The Suff
and the unnamed soldier
For those of you who do not know, The Suff is quite new urban legend to Substack. It originally sprang from a short horror story that mysteriously appeared in my drive. There was no details other than the title, “The Suff” and the 9 pages of content. After deleting it, twice, it kept returning. It’s now known as a cursed document, akin to the movie “The Ring” with it’s cursed tape.
When I made a comment about it on Substack, it blew up within the community. Spawning stories, art, memes and an entirely new urban legend. There is even a timeline put together by
of events that feature The Suff, which you can find below.I think it is fitting for this to be my first venture into short stories for Choose Fiction. Please enjoy my entry into the lore of The Suff.
June 6, 1944
The ramps dropped, thudding along the French coastline. Men poured out of the landing crafts as quickly as blood poured into the shallow waves. Automatic gunfire littered the beach, kicking up sand in every direction. It faintly reminded the private of how his bike sounded when he stuck a baseball card in the spokes. Putting the thought away quickly, he readied himself for the remainder of his men to exit the craft; He was the last one. Holding his plastic-wrapped rifle close, the private pushed forward.
One step, two steps, hit the deck!
Gunfire swept across their craft. All the men that were charging out of the front now lay in piles of gore. The private stared at his brothers in arms, the raging war fading into the background. Fear and hatred filled his soul. He glanced at what was formerly his best friend, the times they spent through basic crossed his mind—he vomited.
Reality came back into focus when an explosion up ahead mangled the only two soldiers that managed to get off their craft. He was the last one.
Righteous fury lifted him to his feet. He took a moment to observe his surroundings before charging forward. The private ran, faster than he ever had in basic training, towards an iron hedgehog that sat in the sand up ahead. When he got close, he dove for safety behind it.
Ducking out of his cover, he looked around the beach for a platoon that he could join to continue the assault. He paid no mind to the bodies that lay everywhere around him. Off of his 3 o’clock he spotted a group of men that had made it further up the beach. Without thinking, the private burst from his cover and ran like a madman towards the other men. It was quite the distance to close with all the chaos raining down around him and he knew it was unlikely he would make it. But then again, the chance of survival for anyone on this beach was slim.
After a few narrowly missed bullets that had his name on it, and nearly tripping over fallen comrades, he finally made it. The other soldiers hadn’t noticed his arrival, they were too focused on pushing forward. Didn’t matter.
The private removed the plastic wrap that protected his rifle from the unforgiving salt water, readying it for action. Just as he was about to return fire, his eyes crossed paths with the landing craft he came from.
Something stood in the back of the craft; A dark figure wrapped in endlessly flowing fabric. It was staring directly at him, umoving. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, but it was there, plain as day in the middle of the conflict. The private couldn’t help but stare back in awe.
Next to him, one of the soldiers stood and pulled the pin on a grenade.
“Grenade ou–”
The soldier took a hefty amount of gunfire, shredding his face apart and riddling his torso with cavities. The force of the impacts sent him and the live grenade flying backwards a few feet away from the private.
His focus finally broke from the eerie figure, and he stared at the grenade that lay half buried in the sand. There was no time to flee. At that moment, he accepted his fate. His eyes returned to the landing craft one last time; nothing was there.
Searing light consumed his vision, followed by a comforting darkness.
The private awoke in a confused haze. It took a moment, but he slowly came out of it. When his vision cleared he realized that he was in a medical tent laying on a stiff cot. It was dark now, the tent was illuminated by lantern light. The dim orange glow was cast over dozens of cots holding injured soldiers, some now dead.
Field nurses were bustling around him tending to other patients. Pain rang through his head, coming to a sharp point at both of his ears.
Although he could see everything that was going on, it seemed that he could no longer hear anything. He remembered the grenade, so he thought it normal that his hearing was damaged. However, he expected to hear the ringing that so many talked about. There was nothing, just absolute silence.
After making sure the pain was limited to his head, he sat up. A nurse noticed and rushed over to him to try and get him to lie back down. The private attempted to argue, yet he could not hear what he was trying to say. He knew not if he was making any sense so he pointed to his ears.
The nurse nodded at him, over exaggerating his movement. He watched as the nurse fumbled around in his medical pack. A moment passed before the nurse revealed what he was after; a notebook. After a quick inscription, the nurse turned it towards him.
Your ears took permanent damage, you are deaf.
Deaf. The private’s eyes hung on that word. Crushed, he shook his head in denial and snatched the notebook and pencil out of the nurse's hands. He quickly wrote a jumbled mess of words onto the page. He was not a skilled writer or reader, something his folks back home never cared for.
Im a musishan back home, cant lose my heering. Can yu fix it?
The nurse looked at him, cold eyes from all the death he’s witnessed, and just shook his head. He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry” slowly so that the private could understand. With that, the nurse patted his shoulder and took off to take care of the next unfortunate soul.
The private sat there, absorbing his new reality. He may have been alive, but his life was ruined. It wasn’t possible to return to the life he had back home anymore; it had been forever changed. Not wanting to deal with the pain, both mental and physical, he laid back down. He closed his eyes to try and escape. The total darkness and complete silence was equally unsettling as it was peaceful.
“Sssss”
The private’s eyes shot open. He heard something, clear as day; like it was right next to his ear. Looking around provided no answers. There was no one near him, at least not close enough to have done that. He grew excited. Maybe the nurse was wrong. Maybe his hearing wasn’t as damaged as he thought, but he still couldn’t hear anything. He reached for the notebook to write a message he could show the nurse. Upon opening, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Suff
That one word was ruthlessly scratched into the page with pencil. He couldn’t help but fixate on the word, like it had a sort of power behind it. It took him a moment to draw his focus away from the word, but he managed. Flipping the page proved to be a mistake.
Incoherent text filled the next page, along with the pages following. One of them, the last one, had a crudely drawn image of a young, terrified girl. She was gaunt, seemingly lifeless. Her eyes pierced through the page and into his soul. He felt fear, sorrow, desperation all emanating from the page; from the girl. Below the drawing was the only word that was intelligible.
Jackie
The private didn’t know what to make of this notebook, but he didn’t like it. He swung his legs off the cot and stood up. Weaving through rows of unconscious or screaming soldiers, he made his way to the nurse that gave him the notebook. As he approached, the nurse noticed and stood waiting.
The private presented the notebook, having saved the spot of the girl by separating the pages with his fingers. The nurse looked down and shrugged at him. Confused, the private turned it back towards himself. It was empty! He stood there, bewildered, staring at the blank page.
The nurse gestured at him with his arms, firmly getting across the message, “I don’t have time for this.” He watched as the nurse hurried away, the book still open in his hands. When he looked back down, the girl was there again, staring at him.
He slammed the book closed and threw it outside the tent’s opening, ridding himself of that cursed image and the creepy text.
“Sssss”
His head snapped towards the entrance. He heard that same noise again, this time it was further and outside the tent. The sound was driving him mad. Taking a few steps forward, he peered his head outside the tent. He scanned the dark surroundings; nothing.
The private stepped outside and walked around the tent, looking for anything that may give him a clue to what he was hearing. Around the back he arrived at an opening between the trees that led deep into the forest. The trees were dimly lit by the moon overhead, but the further he looked inside, the darker it got.
“Sssssuuuuu”
There it was again! It was longer, more drawn out, coarse. He knew exactly the direction from which the sound came; the clearing, from deep within the woods. It called out to him, begging for him to enter. And so he did.
He walked and walked and walked, deeper into the dark, twisted forest. The private did not know where he was going, but he knew he needed to go. It was his mission. After a while, he looked back and could no longer see the medical tent from whence he came. He walked for hours with no direction, just into the forest he went.
“Suff”
The sound returned again, this time startling the private to a stop. It was quick and sadistic, angry even, but no more than a harsh whisper. It must mean that he was getting closer, time to hurry up the pace. Oh, how he wished he could! The private could no longer move his legs, they felt cemented in place. Wait, no, his entire body!
Panic started settling into his mind, the only thing that he had control of. His eyes darted back and forth along the shadows and the trees. They stopped.
Directly in front of him, aways in the distance, someone hung from the trees. Not someone, something. It did not move, just hung there by unnaturally long, slender arms. It was draped in dark cloths that hung to the ground, flowing in the breeze.
The private finally realized that it was the same thing he saw on the landing craft. At this point panic would have been welcome over the sheer terror that he was feeling. His eyes watched as it began to move.
The dark figure let go of the branch with one arm and swung it to the next. Swinging from branch to branch, it effortlessly glided through the air towards him. With each branch that it grabbed, the private mouthed “Suff” in silence, entirely against his will.
It got closer and closer. More was revealed the closer it came. Long, bony fingers sprouted from its spindly arms. Short, stocky legs swung to and fro from underneath the cloth. A man’s face, absent of eyes, centered on the private at all times. It stopped just ahead of him and dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. The private stopped mouthing the word.
He watched in horror as it rose up. For a moment it just stood there, waiting, waiting…
Its arms opened wide, fingers spreading far apart. It beckoned for him to come forth. The choice was not his.
One step, two step, embrace The Suff.
Looking for another horror story to read while curled up under the sheets? Consider checking out my ongoing horror serial “Trapped Within Darkness” where you are tasked with making difficult choices to maneuver through a young mans world full of nightmares!
Do you enjoy thrilling tales that take place beyond the Earth? A dystopian sci-fi adventure awaits you in the ongoing serial “Expedition Epsilon” where you decide the fate of humanity and it’s place among the stars…
