The Rake
is the subject of a creepypasta regarding a murderous human-esque creature that has appeared numerous times. Not to be confused with the landscaping tool, The Rake's name comes from one particular case of an attack by this thing, in which a dying girl (hurt by the beast) simply called him by this name.
The Rake has a voice that instills terror to go with his appearance. It's entirely possible that there may be more than one, but let's not think about that.
A film based on this creature was released in 2018.
Associated tropes:
- Apocalyptic Log: Every witness account of the creature given in the story can qualify as this.
- Beast Man: A really creepy variant; he's some sort of freakish, furless dog-man.
- Black Eyes of Evil: Or white eyes (as pictured above).
- Body Horror: His body is said to look twisted and unnatural, as if he was hit by a car.
- Break Them by Talking: Whenever he's not killing, he's doing this to his victims.
- Crossover: Many more recent creepypastas like to involve both the Rake and the Slender Man.
- Death of a Child: In the original pasta, one of the Rake's victims was a young child.
- Driven to Suicide: One of the Rake's victims chose to hang himself rather than let the Rake get to him.
- Foil: The Rake and the Slender Man are near complete opposites of each other—Slender Man is a Humanoid Abomination that prefers to let teleporting and tentacle summoning do the killing for him, wears a suit, stands tall and silent at all times and has no clear motive to speak of. The Rake is an Animalistic Abomination that uses fearsome claws as weapons, is nude, has a mangled, hunched over appearance mixed with a savage persona and has the very clear motive of killing whatever he comes into contact with.
- Additionally, when he isn't trying to straight up murder you, he likes to whisper terrible secrets to you rather than engage in any kind of telepathic assault.
- Humanoid Abomination: Although whether he counts as an Eldritch Abomination is debatable.
- Animalistic Abomination: How others view him.
- Lovecraft Country: The original story gives the location as the northeast United States, centred on rural New York.
- Monstrous Humanoid: Just look at its picture.
- Really 700 Years Old: The earliest written record of an encounter with the monster dates from 1691.
- Sanity Slippage: He instills fear in his victims while still in the stalking phase, causing them to experience this trope.
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Rake.
- Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: Apparently knows a lot of interesting, horrible things, as well as knowing future events. When he's not trying to kill you immediately, he may be happy to share some. In Whispered Faith he actually controls a cult by tempting them with his secrets.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Actually averted in most cases, though he has the potential to be this way.
- The Unintelligible: His voice is sometimes portrayed as this.
- Urban Legend: Much like the Slender Man, he was made to become this.
