Veiled Mimicry

Kallie Underwood (20) was getting through her third semester at Granite Hills College in Arizona. Every morning, she would take a bus straight to campus, but because she lived so close, she instead used to walk back home when she was done with her classes. Each time she walked back, she would go through a small town that was mostly empty lots, bland concrete buildings, and a gas station at the crossroads. She barely saw anyone else on her route back home, aside from the same homeless man who would usually sit at the edge of a grimy alleyway.

One evening, when the sun was just setting, Underwood went on her usual route through the town. When she rounded the corner, expecting to see the homeless man there, he was gone this time. She first didn’t think much of it, maybe someone had found him a place to stay. But as she walked closer to the alleyway, she heard this weird “clicking” noise coming from it. Out of curiosity, she looked into the dark alleyway and saw what looked like a fully cloaked figure facing away from her, hunched over something. She slowly walked into the alley, craning her head around the figure to see what they’re hunched over, and saw the dead face of the homeless man, sprawled limp with his abdomen torn open, and as the figure’s hands hovered over the corpse, something poke out from the figure’s feet and ate away at the viscera. As she recoiled in horror, Underwood stepped backward onto some broken glass, which alerted the cloaked figure’s attention, which quickly spun around to face her.

The head of the thing didn’t feel like a head, it looked too oblong and smooth, and its exaggerated face with wide, socket-like eyes and small, tight-lipped mouth looked almost like it was painted on. The way it moved was inhuman, as one moment it would stand almost motionless, and the next it would almost glide across the pavement with skittering clicks. As it slowly got closer, Underwood was able to make out what she thought was a cloak was actually a thick coat of long swathes of black hair that came from the back of the “head” and draped over the entire body, which were slowly standing on their ends. As the “head” lifted itself higher, she saw the glint of a curved spike hidden underneath the chin, the human hands that were reaching out had serrated claws protruding from the wrists, and what looked to be a pair of mandibles that poke out from where its knees should've been.

As the thing continued to expand itself in front of her, it suddenly let out a shrill, rhythmic squeak that startled her back to her senses. She swung back around and ran the whole way back home as she heard the faint sound of skittering from behind her. As she made it onto her porch and quickly pulled open the door, she turned around to see the thing gain on her, but it was nowhere to be seen. She had a hard time sleeping after that night, she now takes the bus both ways where she knows large groups of people gather, and she still thinks about that fake looking face. When she emailed her encounter to us, she included a drawn picture of the thing. We’ve yet to hear if anyone else has come across this thing and lived to tell the tale, but we will call this thing “Velatum Ludicra.”