I want to start out by saying that I don’t know what this thing is. All I know is that I don’t want it around me. And I can guarantee that you wouldn't, either.
Regarding a brief background, I bought my house recently. Nothing special, just a medium sized place located in a relatively safe suburb. I have a girlfriend (Lara), but she doesn’t live with me for personal reasons. At the moment, I’m here by myself.
I’m painting the situation because this is the kind of place where kids would go trick or treating. Not some decrepit apartment building. Not some house in the middle of nowhere. Right here, in suburban America.
The first time that it came was four days ago, at around 9 PM. I was sitting in my office, working on a document, when I heard a knock at my door and the characteristic little kid voice saying “Trick or Treat!” Not some weird, demonic tone, it sounded exactly like a regular, upbeat kid.
I just brushed it off as some fundraising thing and decided not to open the door. I was extremely busy, after all. Out of curiosity, I peeked out my window, watching as the "kid" - dressed up in some kind of a grim-reaper costume, walked down the street.
Off the bat, there were two weird things about this. First of all, there were no adults with him. I didn’t get a look at his face, but there was no way he was older than five. Second of all… he didn’t knock on any other doors. I watched as he walked past every other house until disappearing at a turn.
Despite the obscurity of this, it was still a pretty sad sight. But nothing that I thought about for too long. It didn’t come back again until the following night. And this is where the detour to"Hell fucking no" territory begins.
I was out with Lara, and we were both drunk when we got back. It was late as hell, so we just decided to put on a horror movie before heading off to bed.
About halfway into the film, I heard a knock at the door. An upbeat “Trick-or-Treat” followed. Lara was quick to react.
“What the fuck?” I remember her whispering to me. I hadn’t told her about the first time it happened. I didn’t deem it noteworthy, after all. I looked at her without saying anything and just put a finger up to my lips. It was barely even a conscious decision. It almost felt instinctive at the time.
I got up from the couch and made my way over the door. Quietly, I looked through the peephole, seeing the same "thing" in the grim reaper outfit from before. It was wearing a mask, so I still couldn’t see its face. I really wanted to ignore it. But at the time, I just thought it was a kid, you know? Not to be rude, but what if he wasn’t right or something?
In any case, I (reluctantly) opened the door. It didn’t move or say anything at first, so I asked it something along the lines of “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
No response. Alright then.
I turned around to face Lara and asked what she was thinking. No response from her either. In fact… she looked horrified.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t look at it.” Was her immediate response. “Close the fucking door!” She screamed.
Her sudden outburst made me jump, but I did what she said. “What the hell was that?” I asked her.
She shook her head, still sporting the same horrific expression. “I don’t know.” She said.
I looked back through the peephole, but the only thing that I saw was the kid walking away, back towards me.
I spent the night trying to convince her to just tell me what she’d seen, but her response was always the same. “I don’t know.”
At a point, she just screamed at me to stop. “I told you, alright! I. Don’t. Know.”
That was all that I could get out of her. She just “didn’t know.” Whatever the hell that meant. She left immediately the next morning, and it was pretty obvious to me that she wasn’t coming back for a while. I did get a parting text from her, though:
“If it comes back, don’t open the door.”
Safe to say, I was reasonably disturbed. Was she playing a prank on me? Seems rather elaborate, if you ask me. That couldn’t be it. She’d never done anything like that before. Besides… she seemed genuinely terrified. But… it was the only explanation that I could muster up at the time. So I went with it.
Whenever I would talk to her after that, she never brought it up. I thought that she was just trying to pretend like she had nothing to do with it, and had something bigger planned for me later on. I decided to go along with it as well.
The following night came and I mentally prepared myself for anything that she was intending to pull. I decided to stay in, in order to get some work done. It was around midnight, and I was ready to head downstairs to play some Xbox before bed. And then I heard it.
Knock knock. “Trick or treat!”
Now, if Lara was the one doing this, then she would’ve wanted me to ignore it. But, I could catch her off guard if I actually opened the door, right? The kid was probably one of her cousins or something. Weird that she’s making him stay out so late, but hey, anything to scare me, I suppose.
I looked through my peephole, once again seeing the grim reaper costume. I forced myself to laugh.
“What’s Lara paying you, kid?” I jokingly asked him through the door.
What a mistake that was.
“Trick or treat!” The statement was repeated, louder this time. It caught me so off guard, but I couldn’t place why. And then I thought about it. The words didn’t seem to have come from the kid’s mouth, but from more of a general area behind him, if you get what I’m saying.
I didn’t react, continuing to look through, having no idea what to anticipate.
“TRICK OR TREAT!” It was deafening the third time. I was jolted backwards, before scrambling onto the couch.
What the hell? I thought to myself. I remained stiff for the next few moments, petrified at whatever the hell was standing on my doorstep. I waited and waited, but nothing happened. I was about to go back up to my room when I saw the police lights flashing outside.
They rang my doorbell and started asking me questions.
“Have you seen anything disturbing recently?”
“Well, I think some kids are playing a prank on me, but not really.”
What was I supposed to say to him?
When I asked him why he’d come, he responded by telling me that the neighbor had called in, saying that she’d seen something “horrible” standing at my door. No descriptions beyond that. Just something horrible. The cop eventually decided that the woman was just off her rocker, but to call if anything else happened. I thanked him and he left.
The next day, I rang my neighbor’s doorbell, hoping to get some answers. I could hear somebody moving around inside, but nobody ever came. Looks like she didn’t want to tell me anything, either.
I relayed what happened to Lara, and she was understandably shocked. If this was a prank, then there was no way that she wasn’t going to call it off at this point.
This brings me up to yesterday night. I can safely say now that this was never a prank.
I was in a cab, coming home late after a night out at the bar with some work friends. As we pulled up to my house, I was preparing to drunkenly stumble out when the driver said something that froze my blood.
“Who’s standing at your door there?”
I didn’t turn to face what he was referring to.
“Keep driving.” I told him. He started to ask me what was going on, but I cut in immediately. “Just keep driving.”
But the guy just wouldn’t fucking go.
“What'd you mean go? It’s some kid! It’s almost 1AM, what’s he doing out here? Look, we have to call some-“
He stopped mid-sentence. My head was still facing away from whatever the hell was standing at my door, but I could hear the driver’s breathing begin to tense.
I heard him mutter out “F…F…Fuck” before he slammed the gas. I barely had time to react, my head slamming the seat as he took off. I looked over, witnessing his traumatized expression as he sped away.
“What’d you see?” I yelled at him. All that he responded with was incoherent babbling. At moments, I could make out “No… didn’t… see.” in his speech.
I was so focused on trying to get him to talk that I didn’t even notice where we were going. Suddenly, I felt the impact. He’d driven us off the road, into a local wooded area. I’d put my seatbelt on, so I was mostly fine. The driver was knocked unconscious, though.
I dialed 911 and told them what had happened. Well… not exactly what happened. Just something that they would believe. That the driver had gone insane and driven us into a tree.
At first, they set their suspicions on me. No surprise there. But that premise was wiped out when the driver woke up, babbling the same shit he’d been babbling in the car. Nobody got any answers out of him. He remained in a petrified, incoherent state. They tested him for drugs/alcohol. Nothing. Eventually, he was whisked away for some psychological tests.
While I was getting treated for my minor head wound, a detective visited me. He told me that there were signs of a break-in at my house, called in at around 1:30 AM. The window in my basement had been smashed, and my front door had been left wide open.
In the morning, I went back and looked everything over. It was indeed a mess. My Xbox and laptop were on the ground, and the cash that I'd hidden in my drawer looked like it’d been thrown across my living room, with bills scattered everywhere.
But with all that said… nothing had actually been taken. Beyond the window in the basement, nothing really needed to be fixed, either. It looked as if whoever was here was in the process of stealing my shit when they dropped everything and ran out the front door. That was the law enforcement’s conclusion, anyway. Not very logical, but logic isn't something that I expect at this point.
I have a feeling that something else happened. Something far worse.
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Credits
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