The Rake

It's here! Thanks to Black Bullet235 for the suggestion!

Good ol' Rake.

This monster may not be as famous as his "cousin", Slender Man, but he sure is just as creepy and interesting.

With that out of the way, let's get to the actual review of the story, shall we? [Content Warning: minor spoilers ahead]

During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, human-like creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.

Primarily focused in rural New York state and once found in Idaho, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.

In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I’ve been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book.

I really like that the story jumps right in with all the details, however, even though this technically is a "creature-feature" story, it's really just more of like an ensemble of reported "documented sightings", than a traditional horror story about an urban legend. I'm not saying this is bad or anything, this type of storytelling does work, but I felt it was lacking some ingredients in a few places. That being said, though, it still does a great job of holding onto the eerie tone.

My first issue with it is with the logs and the "journal entries" of people who encountered The Rake. Why did the author only expand one story of them? I feel like they should've expanded on the other ones, too. The 2006 note? Pretty good. The best note in this story, in my opinion. The 1964 note? Also good, but it shows a little promise. The 1880 and 1691 notes? They were fairly decent, but still too short to leave any impact on me whatsoever.

Now, moving on to the part of the story of the woman and husband first encounter The Rake.

For some reason, I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him.

Unrealistic reaction. I really couldn't believe that the woman and her husband pitied The Rake when it first showed up in their bedroom. Anyone would freak out if they saw that. Unless The Rake put her under some sort of hypnotic state, and isn't having a full reaction to the creature(???) I don't know.

Skipping ahead more.

I decided to skip past the part where The Rake kills the daughter, because there wasn't a lot to critique there. Well, if you don't count the use of the "death of a child" trope, which is soooorta cliché. Also, I found the little girl in the last story incredibly unnecessary and stupid, the all "make a kid say the name of the monster" thing really breaks the mood for me, I remember while I was reading this my body was shaking, then I read "he is the Rake" and immediately started laughing, seriously. Even so, the story is still really good and just a little mood-killer doesn't entirely bring it down.

Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first, and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either.

Why wouldn't the news publish the story? Stories like these spread like wildfire, I can just imagine the headlines being along the lines of "URBAN LEGEND PROVEN TRUE" or "LOCAL GIRL KILLED BY STRANGE CREATURE". Unless if they think she's lying about her encounter with The Rake, then I get that. But stuff like murders basically always gets reported by the news.

It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first 3 pages, and never mentioned it again. A ship's log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that they were told to leave by the Rake. That was the last entry in the log.

My question is how did they get a hold of these reports/stories anyway? It mentioned at the start that accounts of The Rake were all destroyed. Without any details, they're unconvincing as "reports" that's supposed to deliver information about The Rake. Also, it said that nearly two dozen notes were found near the beginning. Why didn't the writer put them in this story, too? Writing "In almost all cases, the stories were identical." to justify the lack of notes was a HUGE missed opportunity. It's also a pretty lazy way to justify their absence.

~ End of Review ~

This is one of the classics that actually deserves its popularity. The writing is simply divine, that is really all there is to say about it. The concept, while a little unoriginal, works for this kind of story, and I feel like the simplicity helps at making it believable, which is what a Creepypasta is supposed to be all about.

The collection of stories though gives me mixed feelings: while all the author successfully created a series of short stories that make the scare factor grow, I can't help but find some of them a little generic with their ups and downs, and the fact that only one was long while the others were shorter and lacking was a bit of a problem, too.

The Rake is a well-crafted and genuinely creepy story, and may be one of the best classic Creepypastas to exist. But like all pieces of literature, it is not perfect. Now remember; you are entitled to your own opinion. If you believe The Rake is the most amazing thing ever created since sliced bread, that's perfectly fine.

My overall score of the story, 8/10.