The Drowning Game

My name is Leo, and I’m sixteen. I know what you’re thinking: another teenager on the internet spinning a tall tale. But I swear on my mother’s grave that everything I’m about to tell you is real. It happened over thirteen years ago, when I was barely three, in the dusty outskirts of Marfa, Texas.

We lived in a crumbling adobe house that my grandfather had built with his own hands. The desert stretched out in every direction, flat and brown, except for the jagged silhouette of the Chisos Mountains on the horizon. I remember the heat, the constant hum of cicadas, and the way the wind would whistle through the cracks in the walls. But mostly, I remember Him.

I called him ‘Pale Face’ because that was the only thing about him that wasn’t dark. He was a tall, thin figure, blacker than the night sky, with a face that was the color of bone. He stood in the corner of my room, so still that at first I thought he was a shadow. But then he spoke, and his voice was like the sound of stones grinding together, as if he had to force every word out of a throat full of sand. He said he wanted to play with me.

Being a lonely toddler with no other kids around, I was overjoyed. We played every day. He would appear when the sun went down, and we would play hide-and-seek in the rooms of the house, or he would sit on the edge of my bed and tell me stories about the desert at night. I never told my parents. I was afraid they would make him go away.

One summer, my parents decided we needed a vacation. They loaded up our old pickup truck with camping gear and drove us to the Pecos River, which was a spot where people went to swim and cool off. I was thrilled. I had never seen that much water before. We waded into the shallows, my mother holding my hand, and I splashed around, laughing. And then I saw Pale Face standing on the opposite bank, his white face a stark contrast to the green-brown water.

‘Why don’t we swim to the middle?’ he said, his gurgling voice cutting through the sounds of other families. ‘It’s more fun there.’

I was a foolish, trusting child. I pulled away from my mother and started wading deeper. The water rose to my chest, then to my neck. I could feel the current pulling at me. Behind me, my mother screamed my name, but Pale Face was beckoning, his arm outstretched. I reached for him, and the water closed over my head.

I don’t remember drowning. I remember only the sensation of being under, the world muffled and gray, and Pale Face swimming beside me, his face inches from mine. He was grinning. His teeth were sharp and yellow. And then I woke up on the bank, coughing up water, my father’s arms around me. ‘He’s breathing!’ my mother sobbed. I looked around, but Pale Face was gone.

For years, I told myself it was a nightmare. But as I grew older, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was always being watched. And then, a few weeks ago, I found an old photograph in my grandfather’s attic. It was a picture of me, age two, standing in the backyard of that Marfa house. In the corner of the photograph, there was a dark shape with a white face, exactly as I remembered. On the back, in my grandfather’s shaky handwriting, were the words: ‘Pale Face, 2005.’

I’ve started sleeping with the lights on. Because last night, I saw him again, standing at the foot of my bed. He didn’t speak, but I heard his voice in my head, as clear as the day I fell into the river: ‘I missed our game. Let’s finish it.’ I don’t know what he wants, but I know one thing for sure: he’s not a figment of my imagination. He’s real. And he’s coming back.