The Lopsided Visitor

The old farmhouse at the edge of the Rhyolite Flats never sat right with me. It was a loan from a distant uncle, a chance to escape the city’s noise, but I’d been here only a week and already the quiet felt too heavy. My partner, Dana, called it ‘peaceful,’ but I knew better. The land was wrong, the hills too smooth, and the air smelled of dry dust and something faintly sweet, like rotting fruit.

That night, I was coming down from the upstairs study, where I’d been trying to write, but the words wouldn’t come. I was halfway down the stairs, my hand trailing the cold banister, when a flicker of movement through the front door’s sidelight caught my eye. The porch light was off, but the moon was high, casting a pale silver over the gravel and the twisted mesquite. And there, pressed against the glass, was a shape.

At first I thought it was a child, a neighbor’s kid wandering too far, but then I saw the proportions wrong. Its head was massive, bald, and lumpy, like a potato left too long in the cellar. The skin was pink and raw, with a sheen like it was perpetually moist. Its body was short and round, with stubby arms and legs, and it stood completely still, peering through the window with eyes that were far too large, black and wet, like a doll’s. I felt a wave of nausea, my stomach churning as if I’d swallowed poison. The thing’s mouth was a slack, dark line, and as I stared, it slowly opened, showing a pink, gummy interior with no teeth.

Then it tilted its head, as if confused, and the motion was so unnatural that my skin erupted in goosebumps. I stumbled back, hitting the wall, and heard myself gasp. I wanted to scream, but my throat closed. The creature held my gaze for a long moment, then it blinked—slowly, deliberately—and stepped back into the darkness. By the time I reached the door, it was gone, but I could see its wet footprints on the dusty porch, leading toward the field.

Dana was in the living room, curled on the couch with a book, and I must have looked pale, because she put it down. ‘What is it?’ she asked. I tried to explain, but the words came out shaky and disjointed. I told her about the small, naked thing, the swollen head, the way it looked through the glass like it was studying us. Dana frowned, not in disbelief but in worry. ‘Maybe it was a raccoon, or a stray dog?’ she suggested, but we both knew it wasn’t. The image was burnt into my mind, and every time I blinked, I saw its lopsided grin.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing a soft scrabbling against the outer walls, like something with claws climbing the siding. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, Dana’s breathing slow beside me. At around 3 a.m., a thump came from the front porch—heavy, deliberate. Then another. I got up, quietly, and tiptoed to the window. The porch was empty, but the footprints were still there, now joined by a set of handprints on the door, as if it had pressed its face against the wood, listening.

The next morning, I went outside. The footprints circled the house, then stopped at the base of a large cottonwood tree. The bark was scored with deep gouges, like fingernails had torn through it. And there, in the damp soil by the roots, were tiny, misshapen objects: teeth. Small, white, and slightly curved, as if from a child, but with tips that were blackened and sharp. I collected them in a paper bag, my hands trembling.

Dana tried to calm me, but I knew something was wrong. I called my uncle, the one who’d lent us the place, and asked if there had been any reports of something strange. He laughed, said the locals talked about ‘the pale thing’ that lived in the hills, but he’d always thought it was just a story to scare kids. I told him I’d seen it, and he went quiet. ‘Whatever you do, don’t follow it,’ he said, ‘and don’t leave any food out. It’s curious, but it gets possessive.’ I asked him what that meant, but he just said, ‘You’ll know if you see it again.’

That evening, we decided to leave. We packed in a hurry, but as we got into the car, I saw it again, at the edge of the property, half-hidden behind a bush. It was watching us, motionless, its head cocked. I started the engine, but the car sputtered and died. I tried again, but nothing. Dana went pale. We were trapped.

Night fell, and we barricaded the doors with furniture. The creature didn’t show its full form, but we heard it moving outside, tapping on the windows, whispering in a language that seemed to slither. Dana held a kitchen knife, and I had a fire poker. We didn’t sleep. And then, just before dawn, the front door burst open, and it stood there in the doorway, dripping with something dark, its eyes now red, not black. Its mouth stretched impossibly wide, and I saw rows of teeth that were not there before.

We fled through the back, running into the field, and I glanced back. The house was dark, but the thing was following, moving with a jerky, unnatural speed. We reached the road, and a truck came, some old rancher who didn’t ask questions. He took us to town, and we stayed in a motel. I never went back for my things.

A week later, I received a package in the mail, no return address. Inside was a small, hand-carved wooden figure, stained dark, with a lopsided head and too-large eyes. A note was scrawled in pencil: ‘You left without saying goodbye.’ I burned it, but I still feel its eyes on the back of my neck, and I know, somewhere in the flats, it’s waiting, lopsided, for me to come home.