Before I start retelling this particular experience, I want to preface it my reason for posting. This happened some years back, and I've always been quick to push it off and try and forget about it, but a conversation I had recently inspired me write my story out so people with more experience of paranormal/supernatural phenomena might tell me what I witnessed, if anything.
This all takes place in North-Western Montana during the late autumn of 2009.
Apologies for spelling and grammatical errors. I wrote it all down in one sitting.
When I was seventeen I moved out of my parents and in with a coworker (who I'll call John) in his trailer. We got along well at work and we'd been part of the same weekly D&D group for awhile. It was actually one of the better roommate situations I've ever had in terms of compatibility, and we became close friends during that time. We were roommates until shortly after I turned 18 and some personal stuff happened with my family. I ended up moving back in with them for awhile so I could help them cover some bills.
It took about three months for that situation to stabilize and I called this friend up about moving back out there. This was the first time I remember feeling something was off, though it's been so long I can't remember the details of the conversation. Just a sense of wrongness that lingered for awhile after I'd hung up the phone. The end result was that I was welcome to move back in, which I expected. I waited for a day off, and another friend, who I'll call Dave, came to help me move. Dave was another D&D pal from a different group, and we were figuring we'd show up and talk John into a one-shot session or something. So we loaded up all my stuff and drove out there, and it was a nightmare.
From the moment John opened the door, everything was wrong. I won't say John was a clean freak, but he tried to maintain his space, and he'd always insisted we clean up for company when I was living with him. I stood there open mouthed to see the thick layer of dust that coated nearly everything, and the longer I looked around the worse it got. There was a half-eaten plate of food turned to mold sitting on the table, both sinks in the kitchen were similarly moldy, and the air in the trailer stank, even beyond what I'd expect for some moldy dishes.
I was extremely taken aback by the state of the trailer, but the state of my friend was even more shocking. He worked at a bank, and had always kept himself clean, but now he looked like a wreck. He'd lost weight, his skin had an unhealthy waxy look to it, his hair was overgrown and greasy, and his body odor was terrible. His smell is the first thing that makes me think there's something really off about the situation. I've been playing D&D and doing other nerd stuff for a long time, and I'm sorry to say a lot of nerds don't have the best hygiene practices. Short story is I've been in the presence of some pretty pungent body odor in my life, and this was not like that.
It was almost the sickly sweet smell of something dead, but not quite. I've never smelled anything exactly like it, before or since. At this point during the encounter I'm at a general level of unease, and I didn't have any desire to go into the trailer, but John invites us and not wanting to be rude, I go in. At this point I'm thinking something crazy happened while I was away. John wasn't dating anyone, so I didn't figure this was a depression resulting from heartbreak, and we'd kept in touch okay after I first moved out, and even when that fell off a bit, I still heard from our mutual friends about the D&D sessions he was attending.
Regardless, despite having not heard anything about it, obviously something had happened. So, standing there in his dusty living room with Dave (Who is shooting my sideways looks the entire time) I ask John if everything is alright. After a full three seconds of silence he assures me everything is fine. Just that, doesn't try to explain the state of his house or anything, and weirder yet. He goes "You guys can crash out here." and just heads off to the back of the house.
I'd always known him to be a diligent host so this was odd to say the least, although basically nothing was going as I expected or remembered up to this point, so him ditching us in the living room of his nasty house was maybe the least weird thing. Now comes the part where I'm pretty glad Dave was there. To me, this nasty trailer was my home. I'd lived there for more than a year before my three month visit to my parents, and had a sense of belonging in the place which I think made me oblivious to things that were obvious to Dave.
Despite the state of things, and being left alone by my friend. I hadn't made any changes to the plan of living there. I set my stuff down and started getting ready to do some cleaning, but Dave stopped me and started point out things I hadn't noticed up to this point. The layer of dust was even an undisturbed across the entire living room and kitchen area except for the thin track from the front door to the hallway, leading to the back of the trailer.
Whispering to me Dave says
"Nothing in here has been used for a long time." and really looking around I realize he's right. The T.V, the computer, the couch and chairs. Dining table with it's rotten food. He hasn't so much as laid a hand on any of it for a month, possibly longer. Dave, almost as if he's sneaking, walks quietly into the kitchen to inspect the fridge. He points out a few thick patches of dust on the flatter surfaces of the fridge, but it's harder to tell here. The fridges metal handle had some dust, but it wasn't collected.
Stepping passed Dave, I reach out with one finger and popped the fridge open, and was gagging before I'd even opened the door enough to trigger the interior light. Throwing my arm across my face, and burying my nose in the crook of my elbow I opened the fridge about halfway, and it's top to bottom rotten food. I step back after a second, turning away and trying to suppress my urge to vomit.
After I take a moment to collect myself, Dave draws my attention to a half-gallon of milk he pulled out of the fridge. Indicating that it had expired three weeks prior. Personally I just wanted him to put everything back and close the fridge. More or less done playing dust detective. I basically shrug off every thing up to this point, clear some dust from the couch, get my laptop out and connect to the WiFi. We'd always paid for the best internet available.
After awhile Dave joins me, and we played World of Warcraft for a bit. Eventually he tells me he'll hang out for tonight, because I'm his ride and taking him back to his place and driving back to the trailer was a 90 minute round trip. To be clear I would've taken him home anyway, I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to hang out in a room with a giant stack of moldy dishes in the sink and a fridge full of rotten food. We played games on the computer for the next few hours and John never made a noise.
At one point Dave asked me where the bathroom was, and I told him at the far end of the Hallway, next to Johns bedroom. A low level of unease had been present since John first answered the door, and was becoming more apparent the longer we stayed. Normally I don't walk with my friends to the bathroom, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time. So I lead Dave down the hallway, flipping on the hallway light as we go, and covering my fingers in dust from the switch.
At this point I was actually starting to get annoyed with all of it. I don't normally have bad seasonal allergies, but all the dust we'd been stirring up had my nose itchy and half plugged. So on my way down the hallway, I think I'm gonna point Dave into the bathroom and knock on Johns bedroom door and confront him about the condition of the house, but halfway down the hallway I realize there's a hole in the floor outside the bathroom door. A jagged edged hole through which you can clearly see the dirt, cobwebs and shredded black plastic that used to cover insulation. A sigh, exasperated now with the weirdness. I point Dave into the bathroom and walk to the end of hallway where Johns room is.
I wonder briefly if he's asleep, as there's no light coming from under his door. The sun was setting, but it gets dark pretty early this time of year. Annoyed I knocked, loudly, and after a few seconds I heard a grunt from inside the room. I pop the door open and flip on the light. This is the point in time where it really starts to sink in for me how wrong this experience has felt. I take in the room in a glance and it's in much the same state as the rest of the house. Dust everywhere, except for the track from the door to the nearest side of the bed. The bed itself was terrible. The blankets and pillows were stained a deep yellow, almost black in places and John just lay on his bed with a thousand yard stare turned on the ceiling.
I forget entirely why I came to talk to John, because looking directly at him I felt the beginnings of a profound fear, which even at the time seemed like an odd feeling to have in that situation. My sickly looking, clearly depressed friend laying on his disgusting bed, paying not attention to me at all. John was not an intimidating guy, short, kinda chubby and baby faced, but in my gut I was afraid of him. I mumbled something about how I'd come to say goodnight, turned off the light and shut the door.
I turned around to find Dave kneeling by the hole in the floor (which, as I write this makes me wonder how long I stood in the doorway to Johns room. If I had to estimate from where I left Dave to saying goodnight to John only 15 seconds or so elapsed, yet he was already out of the bathroom.) As I approach Dave points at the edge of the hole, and tells me the wood along the edge is twisted upward, as if the hole was made from below. This part, I wish I could confirm to be true. I'm including it in my retelling of events because Dave did say it to me, but I did not take the time to inspect the edge of the hole myself. Right then I was at war with my own sense of fear that being in Johns presence had sparked. I just nodded to Dave and said
"We should get back to the living room" Fast forwarding a bit, I kind of came to my senses once we were back in the living room area and I had reopened my laptop. My sudden intense fear of John eased off and we played games for a few more hours before Dave said he wanted to rest his eyes. We shut everything down. I chilled out in a recliner, and Dave laid down on the couch. Positioned so he could look down the hallway.
I was too uneasy to sleep overall. After looking into Johns roomed I
had determined I wouldn't be living here after all. As much as I really
didn't like living with my parents anymore, it was preferable to
whatever John had going on. Quietly I told Dave that everything was all
wrong and explained a bit how John as I knew him would never let
anything get to this point.
We weighed out the possibilities, a
psychotic break, or maybe drugs. (it occurred to me more recently that I
should've considered the fact he might've been seriously ill). These
are all still possible explanations to his strange behavior, but my gut
tells me none of these are the answer.
After a while we lapse into silence and at this point I'm just waiting for the sun to come up, really starting to wonder why we haven't left already when Dave motions with his hand to get my attention. He kind of points towards the hallway and I turn my head slowly in the recliner to look, and after perhaps 15 or so seconds of staring hard into the darkened hallway I hear a slight creak from the darkness. A little while, and a few creeks later. I see Johns darkened silhouette standing just inside the hallway at the edge of the kitchen, and that deep sense of fear started to build in me again.
The only thing I can compare it to is once when out hiking alone, I ran right into a bear going the opposite way on the trail. I had bear spray on me, which I didn't end up using that time, but it was a terrifying experience, and if I'm being honest I've never really enjoyed hiking much since. Just standing across from that monster of a bear with nothing between us awakened a terror in me so deep seated that recalling the memory still gives me goosebumps.
Alternatively I've been face to face with a lot of crazy people and felt no such terror. I wasn't fearless when trying to avoid a knife wielding transient shouting gibberish at me, but it was a human threat if that makes sense. I realize I've segued pretty hard from my retelling of events, but I feel making this clear is paramount. Seeing John lurking in the darkness of that hallway inspired in me a state of fear so powerful I feel I have no choice, but to look for unconventional answers as to what happened to my friend. Because the only thing comparable to that gut feeling of dread my short, chubby, baby faced friend created in me was the time I ran into one of the largest terrestrial predators on the planet, by myself on his home turf, far and away from any help armed with nothing but a can of bear spray.
There was something wrong and dangerous going on that I can't justify analytically, but my instincts told me I was in danger in a way I'd never been prepared for. To fast forward this story to the end. We lay there in silence while he lurked in the hallway for hours. When I questioned Dave recently he tells me it was least two hours John stood there. Eventually, he crept back down the hallway to his bedroom, and quietly and quickly, we got our shit together, sneaked out to my car and left.
I did a little bit of follow up with our mutual friends afterward, but got the same story from all of them. One day he just stopped coming around. Later I heard from someone who spoke to his parents that he called them and said he was leaving town, and no one that I know has seen or heard from him since. I've mostly tried to forgot it all happened. For awhile I'd have panic attacks when I thought about it. I realize nothing overtly paranormal took place, so I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong place, but my gut tells me that something well out of the ordinary was taking place. If anyone has any insight I'd be happy to hear it, and if you need more details I'll answer questions to the best of my ability and if you don't believe me, I don't blame you.
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