The Red Man

  

There was a man who watched me sleep. He had big eyes that seemed like it was protruding out of his eye sockets. He had rotting red skin like it was soaked in blood and then caramelized.

I first saw him when I was seven. I was having a hard time sleeping that night but I kept my eyes shut. The wind was cold. I could feel it creeping on my skin. It was laundry day today and mom didn't have a spare blanket. The window made a faint thumping noise whenever the wind blew. Thump. I should've closed it properly. Thump... But it's fine, the broken street light outside made a constant buzzing noise I really liked. I need to sleep. I could hear the television from the living room faintly. Mom probably fell asleep on the couch again. I really need to sleep.

I was a light sleeper. Anything could wake me up... I guess even the absence of the thumping. The wind wasn't howling against the window anymore. Maybe mom closed the window as I slept. I rubbed my eyes and shifted on the other side when I noticed a shadow on my wall.

There he was... smiling. He was the oddest thing I have ever set my eyes on. I remember my hands shaking that night as I looked at him. I waited for him to enter my room and hurt me but he didn't, he didn't move at all. His eyes didn't blink, not once. I waited for him to speak but he never made a sound. I remember feeling frightened that night, what I don't remember is how I fell asleep again.

There was a man who watched me sleep. He had a weird set of teeth. It was as if each tooth belonged to somebody else's before it grew on his gums. His eyes were more bulged the second time I saw him. He almost looked like a different person.

I was nine at that time. Mom made me stop going to school. She never told me why but I could sense that I made people feel uneasy. My classmates rarely talked to me. But when they do, they would keep their distance. They didn't want me there. I got used to it. I didn't care.

Mom hired a teacher who went to our house every weekday. His name was Dr. Fleece. I liked him. He would always look at me in the eye when he listened to my stories. He liked the red man most.

One afternoon, after my class with Dr. Fleece, mom called and told me to stay over at my cousin's place. My cousin's name was Yda, she was two years older than me. She was the only person I considered my friend. I quickly packed my things and mom drove me to her house. Yda's bed faced the window just like mine. I wonder...

It was around 11 when Yda fell asleep. She spent hours talking about how her school life was, her friends, and the boy she liked. I pretended to understand and made up stories of my own. Mom didn't like it when I tell our relatives that I was homeschooled.

It was quiet in Yda's neighborhood. It wasn't windy that night, there was no broken street light, and her mom turned off the television around 9:30. The sounds that stood out were the constant ringing you hear when everything is quiet, and the faint tick of Yda's wristwatch. My body stiffened. I was falling asleep.

Yda's arm on my face woke me up. I immediately saw the silhouette by the window. He was here again. His smile was even wider now, I could easily see how dark and dirty his gums are. My chest throbbed vigorously, I was unsure if it was fear or excitement. I can't remember how I fell asleep again but when I opened my eyes, it was morning. The red man was gone.

I enthusiastically told Dr. Fleece the same morning. He listened intently. I told him how the red man got thinner and how impossible it is that his eyes were still intact. He asked me if I was afraid. I remember nodding and then doubting my answer.

There was a red man who watched me sleep. I don't know his name. I don't know why he bothers to visit me. He watches me from midnight until I fall asleep, I know because I watched him back. The red man never blinks or moves. He was just... there, staring with his mouth wide open in a cheek-splitting grin.

Dr. Fleece made a bad decision that day. After our class, he told mom about the red man. Since then he didn't come back to teach me. I waited for him, he was my favorite teacher, but he never came back. Maybe I scared him away. I do that to people.

One evening, mom decided to sleep in my room. I was reading one of the books Dr. Fleece gave me when she entered. It was the first time I've seen her that way. I could see that she was scared of me too. After dinner, I did my chores and went to bed. Mom was already there. She brought her own blanket and pillow. She was skimming through the books Dr. Fleece left for me. I sat beside her. Since then, mom slept in my room.

I only knew that I had fallen asleep when I woke up in the middle of the night. The red man was there again, watching me. His eyes were glued to my face. But... he wasn't smiling tonight. I wonder why. He seemed different again. I was eleven this time, I don't even feel scared anymore. I was used to him. The red man's company was nice. Since the fear of him faded, I always get to sleep well at night. He made me feel safe.

There was a man who watched me sleep. He never moves or blinks. He just stares at me. Two years have passed since I last saw him. But I could always feel that someone was watching over me. Mom still sleeps beside me but I didn't mind. The red man watches over her too. It was nice to have company in the darkness.

One night, I woke up feeling thirsty. I looked at the window first and I felt a sense of disappointment when I found no friend there. I quietly left my room and walked in the darkness of our hallway. My eyes adjusted quickly and I found my way to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and took the pitcher of water out. I poured cold water into the glass. I saw the clock as the last light from the fridge faded. It was midnight. A smirk appeared on my face as I walked back to the room. A few steps before I reach my room, an ear-piercing scream startled me. The glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor. I ran back to the room. Panting, I opened the door and saw mom standing behind the bed. She was trembling. Her eyes were fixated on my window.

The red man was there, bloodier than ever. He was smiling this time. The red man... He- He resembled Dr. Fleece. He had the same red rotting skin but he had Dr. Fleeces's eyes. I know because of the way it looked at me. Mom kept screaming, asking our neighbors to call the police. I tried to keep her calm, assuring her that the red man won't harm us. But she was frantic, she called the police and left me in the room with him.

"I'm sorry." I murmured, feeling embarrassed by how my mom was reacting. The red man didn't respond. After calling the police, my mom dragged me out of the room. She made me explain why I was so calm and I told her everything. I peeked into my room, he was still there. Mom hugged me and brushed my hair with her hand. She told me that everything was going to be okay. I didn't understand why she was trying to comfort me, there was no need to.

The police arrived minutes after. I watched them examine the red man from my room. Mom was busy talking to them so I snuck in. They were outside and I was watching behind my bed. A cop with gloves placed his palms by the red man's head. My eyes grew wide as I saw this happening. I was about to stop him when mom ran back to the room. She pulled me away and tried to cover my eyes but it was too late. The police pulled out the red man's head. A head... from a makeshift pole outside my window.

Turns out, my friend was a severed head. Four severed heads. They were the ones who watched me while I slept. The police said that everything clicked when they saw the head by my window. Since 2006, the police have been getting calls of occurrences like this. I didn't know how mom wasn't aware of this. It wasn't only me who's been through this. One kid who was three years younger than me had been saying the same thing. He had his own red men but his mom thought that he was only imagining them until he disappeared two weeks ago. She was also a single mother. Mom broke down after that. We moved a week later. And even though it was a new house, she didn't enter my room anymore. The red man never visited again.

There wasn't a man who watched me sleep. It turned out I've been staring back at decapitated heads since I was a child. My friend doesn't exist.

I'm fourteen now, I barely think of the red men. I'm doing fine now. New school. I also made a few friends. They started talking to me because they recognized me from the news. They would always want to hear about the red men. I would politely decline.

It was midnight when I heard mom turn off the television. I was having a hard time falling asleep lately. My therapist gave me an assignment. She said that I should try recalling my earliest memory. I've been thinking about it for a few days now and it would always bring me back to when I was five or six. I was in our old house, staring outside the window with my hand pressed on the glass. There were red and blue lights coming from outside. I remember feeling sad.

A rattling outside stopped my train of thought. The hairs on my limbs started to rise from anticipation. I stared at the window, waiting for the --- meow. I fluffed my pillow and closed my eyes, disappointed.

I dreamed of my earliest memory. I've been thinking about it too much that it reached my subconscious. It was still the same thing, it was my younger self staring at something outside my window with my palm pressed against the glass. But something new happened, when the red and blue lights completely faded, a large masculine hand pressed against mine from the other side of the glass. It lingered there as I smiled. When the hand retracted, I was waving goodbye.

A knock.

I woke up abruptly when I felt something wet touch my toes. I flinched and sat on the bed. Why does my room smell like rust? When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, I saw a child's head on the foot of my bed. My sheets were already soaked dark red. The child was smiling. There were pins and threads poking out of his cheeks to keep it that way. My first thought was it looked messy before I started fixing him.

There was a man who watched me sleep. He chopped up people's heads and placed them by my window. And now, he entered my bedroom and placed a little boy's head on the foot of my bed. I should be scared right now, but I'm not. I've always liked the gifts.

A hand knocks on the window.

 

---

 

Credits

My Final Call As A Police Dispatcher Has Scarred Me

  

I’d worked as a police dispatcher for 9 years of my life. It’s a career that takes a level of mental fortitude that I don’t think many possess. I used to hate saying stuff like that, always thought it sounded so pretentious, but the truth is it takes a special type of person to be willing to voluntarily listen to some of the things we have to hear every single day. Don’t get me wrong, the job wasn’t always grim, and it even had its decent moments; I’ve got enough decently funny drunk 911 call stories to last me several lifetimes, though the reality of the job was usually far darker.

I understood that, though, and felt that I was more than equipped to deal with anything the job could throw at me. I was right, for a while. For years I had answered every call, always able to keep a steady head despite being faced with some horrific situations, my confidence in my ability to handle the job unwavering.

Until the final call, I ever took as a police dispatcher.

...

I glanced at the time displayed at the corner of my computer screen. 11:43. I yawned, leaning backward in my chair with my arms extended, as I stretched my back.   I'd been at the desk since 3 in the afternoon, answering calls and dispatching officers as they were needed, which wasn't very often in this town. I lived in a little port town in Washington, about an hour or so out of Seattle, and though we weren't without our fair share of crime, our phones never rang off of the hook, which meant a lot of free time for me.

I was always okay with that. As soul-wrenching as many of the calls could be, moments of respite were always more than welcome. 

A notification on my screen caught my attention, and in an instant, I had returned to my seat, headset on.

"911, what is your emergency?", I spoke into my headset as automatically as any line repeated hundreds or thousands of times can be spoken. 

For a moment, the line was only dead silence before I heard a reply.

“I need policemen. I think somebody is in my house?”, a child whispered from the other line.

I felt the smallest of knots beginning to form in my stomach. I shifted in my seat.

“Do you know your address?” I asked, adopting a firm, but lighter tone in response to the caller’s age.

I heard shuffling and heavy breathing from the other end, followed by a faint ‘Wait.’

The caller returned and whispered their address. She was a little girl, by the sounds of her voice, and she sounded scared. 

“Good job, what about your phone number?”

The process repeated, and I quickly relayed her information to dispatched officers. Her address was on the edge of town, a little out of the way, and I understood that it may be a while before help arrived. I stifled a sigh, not wanting to vocalize my worry as I received an estimated arrival time.

“Is there an adult with you in the house?”, I continued.

“No,” the little girl replied breathlessly, and I could hear the anxiety rising in her voice as she spoke. “My mom works late, and my sister i-” there was a pause, followed by an audible sniffle. 

“She’s camping with her friends, and- “

Somewhere on her end of the line, there was a crash. Then a scream. My heart dropped. 

"Are you still there? Are you alright?"

There was a repetitive thumping sound followed by the slam of a door. 

"I'm here." The little girl spoke breathlessly into the phone. 

"Are you alright?" I repeated the question. 

"Yes," was all she replied, barely above a whisper. Her tone worried me. She sounded more than afraid. Sad? No, disturbed was the proper word for it. 

Then she began to cry. Not as quiet as you would expect given her situation, but a deep helpless sob that made my heart sink. When she spoke, it stopped altogether.

"Please. Please, please, Help me.", her sobs turned into a hysteric cry and I could hear loud repetitive thumps from her end.  Footsteps and they were clearly not hers. They were heavy, far too heavy for a little girl. Without warning a shrill cry, like the sound of microphone feedback, rang through my headsets. The sudden assault on my ears caused me to jump, and my heart set off to racing like a jackrabbit. I fought the instinct to throw the headset off and instead clenched my eyes shut as the noise faded as suddenly as it had come. 

“I saw it,” she sputtered through sobs, “Oh please, please, I don’t know what it is!” 

The frantic and frenzied nature of her begging increased, and a strangeness began to settle in the air that I couldn’t quite place. A quick glance around the room confirmed that most of the desks around me were empty, and I was on the call alone. The thought made me feel very isolated, and a growing uneasiness continued to take hold of me that I couldn't place. Something about the call just felt wrong. 

"Police are on the way," I began. I tried to infuse the statement with my usual level of assertiveness and confidence, but I worried that the uneasiness may be audible in my voice.

"Can you tell me your name?" I asked.

"Amber." 

"Alright Amber, are you or can you get somewhere safe? A room with a door you can lock?"   "I'm in my room," she said through sniffles, and it was obvious that she had been crying profusely. "I-I locked the door."

"Good, I'm gonna stay with you on the line, is there anywhere for you to hide?" 

The sound of footsteps grew in the background, as her voice lowered to a whisper. 

“I think...under the bed…” she whimpered.

“Okay, is there-” I paused, thinking over my words before continuing, “anything you can use to protect yourself?”

There was silence on her end for a moment, followed by a hushed “yes”, as she dropped the phone, I assumed to get a weapon.

The clamor from within the house had grown closer to the phone, and the piercing ringing sound had returned. I was almost certain there had to be something wrong with my headset or with Amber’s phone, and the sound grew to an almost unbearable extent, matched only by deafening thuds from somewhere on the phone. It sounded too close. I could feel the hairs begin to rise on the back of my neck, and the ominous sense of panic began to give way to an unexplained fear. 

The urge to look over my shoulder grew harder to fight,  as the persistent thudding sound grew louder. Nearer. It all sounded too clear, I guess. There was no static, none of the white noise typical of a phone call...nothing. 

Just the sound of footsteps approaching closer. Closer. I gave in to my instinct, whipping around in my seat, nearly losing my headset. No one. I had no time to settle my nerves, as Amber returned to the line.

"Are you there?" She whispered, yanking me from my fog and back into the moment. 

"Y-yes," I replied. I struggled to shake off my fears. Something was very wrong with this situation. Despite my worries, I shifted my attention back to Amber.

“I- there isn’t any weapon,” the girl muttered, “but, I have something..”

There was a pause.

“O-ok, what do you have?” I asked, realizing my prompt was necessary.

“Uh, a rabbit. A pink rabbit,” she said, and even over the phone, I could hear a little embarrassment. 

“My dad gave her to me when I was little,” she sniffled. “He - he said she would keep me safe.”

I didn’t know what to say for a moment but didn’t want to miss a beat.

“He was right,” I said, as encouragingly as I could. “Everyone knows pink bunnies are great protection. Can you go back under-”

I was interrupted. 

“Amber, I miss you.” I could hear a man call from within the house. So the intruder knew her? 

I furrowed my brow.

“Amber, do you recognize that voice?” I asked, hoping she could identify the intruder. There was silence for a moment, before her response. 

“It..it sounds like my dad..why does it sound like my dad?”

I blinked. 

“What do you mean?”

“That’s my daddy’s voice! Why does it have my daddy’s voice!?” 

I didn’t know how to respond to that, hell I didn’t know what to think about. Had his voice? Before I could ask what she meant, we were interrupted by a sound. 

The thing we heard has taken me years to try to understand. I’ve come to believe it was that...things laugh. At the time, though, we couldn’t know. It was the sound of metal crunching in a car accident as it met flesh, a wet, grinding shriek that shook me to my core. I wanted to vomit, and my vision began to blur...I can only imagine what it was like for Amber, hearing that all in person. 

“A-amber,” I panted, my senses returning to me all at once. She barely had time to respond, before we heard it. A voice, or voices, calling for her from somewhere nearby. They spoke as one, all with the same odd inhumane nature, dripping with malintent. 

“Ammmber,”   My blood froze. Amber began to cry, and her cries eventually becoming pleas, as she begged for help, her life, her mother, and my intervention. 

“5, 5 more minutes. Just five more minutes.” I muttered, mentally cursing the timer which displayed the estimated arrival time of the dispatched officers. 

I prayed it would be soon enough.

“It’s..outside..the room,” she whispered, her voice one of utter panic, before breaking into a quiet sob.

I silently swore under my breath. 

“Amber, I need you to hide right now if possible. The police are three minutes away. Stay as quiet as possible.” 

There was no response, but I assumed from the shuffling sounds I could hear that she had gone back under the bed. 

For a few moments there was silence, then Amber spoke, and my heart dropped.

“I’m going to die.” 

“You are not going to die, Amber,” I began, worry now audible in my voice, “I promise.”

“I..it’s reaching under the door… I...oh my god.. ” she muttered. 

There was a crash, louder than before, and Amber began to shriek. The noises continued, and it began to dawn on me what I was hearing. It was breaking down the bedroom door. Amber’s screams had devolved into horrified babbling and pleas for her life to...whatever was on the other side of the door. Her screams were soon drowned out by the same noise as before, that sick fucking laughter. 

“What are you?!” Amber shrieked, loud enough to make my ears ring. “Please! WHAT ARE YOU!” 

“What are you?!” it mocked, in a voice that was some sick parody of Amber’s. 

Panic gripped me as I glanced back at the corner of the monitor displaying the dispatched units’ arrival time. 1:36. Please god, let it be soon enough.

“Amber, are you there?” I called, “Amber?”

As suddenly as it had started, everything went silent. Somewhere in the distance, I heard sirens.  

“I hear them, Amber! Officers are a minute away!”

Silence. My heart began to sink. “Amber, are you there?” 

I could hear something shifting. Breathing.

“I..I think it’s gone,” Amber said. 

A surge of relief rolled through me, and I let out a sigh and leaned back in the chair. 00:27, the dispatch time read, and the sirens in the background grew louder. 

“You did very well, Amber. Police are almost there. You did really well.” I couldn’t think of what else to say. I’d never had a call like this, and something about it all felt so strange. Something Amber had said began to ring in my mind.

‘What are you?’

“Amber,” I began, “what did you see?” 

I was met with silence.

“Amber?”

Amber began to laugh. 

“Amber...” I said, my voice pleading. A wave of realization crashing down on me. 

The laughter grew more raucous and less human with every second. Somewhere in the background, there was a knocking sound. They’d finally arrived, too late.

I asked the only thing I could think at the moment. 

“Why?”

The laughter stopped abruptly, as the thing on the phone spoke.

“It..was fun.”

There was a click, and the line went dead.

...

The house was empty when officers arrived. No signs of forced entry anywhere except the door to Amber’s bedroom, the bottom of which had been torn away by something leaving a wide space to crawl beneath. And Amber...or what was left of her decorated the room. Whatever had been there left nothing behind to identify it, only carnage. 

The case was never officially closed, and everyone had their theories as to what had happened that day, ranging from serial killers to a bear attack, and everything in between. The call was never made public, not my decision, but not one I necessarily complained about either. I never want to hear that recording again. I put in my two weeks’ notice that same night, though I never returned to work after that day.

I’d been content to try and forget about that call. As callous as it may sound I was content trying to forget about Amber, to forget..whatever I had spoken to on that phone, but I don’t think it’s done with me. Last night I dreamed..or had thought I was dreaming the sounds of footsteps running throughout my house, as something screeched and laughed and mocked me just outside my bedroom door. I stayed in my bed long into the morning despite the sounds having stopped, paralyzed by a mixture of fear and confusion, until eventually, I convinced myself to leave the bed. I crossed the room, cursing every creak the floor made under my weight. I lowered myself to the ground, holding my breath as I peered under my bedroom door. There was something there, but it wasn’t moving. I mustered up the little bravery I had left, and rose to my feet, my eyes shut tight and a prayer on my lips.

I pulled open my bedroom door slightly and stuck my head out just enough to see what lay outside. I stifled a gasp, and tears flooded my eyes as I bent over to pick up the object. 

Placed right outside my door was a little pink bunny, covered in dark stains. From somewhere within the darkness just beyond the bedroom door, Amber’s laughter echoed. 

---

Credit: r/SetiStories

My Sugar Daddy

  

His Tinder profile said he was 45, but he looked to be in his early thirties at most.

Looking for a sugar baby. $700 weekly. No sex.

It sounded too good to be true, but, as a broke university student, I was willing to take my chances. I swiped right, and Tinder let me know it was a match. His message came seconds later.

Hey, there sweetheart :)

I cringed at that word, I hated it, but seven hundred dollars was seven hundred dollars, so I sucked it up and replied.

Hey ;)

His name was Jack, and he told me he owned his own business, although he never specified what kind of business it was. We talked for a while before he asked me for my Venmo to send me the first payment.

After a few minutes, I got the notification. I stared at the $700 for at least twenty minutes, expecting to wake up from a dream at any second. But it wasn’t a dream.

You still there?

I clicked on the message.

Yeah. Sorry. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you looking for in return?

I stared at the chat until he replied.

I’m just looking for you to do a few favors for me :)

That sounded like it was going to be sexual to me.

Like what?

For example, the first thing I need you to do is pick up a delivery for me.

That sounded innocent enough, but I was still expecting there to be some kind of twist. Seven-hundred dollars to pick up a package? Come on, even I wasn’t that naive.

From the post office or something?

No. I’ll send you the address, but I’d rather not do this through Tinder. You got Kik? Or you can give me your number.

Kik? What was this, 2011? I decided to give him my number instead, and he texted me the address immediately, followed by the address to his house, where I would have to drop off the package.

I’m not home right now, but there’s a key on the bottom of the blue flower pot near the door. Go inside and put the package on the coffee table in the living room. Make sure that you lock the door when you go inside the house, and then lock it again when you leave.

I grabbed my car keys and wallet and got into my car, putting the address into Google maps.

Got it! Omw.

My phone buzzed as I backed out of my driveway.

I’m serious. Lock the door BOTH times. Please.

I thought that was a little excessive, but I promised him that I would.

The house looked abandoned. It had a broken chain link fence around it, with a small door that was hanging onto dear life. It stuck out like a sore thumb, surrounded by houses that were a lot nicer than this one in comparison.

“You here for Jack’s shit?”

I looked up to see a man standing in the open doorway of the house. He took up almost the entire space, his head skimming the top of the door frame. He was huge; in height and muscles, and his entire torso was covered in tattoos.

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” I replied, not moving from my spot on the sidewalk.

“Stay right there.” He said.

I did. I actually don’t think I would have moved if he had asked me to. I looked around and realized that there was no one else on this street. I was a twenty-one-year-old woman alone in the street. I gripped my car keys.

A few minutes later, the man came back out carrying a cardboard box. It was about the size of a shoebox, but stained and damp on some of the corners.

“Can you open your car?” He asked.

I opened the trunk, not wanting that inside on my car seats and he set it in.

“Alright, there you go.” He said.

“Thanks.” I replied.

I walked around to the driver's side of the car and opened the door.

“Oh, and one more thing!” He said.

I looked at him.

“Watch out.” He said.

I didn’t reply.

I blasted my music as I drove to Jack’s house, hoping it would drown out my anxiety. It didn’t.

I parked my car in the stone driveway and stayed inside the car, admiring the house.

It was a huge house; with stone pillars on the front porch, and the greenest grass I had ever seen in my life. I turned the car off and got out. I grabbed the package, and walked to the front door, getting the key from where he said it would be.

I opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind me.

I thought about what he had said, about locking the door when I got inside. I thought that was a little overboard, but as I stared at the closed door something made me reach out and lock it.

I walked inside, my feet cushioned by the thick maroon carpet, and admired the inside of the house. All the furniture was wooden and looked incredibly expensive. I would probably finish school a dozen times with the money that it took to furnish this place.

I set the package down on the coffee table, and as I walked back to the door, I heard a phone ringing from somewhere inside the house. I froze.

In my pocket, my phone buzzed. I took it out to look.

Don’t answer any calls that aren’t from Marvin.

I put my phone back and followed the sound of the phone, poking my head into a few different rooms before I found it in an office.

I walked over to the desk and looked at the caller ID.

Incoming call from Jack.

That was odd.

I grabbed my phone to look at the message again. I was starting to get a little bit creeped out and decided I wouldn’t answer, just to be safe, and left the house, remembering to lock the door as I left.

I’ve done a few more favors for Jack since then. I drove a BMW to a random park in another city, only to get out and drive a different car back to Jack’s house. He had me meet one of his “employees” at lunch, who then gave me a briefcase to deliver to the first house I had gone to and told me he would know if I looked inside. On several occasions, he asked me to drive down to that same house and stay with the guy, whose name was Julio, for a certain amount of time.

In total, I’ve made around $3500.

Most recently, Jack asked me to stay in his house overnight. I woke up to a text message from him.

I need you to spend the night at my house.

I hadn’t ever seen him in person, but I had talked to him on the phone a few times. He proceeded to tell me he would pay me $1000 to spend the night at his house, provided that I followed a few rules.

I drove to his house that evening. The driveway was empty, and it normally was, but the porch light was on. I walked up, unlocked the door, went inside and then locked it again.

Everything in the house looked the same. Jack had told me over the phone that he would leave the list of rules on the dining room table. I set all my stuff down in the living room. My bags looked like garbage compared to the fancy furniture in there.

I wandered into the kitchen, and then to the dining room. Sure enough, there was a piece of paper on the wooden table, held down by an empty glass.

Lock the door when you come in.

Only answer calls from Marvin.

Don’t turn on any faucets between 9 pm and 11 pm.

Don’t open the door for anyone- no matter who they say they are- after 10 pm.

If the door to the closet at the end of the hall is open, sleep in the library. If closed, sleep in any of the bedrooms.

The gardener comes at midnight. If he starts knocking on the windows, hide.

Turn the tv on and let it play on static through the night. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.

Help yourself to anything in the fridge. :)

I’ll pay you in the morning. Goodnight!

I made sure to follow all the rules. To be honest, I was regretting my decision. But, seeing as I was already here, and I was getting paid, I decided to stay anyway. I figured as long as I followed all the rules, I’d be perfectly fine.

Still, it felt a little odd. What was this? A haunted house?

Nevertheless, I lounged around the house for a few hours, as I was planning on going to sleep around nine since that’s the time that all the weird shit would begin to happen. At 8:50, I brushed my teeth, using the faucet for the last time before 9.

I checked the closet in the hallway and upon seeing that it was open, I moved my stuff into the library and got ready to sleep on the couch. I locked to doors just in case, and laid on the couch, scrolling through my phone. I hadn’t gotten any more messages from Jack, and I started to think up scenarios and reasons as to why he had such strict, peculiar sets of rules in his house.

I had dozed off at some point because, at exactly 10:16 pm, I was woken up by the doorbell ringing. I was about to get up to check, but then I remembered the rule.

Don’t open the door for anyone- no matter who they say they are- after 10 pm.

I stayed on the couch, trying not to move, paranoid that they would hear even the slightest sound.

“It’s the police! Open up.”

I didn’t move.

“Hello? It’s the police! Open up or we’re coming in.”

I still didn’t move, but I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

There was silence for a while after that.

Then the doorbell rang again.

“Hey, it’s Jack! Let me in!”

It sounded like Jack, but still, I didn’t get up. He would have a key, wouldn’t he? Why would he need me to let him in?

This continued for almost a full hour; different people would ring the doorbell, announce themselves, and then disappear when I didn’t respond.

I was finally able to fall asleep, and the gardener never came.

When I woke up the next morning, I heard someone in the kitchen. I got up slowly, and unlocked the door as quietly as possible, taking my phone with me and walking across the living room and into the kitchen.

I stopped at the entrance and peered in.

It was Jack. He was standing in front of the stove, stirring something as the coffee machine brewed coffee on the counter behind him.

“Hey! Good morning!” He said when he saw me.

“Hi.” I replied, nervous.

I hadn’t seen him in person before, but he looked exactly like his pictures online.

“Scrambled eggs?” He asked, motioning to the pan with a wooden spoon.

“Yeah, thanks!” I replied, walking over to take the plate from him.

I ate my breakfast and drank some coffee in silence.

“So how was it?” He asked.

“It was okay. Nothing super freaky happened.” I replied.

“Cool!” He replied.

There was an awkwardness in the room.

“I think I’m gonna go now. I have class…” I trailed off.

I didn't. But I really wanted to get out of there.

“Oh, no! Yeah, sure! I’ll talk to you some other time.” He replied.

I grabbed my stuff and he walked me to my car. I could see him standing in the driveway, staring at me as I left.

When I got home, I unpacked all my stuff and noticed that I still had the list with me. I sat on my bed and read it again. I felt my body tense up as I realized that I had forgotten something.

Turn the tv on and let it play on static through the night. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.

Turn the tv on and let it play on static through the night. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.

DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.

I stared at the words on the page until they lost meaning.

Beside me, my phone buzzed, snapping me back to reality.

It was the $1000 payment.

I looked at my phone and then back at the list.

Maybe it wasn’t an important step?

As I was thinking this over, a text from Jack came it.

I’m not in town right now, I should be back next week, so you’re free from running any more errands for me until then! Just sent the payment, go do something fun ;)

I stared at the message and read it again.

And again.

And once more for good measure.

I’m not in town right now.

I thought back to this morning, and how Jack was in his house. How he gave me breakfast.

I’m not in town right now.

Within minutes, a new text came in this time from a number that I didn’t recognize.

Did you forget to do something? ;)

The text was followed by a picture of Jack - or, whoever this version of Jack was- standing in front of the tv.

I didn’t respond.

Next came another picture, this one was of the outside of my house.

It was followed by another text.

Watch out.

 

--- 

 

Credits

All the Empty Frames

  

I was having a good day at work. Not too much to do, just enough to make the time pass and keep me busy. I gave a work friend a ride home and had a long talk. Turns out we’re both the youngest siblings in our families, which gave us a (surprising) amount of common ground. I got myself a chicken salad and drove home. I walked up the stairs to my apartment. I opened the front door, and right there on the wall with all the smiling pictures of my friends and family, was a blank picture frame. Empty.

What the hell?

While it didn’t ruin my night, it made me start asking questions. I wouldn’t just hang up a blank picture, and I wouldn’t put it in the middle of the hallway. I have this large hallway mirror with pictures hung up on the side, and it is kind of a centerpiece. Still, I couldn’t recall what would’ve been in that frame, and there was no photo that’d slipped out. I wasn’t planning on framing anything either, or if I did, I wouldn’t hang the frame up before I’d put in the photo.

I’d be lying if I said that it really bothered me. It was an oddity, at most. For a second, I caught myself in the mirror looking anxious. Why was I letting this get to me? The weekend was just around the corner.

I just gave myself a smile and took the frame down.

The next day, I came home to another empty frame. Now this was strange. It wasn’t empty earlier that day, or I would’ve taken it down along with the other one. There would be no reason for me to only take down one frame, so what’d happened between now and then that caused this frame to turn blank? And why couldn’t I remember what was in that frame, when I looked at it just the day before?

This time, I caught myself looking bothered. The hallway mirror doesn’t lie. It was time to figure this out, weekend be damned.

I made two conclusions. The first was that if the frame had been emptied the day before, I would’ve taken it down. Hence, it must’ve turned empty between when I left from work and when I came home. About nine hours in total. The second conclusion was that the photos that were framed were completely missing, they hadn’t just dropped out. The backing board was intact, and the little metal points holding it back were tight. Either someone took the photo out, or it just ceased to exist.

That wasn’t a comfortable conclusion. My mirror image seemed to agree.

I checked the locks, the balcony, the windows… all of it. I lived on the second floor, but with enough determination a thief could get in anywhere. Sure, there would be no reason for a thief to get in and just steal a single picture (leaving the frame), but there were crazies all over. Don’t get me started on the next town over, where an entire neighborhood wears creepy masks.

Everything was intact. No one would get in or out without breaking something, and nothing had been broken. I went to check my keys to see if anyone had stolen the spare, but it was still there. What surprised me though was the key to a bike lock.

I didn’t have a bike. Did I?

There was a bike rack out front, and I started trying the key. I got a lot of sneers from the neighbors, but I tried not to let it bother me. Finally, I found the bike the key belonged to. A sporty bike, a woman’s model. The seating was much lower than I’d use, and seeing as how I am a man, I probably would’ve gotten another kind of model. Probably. Loved the colors though.

It gave me an uncomfortable thought. Maybe I wasn’t just forgetting the pictures; maybe I was forgetting whatever or whoever was inside them as well. Maybe I was forgetting people?

As a precaution, I hurried back up to my apartment. I wrote down a description for each remaining picture. I also recorded them with my phone. I committed them each to memory, to the best of my ability.

The next day, as I was brushing my teeth, I noticed another empty picture frame. I nearly swallowed my toothpaste. My mouth felt dry. I couldn’t remember what’d been framed. I could feel myself cold sweating as my heart started to race. This was impossible. I’d been here the entire time. I picked up my phone to check the video I’d recorded, but I was told the file had been “corrupted” and couldn’t be played. I caught a glimpse of my dilated pupils in the hallway mirror as I hurried into the kitchen.

The note with all my descriptions had been torn to pieces. With shaking hands I gathered every piece and tried to puzzle them back together. They were no bigger than the nail on my pinky finger.

I must’ve been at it for hours. I’d gotten about halfway when I realized there were several missing pieces. They were probably the description for the photo in the now-empty frame.

I concluded; I was not just forgetting things, they were actively being removed.

It was a disturbing thought. How do you make someone forget something, or someone?

That last thought resonated with me. Someone. I didn’t feel like I was missing anyone, but then again, how would I know? If I’d forgotten about someone important in my life, and all traces of them were gone, how would I know?

This gave me an idea. In some places, a lack of things can be just as telling as having something. I went through my entire apartment, step by step, and noticed a few inconsistencies.

There was an empty drawer in my bedroom. I wouldn’t just let one drawer overflow, and another remain empty. I would’ve spread things out. Someone had probably been using this drawer until recently.

There were several empty folders on my computer. I may not be the brightest PC user, but I don’t create empty folders for no reason. Especially not in the “Image” and “Movie” default folders.

There were entire shelves that were suspiciously empty in both my fridge and freezer. Again, why wouldn’t I just spread things out?

It felt like I was watching a mind-twisting game of Jenga, only the pieces that were picked out were parts of my life. As I took a shower to clear my head, I noticed two more things. One; there was a pale patch of skin on my right shoulder, with strange contours. There had probably been a tattoo there.

Two; there was a mark on my left ring finger. So, until just recently, I’d worn an engagement ring.

I sent a few messages to friends and family and checked my social media. There was no indications of any kind that I had been engaged. I got a few responses from confused friends. They had no idea what I was talking about, and they started asking if I was okay. I wasn’t the problem here! The problem was that something was eating up my life, step by step, and I had no way to fight it!

I stumbled back into the kitchen, poured myself a whisky, and started making a list. A list of things someone like me would think was important enough to put in a picture on my wall. Parents, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandparents, pets… all of it. Then I tried to match what I could remember to those categories. I remembered almost everything. There were a few blank spots. For example, I had no brothers or sisters, and I’d been single for a very long time.

That didn’t make any sense though. Just a few days prior I’d been talking to a work colleague about being the youngest sibling. Not just young-er, like you are if you have a single older sibling, but young-est. That’s what you are if you have more siblings than one. Plural. I couldn’t remember having any brothers or sisters.

I laid it all out. I had, most probably, completely forgotten about two siblings and a fiancée.

I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t handle it very well. I called my mother after my fourth drink of whisky, and I wasn’t making much sense. She was worried. Of course I had no brothers or sisters! Never had, and sadly, never would.

“Check the photo albums!” I screamed. “Check every album you’ve got, and you’ll see! You’ll see the empty pages!”

I sat down flat in the hallway with my fifth drink, having thrown my cell phone across the room. I stared at myself in the hallway mirror. I almost looked happy, despite feeling awful. That’s what a good drink can do to you, it is like putting on a mask. I frowned as deep as I could, but it just looked like I was making a funny face. To be fair, the hallway mirror wasn’t that great. It was slightly stretched, making you look a little thinner and taller than you really are. Kind of like a funhouse mirror, only to a lesser effect.

I tried again to commit every photo to memory. My parents, my uncle, my grandparents. My cousin, standing in a field of those weird blue sunflowers.

I counted them all, then counted them again. And on my sixth drink, I fell asleep on the floor, curled up in a fetal position.

I was drifting in and out of sleep. Despite everything, I was happy no more pictures had disappeared. One by one they’d gone away, like petals picked from a flower. Then, it stopped. There’d been no more. Maybe it was over, and whatever was removing them had gotten what it came for.

Of course, there was another option. Maybe it was just waiting for me to fall asleep.

That thought jolted me awake. I’d probably gotten a solid three hours of sleep, and it was the middle of the night.

There was rustling in the kitchen. Not loud, but loud enough for me to hear it. It sounded like someone going through my cutlery. There was nothing special in there for someone to steal. Well, except for an old butter knife my cousin gave to me back when she was into whittling that one summer.

The thought froze me. I checked the picture frames. All the photos were still there. There might still be time.

I had a handgun in a secure locker in my bedroom, on a small shelf above my winter jackets. The key was right there in the hallway, on a separate keychain. I got the key, listening for movement in the kitchen. I could hear the rustling stop, and the kitchen drawer being set back in place. If whoever was in there decided to check the bedroom, I’d be screwed. I held my breath and listened. I heard footsteps move into the bathroom.

Of course, there was a cologne I’d gotten as a birthday gift last year. That was also from my cousin. But I could still remember her, so it wasn’t too late.

I opened the locker, loaded a clip, and turned the safety off.

I stepped into the hallway, held the gun up high, and looked into the bathroom. I could hear someone looking for something just around the corner, next to the bathtub, but all I could see was the edge of a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. I had to act.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Step out! Slowly!”

The rustling stopped.

“Hello.”

The voice was dark and muddled, as if spoken underwater. It was distant, but near, and it echoed. It made the air tremble so hard that it made my stomach shiver. I almost threw up.

“Step out with your hands-“

He did. I did.

It was me.

The hallway mirror was empty.

There were a few differences. The person I was looking at was slightly taller and thinner. Stretched, like the image in the mirror. It was still mirroring my expression, but not the movements of my body. I looked terrified.

“Hello” he repeated, sending another ripple through my guts.

“Hands on your head” I said. “Stay back. I’m calling the police.”

“Hello.”

He didn’t comply. I double-checked the safety, and it was off. A pinch of the trigger would be all it took. Instead of listening to me, the person stepped forward.

I pulled the trigger.

I shouldn’t have done that.

The bullet made a hole in his left shoulder. It went clean through. A few drops of blood escaped him but evaporated against the floor in puffs of black smoke.

The person had been keeping up an act, and now it felt threatened. In an instant, it turned into something else. The face twisted and turned. The jaw unhinged and the tongue stuck straight up in the air like the rattle of a snake. Limbs grew longer and turned soft. A third arm grew from the stomach, tearing away the black t-shirt. Hands grew longer, fingers ending in bird-like talons.

There was no way I would stand my ground against this walking nightmare. My instincts were battling each other. One side asking me to shut down and stay dead, the other telling me to run. There was no fighting to be done, only ways to flee. I took off running. It was nothing but luck that I remembered my trigger discipline.

I started running down the flight of stairs. A neighbor was yelling, calling the police. Someone opened a door. I can’t remember what happened to them, or who they were. A scream I can’t remember, silenced. Something the size of a football being torn free from a torso.

I got out into the cool night air. I was barefoot. For a second I almost convinced myself it wasn’t really happening. Standing out there, in the real world, it just couldn’t be happening. This doesn’t happen in the real world.

Then my nightmare came bursting through the door. It’d grown. It extended its stomach to a bubble, like the abdomen of a spider. It had three arms and four legs, and there were more things growing. The head could barely be recognized. It’d folded itself backwards, using an elongated tongue like an antenna sniffing the air. For all the things I’ve been forced to forget, this thing I can’t help but remember. I couldn’t forget it if I tried. Closing my eyes, to this day, I can describe everything down to the texture of its skin.

I kept running. The pitter-patter of skin flung against asphalt came closer. It was right behind me. I knew that if it caught me, I’d never have existed in the first place. Not even my mother would remember me. Everything I was, everything I’d done, gone in an instant.

“Hello.”

The rumble in my stomach came back, and I lost my balance. I fell forward, badly scraping my shoulder.

“No” was the only word I could muster. “No, I- no!”

I was breathing too fast, and my head was barely getting any oxygen. I was panicking. I flipped around, laid on my back, and held up my handgun.

It was almost on me. Teeth, naked skin, talons and limbs. It was warm.

I didn’t want to disappear. Not like this.

That’s when I noticed something, in the distance. There was something sparkling, just outside my balcony. There was a thin ripple in the air, like an umbilical cord. It was like looking at a black hole; there was nothing there to see but the lack of space. This ripple stretched from the nape of the creature up to a rectangular sparkle, hanging free in the air.

The hallway mirror. It was stuck to it.

Despite teeth, skin and claw moving in to rip me apart, I aimed for the hallway mirror. It looked so odd, floating in mid-air, so far above ground. An anchor.

Maybe it was adrenaline, or maybe I was lucky, but the shot connected. Shards spilled out of the frame, and the creature turned around. Parts of it were falling off, evaporating into black smoke. It hurried back towards the mirror. I followed it.

It fell to its knees, arms flailing. It was trying to gather the shards, to desperately puzzle it all together.

“Hello” it said again.

This time, the sound was high-pitched, almost shrieking. The creature had shrunk significantly, and as I got closer, I unloaded the entire clip into the rest of the mirror. Shards shattered against the sidewalk, and the creature was oozing with black smoke. A single eyeball tumbled out of its skull, and fell into the largest of the shards. Moments later, the entire creature evaporated.

I kept that shard. I can sometimes see something moving in it, but it is too small to harm anyone. If you listen closely to it, you can hear a tiny “Hello”.

The police came, but none of my neighbors could remember why someone would’ve called. They hadn’t seen or heard anything. It was odd though, one of the apartments had been left wide open. It was still furnished, but no one can remember anyone ever living there. I’m guessing we forgot about the tenant, but that the creature didn’t get the time to clean up the belongings.

Looking back at this, I’m certain I had a brother. I think he lived in the outskirts of the city, and that he disappeared as he was out camping with his friends.

I also think I had a sister. I’m certain she was the one who gave me the mirror to begin with. She was smart, studied in Europe for several years. She was blinded in an accident a few years ago. I haven’t figured out when, or how, she disappeared.

My fiancée was the last to disappear. Despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to figure out anything about her. She is a complete mystery to me. Trying to mourn her knots my stomach. I’m trying to imagine what we would’ve done together, what places we’d seen, or how long we’d been together, but I just can’t. If I only had something to remember her by, something real, I could’ve made peace with it. There’s just no closure.

It feels odd to mourn something I can’t know I had, but I do. It hurts. I sometimes wake up crying, holding a pillow. My body remembers something I don’t. The shower feels empty in the morning. I feel miserable shopping alone. All these little ordinary things that I should be used to feel slightly “off”.

I guess there are things you just can’t forget.

I’m posting here to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. If you have blank picture frames, take it seriously. Check your mirrors. Make lists. Try to remember. Hell, smash every mirror you have.

And if anyone has any idea what the hell I should do with this shard, feel free to share. I don’t mind having it, but there must be someone who can use it for something. I can’t just “call a scientist” about it.

Good luck out there.

 

---

 

Credits

I Spoke For The Last Time Last Night

I have been living alone for the last 2 years. Fresh out of college I got a very stable and very isolating job in work-from-home Data Entry for a large medical company out west. I have always been a keep-to-myself kind of person, and I never really had any friends that didn't last through the next grade or semester. I just never found myself as someone who got much out of long-term company and interaction. I had plenty of so-called friends drop me when they moved to different states and cut all contact. These experiences of having someone and then losing them have turned me off from friendships and relationships altogether. I know it's not healthy for me, but at the end of the day, I always find comfort in knowing that I always have myself to keep me company. I found a great third-floor apartment near where I went to school, and being very familiar with the area after four years moved myself in from my dorm with no trouble. Remote work from home in my field has many benefits. Usually just a super simple population of data on spreadsheets or systems of medical data and records. No meetings or calls daily, nor reason to ever be on a mic or camera. Due to its sensitivity, it pays very well and I have made myself a good and simple, albeit quiet life post-grad, everything my loner self could have dreamed of.

One thing you start to notice when you live alone is how few times a day or even a week you actually talk or even say anything. I had no coworkers, roommates, or even pets to talk to, and sometimes would find myself going entire days without speaking a word. I didn't tend to go out and would spend my nights gaming or reading, or in a silent workout at the gym. It is a strangely peaceful existence not having to talk or hold any conversations. When I would talk at a restaurant, to the doctor, or to my mom on one of her monthly calls, I would often have an odd experience hearing my voice, as if it was the voice of another being projected through me. Usually, just an odd feeling to shake off, like how it feels to eat food you have not eaten for a while, a sensory adjustment to the now-changed world around me.

This had never been something I had dwelt on in the past, as usually, I would go a day or two before eventually having to talk, never really thinking of it as a disturbing or unusual experience. That was until last night.

I never typically ordered in food but I had done so today after a busy day in systems and spreadsheets I caved and ordered some pizza from a nearby restaurant online through a delivery app and had it delivered to my door. I ALWAYS selected the "no contact" or "leave at door" option. Chalk it up to my growing antisocial personality, but if I could minimize any human interaction and maintain my almost monastic vow of silence it was a win for me. As I pushed back onto my living room couch, I waited for my food which was to arrive in a few minutes. This peace was shattered by a firm but gentle knock on my door.

Odd, I thought to myself as I checked the leave-at-door option but mistakes happen, I was not pressed over it at all, especially as someone who had driven for a similar delivery app during the pandemic. As I approached the door, I was greeted by a perfectly normal-looking, ordinary taller brown brown-haired man who smiled and handed the box to me. He said the following in a carefree and airy tone of voice.

"Have a good rest of your night and enjoy sir. Looking forward to hearing from you soon!"

I crinkled my nose at the last part but took the box and nodded to him curtly saying thank you while shutting the door. I noticed he stood outside my door for about 5 seconds before walking away and whistling a tune to himself. At the time I assumed he just expected a good review which I gave him on the app, but something about that "hearing from you soon" didn't quite sit right with me. I am beginning to realize what he might have meant.

The rest of the evening went off without a note, I devoured the pizza and went to throw the box away. It was at this point I noticed the top of the pizza box had been cut into a few times by what I assumed was the knife or slicer at the restaurant but it looked....off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but it looked less like random cuts and more like deliberate attempts to write. I could make out no recognizable words and symbols so I took the benefit of the doubt and threw the box out. I took a shower and went to bed with nothing amiss. That all changed this morning.

I was woken up that next day by a phone call. Which would've been a cause for alarm but it was from my mom, one of her usual monthly check-in calls. I picked up the phone and spoke into it.

"Hey Mom"

Or at least I attempted to speak that into it, instead, all that came out of my throat was a dusty and almost wind-like shrill into the receiver. I attempted to clear my throat, chalking it up to just waking up, and tried again.

Nothing.

Every time I tried to speak, the only sound that could be heard was a shrill and guttural rushing noise that sounded and felt like a dagger to my lungs. Like as if they had been penetrated with a knife and only the rushing sound of air out of them could be heard as I attempted to speak. My mom said my name several times and eventually hung up as I frantically tried to speak. I ended up texting her and lying saying I was doing well and was having tech issues but would call her later. I tried looking at my mouth and throat in a mirror and saw nothing amiss. Tried drinking water and making tea with honey but there was nothing I could do to get my voice back. Eating and swallowing were perfectly normal but I could not speak no matter how hard I tried.

A bit panicked, I found a doctor who was open on the weekend and grabbed my keys to hop into my car to race there as fast as I could. I hoped it wouldn't be any trouble that I had not called before (obviously I couldn't with my lack of voice). As I opened the door to run to my car, I was stopped dead in my tracks faced with the same man who had delivered my food to me yesterday. As I opened my mouth to shout and in my surprise I heard a voice.

"Told you I would be hearing from you soon".

It was not the shrill and nasely voice I had heard yesterday when the food was dropped off. No. It was my voice, crawling its way from his lips, through the wry smile he wore on his face. He gave me a wink and walked out towards the stairs leading down from my apartment. Leaving me standing in the front door in horror of what I had seen, and heard.

It was at this point that I realized, I had not lost my voice. It had been taken from me. Somehow this thing I took for granted had been stolen from me. I don't think any doctors are going to be able to help me. I do not know what I can do.

Someone else has my voice.

 

----

 

Credits

My Neighbor's Basement Hides A Terrible Secret...

I naturally fell into babysitting around the age of 14. Through friends and family, I got leads for babysitting to score some cash, which definitely beat having to work at a restaurant. The job had its ups and downs, but overall it wasn’t a bad gig at all.

Yet, as many good experiences as I had, they were all eclipsed by one night.

A new family in town talked to my dad at work and it turned out that they needed a babysitter. I happily took the job and found myself watching their 10-year old boy a couple of weeks later. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the family themselves. They were the model citizens of suburban America, complete with the white picket fence and blue shutters. Nothing about their house was strange or even unique. Their son Avery was very mild-mannered and polite. Even their car was basic. Not that these were bad things, but I expected it to be a very boring night.

What I did not expect was the uncomfortable, inexplicable feeling that I got when I set foot in the house. A chill ran through me, but there was no draft. I rubbed my arms as I gazed at their staircase as we passed. They gave me a brief tour of the house before they left a note of instructions and all the usual information I expected from a job.

While trying to figure out what was making me so uneasy about the place, I noticed something about their basement door when I passed it. A padlock was placed on the door, along with a deadbolt in place.

"Any questions?” The father asked as my mind was pulled out of my curiosity.

"No, sir. Everything looks great!”

So they left and Avery and I played some games before I made dinner. A couple of times, I thought I heard Avery call me into the den. Both times, I found him sitting on the couch in what most recognize as the TV-zombie state. He denied having called me, and I went back to making dinner. After the third time, I told Avery it wasn’t funny and that he should stop.

“I’m not doing anything, I’m just watching TV!”

His voice went to that higher tone of pleading, sounding desperate for me to believe him.

“Avery, I know it’s my first time and sometimes you wanna test things out, but I’m trying to get dinner ready so if you call me again, I’m not checking on you, okay?”

“I didn't say anything.”

The child glared at the TV with a pouting face, and I began to feel bad. As many times as I’ve heard lies, I was starting to sense that he was telling the truth. So what was I hearing?

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m not mad. Promise.”

Avery turned his head back towards me, seeming to test if I was the one fibbing now.

“How about I let you stay up a little later if we forget about it?”

“Do you really promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

With our contractual pinkies interlocked, spirits were raised again and I was able to finish dinner. Although I didn’t finish without hearing Avery’s voice calling me once more. I ignored it, and when Avery didn’t mention it at dinner I figured it was him fooling around again. The whole time we chatted as we ate, I couldn’t help but feel that something was not right about this house.

As hard as I tried to not look, my eyes kept diverting to the heavy padlock and chain on the basement door. Curiosity got the best of me and as we were cleaning up, I couldn’t help but ask.

“So Avery, what’s the deal with the basement door?”

“What do you mean?”

His words did not match his demeanor. It was obvious he didn’t make eye contact as he forced his sentence out.

“C’mon, you know what I mean. The padlock, chain, and deadbolt. Y’all have dangerous chemicals down there?”

Avery’s face grew paler and he stared at the wall for a moment.

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to…”

“Dad said no one can talk about it anymore.”

This really threw me off, and I couldn’t possibly finish my sentence now. A thick veil of tension materialized between us.

“So you…you guys aren’t allowed to talk about it?”

Avery shook his head.

“Ah, okay. That’s cool. No big deal.”

It was nothing but a big deal.

Was their dad doing something illegal down there? Or was it something strange that no one could do anything about it? Maybe their dad was in denial about something going on. There were waaaaaay too many questions going through my head now.

“Hey, how about we put on a movie?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What am I saying? Everyone likes movies, right?!”

Now excited, we decided on a fun movie that quickly pulled our minds away from the mysterious basement door. Well, that’s not entirely true. Maybe Avery was distracted, but it was killing me. As we ate popcorn, I couldn’t help but watch Avery, wondering what was going on in that little head of his.

Was there something awful going on in the house and there was nothing I could do to stop it? Or maybe the dad was just…

“Stop,” I told myself inwardly.

Mulling over it all endlessly was not doing myself any favors.

So the movie ended, and I ushered the drifting child to his bed. Now, the house was all to myself until twelve, so I had a good three and a half hours to myself. Immediately, I began texting my friend to tell her all about the weird experience I was having that night. She dismissed it, saying that I was getting spooked by a new place. This annoyed me to no end. I’d been at bigger, way creepier-looking houses but never got weird vibes like this.

Then…I heard it.

“Stephanie…..”

I went instantly still and listened intently.

“You didn’t hear that, Steph. Just keep texting your friend and…”

“Stephanieeeee…”

There was no mistaking it this time. It was definitely coming from the basement.

The acoustics couldn’t have been from Avery upstairs. The voice sounded like a little girl’s. In fact, I’m not even sure he could make his voice like that, anyway.

Slowly, I stood up from the couch and approached the door. Maybe like earlier, I was just hearing things. Maybe being creeped out by the house was starting to mess with my head. That made sense…right?

“Stephanie?”

I jumped back from the door, almost wetting myself in the process. There was no way I could dismiss it as anything else now. There was a little girl’s voice coming from the basement.

“H-hello?” I responded.

I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking.

“Is this Stephanie?”

“Y-yes, it’s Stephanie.”

“Can you help me?”

“Who are you? Why are you locked in the basement?”

“My name is Meredith Rosenberg. They’re kept me locked up for a long time now. The police were almost on to them and that’s why they moved. Can you get me out?”

A cold shock washed over me and made it hard to respond. Was I actually babysitting for a family that kept a little girl prisoner?

“Oh my God…um….how long have you been locked up with them?”

“Ever since I can remember.”

I felt somehow hot and cold at the same time, and wanted to throw up. This all made sense now with what Avery had told me. Of course his father didn’t want him talking about the door…

“I just need to find the keys and I can…”

“They’re hidden in the garage underneath the metal shelf. It’s inside a magnetic key holder.”

“Okay, just hold tight.”

In a panic to free the poor girl, I darted into the garage and began feeling the space underneath the bottom shelf and sure enough, there was a magnetic key holder there. Running back, I popped the key holder open and began to insert the key into the padlock.

“Did you find it?”

“Yes, sweetie. I’m almost there!”

“Oh, please hurry! Sometimes they come home early!”

This sent me into even more of a rush, and I barely managed to fumble the key into the padlock. I finally heard the successful click of the padlock, pulled the chain off, and slid the deadbolt to the right.

“I’m coming, Meredith. Hold on!”

I turned the doorknob and threw open the door, only to be met with darkness. Now full of adrenaline, my hands felt around for the light switch. Finally finding my purchase, I flicked the light on which lit up most of the stairs.

“Meredith?” I called out.

Unless I was remembering it wrong, it sounded like her voice was just on the other side of the door a minute ago. In fact, it was quite strange that she wasn’t waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Wouldn’t you immediately run out of a basement that you were locked in for God knows how long?

“I’m down here!” The little girl’s voice called out.

Judging from the distance, it sounded like she was calling from somewhere at the bottom of the stairs. My brain suddenly began piecing all the details of this interaction together and the idea of going down into the basement became absolutely terrifying.

“Meredith, you can come up now! The door’s open!”

I couldn’t hide the tremor in my voice. Why I was scared of a little girl was beyond me, but much like the house itself, something felt very wrong here.

“I hurt my leg, owww! When you said you were getting the key, I went back down to get some of my things and got hurt. Ahhh….”

Her sounds of pain filled me with sorrow, but an invisible force was holding me back from taking another step into that basement.

“Can you move? Maybe pull yourself up on the railing?”

“I can’t! It hurts too bad!”

“Okay, sweetie umm…”

“What’s wrong? Won’t you help me?”

“I-I it’s just…really dark down there and…and I don’t want to get hurt too. Is there any way you can get to the stairs? Any way at all?”

“I tried to sit up, but my shoulder hurts too much.”

“I thought you said your leg got hurt?”

The words hung in the air like a noose. It was only after I said it that I realized there was several things seriously wrong about all of this. A question popped into my head I didn’t even have time to think about until now.

How did she know where the padlock key was?

A deathly silence took up the space between me and wherever this girl was. It was a standoff, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. There were questions I could ask her to figure out what was happening, but I felt that her answers weren’t going to be honest. Perhaps at this point, the truth was too frightful to know.

"Meredith? Are you still there?"

It was a stupid question, but it was the only thing my mind could conjure. The additional silence only unnerved me, so I decided to try and get a better look. Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I clicked on the flashlight. It didn’t do me any good because of the awful range, so I did the one thing I’d already told myself not to do…

I took a step forward...

Maybe it was the angle of the stairs or the lighting, but that one step gave me more information than I ever wanted to know. I caught a better view of the bottom step, which was essentially a ledge into a black abyss. Something looked different on this step, but it took a second to register what it was.

The step was wet, a pool of some unknown liquid overflowing into the darkness of the basement. I knew for sure that the father hadn’t mentioned any flooding so it would be way too random for that. So I stood there, watching in frozen curiosity as the puddle then suddenly rippled…and I realized the abominable truth.

It wasn’t water.

It was a puddle of saliva…and something was drooling into it from the dark.

A wretched chuckle emanated from the horrid void beyond the step, and it cemented me even further into place. It was a wet chortle, and positively evil.

“How did you like my voices?” The thing said from the dark. “I’ve been practicing."

The epiphany creeped down my spine…it was now talking in Avery’s voice. Everything in my body screamed at me to run. I heard the screams but I couldn’t respond no matter how hard I tried.

"A pity though…almost got you."

At this, the most gruesome face peeled back the shadows and revealed itself, along with its unearthly mandibles and small fountain of saliva. My faculties finally came to and I threw myself into the house and kicked the door closed. In mere seconds, I had the door bolted and chained. Leaning against the door, my chest heaved as I struggled to catch my breath.

Just as I felt I was safe, the door shuddered as a terrible blow rocked it. I screamed and ran upstairs to grab Avery.

I practically dragged the poor kid out the door and called the police. It wasn’t until the operator came on that I realized I was about to report a monster in the house. Thinking quickly, I told them that I heard a burglar in the home.

It wasn’t long before the police and Avery’s parents came home. Nothing was found, even in the basement, but I didn’t even care at that point. I just wanted the hell out of that house and away from whatever that….thing was. Avery’s parents kept glancing at me funny the whole time, probably because they knew I had their basement key. I shoved it into their hands before I hugged Avery and got into my car to drive home. That poor kid has to live in that house with that thing, but there was nothing I could do about it.

As long as I am alive, I will never….ever set foot in that house again.

And as for basements go, I can't go into them anymore. I just simply can't...

 

---

 

Credits

Check On Your Friends Before They Do Something Stupid

 

I passed James another beer from the cooler between my feet and cracked open another one for myself.

“How’d you figure it out?” I asked him.

“She told me,” James replied in a flat emotionless tone as he twisted the gold ring on his finger, “Told me the baby wasn’t mine and to start packing my stuff.”

I didn’t say anything back to him. What could I say to someone who’d just lost his wife like that? I let the silence linger and continued sipping my beer while I watched the sunset behind the trees.

James had us parked in a different spot from where we’d usually drink, which was Ashburn Park. That night James had us parked near the entrance to a trailer park about 30 minutes outside of town. I thought it was odd at the time, but I’m not one to give the man any grief about where we’d sit and drink our beers, he’d had enough on his plate.

I finished two more beers before I tried to break the silence, “So where do you think you’re going to stay?” I quickly added, “You can stay at my place as long as you like, I was just wondering if you’d had other plans in mind.”

James didn’t answer me right away, I could see the wheels turning in his mind, like he was formulating a plan right there on the spot.

“I’ll probably head out of town,” He finally answered, “It’s about time I get out of this shithole anyway.”

Everyone from our town always said the exact same thing: “I’ll get out of this shitty little town someday; I’ll make it big. I’ve got plans that are bigger than this place.” Hardly anyone ever leaves. Eventually they realize they don’t have the money to relocate or they don’t have the education to get a decent job in a place where the rent is higher. Usually, they get their girlfriend pregnant and then they are stuck. I have a theory that half the women in this town are only here for the purpose of keeping us stuck. My girl is the only reason I’m still here.

It made me sad to see my old buddy James making the decision to leave, but at the same time I was proud of him. Maybe I’d get to visit someday. “Good for you, man” I said, clapping him on the shoulder, “Any idea where you might go?”

I regretted the question as soon as I said it, I knew he didn’t have a plan and I didn’t want to press him, but James didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled the gear shift on his car and started driving.

I took another few sips of my beer before I asked him, “Where we going?”

“Just feel like driving,” James replied.

I sucked down the last foamy dregs of my beer, tossed the can with the rest of the empties at floorboards under my feet and pulled out a fresh one from the cooler. If things were going to be awkward all night, then I was going to get good and drunk.

We didn’t drive far. A few miles down the road from the trailer park we pulled into a gas station. As soon as the car rolled to a stop I got out of the car and told James I was going to run in and grab another case of beer and some cigarettes. I asked if he wanted anything.

His reply: “If you’re not back in this car in 90 seconds I’m leaving without you.”

I hurried inside the convenience store, trying not to let James’ comment hurt me. I understood, the man was in pain, but that’s no reason to take it out on me.

I emerged from the gas station 2 minutes later - 12-pack in hand - to see James screaming at me through his car’s open window, “Get the hell in!” he was shouting.

I jogged over to the car and hopped in. The second my butt hit the seat, he was peeling out of the gas station, leaving a trail of black exhaust clouds behind us as his beat-up old Pontiac was pushed to extremes it hadn’t seen in years.

“What’s the deal?” I asked him, pouring the newly bought beers into the cooler of ice, “Got someplace to be?”

“Hand me another beer,” James barked, avoiding yet another question.

I cracked two beers and handed him one. James took it from my hand without looking at it and took two huge gulps.

“It’s getting dark,” I said to him, “You should turn on your headlights.”

James didn’t turn on his headlights. He didn’t even seem to hear me; it was almost like he was in a trance. Instead, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator. Steadily, the speedometer climbed. The old junker started to rattle and shake after 50mph, but still it reluctantly climbed.

“James!” I yelled over the roaring engine, “You’re too drunk to drive this fast! Slow down!”

Trees, and road signs and driveways whipped past us in a blur. We blew past a stop sign and hit a small bump in the road sending us airborne for a brief and terrifying moment. When we came back to the surface of the Earth, I could hear the low hanging muffler on the car drag against the asphalt. I was sure if I looked back, I’d see a trail of sparks flying off behind us. Empty beer cans rattled and rolled at my feet and for the first time in my life I’d said an honest prayer asking God to not kill me in that piece of shit Pontiac.

We took a sharp curve around a wooded bend in the road and suddenly taillights were visible ahead of us. James saw this and mercifully pressed the brakes until we were back at cruising speed.

I shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat and glanced over at James. The usual banter and lighthearted conversations of our late-night drives were a distant memory, the car was filled with a heavy, unnerving silence. The dim glow of the dashboard lights cast eerie shadows on James’ face. There was an intense focus in his eyes I’d never seen before.

“Beer,” James said, breaking the silence. He rolled down his window and tossed out his empty before snatching the fresh beer from my hand. He seemed to relax slightly, resting his wrist on the top of the steering wheel and tapping a beat on the car’s dashboard with his gold wedding ring.

We were closing in on the taillights in front of us, they belonged to an old black Jeep. I recognized it. We were sitting outside of that trailer park when that Jeep pulled out then we followed it to the gas station where I’d bought beer and smokes.

James was following this car for some reason.

“Hey James,” I began, trying to keep my tone casual, “You’ve been following that Jeep in front of us, haven’t you?”

James didn’t answer. The moment of relaxation melted away. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel, his jaw tensed. The silence was suffocating.

We followed the Jeep and watched from across the street as it pulled into a McDonald’s drive-thru. “Beer,” James demanded, never taking his eyes off the Jeep.

“James,” I pleaded, “What’s going on with that car? Are you okay?”

“Beer,” He replied.

I handed him a beer then asked the question I’d been too afraid to let fly, “Is that him? Is that the guy?”

James chugged the entirety of his beer, then held his hand out for another one. When I didn’t immediately hand it over to him, he finally looked over to me, his eyes were dark and hollow, “I’m going to kill him,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

A cold shiver ran down my spine. I tried to search James’ face for any hint of a joke. Some sign that this was just a twisted prank. As if he could sense what I was thinking James reached into his pocket and pulled out a snub-nosed revolver.

Upon seeing the gun my mouth went completely dry. He was serious. I felt dizzy, my tongue felt like it was swollen. I wanted to puke. Then all of a sudden, we were moving again.

My mind raced trying to process the shocking revelation. I felt trapped, the car suddenly felt like a cage.

“James, listen to yourself,” I finally managed to find my voice again, “You’re throwing your life away. Think this through.”

James' grip on the steering wheel tightened even more, “Beer,” he said, holding out his free hand.

For the first time that night I took a really good look at James. He was emaciated, his hair unwashed, his bloodshot eyes were ringed in deep dark circles, the smell of his unwashed clothes was only topped by his horrendously bad breath.

Warning signs.

If I’d been a better friend, I’d have mentioned all these things to him weeks ago. I’d have asked him if he was okay. If he needed help. I’d have paid a hooker to take him out on a date. There were a million things I could have done to help my friend, but instead, like most guys, I’d ignored the warning signs and bought him a drink instead. We’re like rubber bands, if you stretch us too thin then we snap.

I just happened to be riding shotgun when James snapped.

“Beer,” James said again.

I lunged forward and grabbed hold of the steering wheel and pulled towards my side of the road. The car swerved violently; tires screeched on the pavement.

Then nothing.

James had pistol-whipped me.

When I came back to consciousness, we were back in the trailer park where we started the night. I raised a hand to my forehead to find a trickle of blood running down the side of my face. I pulled a beer from the cooler and held it to my wound.

In the darkness the trailer park looked even worse than it did in the daylight. We were deep in the maze of trailers, several of which appeared to be abandoned with broken windows and open doors that swung in the chilly night breeze.

I looked to James and saw he was laser-focused on something in the distance. I followed his gaze and saw the jeep parked about 50 yards ahead of us in front of a dilapidated old airstream trailer.

“James, please,” I urged weakly, each word sending stabs of pain ricocheting inside my head, “Let’s just leave, this place feels…wrong. We shouldn’t be here.”

James ignored me, his eyes fixed on the Jeep, “There he is,” he said, under his breath.

I turned to see the driver emerge from the black SUV. He was nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness, but I could tell he was tall, thin and moved with almost unnatural grace. The figure seemed to glide across the unpaved driveway and into the trailer. He left the door to the trailer slightly ajar as if inviting us in. Something inside of me screamed at me to move in the opposite direction. I could feel goosebumps ripple over my entire body.

James fidgeted with his wedding ring, turning it on his finger, then he turned off the car and moved to exit the vehicle.

I made one last desperate plea, “James! Don’t –“ and was cut off by the closing of the driver’s side door.

I sat in the car, the engine ticked softly as it cooled. I watched through the windshield as James approached the derelict trailer, his silhouette was barely visible as he moved through the shadows. The trailer park was unnervingly silent; the only sound was the whine of a door to an abandoned trailer swinging in the wind.

James turned to me one last time as he reached his target trailer. Even from a distance I could see the grim determination on his face. Then silently, he disappeared into the trailer’s ajar door.

My heart pounded; the seconds stretched into an eternity as I waited for any sign of what was happening inside.

The silence was deafening. I strained my ears, listening for a gunshot, shouting, any indication of a struggle inside of that trailer but there was nothing, just the creaking of a rusty hinge of a door swinging in the wind.

The minutes dragged by, each one amplifying my anxiety. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard – how long had I been here? My head swam. I could feel sweat trickling down my temple. Or was that blood?

“C’mon” I muttered between shallow, uneasy breaths, “What’s taking so long?”

Suddenly, I was overcome with the chilling sensation of being watched. My eyes darted around as I surveyed my surroundings. All those dark windows and large chasms of darkness between the trailers would be perfect places to hide. I felt like I was a fish in a bowl, exposed, vulnerable and trapped.

Unable to bear it any longer, I made the decision to leave the car. I opened the car door – the creak of the dented door in its frame sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness. I winced.

My heart pounded in my chest as I crept towards the trailer. “James?” I called softly, my voice barely loud enough to reach my own ears.

I arrived at the trailer door and peered into the dim interior. The inside of the trailer was a chaotic mess. Newspaper clippings and papers with strange symbols on them covered the walls. James’ snub-nosed revolver sat on the floor of the trailer, just inside the door, as if it was daring me to come in and pick it up.

“James?” I called again, louder this time, as I stepped inside. My eyes scanned the small room and every nerve in my body screamed at me to turn back. I reached down and picked up the revolver and released the cylinder only to find it empty. Someone had removed the bullets. I pocketed it and moved deeper into the trailer.

I reached the backroom where I expected to find James and the man he’d been following all night. My stomach churned as I reached out and gently pushed the door open. It was a small bedroom, nothing more than a bed, a closet and a nightstand. There was no sign of a struggle, no blood, no bodies. Just an oppressive, heavy silence that seemed to swallow all sounds.

It was as if James had vanished into thin air. My hands started to shake. I could feel a primal fear bubbling up deep inside of me along with the inexplicable feeling that I was trespassing in a place not meant for human presence.

I backed out of the trailer not wanting to turn my back on a single shadow within that place. Once I was clear of the door, I turned and sprinted back to the car. I jumped into the driver’s seat, locked the doors and reached to turn the key in the ignition when I noticed a sticky note attached to the glove compartment it, it read: “Open”

With my shaking hand I reached out and pulled the handle of the glove box. As I opened it 6 bullets and James’ golden wedding ring spilled out and onto the floorboards below. Inside, I found a second sticky note, it read: “You can’t kill what you don’t understand.”

Within seconds I was speeding my way out of the trailer park, my eyes flicking between the road ahead and the rearview window, half expecting to see something chasing me.

I didn’t want to go home, I had the inescapable feeling something was waiting for me there, so I drove until the sun came up. Around 10am I drove James’ car into a lake and walked home.

I spent the entirety of that three-hour walk fidgeting with James’ wedding ring while trying to unravel what had happened that night and the only answer I could come up with was that James was meddling with forces far greater than himself, and in doing so had crossed a line from which there was no return. The true nature of what had happened in that trailer would remain a mystery I would never unravel. The only certainty was that that night had changed me. It left a scar in my mind that would haunt me forever.

 

---

 

Credits