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A macabre tale is a horrific and disturbing story generally concerned with a fear of death. The word macabre comes from the Middle French phrase Danse Macabré, "the Dance of Death," which was a popular subject of art and literature in the late Middle Ages. In representations of this dance, Death is shown leading people of all classes and walks of life to the same inescapable fate. * In other words, it is a fancier word for getting the pants scared off you.

There are many fictional stories and true stories that espouse macabre themes, most of them ending is some sort of horrific death but at times there are exceptions that merely leave you with a lasting chill wondering what happened. An example of this is A Face in the Dark by Ruskin Bond which leaves the hair standing up on the back of your neck but offers no resolution just a lingering fear of “what” happened. It concerns a featureless faced boy and the man who keeps seeing on his way home one evening. This is enough to panic the man who runs through the woods screaming for help only to run into a similar featureless figure who he thinks is a night watchman upon the path. The reader is gripped until the finish where there is no end just a haunting obsession as to what happened.

So, this is a tale of fiction but what happens it something similar occurs in real life?

Here is a personal experience I had with a friend that to this day remains unsolved and unexplained.

When I was very young, I had a friend who claimed he was often chased by some sort of miniature figure covered in a white handkerchief who followed him if he took a certain path home at dusk. He claimed it would hop along behind him and seemed to be getting closer each time. My friend avoided the path as much as possible but there were times when he was late and had no choice but to take the path to get home on time.

I do not recall any tales or local stories connected to that path either being haunted or other worldly in any way or anything connected to any of the old homes that were in the vicinity of the path that would be paranormal. It was simply a neighborhood path – a short cut.  I assumed my friend was pulling a good one over on me because even at my earliest ages I had an interest in the paranormal and was teased a good deal.

The ‘handkerchief man’ as we liked to call it stood about 10 inches high according to my friend – just enough to keep the drape of the handkerchief from hitting the ground. The top was rounded as if it were sitting on a small head and as it hopped and then sauntered behind him there was never any appearance of feet. My friend believed that whatever it was, it was invisible unless the handkerchief was removed. I asked him what he thought was underneath it and all he said was he didn’t know and “never wanted to know.” One thing was clear – whatever he thought it might be was so horrid it turned him pale to think of it. Disbelieving as I was, I kidded him and asked him why he just didn’t stop and pull off the handkerchief and look or even kick it. His eyes widened and he answered with a shaky voice, “If I did that I would be gone.”  I asked him if he meant die but he wouldn’t answer and just dismissed me. I didn’t pursue it further because it obviously was truly frightening him.

One early evening a bunch of us were caught up in a game of street soccer that ran rather late. The air echoed with our mothers voices being issued from open windows to get home for supper, “right now or you’re gonna get it.” My friend would have to take the path to get home quickly.  I stood about a foot away from the beginning of the path and watched him as he with quickened pace ventured down the dirt trail towards his house. The light was growing dimmer. At one point he turned around and waved and shrugged at me as if to indicate ‘so far, so good’ and then continued on.  I saw nothing behind him or anywhere near him and was now growing disgusted with myself that I ever believed him in the first place. He really had me going about the handkerchief man.

You have probably guessed what happened next. After that night I never saw or heard from my friend again. He was gone. As a matter of fact his whole family was gone. There were rumors that they all skipped town to avoid creditors which was probably true because I knew from what he told me that his parents and older brother had debt and owed a lot of money. I heard the house was empty and the cars were gone. And that was that except for one thing a neighborhood gossip said laughingly to anyone who would listen:

“Yes they beat feet out of here. Do you know that they even took some things that didn’t belong to them? That figures, they were so weird, Deadbeat renters – they even took the flower planters on the porch and the window boxes. Can you imagine? I know because I went and looked around.” Still laughing she finally retorted, “Why the only thing those folks left behind was a white handkerchief sitting all folded neatly on the driveway.”

I kid you not.

The worst part? I know of at least two other people who have had the same experience as my friend but in different locales. For them the handkerchief man disappeared one day. Just like that...

*http://www.thefreedictionary.com