The Legend of Walking Sam
An Essay on a Modern American Shadow
Walking Sam stands at the intersection of folklore, fear, and lived experience—a figure born not from ancient myth but from the contemporary wounds of a community. Reported primarily on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Walking Sam is described as a towering, skeletal silhouette, often seven to eight feet tall, with arms so long they nearly brush the ground. Some accounts say he wears a stovepipe hat or a long black coat, while others insist he is nothing but a shadow, a shape that seems to absorb the moonlight rather than reflect itthehorrorhq.com.
But Walking Sam is not merely a monster of the prairie. He is a story shaped by sorrow.
Origins in Despair
Unlike many urban legends that grow from campfire tales or ancient fears, Walking Sam emerges from a very real crisis. Between 2013 and 2015, Pine Ridge experienced a devastating rise in suicide attempts among its youth, a tragedy that shook the community and drew national attention. In the midst of this crisis, stories began circulating about a tall, thin figure who appeared to those who felt hopeless—whispering to them, calling them, urging them toward self-destructionThe Morbid Library.
Some say Walking Sam is not a spirit at all, but a metaphor: a way for the community to give shape to the invisible weight of generational trauma, poverty, and grief. Others insist he is real, a presence seen at the edge of the tree line, watching.
Folklore often emerges where language fails. Walking Sam is the name given to the heaviness that cannot be spoken.
The Shape of the Shadow
Descriptions of Walking Sam vary, but certain details repeat across accounts:
Extremely tall—7 to 8 feet
Stick-thin or skeletal frame
Long arms, sometimes lined with silhouettes of hanging figures—a chilling symbol of those he has claimed
A shadow-like body that moves silently through trees
A stovepipe hat or long coat in some versions
These features echo classic American shadow figures—Slender Man, the Tall Man of old ghost stories—but Walking Sam is rooted in a specific place and a specific pain. His form is not arbitrary; it reflects the emotional landscape of Pine Ridge.
A Spirit of the Plains or a Mirror of Suffering?
Some Lakota community members describe Walking Sam as a malevolent spirit, a being that feeds on despair and appears when the night feels too heavy to bear. Others believe he is a cautionary tale, a way to warn young people about the dangers of isolation and hopelessness.
Folklorists note that Walking Sam functions as a “modern legend”—a story that blends supernatural imagery with real-world issues. He is not ancient, but he feels ancient, because he speaks to something universal: the fear of being swallowed by sorrow.
In this sense, Walking Sam is less a monster than a mirror.
Why the Legend Endures
Walking Sam persists because he embodies a truth that is difficult to confront directly. Legends survive when they express something a community cannot say plainly.
Walking Sam is:
A symbol of grief
A warning about despair
A manifestation of communal trauma
A figure that gives shape to the invisible
He is also a reminder of resilience. The very act of naming him—of telling stories about him—is a way of fighting back. Folklore is not just fear; it is survival.
Walking Sam in Modern Culture
Walking Sam has appeared in podcasts, horror blogs, and urban legend lists across the U.S., often framed as one of South Dakota’s most terrifying figures. But unlike other horror icons, his story is inseparable from the real struggles of Pine Ridge.
This is what makes him different from Slender Man or other internet-born entities. Walking Sam is not entertainment. He is a cultural pressure point.
To speak of him is to acknowledge the pain of a community—and the need for healing.
In South Dakota, an urban legend named “Walking Sam” is believed to have driven more than 10 teenagers to take their own lives. A lot of folks believe that can't be true… How could something fake take a life?
The epicenter of the suicides is located at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This is where the Oglala Lakota sub-tribe of Sioux Native Americans are located. The tribe believes that a mysterious, shadowy figure that the plains and whispers suicidal sayings into people’s ears. The Oglala Lakota tribe refers to the spirit as the “Tall Man Spirit,” colloquially, it is known as “Walking Sam...”
Content Warning: This story contains depictions of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
Hanging from a tree was what remained of a young man.
The newspapers named him Nicholas Thompson, a local boy apparently. He hadn’t been an athletic man, his grades were fairly average, and his future would have likely involved a job of middling wages followed by a grave when his family’s history of epilepsy caught up to him during a spirited movie marathon involving the Michael Bay Transformers films watched in his late fifties in a bout of nostalgia.
His future now would involve the local police cutting him down and giving his parents some closure, writing him off as a suicide and leaving it be. Another story of the Black Hills to fuel the legends.
Standing before him however was no cop. A young man in his mid-20s with long black hair tied into a loose ponytail, a pair of thick framed glasses, and a jacket over a souvenir teeshit from St. Louis, along with well-worn and much patched jeans and a pair of construction boots on his feet.
Should one see his hands they may also remark on the strange appearance of them. His hands themselves were wrapped tightly with thick bandages, leaving only his fingers and thumbs visible but completely covering his palms and the back of his hands.
He looked up at the corpse, frowning, then muttered, “If this was a suicide, I’m a fucking kobold.”
“Hey Nelen,” came a voice from his shoulder, “Can we just go already? That human is really starting to stink.”
Seated on his shoulder was a kitten, looking about four months old, with dark patchy fur ranging from deep red to jet black, with bright yellow eyes. A tortoiseshell cat, at least to most mundane fanciers, though they often got mistaken for calicos. Truth was neither, this cat was half tortie, half Cheshire.
Yes, that Cheshire.
“Not yet Dawn. I wanna see if I can work out what we’re dealing with.” he grunted back.
“Why though? Lookit him. He’s just some mundy kid who hung himself. We’ve seen worse all the time.” she hissed back. Her voice sounded rather childlike, though higher in pitch than a young girl’s should be.
The man sighed, “Hung himself how? There’s no low branches on that tree, no ladder, no stepstool, and the noose is tied around the tree branch. How’d he get up there? How’d he tie the thing? No, someone hung him and left him strung up like a fucked up Christmas Tree ornament.” he pointed out.
The cat looked back up, then blinked slowly, “Oh right, forgot you humans suck at climbing.” she commented.
“Exactly, maybe a cat could get up there easily enough with their claws, but a human would need either some branches to pull themselves up with or help. It could be that some kids with a grudge strung him up but there’s no depressions in the dirt from a ladder and he would have fought like hell, but there’s no signs of him being beaten or restrained either.” he nodded.
“So, what, you think its something supernatural?” she asked.
“That’s what the client thinks. She said ‘the tall man’ did this.” he replied. “Put out word on the Wulfshead BBS that she wanted answers. Apparently he was her brother.” he replied.
“Got a meet up set?” she asked, then frowned, “I’m not gonna have to look human again am I?” she sighed, rolling her eyes, “Clothes were neat for a while, but my tail gets so damn sore in pants!”
Nelen shook his head, “Just me, you can crash at the hotel Dawn. I can handle this one alone.” he replied.
The cat grinned at this, a far too wide grin for it’s feline face, “All riiiiiiiiight! Pay-per-view movie marathon!” she cackled.
He frowned, “I paid cash and the credit card I had you swipe back Toledo got cancelled. They must’ve caught on." he said.
Dawn frowned, “SERIOUSLY?! That was only two weeks ago!” she hissed.
“I told you using it on those fancy sardines would have tipped someone off.” he sighed.
“ANCHOIVES Nelen! With mustard! The GOOD kind!” she yowled, pawing at his shoulder.
“Yeah, I remember. You woke me up from the smell of those damn things.” he smirked back at her.
Dawn sighed, then glanced up at the corpse, “So… what do we do with him?” she asked.
“Let the cops deal with it. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t another wild goose chase. I think we got enough reason to believe something that wasn’t human could be behind this one.” he nodded to her.
He turned on his heel, then paused as he heard engines, “Shit, speak of the porkers. Dawn?” he said.
“On it!” she grinned, and with a faint pop they both vanished like they’d never been there.
Back in town...
His name was Nelen Fullmoon, and he was a sort of hatchet man for people who had issues that wouldn’t work out so well if they told the cops about them. The kind of issues where at best they’d be dismissed as grieving or panicking relatives, at worst they’d find themselves in a room with soft walls.
He sat at the local McDonalds nursing a cup of soda, the man wishing he’d at least thought to bring his tablet and beginning to wonder if he hadn’t been stood up. At least his companion was likely having a good time, probably eating anchovy pizza and laughing at the shit they got wrong in fantasy films.
He glanced at his phone, 6:30 PM. Well dammit, she said she’d be here at five. He frowned, then a voice said, “Sorry, um, are you Nelen?”
He looked up, seeing a young woman of about twenty-one, a college student if he had to guess. Well off too given her outfit, possibly a trust fund kid. He mentally added a zero or two to his fee, then thought better of it. “Indeed, have a seat please.” he nodded.
She sat down, the woman had long red hair and brown eyes, wearing a white pullover sweater and denim blue jeans, along with a pair of zip-up heeled boots. She glanced around, then said, “When you said to meet you here I almost thought it was a joke… I mean…” she glanced over at the play area, full of screaming excited children, “… really?”
Nelen shrugged, “Best place for a meet up. If we talked this stuff in a bar or something all ears would be on us. Here, if anyone can even hear us over that racket then they’ll just assume were discussing some obscure movie or something.” he nodded. “Besides, only got so long to have a McRib before they go away again.”
She nodded back, “… I suppose that makes sense. Anyways, I’m Rachel…” she started but he held up a hand.
“Just first names are fine. Don’t go giving out the whole thing freely Miss.” he nodded to her, “You’re never one hundred percent sure who you’re talking to in my line of work, and the wrong person finding out your full name can be a very bad thing.” he sucked up the last of his soda, then looked at her.
“Now, I went and checked out the body before the cops could cut him down.” he nodded, “Sorry to be blunt, but we gotta move fast. If this is something from my neck of the woods one kid is very rarely the end of matters.”
“… if? But…” she started.
“Yeah, I know, I saw it and there’s definitely no way that he could have gotten up in that tree by himself, but that doesn’t mean something… unusual… got him. Did he have any enemies? Was he bullied at school? Something abnormal could have gotten him up there, but it could have just as easily been some high school assholes with their dad’s truck too.” he nodded, and as he said it his eyes reddened around the edges.
Rachel noticed this, then frowned, “What is up with your eyes?” she asked.
He blinked, then shook his head and took off his glasses, rubbing them firmly, “Oh, nothing. Just a sort of blood condition. I’m being treated for it.” he replied.
“Oh…” she nodded, giving a nervous smile, “You’re not a vampire are you?” she asked, half-joking.
Nelen smirked, “Sun is still up and I’m next to a window Miss, besides no vampire can get their fangs in me and tell the tale.” he nodded.
Nelen looked at her expression, then sighed, “Yes, they’re real, but I sincerely doubt they’re involved. Your brother still had all his blood in him and most vampires are better at hiding their victims. They were human once, they get how law enforcement works.” he nodded, then paused and added, “At least the young ones do.” He'd once had an encounter with an elder who thought a ‘city watch’ was still a thing.
“Riiiight…” she replied, “Well, he did tell me he was getting bullied. Some jerk called Alan Sanders was giving him a lot of grief, but it never sounded like much.” she added, “Why? Do you think he murdered him?!”
Nelen shrugged, “Dunno yet, but some of this stuff won’t go after someone unless another person sets them after them. Depends on what exactly I’m dealing with. Do you know anything about this Sanders kid?”
She shook her head, “Just the name, he didn’t like talking about him.” she replied.
“Hm… well, shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Any idea where he’d be?” he asked.
She shrugged, “I know there’s a skate park nearby that kids like to hang out at.” she nodded.
Nelen smirked, “Right, well that’s a good start. I’ll be in touch.”
The Local Skate Park...
The skate park had been built about five years prior, a public works project with the hopes that they could at least keep bored teenagers in one place on weekends and that the occasional broken bone was better than them bricking windows for lack of any better things to do.
Alan stood near his friends, laughing over a couple energy drinks, the kid sporting a buzz cut and wearing a muscle shirt with a pair of baggy torn up jeans. He was a young man, and the muscle shirt really only showed a skinny wire-thin body that nonetheless could throw a mean punch. It also showed more than a few marks that spoke of a rather unhappy home life. Nelen would almost feel bad for this kid… save the memory of another kid swinging in the breeze.
As he was joking around however a young girl rushed past him suddenly, snatching his skateboard up from where it sat nearby and cackling in delight, “Wooo! New toy!” she grinned, bolting with surprising speed even for a young girl. She was wearing a sock hat over her head, a pair of long baggy jeans, sneakers, and despite it being nighttime a pair of dark reflective sunglasses that hid her eyes.
“HEY!” he shouted, throwing away the rest of his can and taking after her, his feet pounding on the pavement as his friends laughed at how easily he got robbed. “COME BACK HERE YOU LITTLE BITCH!” he spat.
The young girl giggled frantically, bright orange hair flapping in the breeze as she scrambled away, board tucked under her arm. A few other skate park patrons tried to grab her, but she seemed unusually agile, and nobody could lay a finger on her… she jumped the fence gate and rushed across the street, Alan kicking it open in hot pursuit as he ran across the road after her, cars honking at the teenaged boy as he rushed off after his skateboard.
The girl ducked between two buildings then as soon as Alan was in view laughed, threw his skateboard into an open dumpster, and shouted, “Go fetch!” before rushing into the shadows.
“You fucking cunt!” he snarled, going to the dumpster and leaning over, having to put his weight on the edge to reach inside the half-full pile of refuse. His fingertips were almost able to reach it, but then someone grabbed his foot from the other end and shoved him all the way in, landing him on half full bottles of drink, rotting food, and gods only knew what else.
“AUGH!” he shouted, the boy snarling and turning around, ready to land his fist in the face of whoever did that… and freezing.
Nelen was glaring at him, and it was the kind of glare that suggested if he pissed him off too much he might not be getting out of that dumpster. “Nicholas Thompson, talk.” he said in a tone that suggested something rather nasty could happen if the boy didn’t.
“W-what? He strung himself up! Little wuss couldn’t take a joke, whats that got to do with me?” he stammered.
“A lot. He died in a tree he couldn’t have climbed on his own, and he’s far from the first suicide that forest has seen, isn’t he? TALK.” he nodded firmly, cracking his knuckles.
The boy gritted his teeth, “Whatever man.” he huffed, trying to climb out… before a hand grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back in with surprising force, then another hand slammed hard into the dumpster. Alan’s eyes went huge as he looked at the metal dumpster wall. These things were sturdy… and that punch had dented it.
“Talk. Now.” said Nelen again, his eyes seeming to gleam red in the darkness.
“I… I… l-look, it was just a prank okay? A party game. Some old story about how if you tie a noose in a tree that Walking Sam’ll come and unless you give him a name he’ll string you up.” he stammered.
“… horseshit. Walking Sam stalks the Lakota reservation. He’s never given a shit about white kids.” he retorted.
“Its true! I swear to God, man!” he whimpered. “I… I dunno why… some Indian kid told us about it, his parents got a good job and moved off the rez and he started school with us this year. I tried it and… fucking hell man he really showed up. He asked me if I was ready to die and when I told him no he asked me if I knew who was. I… I told him okay? He was gonna hang me if I didn’t!” he stammered, “Please you gotta believe me! I didn’t know Nick was gonna die!” he curled up on the refuse.
Nelen gritted his teeth, putting his hands on the rim of the dumpster. “Listen good kid. Cut this shit out. High school is over for you in, what, two years? Keep your godsdamn head down, your mouth shut, and when you graduate get the FUCK outta this part of the country. I don’t care how. That thing is territorial, and you better believe that if it gets a chance it’ll come back for you.” he glared, gripping the rim tightly with a loud squeal of metal… then turning and stalking off into the shadows.
Alan looked up, breathing heavy, and saw finger indents where he’d been squeezing. “Jesusfuckinchrist…” he whispered, collecting his board and climbing back out…
A local Econolodge
Nelen walked into the hotel room and collapsed on the bed, forcing his emotions to even back out as he took a deep breath.
“Fucking hell.” he sighed, reaching into his messenger bag, then taking out an old worn tome. The cover was stamped with the words ‘Injun Legends & Tall Tales’ and had been written back in the early 1900s, but if you ignored the author’s… commentary… it did have some good information.
Dawn looked up at him, “Bad one?” she asked, having headed back after swiping the boy’s skateboard. She looked quite a bit different now. Instead of a small feline she was a young girl with a shock of bright orange hair, a dusky skinned body covered in a thin, nearly invisible layer of fur, a long cat-like tail, pointed cat-like ears, and shining yellow eyes with vertical slits.
She was also completely buck naked.
“Yeah, and Dawn for fuck’s sake could you at least put on your damn pajamas? I mean I cut the tail hole and everything.” he sighed.
She hissed at him, “Human…” she frowned, but got up and dug them out of an old Alice in Wonderland backpack they’d gotten at a thrift store near Detroit, pulling on a purple cotton pair of pajama bottoms and a white teeshirt. “Just got outta that stuff I had to wear to do the skate park bit… tail all sore now… hmph…”
“Not my fault you can’t go all the way human.” he replied.
Dawn growled, “Well maybe Al just screwed up the brew, I dunno!”
“Whatever, anyways… according to what I scared out of that kid, we’re dealing with Walking Sam.” he said, putting the book down on his bed and pointing to an old hand drawn image of a massively tall creature in a stovepipe hat. “Depending on who you believe he might be an amalgam of the souls who died at Wounded Knee, or maybe just an especially potent suicide spirit.” he nodded. “The author here says that he mostly stalks people who are already suicidal, but if you hang a noose in a tree and wait for two days he’ll get impatient and come looking for you. He’ll ask if you’re ready to die and if you say no then you have to give him someone else’s name, or else he’ll kill you.” he nodded.
Dawn looked over his shoulder at the picture, nodding, “Huh, how we gonna deal with that? I mean, you can’t kill those things, they’re already ghosts.” she said.
“Yeah, but if he is an amalgam we may have a shot.” he nodded, digging out another book and flipping through it, then finding what he was looking for. “Okay, we gotta go hang a noose of our own, then we got two days to get ready.” he said.
The Forests of the Black Hills, late at night.
It was night now, and a dark one at that, the moon just a crescent sliver in the sky as Nelen stood under the noose he’d hung. He felt a little ill about that, knowing the symbolism of such things, but he knew it was for a good reason. He stood there wearing a jacket over his teeshirt and jeans, flexing his hands slowly… one reaching into a pocket to see if the object was still there. He hoped like hell this’d work, but there was really no peer review for magic and it wasn’t something he’d tried before and…
Well, he just really hoped it’d work.
He stood there, looking up at the noose, then waiting…
Finally, he heard a voice behind him.
“… are you ready to die?” it asked.
He turned, looking up, and despite his experiences his blood ran a little cold.
Walking Sam was a massive slender man, his body skeletal thin, and he was dressed in the outfit of a mortician. He wore a stovepipe hat indeed as the legends said, but his face had only two eyes like stars shining in a dark night sky. No nose, no mouth, he couldn’t have possibly said anything, and yet Nelen heard the voice again.
“I ask again, are you ready to die?” said Walking Sam.
Nelen palmed the object in his hand, sliding it carefully out of his pocket. A leather pouch contained some graveyard dirt, powdered stone clipped from a tombstone, shavings of silver taken from a crucifix, and the wax from a church candle. It was an old trick, not the kind you’d find in most modern books, but one that’d definitely inconvenience most ghosts.
“Not especially, are you?” he asked, then his arm lashed out and the pouch sailed out like a baseball aimed at Walking Sam’s head.
… which it passed through as if it were made from smoke.
Nelen’s eyes went wide. “Ah crap…” he muttered. That was a Christian trick, but if Walking Sam was made of the souls of Wounded Knee's victims then he'd made a critical error! They weren’t Christian! They didn’t give a shit about saints and sacraments!
“Give me a name…” whispered Walking Sam, straightening up, “Or DIE!” he howled, extending his arms, and nooses fell from them, each one holding bodies in various states of decay, their eyes still horribly aware and alive. The former victims he’d driven to end their lives.
“Shit shit shit!” he shouted, turning and bolting. “DAWN! Get ready to run!” he called out as he fled the giant undertaker, hearing it's footsteps echo behind him on the forest floor.
Dawn appeared beside him in her feline form, rushing along next to her human partner. “What the hell! You said that would work!” she hissed.
“Yeah I know! But that book was written before people really realized that the ghost’s religion mattered! Christian trick, Native American ghosts, not very effective!” he spat out. If he survived that he'd be writing that on that page, in bright red marker.
Behind them Walking Sam loomed, somehow keeping pace with them despite seeming to only be walking, and as they ran they noticed the darkness spreading between the trees. “He’s going to try to cut us off!” he shouted, legs pumping back to the car they’d… well… not rented, but they’d planned on having it back by morning! Really!
The darkness spread before them however, slamming the path ahead off, trapping them. All around was shadows and swirling blackness. “Fuck… Dawn?” he asked the cat.
She focused, then whined, her ears folding back. “Its blocking me! I can’t teleport out!” she stammered, looking up at the multi-ghost with wider fearful eyes. This was very bad… VERY very bad…
“GIVE ME A NAME!” demanded Walking Sam, his voice slamming into them with physical force, sending Nelen and Dawn flying backwards, and as they flew Nelen’s arm clipped a tree branch, breaking it off with a loud snap… the scent of sap filling his senses as he landed. He looked up in a panic, grabbing the tree branch, and suddenly Walking Sam stopped and hissed low…
He looked at the branch, then back at him, then grinned, fishing a lighter out of his pocket. Please please please be dry enough to burn he thought as he held it to the end of the branch, the stick soon smoldering, then bursting into flames, the scent of woodsmoke filling the area.
“Whats wrong Sam? Don’t like this?” he smirked, climbing to his feet a bit shakily. He stumbled forward, the giant specter retreating slowly.
“A name! Give! Me! A! Name!” the creature snarled, but Nelen ignored him, thrusting the branch into Walking Sam’s middle like a sword! The monster screamed, its form shaking all over as it reached out with arms longer than any natural arms should be, its hands curling into claws!
Nelen gritted his teeth, holding the burning branch firmly in his midsection, “Come on, come on you fucker…” he snarled, Walking Sam’s form shaking as if suddenly full of something trying to escape.
“GIVE ME A NAME OR GIVE ME YOUR NECK!” howled the monster, raising a hand, a noose already tied in it, as the other reached for Nelen’s throat… and then Nelen twisted the branch and slashed upwards with it, smashing it through Sam’s upper torso and head, tearing the creature's body in half!
Nelen dove backwards, still holding the length of burning cedar out infront of him as Walking Sam fell to his knees, trying to push his halves back together. “NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!” the creature wailed, its entire form shaking and trembling, bulging out here and there, and then suddenly the torso exploded outwards in a burst of glowing flames, each one no bigger than a candle's. The lights shot out of him in all directions as Walking Sam cried out in pain and loss and decades’ worth of anguish.
The monster’s cry echoed across the grove, the shadows melting away from between the trees as its body slowly dissolved, the souls of the Lakota victims of Wounded Knee scattering out of him all in one go. They flew off in all directions, until all that was left was an abandoned length of hempen rope tied in a noose and a stovepipe hat, laying there on the forest floor.
Nelen fell back onto his rear in a heap, watching the lights scatter like a cloud of fireflies, then blew out his lips. “Gonna have to remember that one…” he muttered.
About an hour later later...
Nelen was waiting in a parking lot near what was once a Kmart. South Dakota’s economy was pretty awful already, and the department store chain here had been an early victim of that.
The lights weren’t even on, but he had excellent night vision and his partner was literally built for it.
“So, Nelen, gonna explain the fuck that was?” asked Dawn.
“Simple, sheer dumb luck.” he replied. “Walking Sam was an amalgamation of Native American spirits, and the tree he slammed me into was a cedar tree. Native Americans use cedar to purify and eliminate evil spirits. I dunno if a spirit who was an amalgamation of all the victims of Wounded Knee was evil per se, but it certainly wasn’t nice.” he nodded.
“So, wait, we actually got him?” she asked.
He snorted, “Fuckin’ doubt it. I’m no medicine man and I don’t know the proper ritual. Likely I got lucky and the ghosts he was made up of remembered just enough about it to scatter when I stuck him with the stick. He’ll probably reform, but it could take years. Maybe even longer.” he sighed.
He looked up as he saw a car approaching. He’d texted Rachel as soon as he’d gotten back to the car to let her know the deed was done. “Be ready Dawn.” he nodded.
She nodded back and stepped behind the car. A moment later there was nobody there.
The car stopped, the headlights left on, and Rachel got out. “You did it? That monster is dead?” she asked.
“Weeeeeell that’s a tricky question, but he’s not going to be convincing kids to string themselves up for a while I can say that. But then you’d know how those work wouldn’t you?” he asked.
She stopped, standing in the glow of the headlights, her body shouletted against them. “Come again?”
“It took two days for me to summon Walking Sam. Plenty of time to do some poking around at the county clerk’s office. Nicholas Thompson didn’t have a sister, he was an only child.” he said in an annoyed tone. “My grandfather sent you, didn’t he?”
She hesitated, then slipped her hands behind her back. “What gave me away?” she asked.
“The economy in this area is a shitshow, everyone here is poor, but you’re showing up in a designer sweater and boots that probably cost more than my whole outfit, willing to pay a big chunk of change without any questions asked? Most people around here probably haven’t seen that kind of money all at once.” he nodded, flexing his fingers. “You were counting on Walking Sam to kill me, or at least hurt me bad enough that you could finish me off, weren’t you?”
She snorted, “Should’ve hit Goodwill first I guess.”
He nodded, “Probably should have…” he replied.
They both stood there, then her arm snapped around, holding the gun she’d been hiding in her purse! Suddenly she felt a weight on her shoulders, then the gun was missing as Dawn reappeared ontop of Nelen’s borrowed car, tossing it away. “NOPE!” she laughed.
Rachel glared at her, but before she could go for another weapon there was a wet sound and she was lifted right off her feet, the woman gasping and clutching at her throat.
Nelen was holding her in the air, his arm outstretched, and seeping between the bandages was something long and crimson, like a semi-solid liquid. A tendril of what looked and smelled like nothing more than solidified blood.
“W-what the fuck are you?!” she gasped, tugging at the tendril and only succeeding in making a mess of her hands and sweater. When she tried to pull the tendril would go liquid just long enough to let her fingers slip through it before solidifying again.
“You mean Frank didn’t fucking TELL you? You learned all that about that kid but didn’t research me?!” he shook his head, “Bigods lady are you new at this? You never go after a mark without getting as much info as you can first!” he retorted. “If you must know… the word you’re looking for is ‘warlock.’” he sighed, then slammed her down hard on the hood of her car, giving her a good crack to the back of the skull.
“Dawn?” he said as she peered at her in the gloom.
The Cheshire appeared next to her and leaned in, squinting at her face, “Nope, she’s out. Alive, but she won’t wake up for a while.” she nodded.
“Right.” muttered Nelen, the tendril of blood seeping back into his hand as he walked over, opening her purse and fishing around before finding a bank envelope.
He flipped it open and whistled. “Five grand at least, gramps must be in a foul mood. Looks like he upped the ante.”
“Dang, fourth up front normally… that’s what… ten?” she asked.
Nelen sighed, Dawn was a clever cat, but she wasn’t great with numbers yet. They were working on it though. “Twenty thousand dollars.” he replied. “Still, this’ll keep us good for a bit. C’mon.” he nodded, getting in the car and driving off.
After parking the car back in the driveway of its owner, Nelen and his feline companion walked back through the city, looking around. When people think of urban decay they tend to think Detroit, but there were a lot of cities in the US that were falling apart. Corruption in government, greedy ultra capitalist businessmen, and the like were eating away at places like this, which in turn fed things like Walking Sam.
“Geez… this place is damn near a ghost town anyways. Looks like anyone with sense took off long ago.” he muttered, passing the fifth boarded up store so far. “We should do this in an alleyway, but there’s hardly a reason to here.” he nodded.
“Mmhm… Just another human city going to bits. No wonder Walking Sam was going off the reservation. Mess like this probably drew him like me to a fishmarket.” nodded Dawn.
Nelen nodded. “Ah well, not our problem for a while.” he sighed, walking down an alleyway and knocking on a wall.
A silvery door appeared infront of him, the door embossed with a wolf’s head motif on it. He put his hand to where the doorknob should be and spoke a phrase in ancient Lemurian. Nobody living knew the exact translation, but a rough equivalent could be ‘open up, you bastards.’
The door formed a handle, which he turned, and from inside came loud music and the smell of liquor.
“Well, at least there won’t be any more suicides for a while.” said Dawn.
He looked at her, then smiled awkwardly, “Sure, c’mon. I’ll buy you a cup of cream.” he nodded, walking into the door with her, then slamming it shut. A moment later there was no hint that there’d ever been a door at all.
Five hours later at the Sanders residence Alan’s mother would enter his room, then a scream would echo through the house as she found her son hanging from the ceiling fan. Nearby on his bedroom table was a note reading, ‘I never meant to get Nick killed, I’m sorry.’
You didn’t need evil spirits to drive people to suicide.
Near the Black Hills of South Dakota sits one of the largest Indian reservations in the country: the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Home to the Oglala Lakota tribe, Pine Ridge has a long history of trauma. It’s where hundreds of Lakota Indians were killed during the Wounded Knee Massacre. When it made headlines in 2015 for a spree of teen suicides, many began to suggest that darker supernatural forces were at work in Pine Ridge, citing the urban legend of Walking Sam.
Between December of 2014 and March of 2015, there were 103 suicide attempts made. Nine of those were successful, and none of the victims were older than twenty-five. Many died by hanging. In previous years there had been other clusters of suicides, but none this large. Stuck in a crisis situation with no clear answers, many began to point to a sinister force that has long existed in Native American tradition and lore. Children raised in Lakota households grow up hearing of “suicide spirits,” “stick people,” or shadow people who attempt to lure adolescents from the safety of their homes at night.
When Sam raises his arms, one sees the bodies of previous victims hanging beneath. When teenagers hear him calling, he tries to persuade them of their worthlessness, encouraging them to kill themselves. Some believe he targets younger people because they are more susceptible to his tricks.
There are also those who believe he is not even necessarily a malicious entity, but rather one who wanders the forests as punishment and is merely looking for companionship. Finally, for a people group who have such an intertwined spiritual connection between the land and their heritage, some believe that Walking Sam is a sort of physical manifestation of the hurt and trauma that Lakota Indians experience on a regularly basis.
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