People always assume the city is a place for smaller predators, that the largest, most dangerous creatures—the things that haunt craggy mountains and dark forests, dank caves, and the deepest ocean crevasses—are far and away. We believe those are the places where the worst of our nightmares live and breathe and hunt. Our homes, brightly lit and brimming with warmth, are undisturbed by primordial violence. There are no true predators, save for the occasional fox, raccoon, or rat that scuttles from shadow to shadow. The scrabble of their claws on concrete might fill us with mild dread, but it is nothing that can’t be soothed with a closed door, a revealing light, or the comfort of other people.
How clever these small creatures are to have moved and adapted to a place of nooks and crannies, to a place of life and overwhelming abundance. How can it be said that larger creatures, the more dangerous creatures, the ones that emerge from the depths of our nightmares, have not followed the lead of their smaller cousins, and moved to where prey lives in abundance?
In the shadows at the edge of the city, the Rattleman waits.
***
He died screaming, like a rabbit in the jaws of a fox. Juniper covered her mouth while tears leaked out of her eyes as she cowered high above the floor of the abandoned factory warehouse. Her body shook with the effort it took to keep quiet. There was a sickening crunch, and his screams petered out to moans, then fell to silence. She was alone now—so desperately and violently alone.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was meant to be a fun excursion to an abandoned industrial complex on the outskirts of Toronto while they “hunted” for ghosts and shot video to edit together a teaser for a class project due before the winter break. The plan was to get high, try their hand at urban exploration, take some interesting (if predictable) shots of crumbling infrastructure, and pretend that they were speaking to spirits.
The building sat abandoned for the better part of a decade in an industrial neighborhood, surrounded on all sides by low-income housing and crumbling apartment blocks. Lucas, Marco, and Ben chose this area, with Marco being the one that ultimately proposed the factory warehouse. Juniper had wanted to do something more downtown and convenient, at a famous haunted pub that they could maybe get access to after hours, but they had overridden her.
They arrived midafternoon in Marco’s aunt’s car, borrowed for the trip, so they didn’t have to drag all their equipment on the TTC. Lucas brought a shiny new pair of bolt cutters that he used to snap open the padlocks on the perilously leaning chain-link fence, and they had driven in. They shared a joint in the cracked expanse of the parking lot overgrown with weeds and littered with garbage. Thus far the winter had been warm, so they donned fall jackets, not wanting to be hindered by bulky coats. The wind was harsher out here than it was downtown, and they huddled against the side of the van as they passed the joint. Juniper only took one quick drag, unwilling to work while stoned out of her mind. Once finished, they entered the old factory through a dented and discolored side door.
The interior was huge. It stretched on forever. Giant pillars held up a series of old, elevated walkways that ran alongside the walls and extended over the factory floor. The air was musty and thick with dust, and the floor relatively clear of debris, the equipment having long ago been scavenged for parts and raw materials. Only the stained outlines of the machinery remained, like ghosts, reminding Juniper of crime scene chalk outlines. Here and there they could see piles of trash—candy wrappers, dried leaves, and crumpled and faded flyers that had blown in through broken windows. Beyond the pillars, most of the warehouse was cloaked in a slowly darkening shadow. Somewhere in the dimly lit space, the wind whistled through an opening. It was much colder in there without the benefit of the early setting sun. Juniper blew steamy dragon breath and smiled.
“Look at this place!” Marco exclaimed. “It’s perfect.”
“It’s creepy, for sure,” Ben said, peering into the gloom.
“You were right,” Juniper admitted. “This place is better than a downtown pub.”
“I feel like we should get some B-roll shots to edit in,” Lucas said. “I can start doing that now. Maybe one of you guys can bring in the gear?”
“On it!” Marco said. He trotted out the door and reappeared shortly, arms laden with equipment they had cobbled together from thrift store electronics.
“Marco, do you or Juniper need time to get ready?” Ben asked.
“I mean, I could touch up my makeup and hair?” Juniper replied. “It’s pretty dark in here though.”
Marco fluttered his eyelashes at Ben. “I’m always camera-ready.”
Juniper rolled her eyes. “You know what, I’ll just go as is. It’s not like anyone is going to see this besides the T.A.”
“What are you talking about?” Marco grinned. “I’m putting this on YouTube and promoting it. I plan on leveraging this into a very lucrative ghost-hunting show. That’s all I want out of a career in film.”
“Do you have your script notes?” Juniper asked, pulling a neatly folded stack of papers out of her backpack. Marco sheepishly shook his head. She sighed, and took out a second set of papers and handed it to him.
***
Ten minutes later they began to die.
They had no warning other than a faint rattling that could easily have been a breeze making its way through the building, disturbing the chains that still hung limp from the overhead walkway. Holding the camera, Ben had backed into a darker area of the warehouse to grab a shot of a broken window where the fading sunlight still streamed through. A large, bony hand reached out from the shadows and wrapped itself around Ben’s neck. His friends began to scream, but Ben never got the opportunity. One quick flex of long, grey fingers tipped with equally long, ragged claws, and Ben’s windpipe was crushed and his spinal cord severed. The camera tumbled, smashing against the floor, and the screaming faded into a bone-chilling silence.
They stared in horror as the creature eyed them, Ben’s lifeless form in its grasp. It was tall, hunched, humanoid with overly long limbs and a skeletal torso. Sharp, oversized shoulder blades stuck out from its back and long, strange bones protruded from the backs of its arms. Its face reminded Juniper of something from a nature documentary, the kind of creature that lived deep underground in the absence of any light, with massive eyes, dark watery pits like cavern lakes. Its mouth was a gash across its face and its nose flat like a snake’s. Long, bat-like ears stood upright on either side of its head. Its grey, waxy skin secreted a strange liquid that slowly dripped off of it and fell to the floor with soft plops.
In spite of the surreal carnage before her, Juniper found her eyes drawn to the creature’s garment, a tattered black cloth decorated in strange white markings, wrapped around the beast’s grotesque body in a way that reminded her of the frosh week toga parties. She gasped. The sound echoed through the cavernous space, and the monster’s eyes shot up and connected with Juniper’s. Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach and she let out a terrified squeak as it crouched and skittered away from them, retreating into the darkening area with its prize, Ben’s feet dangling like a doll’s.
“BEN!” Juniper screamed.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK!” Marco howled, clawing at his hair.
Lucas remained silent.
They stood, frozen in place, staring at the place where the thing clutching their friend had disappeared from sight.
“We need to go,” Juniper whispered finally, angling her body back towards the door.
“What about Ben?” Lucas said quietly.
“Fuck Ben,” Marco said. “We need to go.” He took off running for the exit, sneakers pounding against the dusty concrete. Juniper and Lucas ran after him, but Marco quickly outstripped them. He was about ten metres from the door when a whirling, elongated figure crashed into him. There was a very brief scuffle, and it stood over Marco, who now lay prone on the ground. The creature was breathing heavily.
Juniper skidded to a stop while Lucas continued to run, veering off at the last second. He turned back into the warehouse and vanished into the dim. Juniper ducked behind one of the pillars and tried not to breathe. She closed her eyes, trembling all over, willing herself to be still. When she finally mustered up the courage to peer around the pillar, both Lucas and the thing were gone.
“Lucas!” Her voice came out in a barely audible croak.
Marco lay where he had fallen. She had a feeling the thing hunting them was positioned near the door, waiting. She wrestled down her panic and quietly began to move towards the closest edge of the warehouse, hoping she could find access to the overhead walkways.
Just as she believed her luck had run out, she came upon a set of stairs. In the distance she heard a clanging noise and the faint sound of Lucas swearing. Without thinking, she scrambled up the stairs on her hands and knees, trying to be as quiet as possible. She didn’t think herself successful, but when she reached the platform above, she was still alone.
The elevated walkways that crisscrossed the warehouse concealed nothing and would leave her exposed. It was too risky. But the walkway that hugged the inner wall fell into shadow and would provide more cover. It was her best option. She decided to follow the wall until she found an exit or another set of stairs that led back down and out.
Juniper inched along the wall, trying desperately not to make any noise. She remembered sneaking down the stairs after bedtime as a child and spying on her parents through the banister, heart racing , eavesdropping on their conversation. It had seemed a perilous notion, to be caught by irritated (if secretly amused) parents, when the worst that could happen was she’d be sent back to bed with a scolding. She certainly didn’t want to be caught now. The outcome would be a lot worse.
Her shoe caught on something and she stumbled, only a little, but enough to make the walkway emit a metallic groan that echoed through the building. She flattened her back to the wall and held her breath. Had she really been in her cozy basement apartment a few hours ago, wondering how she would afford the next round of Christmas presents and worrying about exams?
Something moved below.
Juniper lowered to a crouch and tiptoed forward, carefully gripping the railing. It burned cold underneath her fingers and she suppressed the urge to shiver and yank them away. Peering into the dark, she tried her best to see what was happening. She thought she could hear the faint sweep of fabric against the floor and a slight rattle of something that sounded like wooden chimes. Glancing up, she noticed a smear of colour against a concrete pillar.
It was Lucas, his back pressed against the post, as flat as he could make himself. She almost yelled at him but his name died on her lips when she saw the creature emerge from the darkness. It stalked the factory floor, making its way towards Lucas, head turning this way and that, ears and eyes searching, robe dragging with an ominous swish. She heard the faint rattling noise again. It was close to Lucas. Too close.
Don’t move, she pleaded in her head. Don’t move. She watched Lucas mentally gauge the distance to the next pillar, and knew the terror he must be feeling as the rattling noise drew ever closer. His body tensed, and he ran.
Juniper’s mouth opened in a silent scream.
The creature closed the distance and snagged Lucas with its long arm. The talon-like claws penetrated his shoulder like rusty fish hooks and it yanked Lucas back. He screamed.
As she watched Lucas die, Juniper realized something. This thing was not trying to scare them. It was not a sadistic monster toying with them. It was simply hunting. It did not seek to terrify her, play with her emotions, or derive sick pleasure from her death. She was not a person in its eyes. She was prey, a rabbit in the warren, and it was the weasel. It was a creature of terrible and brutal efficiency, and she knew that if it caught her, it would kill her.
As if hearing her thoughts, it paused over Lucas’s corpse and stared out into the dark warehouse. She froze, and after a moment it turned its attention back to Lucas. It bent down and its back momentarily obscured her view of Lucas’s body. There was a crack and a tearing sound like wet paper. She took a closer look at its rattling robe, and with growing terror she realized that it wasn’t decorated with paint or white clay like she had first thought. The faint rattling she kept hearing came from small, clean bones, tied together and sewn crudely to the tattered cloth. As she stared, one of the bones fell off and rolled along the floor. The creature moved and she could see one of Lucas’s fingers clutched in its bony hand. It held up the trophy, turning it this way and that before tucking it into a fold of cloth. Before she could stop herself, she let out an audible groan.
Its ears swirled and it spun sharply, gazing up at her. She gave up on being quiet and scrambled along the upper walkway, her feet clanging against the metal floor. She felt the creature tracking her as she scanned the path ahead, trying to find a way out. Behind her came the swish of fabric and a cacophonous rattle as the bones knocked together roughly while it ascended the stairs. She had a head start, but that meant nothing.
Up ahead, she saw a set of stairs that led upward and took them two at a time, nearly slipping and turning a corner so sharply that she banged her shoulder on the wall. There was a door at the top of the stairs. She crashed into it and fell through onto a small section of gravel-covered roof littered with old cigarette butts and piles of wet, decaying leaves. She stumbled, nearly slipped, quickly regained her balance and sprinted to the edge, pacing herself as she searched for a way to keep the chase going. It was too high to jump, and the fall would surely kill her.
Small flakes of snow had begun to fall, and a cold wind whipped around her, cutting through her jacket like a knife.
There was no way down.
There was no way out.
Her throat closed in panic. Behind her, the door yawed open, an empty mouth leading back down a claustrophobic throat. She could try to barricade it with her body, but clearly the creature was much stronger than her, and she didn’t feel like fighting in her last moments. Instead, she turned her back on the door and stared out at the city.
The last bit of pale December sun slipped under the horizon, and she felt hot tears dripping down her cheeks, could taste them on her lips. She flashed back to summers on the east coast with her grandmother, of days spent staring into tidepools and running the rocky beaches, fresh mussels steaming over a beachbuilt fire, and the ocean breeze tickling her neck with her hair.
She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring it, and opened them again to stare out at the Toronto skyline, where she knew people were going about their evenings. In the city, families were putting up their Christmas decorations, drinking hot chocolate and listening to overplayed carols. Others were rushing around the Eaton Centre, holiday shopping, their harried arms overflowing with assorted bags and boxes. Some of her classmates were probably in the editing suites, peering at their footage through the hazy combination of sleep deprivation and energy drinks. All of these people were safe and warm. Wonderfully and vibrantly alive. Millions of people were out there, but none of them knew where she was. None of them knew that she was about to die.
There was a quiet rattle behind her. She closed her eyes, and let out a single sharp cry as a strong hand wrapped at her throat, and then, nothing.
***
In the shadows at the edge of the city, the Rattleman feeds.
Today its prey walked into its home and practically laid themselves out. It did not need to leave its warm nest to prowl the cold and exposed streets. It sits among the wreckage of its meal, stomach full and larder stocked, content in the knowledge that it will not need to hunt for some time.
It picks up a crude needle fashioned from roughly chiseled bone and plucks some scavenged thread from a pile of shredded clothing. It passes its hand over a new pile of small, wet bones. It pops one in its mouth and sucks the marrow as it picks up another, more delicate bone and drives the needle into it. It begins to hum.
In the shadow at the edge of the city, the Rattleman sings.