Hey. I worked cattle in the Panhandle back in the early 80s. This would have been 1982, spring into summer. The ranch was about forty miles outside Amarillo, right up against some pretty isolated country. My truck had been in the shop that week, so I was borrowing my brother's Ford. Drove like a tank but it ran. Anyway, here's the thing. I'd been driving those back roads for years, checking fence lines, moving between pastures. I knew every mile of barbed wire on that property. First time I saw one was late April. I was heading back to the main house around dusk, maybe seven thirty or so. Sun was just about down. I caught something in my peripheral vision, off to the right. A figure standing next to the fence line. Tall. Real tall. Maybe seven feet, hard to say exactly. Thin as a rail post. And it was just standing there, perfectly still. Didn't move, didn't react to my truck passing by. I slowed down, tried to get a better look, but when I turned my head to look directly, there was nothing there. Just empty prairie and fence.
I saw them maybe a dozen times over the next few months. Always at dusk or just after dark. Always by the fence lines. And always the same thing. I'd catch them in the corner of my eye, but the second I tried to look straight at them, they'd be gone. The weird part was how they looked. Here's the thing. They seemed to be standing in the fence, not next to it. Like the barbed wire was passing right through them. Through their chest, their arms, their legs. Like they were wearing the fence itself. Other ranch hands started seeing them too. Nobody wanted to talk about it much, but you'd hear things. Someone would mention seeing something by the north pasture fence. Another guy would say he saw one out by the old windmill. Always the same description, tall, thin, standing in the wire. Only there when you weren't looking directly at it.
The last time I saw one was July, right before I left that job. I was checking the southeast fence line around 8 PM. Still had some light left in the sky, but it was getting dim. I saw it in my peripheral vision, maybe fifty yards ahead. Same as always. Tall figure, standing perfectly still in the fence. But this time I didn't look away. I kept my eyes on the road ahead and pulled the truck to a stop. I sat there for maybe two minutes, just watching it out of the corner of my eye. It never moved. Never shifted. The barbed wire seemed to go right through where its torso should be, and I could see, here's the thing, I could see its arms were wrong. Too long. Hanging down past where its knees should have been. Then I made the mistake of turning to look straight at it. I wanted to see what it really was. vision tricks are so unsettling - Vince' The face was smooth, no features I could make out clearly. But the eyes, I'll never forget the eyes. Dark and empty, like looking into nothing. The proportions were all wrong, stretched out like something had pulled a person apart and put them back together too tall.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]