...I think they're trying to scare me to death.
It all started with a cup of water. Every morning I wake up, climb out of bed, march downstairs, fill a tall glass with tap water and drink it. But this time, the water went down the wrong way. I started coughing. Sputtering. Almost choking. I set the glass down on the countertop, turned away and thumped my chest until the coughing stopped. But when I turned back, the cup of water was gone. I froze. Motionless. Only my eyes moved. Darting back and forth around the kitchen.
The air shifted, a subtle drift, as though something moved through with incredible speed. I stepped back from the countertop and… my heel bumped into something. I spun around. My heel had bumped into the glass of water; it tumbled over with a dull and clattering thud. Empty. Wary, I squat down, picked it up, and studied it. Turned it over in my hand like it was some strange, alien artifact. What just happened?
I called my sister to tell her what happened. She laughed. There must be a reasonable explanation, she said. Perhaps Dash, from The Incredibles did it? "Coincidence, I think NOT!" she teased. I laughed along. Maybe she was right. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation for it. Maybe I dropped the glass in my coughing fit, and it somehow landed upright. Crazier things have happened.
But of course, that wasn't the end of it. Little happenings like this became commonplace. Each event was slightly less explainable than the last. A building experience of uncanny madness. But still, I shrugged it off, tried to think of reasonable explanations. Tried to hand wave it all away...
But then, the 'cup trail incident' occurred. There was no reasonable explanation for the cup trail incident:
I snapped awake. 2:58 AM on a Tuesday. Bright light blinding into my dilated eyes. The lights were on. Somehow, the lights were on. A power surge, perhaps? I climbed out of bed, marched across the room, and froze. I froze because my bedroom door was open. But the door being open didn't bother me too much. What bothered me was the glass of half-empty water, sitting on the floor in the middle of the upstairs hallway. That bothered me for several reasons. Chief among them being: I didn't put it there.
I crept out into the hallway. The floor was uncharacteristically creaky tonight. I squat down, lifted the glass of water and…
Fingerprints. Fingerprints were fogged on the glass: dozens and dozens of fingerprints. I recoiled, dropping the glass. It thumped onto the carpet and spilled over, an expanding puddle of water absorbing into the carpet. I glanced back over my shoulder. A looming sense of unease climbed through my body. I pushed back to standing and…
…Another glass of water. Half-empty. Sitting at the top of the stairs. I walked forward. I looked down the stairs. Another one. Sitting halfway down the steps. A trail of half-empty cups. Should I just call the police? I reached for my phone instinctively, but it wasn't there. I always kept my phone in my pocket, even while I slept (don't ask). But now it was gone… It was gone, and somebody was hiding in my house. I looked back over my shoulder, down the hallway, towards my bedroom. Did it fall out of my pocket? Was it in my bed? Did I leave it on my bedside table? I was about to go look when…
Downstairs. Something BUZZED against hardwood floor. A quick one-two-three… one-two-three pattern. The distinct pattern I made for notifications; Somehow, my phone was downstairs. I turned back. Took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
My phone lay on the kitchen floor, buzzing around in lazy circles. I stepped over, picked it up, and flicked on the screen. Time to call the police. But I froze again. My eyes caught a push notification at the top of the screen, "New photo saved to cloud." I raised an eyebrow, tapped into it and…
My breath sucked out of my lungs like a vacuum. It was a photo of me, fast asleep. Taken at 2:57 AM. One minute before I woke up. A sickening swell of dread spiraled through me as everything piled up. The cups of water, the lights turning on, the phone being downstairs, and now… finally… the photo of me. The photo which somebody else had taken as I slept.
I dialed 911.
"911 where are you located?" a calming, almost serene voice answered.
I gave them my address.
"What's your emergency?" she replied.
"There's somebody in my house…"
"Are you in a room?"
"What?"
"Please get to a safe room and lock the door."
I bolted to the nearest washroom, slammed the door shut, and locked it. Maybe I should've just ran outside, but... what if they were waiting for me?
"Okay sir, are you safe?" said the voice on the other end.
"I… I…"
A door slammed shut. Somewhere upstairs.
"He's upstairs…" I said.
"Help is on the way. Focus on breathing. Breathe in."
I breathed in.
"Breathe out."
I breathed out.
"Breathe in…"
Upstairs, another door swung open and slammed shut. The intruder was searching now; Checking each and every room in order.
"Sir? Are you there...?"
"Y-yes…" I whispered. The slamming doors getting closer. One room at a time, getting closer. The final door upstairs slammed shut, and suddenly, a door downstairs swung open, and slammed shut. Were there multiple intruders? Either there were multiple intruders, or this person was impossibly fast.
"Sir?"
"He's… He's…"
"Sir… are you still in the bathroom?"
…the bathroom? How did they know I was hiding in the bathroom. I never told them I was hiding in the bathroom…
"Sir… are you there?"
The voice said again, but this time... I could hear it on the other side of the door too. I could hear the 911 operators voice inside my house. The intruder was talking to me on the phone. The intruder was somehow pretending to be a 911 operator. They were talking to me.
The bathroom doorknob jostled.
"Sir, open the door please," she said.
Dropping the phone, I wrapped my grip around the handle, pulled back with all my strength.
"Sir, please open the door..."
I didn't budge.
"Sir, open the door. Open the door, open the door," she kept repeating. Like a broken record. Like a pre-made recording. All the while pulling back at the doorknob, trying to get in.
The lights started turning on and off. On and off. A rapid cycle between light and dark, faster and faster.
"Sir, we can't help you if you don't open the door," she said, almost sounding on the verge of laughter now. "Sir? Are you there? Sir…?"
Suddenly, outside, around the corner, the front door burst open, "POLICE!" a baritone voice boomed.
Silence.
"Police?"
I remained quiet. I didn't trust it. Whatever I was dealing with didn't seem to play by the rules of reality. I wasn't going to fall for it. I remained silent. Hands gripped around the doorknob, I remained motionless.
"Hello?" said the deep voice, then the crackle of radio static, "I'm getting no response, requesting backup."
I hid in the bathroom for about an hour until they found me. The actual police found me. I was a nervous wreck, understandably so. Ranting and raving. Telling them about the woman on the phone, telling them about the cups of water on the floor.
They sent me in for psych eval and I was discharged a few days later. Of course, no one believed me. Even when I showed them the photo of me sleeping, no one believed me.
"There must be a reasonable explanation," they always said. "Perhaps you had a temporary psychotic breakdown…?" My sister theorized.
I moved out the next month. No way I was sticking around after that. In hindsight, I should've moved out earlier.
Now I'm living upstate, in a much smaller house. Less places for would-be intruders to hide. I have cameras set up everywhere, so this time, if anyone messes with me, I'll have the receipts. It's all connected to my phone too, so I can even check the cameras while at work. I might be a coward, but I'm not stupid.
So anyways, quite a few uneventful months had gone by since the cup trail incident. In fact, nothing else had even happened until tonight. I was even starting to wonder if perhaps my sister was right; Perhaps I had a momentary lapse in sanity…
But now… Now I'm lying on my bed, writing this on my phone. I can't move. I'm paralyzed with fear, and writing this is the only thing that even remotely calms me down. I'm paralyzed with fear because earlier, about one hour and twenty-three minutes ago to be exact. I got home from work late. I got home from work late and crawled right into bed. That was my first mistake. I broke my ritual; My daily ritual of checking all the cameras before entering the house, checking to see if any motion was recorded during the day. But I was tired, and it was late after work, and I just wanted to sleep. I'll check the cameras in bed, I thought. I'll just check the cameras in bed…
And of course, today, of all days, is the day something happened. What happened, you ask? Perhaps some of you already guessed. But I'll let you know regardless…
Nine hours and twenty-three minutes ago, the bedroom camera recorded motion. I watched the footage on my phone just twenty minutes ago. It was footage of me, mulling about the house, getting ready for work, and then leaving. I breathed relief. Of course, it was just me. You fool, you should've known. It was you. You threw off your schedule, and you were late, and the cameras detected you…
But then… thirty seconds after I had left. MOTION DETECTED: BEDROOM CAMERA. The footage appeared. My empty bedroom. Dark. I squinted. Nothing. Suddenly, in the footage, the lights flicked on. Still nothing. They flicked on and off and then… Then I saw something that filled me with a fear far beyond anything I'd ever felt. A fear far beyond anything I even knew was possible:
When the lights flicked back on, a person appeared. A person standing in the middle of my room, with pin-straight posture, hands over their face like someone playing peekaboo. The footage fast-forwarded on its own now. Shadows drifting across the wall as the sun outside moved downward. But the person just stood there motionless. Motionless as the world sped by. Hands covering their face.
The footage snapped back to real-time. Thirty seconds before I arrived home. The person slightly perked up, hearing my arrival. Then, hands still covering their face, they dropped to their knees. In one smooth, almost robotic motion, they fell to their side, and rolled under the bed. They rolled under the bed. They rolled under the bed that I was currently lying on. The bed which I am laying on right now… Manically typing on my phone in the dark.
"Just beat them up lol, I would," I can almost hear the very badass readers among you writing in the comments below.
"Call 911?" I hear the good faith worriers among you thinking.
But seriously? Call 911? After what happened last time? Call 911?
Either way, I figure this is the last thing I'll ever post; So I hope you got some enjoyment out of reading about my imminent demise.
-William Creston
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