me against the concrete tomb. My ears rang. My world spun. A grotesque, black shape, materialized in the settling debris. A colossal shadow twice the size of a rhinoceros and narrower than a scarecrow. Its limbs were like branches, long, crooked, and there, on the tips of those rake-like fingers, were a curled silhouette of fingernails I knew would be yellow and sharp. The brittle man was here, knocked forward, not toward me, but toward the boy, who was scrambling up the riverbank. The creatures stank like decay. I stumbled after it, unslinging my rifle. My vision swam like a watercolor painting, and lining up a shot, felt like it might as well be impossible. So I closed my eyes. I listened, felt the vibrations

and the stones. The way the monster shook the earth with its every step, the way it gasped and weased with each aching breath. My finger squeezed the trigger. Thunder broke the night. The bullets sang, ricocheting off the back of the monster, off that draping mess that must have been its coat of skin. The brittle man halted. My breath caught in my chest. I told myself to move. I told myself to move to do something. And so I started loading another rifle round when the boy hollered, voice tight with terror. Friking lighthouse! We're dead meat out here! Curcing, I tossed the rifle back over my shoulder. I bolted, feet carving a path toward the cave. A bleeding roar rang out, followed by an anguished chorus of grunts as the brittle man galloped after me. My heart pounded

like a jackhammer in my chest. I doubled over, sprinting harder, faster than I never removed in my life. But still the monster was faster. It shook the stony shore. As it closed in, I felt my balance slipping, my boots sliding this way and that against the stones, threatening to fall out from under me completely when I ducked, rolling into the mouth of the cave while the brittle man's curled fingernails snatched at the air mere inches away. It couldn't fit inside. Apparently, I had a guardian angel. The boy hollered something to me from the other end to the cave, but I couldn't hear it over the pulse rushing in my ears. A single thought regurgitated itself in my head over and over. Keep moving, don't die. And so I scrambled, back hunched, head smashed

off the ceiling of the tunnel, but not stopping to care. Blood trickled in my eyes. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the Titan thundering overhead, the monstered the size of a pickup truck that was convinced I'd make a good addition to its coat of flayed faces. Out of the cave, into the copse of trees. An awful crack stole through the night. It was the Goliath leaping onto one of those needle-thin pines. It thundered toward the earth, crashing just feet behind me,

but the brittle man had already leaped to the next, and the next after that. I heard him, that click-clack of his fingernails racing above, waiting for the opportunity to pounce down on me, called the boy, charging from the trees ahead of me. The lighthouse is just over the hill! And it was, I could see it, that shambling tower, reaching up beyond that hill of crackling grass, stiff and dead beneath my boots.

I chased after the boy, lungs lit ablaze, thoughts numbed by the life or death kiss of adrenaline in my veins. Nearly there, just a little further. There, the girl. She stood just beyond the lip of the hill, arms splayed wide in the doorframe of the lighthouse, eyes bulging with panic, with fear. Behind you! she shrieked. I felt it half a second later, the ground rippling beneath my feet like a tidal wave consuming the shore. The disorienting scatter of earth raining down around me, like a meteor had fallen from the sky and carved a new valley in the dirt. The brittle man, he'd leapt from the trees, and he was already on top of me. I saw the shadow of his arm long and crooked rising up behind me, his rake-like fingers, those curled, serrated

nails like rusted knives. It swiped, wind-kissed my cheeks. A miss. I charged forward, faster and faster. My legs felt like lead bricks, but I couldn't let up. Neither my heart or my body would let up. Slowing down even a fraction meant certain death. No, somehow I needed to dig deeper, move faster. And so I tried, throat like a desert, lungs searing themselves to ash. The boy reached the doorway ahead. He waved at me, desperate beside the girl. They spoke. They shouted, words maybe. I don't know, because by that point my mind had crashed. Every iota of energy rerouted toward speed, toward survival. But the brittle man was gaining.

The shadow of its arm rose again. Closer this time. It slashed, and this time I heard the scratch of torn fabric. I felt the razor blade sear my flesh and the warm dribble of blood rippling down my spine. Picture this. It's late at night. You're scrolling, and suddenly you find exactly what you've been looking for.

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More force of nature than physical being. Its every breath came thick with cosmic hunger. Ancient, unyielding, its breath blasted my neck, hot and putrid. The brittle man was close now. Too close to escape. Its arm rose again. An executioner ready to swing its blade. And this time it wouldn't miss.

After all these years, my childhood nightmare had finally caught up to me. I should have figured you could only outrun your demons for so long. The arm came down like a guillotine. I lunged. The lighthouse door slammed shut at my back. The brittle man crashed against it like a freight train, the entire structure trembling with all the force of a magnitude seven earthquake. I tried to breathe and tried to catch my breath as I lay on that floor, my world spinning from exhaustion. But it was like I'd forgotten how.

Instead, I'd just lay there, red in the face, jaw slack, gazing up at a steel stairwell winding forever and ever above me. You sure it'll hold? Of course, said the girl. There were tones sounded anything but confident. It was built to contain something a lot worse, wasn't it? Footsteps, soft, a bitter batter of sneakers, than a face swimming into view. You good?

Asked the boy, gently smacking my cheeks. Let him catch his breath, said the girl. He isn't like us. He can't just go forever. The boy sighed, squatting beside me. Good stuff, man. Totally thought you were a goner back there. That last dive?

You could have killed it in Major League Baseball. He laughed, imitating an unbiased. watching somebody steal home base. And he's safe! Would you shut up? Snap the girl. I'm trying to think. He scowled in her direction, sticking out his tongue.

I groaned, finally wrenching myself into a sitting position. My vision settled. For the first time, I got a clear look at where we were, and it didn't look anything like the lair of some unholy monster. It looked normal. It would have passed for a pretty nice bachelor bad. If it wasn't for all the beer cans scattered across the floor, then again, I was hardly in a position to judge. The lighthouse had an old fridge that hugged the wall, and beside that was a gas stove.

Posters plastered every spare surface, classic cars mostly, Camaros, Chavelles. The brittle man's got decent taste in vehicles, I muttered, using a chair to push myself to my feet. And beer. This table seems a little small for a 12-foot nightmare, though. same what that caught under the stairs. The boy laughed. The girl's eyes twitched, impatient or stressed. This used to belong to the groundskeeper. Then the brittle man took it over.

Right, I said. So where's the heart? Her eyes traveled upward, tracing the scrap metal ring of steps that wound its way to the very apex of the lighthouse. Up there, she said. We saw it earlier. We did.

She nodded. the flame without a glow. That's the brittle man's heart, his real one. I felt a wave of defeat wash over me. I'd already turned my legs into jelly, and I wasn't sure I could make it

another dozen feet, let alone summit would amounted to a mountain in the shape of a lighthouse. The boy cracked the fridge. Here! He said, grabbing a lonely beer off the shelf. Some fuel for the trip.

You can thank me when you free my soul. He winked, dropping the beer. on the table in front of me. I lifted it up. It looked familiar, too familiar. It was my favorite brand. A microbreu local to my hometown called Blue Buck. Hold on, I muttered, lifting it for a closer look. There's something scribbled on it. Across the label were words in thick black sharpie. It said, one for the end. Guess the groundskeeper expected he was doomed, said the boy with a jovial shrug. Oh well, it's yours now.

It's probably the last edible thing in this place now that the garden scribbled up. There you go again, I said, turning to him. You called it a garden. He bit his lip, glancing at the girl like he'd just been caught, pilfering the cookie jar. The girl clawed an exasperated hand through her hair. Why? I said, more forcefully this time. Because it was a garden, said the girl, though she did not sound pleased to be revealing that.

A long time ago. Back before that thing at the top of the lighthouse. corrupted it. The thing, I said, narrowing my eyes. You called it the brittle man's heart, or was that another lie? None of that was a lie, she snapped. It's just a lot to put on somebody. No, the cold flame at the top is as much the heart of the brittle man as it is the heart

of the crooked wood. It infected this place back when it was beautiful, and it infected him too. The lighthouse shook, the brittle man's hammering against the walls. It seemed they might have hidden the doorway from him, but he wasn't giving up without a fight. He wasn't always the monster he is now, whispered the girl, wincing as dust drifted down around us. Once, he was, well, majestic, in a terrifying way. He had ash and wings like a dove and carried a flaming sword. He was the guardian of this place, back when it was beautiful. The monster gave an anguished shriek outside.

So what the hell happened? The beast, said the boy. I turned to him, glaring. You told me the brittle man was the beast. He is, said the girl with a groan of frustration. Don't you get it? This whole palace is. The beast is inside all of it.

Like some kind of divine parasite or cosmic virus. It's infected the garden. It's turned the trees. crooked and the air cold. It's a blanket of evil suffocating all the good it touches, the brittle man included. Another crash against the walls, then another. So, I said, folding my arms, all the children hanging from those trees, with stuffed animals stitched under their necks, all those heads and those bags you made, my hand shot to my mouth. I wretched. Was that the beast? The brittle man? Both? The children exchanged.

changed a look. It wasn't either of them, said the boy. The girl sucked back a shuddering breath. It was the groundskeeper. What? The guy that watched over this place? He was a psychopath. He hung those children to save the garden.

The girl snapped, suddenly defensive. He did it to keep the beast from breaking free, because the man with no shadow left us all to die. A man with no shadow. The stranger. This man, I said slowly. Did he have a mouth full of thorns? And a top hat that covered his eyes, muttered the girl.

Yes, he's exactly the person or creature you're thinking of. To be honest, none of us know what he is, not fully. All we know is he brought us here after we died. He told us we'd earned our place in paradise. But that was a fucking lie. The boy gave a weak chuckle. Surprise. We all chose to come here. Can you believe that? I snatched the beer can from the table, took a swig that lasted forever, but somehow wasn't long enough.

The can crumpled in my grip. I tossed it to the floor with the other empties. Why was all of this feeling uncomfortably familiar? So you're telling me you weren't kidnapped? The brittle man didn't abduct you? The girl shook her head. All those children hanging from the trees? We were already dead. Me, from pneumonia. Him, she said, nodding to the boy across the table. From a car accident.

The stranger offered us a chance to live eternally in his garden, and we took it. My head spun. Questions. There were about a trillion of them battering around inside my head. Why were the kids' corpses hanging with stuffed animals stitched onto their necks? Why were their heads used as wards to protect this impossible life? lighthouse. Why did the stranger lie to them? And what the hell was the beast? But before I could give voice to any of them, the lighthouse screamed. The brittle man stampeded against the outer wall,

harder, more desperate. The crisscrossed boards bulged, threatening to snap completely as a crack spider to cross them. Nails burst free. They rained down on us like a deluge of rust. The brittle man was breaking in. I think you might have oversaworthy. told how sturdy this lighthouse was, I said, lurching to my feet. That wall isn't holding. We've got to move. You said the beast is at the top? The girl gulped down, eyes widening as she followed the fissure forming before us. That's right. It's the heart of this nightmare. We kill it, and everything ends, the brittle man included. I adjusted my rifle on my shoulder, gathering my courage.

Then let's go hunting. We shot up the spiraling stairwell. It was a tangle of warped, scrap metal, as bent and strange as the rest of the lighthouse. We took the steps two at a time, three even. We ran like our lives depended on it, because they did, and all the while the wall weakened, crumbling under the brittle man's assault. I told myself not to look. I told myself it'd be easier if I focused on the path ahead, on the looping steps that seemed to ascend toward heaven itself. But then my head began to spin, my ears ringing with a little. My ears ringing with old memories, the sort that wouldn't stay down, that demanded their time in the sun.

I told myself no, that it wasn't the time or place to be taking a stroll down memory lane, that I had a beast to put down and the souls of countless children to save, but I was overruled. I fell, away from myself, away from time. My body kept running, kept sprinting, but it was like I wasn't there. My consciousness had sunk into the mire of my trauma, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself back in that place I'd tried a whole lifetime to forget. The crooked wood. The very last place I saw Charlie alive.

Click, clack. That's the sound those fingernails made. And the breathing came fast, then slow, uneven, and tormented like a butchered sow. I recall telling Charlie that something was wrong. Then I felt like we weren't alone in the woods anymore, that there was a monster up there watching us from the trees. But he just smiled and told me that he knew all of that already, that this is what he'd wanted.

And I remember wondering why my best friend wanted to die. I was supposed to die, he told me. Back when I got really sick, you were there for me every day, with soup and all my favorite board games. But even then I knew I wasn't supposed to make it. I shook my head. Confused. I didn't know what he was talking about, but it was making my chest tight with heartache and dread. But I survived, didn't I? he said. Somehow, looking back, it almost felt like a miracle. Now I think maybe it was.

He laughed. For a long time, I wondered if Mom had cut a deal with the devil. Now I know she didn't. I don't understand, I told him, winceing at the sound of the approaching monster. It was him, said Charlie, pointing behind us, through that mire of trees. The stranger, that's who Mom spoke to. Only I never realized it until I saw the drawing the stranger made me. He's the one that cured me. They gave me another five years of life. Mom didn't make it.

The disease took her, but she never had to bury me either. He nodded as though satisfied. It was a good deal she made, I think, especially since now I get to protect. to protect everybody, you included. He was talking crazy. It was like the sketch the stranger showed him, scrambled his brains. Don't do this, I whispered. The fingernails neared, twigs, snapping, leaves shifting as something creaked down the side of a tree.

Slowly, like it had all the time in the world. But what do you think? Charlie asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. Do you think the stranger was the devil? I don't know, I sputtered. He was weird. Angels would be weird too, I bet. So would God.

Yeah, this whole situation was fucking weird. I wasn't really in the mood to sit there and meditate on the nature of some man in the woods with a mouth full of thorns. Doubly so when something decidedly inhuman was clacking towards us, smelling of spoiled flesh, like it had pieces of other children caught in its teeth. I grabbed his arm, yanking for him to follow me. He stayed rooted in place. I'm not going anywhere, he told me. But you should leave, right now.

I stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief as he unslung his backpack, fishing inside for an old stuffed rabbit his mother had sown him. You want me to leave you? I stammered. Yeah. Why? Because it'll be better if you don't see this. Trust me.

I never got the chance to ask him what he meant. At that moment, a shadow stretched over me, long and long. decrepit. It rose up on legs more crooked than branches. I couldn't move and couldn't breathe. Fear had stolen the blood from my veins. All I could do was stand shivering, watching as a gnarled arm reached across me. Its curled fingernails plucking Charlie by the collar of his sweater. It lifted him into the air, wheezing like a dying animal. I'll miss you, he told me, voice breaking. A whole bunch, okay? Don't forget it. There it was again, that smile, only now it was carved with grief.

The way he was talking was like he was already dead, and all this was just some formality before his passport got stamped. But I wouldn't accept it. I shouted, demanding that the monster dropped my friend. I beat my fists against those lamppost legs, scratched and clawed and bit at its mottled skin, but nothing made a difference. The creature rumbled forward. It stalked through a copse of undergrowth too thick for me to follow, and as I screamed and cried for it to stop,

it vanished into the dark of the crooked wood, carrying the only person I had left in the entire world. I was alone. Always, I ended up alone. A deafening crash shattered my reverie. Far below, the lighthouse wall finally gave in, bursting apart in an explosion that suffocated the bottom floor in a rising cloud of dust. My heart slammed. Shit. Lords clattered, nails reigned.

Footballs, heavy and inhuman. Thudded through the gaping void, a silhouette of a monster appearing in the haze of debris. It reared back ahead with two floppy ears, then screeched. Ignore him! shouted the girl from ahead. We're almost there! I looked up and she was right.

The top of the lighthouse was closer than the bottom. Close enough that maybe, just maybe. We can make it. I agreed. teeth clenched. A shriek of warping steel rang out, and I didn't need to look to know the brittle man's long fingers had wrapped around the railing of the steps. He was climbing after us. No, worse. He was leaping. The lighthouse shuddered as the behemoth crashed from side to side, throwing itself up the collapsing stairwell, rising like a tornado of stolen flesh.

I charged, my lungs feeling like somebody had taken a welding torch to them. The boy kept pace with me, urging me forward, while the girl led the way. My thoughts raced. They were moving nearly as fast as my pulse. Now wasn't the time to be fishing for answers, not even close. But with how quickly the brittle man was gaining, I was starting to become convinced there might not be another opportunity. And I had to know. Those dead kids! I said to the boy, breathless, as we scrambled up the steps. What did the stranger need with a bunch of hanging corpses? He bit his lip. It was like he wasn't sure he was allowed to say this much. But the girl was so far ahead, he knew she wouldn't hear. We're fuel, he told me. Batteries. I stumbled, nearly face-planting on a step, but I caught myself.

The boy's hand wrenched me forward. Come again? I stammered. The garden uses us, he explained. Our innocence, our purity, you know, stuff children have that sad old adults I've forgotten how to tap into. That's why the bodies are hanging from the trees. They're helping to contain the beast. Each one of them sits above a layline. And all those laylines? Run into this place. The lighthouse, he nodded.

I almost hated how casual he was about it. Talking about this nightmare, like it had some sort of larger purpose, a greater meaning. But how could it? A monster tore off my best friend's head. It sowed his mother's stuffed rabbit in its place. There wasn't any justification for that. There never could be.

It made me sick to my stomach. It made me want to find the stranger and throttle him until his eyes burst, and the groundskeeper, too, if he hadn't already gone and got himself killed. We made it! The girl's voice stole my attention. There, right above her, was a sight I wasn't sure I'd ever get to fully appreciate. The ceiling of the lighthouse. And set within it, a rusted metal hatch.

I could hardly believe it. We'd done it. We'd scaled the entire lighthouse. spun ourselves up a small mountain of stairs and made it to the hatch. We'd escape the... A black meteor crashed in front of me, throwing me backward from the impact. I hit the wall. Blood burst from my lips in a hematomic cough. I forced myself back to my feet, legs quivering with terror and ache.

A great shadow rose up in front of me. The brittle man, he'd caught us. After all that effort, all that pain, he'd taken a handful of leaps up the damn lighthouse and cut us off. But that wasn't the worst part. No. What turned to my stomach was the fact that I could see the monster clearly. No cloud of dust, no swimming vision. Just me and my childhood boogeyman.

His colossal frame flickered in the lamplight, bent over on all fours, limbs crooked and rail thin. A coat of skin hung across his back. It was mottled with decay. A tapestry of faces stolen from all the children that hung from those trees. But none of it compared to the monster's own face. I inched backward. My voice, a stammering mess of disbelief. Not you.

The brittle man rose up on its hind legs, coat falling open to reveal a chest that had caved in, a black heart beating behind the bars of its ribs. No, it wasn't just beating. It was breathing. The heart itself was the source of those anguished, labored gasps. But of course it was. Where else could it breathe from?

After all, the monster had no mouth. mouth. It's docked forward, a decrepit behemoth, cloaked in nightmares, staring down at me through a familiar button eye. Its head lulled from side to side, stuffing spilling from its open scalp. It wasn't wearing the face of a monster. No, it wore the face of a rabbit. The kind a mother might sew for a son. Charlie? I said. My voice hardly a whisper. Is that you, Charlie? But if my friend was still inside of that creature, he didn't answer.

The brittle man raised one of those curled claws. Edges chipped like serrated knives and swung. Not to maim, to kill. I dodged just barely. My shoulder slammed painfully against the grated floor, and I felt the air part as the monster made another swipe as I scrambled to my feet. The hatch. I had to make it to the hatch.

It was the only way to put a stop to this. To end my friend's torment, to end the torment of this entire wood, I charged forward, shrieking as the children waved me on. I'd kill the stranger for what he did to Charlie. I'd have killed the damn groundskeeper, too, if he hadn't gone and died already. But most of all, I'd destroy this beast. It was the core of this horror story. The dark miasma corrupting all that it touched.

I'd extinguish it for good, freeing the children and freeing my friend. No matter what. The brittle man charged after me, the platform warping beneath his weight. But I was already on the ladder, climbing my way up toward the hatch. My fingers wrapped around the handle. Shit, it wouldn't budge. I pushed harder. Still nothing.

What's wrong? cried the girl. It's locked! I shouted. Or rusted shot or! Just barely missing the brittle man as it collided with the wall. A cloud of debris rushed over us. My hand found my mouth, suppressing a cough as the shadow of that decrepit monster wheeled about.

This way and that. Searching for its prey in the haze of dust. And that's when I spotted the light in the ceiling. It was bright, almost blinding. And all of it was pouring from the blown open hatch. He smashed it apart! I said, triumphant. The boy gave me an encouraging thump on the back.

Now's your chance. Don't mess it up! I bit my lip. The ladder was broken, annihilated, and the ceiling hatch was far too high to reach without it. All that meant I had one option, and I couldn't afford to contemplate the insanity of it. I bolted forward into the smoke.

into the jaws of certain death. My feet left the ground. I threw myself onto the brittle man's back, clambering up his spine. He reached an arm around, that grotesque heart hissing and snarling, but I was too quick. My body supercharged with adrenaline. I leapt, reaching for the lip of the hatch. I caught it. I pulled myself up with a grunt and a heave. The brittle man's fingernail scrape the bottom of my boots as I lurched into the room, scrambling forward until I came up against a desk. My chest ached with panic, but I'd made it. I'd managed to scramble up into the top of the lighthouse, to the heart of the nightmare itself. I squinted, shading my eyes. Countless lanterns lined the walls, each glowing with a pale aura, each being fed by a tube from a center

console. That's the innocence. It's where all our purity gets fed into the lighthouse and distributed needed to help cage the beast. I turned, shocked to see the boy standing before me in his shorts and t-shirt. How'd you make it up here? The ladder was blown apart. Didn't need it, he said with a shrug. Perks of being dead. Can go pretty much anywhere, just so long as it isn't protected by magic, or iron. And you managed to take care of the wards, and the brittle man took care of that hatch. So now the whole lighthouse is fair game. He laughed, blinking out of existence. before reappearing at my opposite side. Kind of neat, huh?

Quit messing around, snapped the girl, fizzing into view beside him. This isn't over yet. We still need to deal the finishing blow. Your rifle, she said addressing me. You'll have to shoot the beast. It's up there. You see it?

I swallowed, gazing at a platform overhead. There, a flame burned without a glow. It looked ordinary, but it felt cosmic, terrifying, and unknowable, like something that it was. had been caged for eons. It reminded me of a black hole. I nodded uneasily. What is this place? I croaked, looking around at walls lined with bookcases.

It doesn't look like much of a prison. It looks more like a study. Two things can be true at once, said the girl. This is where the groundskeeper learned how to keep the beast caged. Now end this. Shoot the damn thing. I rose, legs quivering as the brittle man slammed against the floor boards below. He was too big to get in, and for now at least, the structure was holding. I reached around my back for my rifle, then paused. A red book caught my eye. It sat open on the desk, pages scribbled in looping handwriting, a journal. Was this his? The girl blocked my path, her face a mask of defiance. You can read it when you're done. I frowned. I want to read it now. The floorboards rippled like a tsunami wave.

The brittle man snarled. His arm erupted through the floor, yellowed nails, sweeping this way and that, tearing apart a series of bookcases and a flurry of parchment. He'd get in before long, maybe minutes, maybe seconds. It didn't matter. The children were still hiding something from me. I could feel it. Their story felt incomplete, with too many unanswered questions, too many missing details.

Don't worry, I said, brushing past the girl and snatching the journal. I won't be long. It was a risk that much I knew. And not just for my life, but for my soul. And the souls of every last child hanging in this twisted wood, Charlie's included. And that's why I couldn't cut corners. I had to know what I was dealing with here, what the true scope of this horror story was. But deeper than all of that was the fact that I recognized the journal.

In some ways, it reminded me of my own. And so by the beast's flickering flame, I read a nightmare worse than any I could dream of.