the thin man

There was movement then, high on the hill, and the thing they called the Thin Man appeared in the scruff and brush of the blasted slope. It came in lunging scissor strides, its arms flopping and swinging. Never once did it look down the hill. Its path through the rock-strewn bracken was serpentine.

At first, in the reddish light of dusk, it might have been a man, perhaps a man in a kind of costume. But even from a hundred yards you were conscious of its odor; like a vat of boiling sweat and blood, and the sound it made: a terrible, subverbal muttering, as if it was talking itself through its agony.

And finally as it cleared the weeds at the edge of the field and crossed rapidly onto the ragged grass, you were able to see its impossible, its unreasonable slenderness: no broader at the hips than the spread of a man's fingers, but tall, as tall as you at least. Its pelvis and torso were like those of a doll, its cruel and immobile head barely larger than a clenched fist. How did it stand? How could it walk?

It stopped and muttered and breathed, ten feet from where Timothy had chained you to the rust-stained skeleton of the tree. It stood there, shuddering from its racing heart and spasmodic breaths, and leaned forward slightly. Its shining black eyes peered at you without blinking. Sweat poured from the head and dark urine down its legs as its very lifeblood drained from its body. It needed to feed, to drink, needed the concentrated protein of living red meat. After it ate it would begin, once again and without pause, to starve to death.

As its swollen hand settled on your shoulder you could almost sense the thing's relief. Its ropy arm was as hard and rigid as an iron rail. You knew then, at last, why there was no game in the hills, and why it was called the Thin Man.