Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I just moved from Oregon too,
a small town in Tennessee, Colbrandon. It's about an arrow
from Knoxville, tupped between patches of woods and open fields
that all start to blow together after a while. The
house I found was dirt cheap, which should have tipped
me off. One story a three bedrooms plus a basement.
I wasn't really planning to touch it. Sat on a
thin road with no shoulder, just a gravel strip leading
to the driveway and wood wrapping around the back like
a curtain. It had that look like someone had cared
for it once a long time ago, then gave up
halfway through a renovation. Paint was flaking off the siding
in spots, the front step creak like an old knee,
and the mail box leaned like it wanted out. But
it was private and the landlord didn't ask many questions.
I signed a lease before I even saw the basement.
The first couple nights were uneventful. I spent most of
the time on packing the basics in pretending to organize,
but really I was just trying to feel normal. Everything
was quiet, and I mean quiet. No traffic, no neighbors
yelling through walls, no city sounds bouncing off concrete. It
was the kind of silence that makes you notice your
own breathing. On the second night, I tried to shut
the hallway bathroom door and it bounced back at me,
not how just like something was in the way. But
when I looked behind it, there was nothing there. I
figured maybe the door frame was crooked or the latch
was off. The next day I grabbed a screwdriver and
messed with the hinges for a bit. Didn't fix much.
The door stoll resisted closing all the way and now
and then i'd hear a soft thump like a knock,
but not quite in the hall, and I'd find the
door slightly at our again old house. I told myself,
old houses, grown, schiff creek. It's just wood expanding or something.
I left it alone. A few days in I got
back from a grocery run and found one of the
kitchen chairs sitting halfway down the hallway, just one chair,
not tipped over her, not broken, just placed there like
someone had started to bring it somewhere then forgot or
change their mind. I froze for a second. I hadn't
moved any of the chairs since I got there. I
hadn't even eaten at the table yet. I'd been living
off sandwiches and coffee and whatever I could make in
one pan. I stood there holding a bag of eggs
and fruit, just staring at it. It felt weird off,
like walking into a room and realizing something's missing, but
not knowing what. I picked the chair up and returned
it to the table without thinking much more about it.
But that was when I started locking the doors, all
of them, even if I was just taking a shower
or reading on the couch. I couldn't explain why. It
just felt necessary. That weekend, around midnight, I was half
asleep watching something on TV when I heard what sounded
like light footsteps in the back porch. Not heavy, more
like the sound of bare feet brushing against old wood.
Too softy boots, too irregular to be an animal, I thought.
I muted the TV, held my breath for a second,
and then grabbed my flasklight from the counter. The porch
was empty, nothing there but the screen door was moving,
just gently, like someone had let go of it a
few seconds before. I looked. I hadn't touched that door
since moving in. It hadn't been windy, the air was
still thick with summer humidity. I opened the main door
and step outside, shining the light across the yard and
into the trees. Just brush and branches and shadows, no movement,
no sounds, except for one cicada chirping off somewhere too
far to matter. I told myself maybe a raccoon had
bumped the door, or a squirre, something harmless, but I
did bolted it tight and jawned the chair under the handle. Anyway,
that night, I left the hallway light on and sat
in bed for a long time before sleep caught up.
Around two a m. I woke up to the sound
of the kitchen faucet turning on, just a quick boast,
like someone had flipped the handle up and let it
run for one second before turning it off. I didn't
move from my bed. I could see the edge of
the hallway through the open door. I stared at that
empty patch of light for what felt like ten minutes, listening.
Nothing else happened. Eventually, I got up slowly switched on
the bedroom light, first in the hallway, then the kitchen.
The faucet was off, no droops, nothing out of place.
Every door was still locked, windows two. I checked them twice.
It didn't make sense, but there was nothing I could
point to, nothing I could prove. I didn't call the police.
What would I even say that the plumbing was acting suspicious.
The next day I wandered into town and camped out
at this little coffee shop. For most of the evening,
I sat in the corner with a mug. I didn't
refill scrolling my phone, pretending to read. I didn't know
what I was expecting to find, articles about how to
tell if your house hates you. Nothing online really helped.
Everything sounded exaggerated or fake, and what I was dealing
with didn't feel like that. It felt specific, personal, like
whatever was happening had only just started to notice me.
That night, I left the kitchen light on small comfort,
but it helped. Around three in the morning, I woke
up siding through the sheets. The room felt off, still
but not calm. Then I realized my bedroom door was closed.
I never closed it. I sat up, waited, watched, and
then I heard it. The knob turned just a little,
a soft click, like someone was generally trying it mebe
expecting it to be locked. I couldn't breathe. I whispered
hello nothing. After about thirty seconds, I got up. I
wasn't brave about it. My legs felt like noodles and
my hands were shaking. But I opened the door fast anyway,
like I could surprise whatever was at there. Hallway was empty,
kitchen was dark, the light i'd left on off. That's
when I said it, I need to get out of here.
Just those words, quiet, blood flat, like admitting something I
already knew. I packed the essentials into a Duffel back
the next morning, just close, wallet, charger, teeth brush, didn't
take anything extra. I drove into Knoxville and checked into
a budget motel. I emailed the landlord and said I
wouldn't be finishing out the lease. No explanation, just paid
through the month and let it go. I was twenty
two when I signed the lease on the small house
just outside of Marion. I moved an on a Saturday.
My friend I'll and helped me hold everything over in
his truck, mostly just a fruit on a copple, milk
crates full of clothes, and an old dresser. I got
off Facebook market place the house had two bedrooms, pale
green siding that looked like it hadn't been painted since
before I was born, and a front portch that leaned
forward like it was slowly sinking into the dirt road.
My shifts were mostly evenings, so I got used to
coming home around midnight. The town practically rolled itself up
after nine. No traffic, no porch lights, no noise, just me,
my tired brain and whatever leftovers I head in the fridge.
The first one was small. I came home one night
and the whole closet life was on. It's one of
those little polsterring bulbs, something you'd have to physically turn on.
I hadn't even opened the door since I moved in.
I turned it off, didn't think much of it. A
couple days later, the same thing. Then I noticed the
kitchen drawer, the one where I kept random stuff like
take up menus and batteries, would be open an inch
or two when I came home. Not every night, just sometimes.
One morning I found my teeth bush line across the
edge of the sink, damp, like it had just been used.
I live alone, no one else has a key. I
chalk it up to stress or just being scatter brained.
The night shift does weird things to your memory. You
find yourself putting cereal in the fridge and the milk
in the pantry without realizing it. But still that feeling
crept in, like something was just a little off. Then
came Sunday. I had the whole day off and decided
to deep clean the bathroom, just one of those spur
of the moment things. I was scrubbing under the sink,
trying to get rid of this weird, musty smell that
wouldn't go away, when I noticed something carved into the
inside of the vanity door. At first I thought it
was just a crack in the wood, but when I
looked closer, I saw small, deliberate scratches, like some one
had used a nail or a house key. It said
don't sleep in the back room. Not bold or dramatic,
just there, quiet and scratched in like a note men
only for me. That' stopped me cold. I had been
sleeping in the back bedroom since day one. It was
cooler than the front one, and the windows didn't rattle
as much. I just stared at that message for a while.
Then I closed the cabinet walked down the hall and
moved my stuff into the other room. No hesitation. The
front room wasn't great. It got too hot in the afternoon,
and it smelled a little like dust and old fabric
no matter how much I cleaned, But I didn't care.
I didn't tell any one about what I found. I
didn't want to explain something I barely understood myself. Three
days later, I got home from work just after midnight.
Same as always, I walked into the front bedroom and stopped.
My bed. Now in the new room was completely stripped.
Every pillow, blanket and cheek one not crumpled or thrown off,
just missing. I searched everywhere, laundry, hamper, under the bed,
inside the closet, even the old room nothing, just a
mattress sitting the bell like it had never been made.
The night, I curled up on the couch with the
hoodie and if for a blanket I found in the
trunk of my car. After the things spiraled, one night,
I came home and the bathroom force it was running
full blast water everywhere I hadn't used it that morning.
My boots, which I always lined up neatly by the door,
were turned backwards. Another time, while I was eating dinner,
the first door creaked open behind me. I just sat
there frozen, watching it slowly swing out, like some one
was expecting me to get up and close it. Then
came the photo. We had a storm one night, one
of those sudden, heavy Southern storms that knocked out power
for an hour or two. I went to check the
breaker panel in the whole way closet. While I was
poking around and there with my PHAM flashlight, I noticed
something stuck behind a metal panel cover. I pulled it out.
It was a polaroid. They did slightly warp from moisture,
but the image was clear enough. It was a picture
of the back bedroom, my old one. The bed was
stripped bare, the walls were stained like something had sook
through the plaster, and in the corner sat a girl,
maybe sixteen or seventeen, curled up, her face hidden behind
her hands. You couldn't see her expression, just the way
her shoulders were hunched, like she'd been crying for eyars.
Someone had ridden on the white border of the photo.
This is where she stayed. I sat down right there
on the hallway floor and stared at the photo for
what felt like forever. I didn't sleep that night. I
stayed on the couch with every light on in the house.
I even turned on the TV for background noise, just
to make the silence feel less sharp. At some point,
around two a m. I heard footsteps in the hallway, slow,
heavy ones. Not the creaking of a house settling, not
the scurrying of something in the walls. These were measured steps.
They started by the bedrooms, moved past the couch where
I was called up, and stopped near the kitchen. That
was it. No door opened, no sound. After the next morning,
I found every kitchen cabinet open, every drawer pulled out.
All of my silver Whale was scattered across the floor
in a messy, deliberate pile, like some one had emptied
the drawers while looking for something or trying to send
a message. I finally broke down and called Everett, the
guy from work. We weren't exactly close, but I remembered
he mentioned once that he grew up in Marion. I
told him I need to ask him something about the house.
He came by that afternoon, clearly a little uncomfortable just
being there. He didn't even sit down, just walked around
quietly looking at the rooms. Then he turned to me
and asked, you ever hear about what happened here? I
shook my head. He nodded like he'd expected that. There
was a girl about your age rented this place a
few years back, worked night shifts at the CVS office view.
One day she just stopped showing up. Nobody heard from her.
After a few days, some one came to check house
was locked, no sign of struggle. She was just gone.
I asked him what they found. He hesitated, then said
there was a stain in the back bedroom, like old blood,
but nobody, no evidence, nothing was missing. It went cold.
Her name was Leelah. I showed him the polaroid, unasked
is this her? He looked at her for a long time,
long enough that I almost regretted showing him. Then he
just gave one, so no. I didn't go back to
the house after that. I packed a duffel, left the
key in the mail books and texted the landlord to
let him know I was gone. I was twenty eight
when we bought the place in northern Georgia. The realdar,
a woman named Meyer, told us an older couple had
lived there for ages. The husband died a few years ago,
and the wife had gone to live with her daughter
in South Carolina. We closed in early April and moved
in a week later. It was raining that day and
our mattress got so carrying it in we had to
sleep in the couch for the first two nights. It
was cramped, and the couch smelt faintly of the previous
owner's old cologne, like stale cedar and aftershave, the kind
of scent that lingers in for ancho long after some
one's gone. My partner's job was in Dalton about an irow.
They left early, came home late. I worked from Humphrielance
editing mostly articles, educational material, that kind of thing, quiet work.
The days were peaceful. At first. I'd opened the windows,
let the breeze in, try to ignore the never ending
to do list. The house came with. We had peeling
wallpaper in the hallway, water stains in the ceiling ab
of the guest bathroom, and one room that still smelled
like cigarettes no matter how long we aired it out.
That first week was just unpacking, figuring out where the
sun hid in the mornings, which utlets actually worked, which
draw stuck the usual. I wasn't looking for anything strange.
I didn't even notice the cross pace door until the
third or fourth day. It was a loave, squarehatch in
the whole way, near the laundry closet I as seemed.
It led under the house, no stairs, just a drop
down panel with a metal latch and a wooden handle.
It wasn't until I passed it one afternoon and noticed
it was slightly open, maybe two inches, that I even
thought about it. I showed it without much thought, but
the next time I walked it was open again, a
little wider. This time. I figured I hadn't latched it
right old house hinges shift floor's bow. I closed it again,
this time pushing hard until I heard the click. Later
that evening it was open again. I found a rubber
doorstep in one of our moving boxes the next morning
and jammed it in front of the panel, left it
there while I ran to the store. I came back
with groceries and found the hatch wide open again and
the wedge sitting several feet away across the hall, where
like someone had kicked it aside. Nothing else was touched.
The doors were still locked, the windows shut. I even
checked the ring camera redisinstalled by the front door. Nothing
just squirs. I didn't say anything to my partner that night.
I couldn't think of a way to explain it that
didn't sound ridiculous. Hey, I think the coal spaces rejecting
my attempts to keep it closed. Wasn't exactly casual conversation.
A few nights later, I was working in the back
room around nine. We'd set up my desperate windows so
I could look out over the yard. It was dark
by then, quiet. I was caught be editing something dry,
an educational packet about soil erosion, I think. And I
heard a noise above me that wouldn't be unusual in
most houses, but we didn't have an upstairs. At first
it sounded like creaking, maybe wood expanding or pipe shifting,
But then it got more rhythmic. Heeled to toe, slow
and steady, not heavy stomps, not random pups, just deliberate movement,
as if some one was walking directly over my head,
taking their time. I didn't move afirst, just sat there,
blinking at the ceiling. After a minute or so, I
stood up and walked the length of the house barefoot,
not making a sound. Every door was locked, every window shut.
I told myself maybe the roof was settling, maybe an
animal had gotten up there or accud maybe, but it
didn't sit right. The noise wasn't above the roof line.
It was between floors, except we didn't have more than one.
Two days later, I was organizing boxes in the laundry room,
trying to sort out what we could doss. That's when
I found the box. It was stuffed in the back
of an upper cabinet, behind a crumpled top and a
stack of pink hands, cardboard box label and clean, careful
handwriting Eximaeus lights do not open naturally. I opened it.
Inside was six set tapes wrapped in tissue and a
small spiral notebook with a red cover. The notebook was worn,
but the writing inside was sharp in thee each page
numbered starting with day one. The handwriting looked like something
from an old dress book, tight slanted, all caps. The
tapes weren't labeled, just plain black plastic. I had an
old player stowed in a tub of cords and cables,
dug it out and popped in the first tape. For
the first ten minutes, there was nothing, just faint ambient
noise creaks, maybe breathing, then a voice, low and dry.
It's still down there. I think it waits until I sleep.
That was it. The next tape had more gaps of silence,
then it moved again. I didn't dream that it was
under the vent, and then later I don't think I
can hold the door any more. The voice never changed,
always the same, steady whisper, like he was sitting close
to the mic, watching something while he recorded. I listened
to three of them. That was enough. That night, I
left the box in the garage and didn't go near
it again. The next morning, I passed the Crawlsby store
again and finally looked closer at the frame. I hadn't
noticed before, but something had been scratched into the wood
just inside the panel. Deep grooves not carved for show,
just gaged in quick and desper stay above. I ran
my fingers over it. It wasn't new. It was old
and faded, rubbed down in some places, like someone had
run their hands over times. That night, my partner left
for a work retreat. I stayed behind. We weren't fighting,
were anything. They just had to go, and I said
I'd be fine. I turned on every light in the
main rooms, double locked the doors, set my laptop up
on the couch with the comfort movieplane in the background.
I was determined to make the plays feel normal again.
A two point fifteen arm, I got up for water,
walked into the hallway. The coal space hatch was standing
wide open, no wedge, no warning, just open. I stood
there staring at it. Then I heard it breeding short
and panicked like someone was hiding, but couldn't quite stay quiet.
It was right the floor. I backed away slowly, didn't
turn my back on it. I locked myself in the
bedroom and sat against the door until sunrise. When I
finally opened the door, the hatch was closed again. The
wedge was back, but this time it was lying across
the hall on the opposite wall, like someone had tossed
it there just to make a point. I didn't touch it.
My partner came home that night and found the box
in the garage while looking for camping gear. They walked
and holding it, asking if it was mine. I didn't
even pretend. I told him everything. That night, we packed
bags and drove to a motel and jasper. We only
went back once in daylight to get the rest of
our stuff. We sold the house two months later. The
house was just outside Grayson, a quiet little town in Tennessee.
I signed the lease on a Wednesday and moved in
that Saturday morning. By Monday night, I was already lying awake,
wondering if I'd made a mistake. The landlord had said
it had been empty for about a year, which made sense,
but the inside was surprisingly spotless, no musty smell. That
first night, everything was fine. I remember heating up a
frozen burrito, drinking a cold beer, and passing out early
on the fruit on. I dragged into the living room.
The place didn't have a working ceiling fan, so I
cracked the sliding glass door opened a bit to let
in some air. I woke up at a round four
in the morning, totally alert. I hadn't had a nightmare
or anything. I just suddenly opened my eyes and had
the strong sense that something had woken me. I laid
there for a few seconds, then heard what sounded like
footsteps outside, slow deliberate crunching on gravel. I sat up,
looked at the window beside the fruit hu nothing just
trees across the road and a thin stretch of pavement
reflecting a bit of moonlight. Night. I waited a few
more seconds, no more sounds. I told myself it was
probably a deer or maybe some stray dog wandering around.
I didn't want to start spiraling over weird noises before
I'd even unpacked. By the third night, I had most
of my stuff in enough to start turning the back
room into a matchif turm office. It was the big room.
It had just once more window that faced the side
yard and no heating oreous event, which meant it got
stuffy pretty fast. I unlocked the window, pushed it open
maybefore innu It took some pressure to get the thumb
slide latch to disengage, one of those older metal ones
that doesn't glide so much as fight back. I didn't
think much of it, left it cracks and sat at
the desk to work. It was some time after nine
point thirty when I heard it. A soft, slow knock,
Not like someone at the door. This was different. It
sounded like something bumping into the siding, just a dolphud,
then another close together, not frantic, just present. I froze listened.
Another few seconds went by, two more soft knocks. Low
to the ground. I got up grout a flask light
from the drawer and stepped outside through the side door
by the kitchen. Nothing the sighting looked untouched, no scratches,
no dented spots, no animals darting off into the bushes.
The air was dead still, even the trees weren't moving.
I stood there longer than I probably needed to, just listening.
The next morning, I went to shut that office window
and noticed it was open wider than i'd left it,
not force open, just slid up more. It was smooth, undamaged,
like someone who knew how to work that particular kind
of latch had come along and adjusted it. I stood
this staring at it, trying to remember if I had
maybe opened it more and forgot. But I hadn't. I
knew I hadn't. I closed it, locked it again, pulled
the blinds down, and shut the door to that room.
I didn't go back in for days. The thing about
stuff like that is when it happens, it doesn't feel dramatic.
It's not a moving moment. It's subtle, annoying. He's start
questioning yourself. You tell yourself you're being paranoid. That may
be you were tired. Maybe you left it open wider
than you meant to. You run all the maybes through
your head like you're trying to solve a math problem
and somehow reach shearer. It doesn't work. A few days later,
I was in the living room watching a movie. I
had the lights off, sound low lights, tapped under a blanket.
Out of nowhere. I heard footsteps in the hallway, just
too or free light, but definitely movement, the kind of
Sam Coppet mix when someone shifting their way amidstep. I
knew to the TV immediately silence. I waited. My pulse
was going like ke I just sprinted a flight of stairs.
Nothing else came, no more steps, no creaks. I stood
up slowly and beaked around the corner. All was empty.
After that, I started locking my bedroom door at night.
It felt stupid at first I lived alone, but it
gave me just enough of a mental buffet fall asleep
without sitting bolt upright at every small sound. That held
me over until one night I woke up at a
round two m just totally still, no sound, no bad dream,
just that same strange awareness, like my body had noticed
something before my mind dead. The room was dark, the
air fell heavier than it showed of I remember breathing
slow and shallow, like making noise might invite something. I
didn't hear anything at first. I just felt it, this
shift in pressure, like something else was in the room.
I finally grabbed my phone off the knife, then turned
on the light and scanned the space. It was the same,
same corners, same furniture, same everything except the door knob.
It was turned halfway down. It wasn't jiggling, it wasn't
being pulled. It had just been turned and left there.
I did move for probably ten minutes, just stared at
the doorn up, holding my phone like a shield. Eventually
I got up, yanked it back upright, and shoved a
chair under the handle. I didn't sleep at all after that.
Next day, I started asking around. I was trying to
be dramatic. I just wanted to know if any one
else had ever lived there and experienced weird things. I
went to a gas ststion off Highway nineteen, where a
lot of the town's locals groud coffee and sandwiches. Chatted
with the guy working behind the counter. I mentioned the
address casually, like I was asking about neighborhood, not the
house itself. He gave me this look, not concerned, not surprised,
just tired. People don't stay there long, he said, like
it was a fact, not a mystery. The woman behind
me in line, who'd been fiddling with the lottery ticket,
chimed him without even turning around. It's that averro house, right,
Folks don't like how it feels in there. I asked,
what do you mean? She shrugged, like you're not lone,
that's all. The worst thing was no one seemed shocked
by what I was describing, like I was just confirming
something everyone had already quietly agreed on. A few days
after that, I was boiling water in a kitchen laid
at night, just standing there, zoning out, when I heard
the front door creak open. I mean the exact sound
the hinge is groaning, the thump as it hit the wall,
like someone had come in. So and confident, I dropped
the spoon now was holding and ran to the front door.
Still shots still locked, dead bolts still engaged. I didn't
even check the rest of the house, I growled, my keys,
got in my car and slept in the parking lot
of a twenty four. Iur laund from out two towns over.
The final thing that pushed me out. Happened the night
I decided to pack the lost of the office. Stuff
I hadn't been in there since the window incident. I
was just grabbing a few things, old notebooks, extra cables,
stuff I hadn't used in weeks. When I opened the
bottom drawer of the desk, inside a small iron sheet
of paper looked torn from a cheap notepad. The handwriting
was blocky, a little and even, but clear. It's said
if you locked the door, they come in another way.
That was it. No name, no date, no other markings.
I dropped the paper back into the drawer like it burned.
My throat was dry. I remembered just staring at the
window blinds, not even wanting to lift them. I left
everything else behind, grabbed my keys, locked the door behind me,
and drove straight to a motel in Harbridge, thirty miles north.
I left a voicemail for the landlord, told him I
was forfeiting the deposit, told him I wasn't coming back.
After the break up in Winston, long drawn out and exhausting,
I didn't have the energy to stay at a tamful
of reminders. I wanted somewher quiet, somewhere I didn't have
to bump into anyone who knew me or knew what happened.
At first, that stuff made me laugh a little, I
told myself it gave the place character. I painted a
couple of the walls, cleaned out the fireplace. Then, about
six weeks after moving in, I came back from the
grocery store and noticed the kitchen drawers were open, just
a few of them, barely cracked reelly, like someone had
started going through them but stopped halfway. I stood there
for a second, trying to retrace my steps. Had I
opened them earlier. Maybe I'd left them that way while
looking for something. I was tired and it had been
a long day, so I closed them and didn't think
much of it. But after that I started noticing other things.
A spoon and the counter I didn't remember using, not dirty,
just there. My bluetooth speaker, which always sat on the
top shelf in the living room, randomly sitting on the floor.
One afternoon, when I got home from a walk. A
roll of paper tells that I swore was full the
day before, suddenly gone like vanish gone, not in the trash,
not under the sink, just missing. Still, nothing felt malicious,
no broken windows, no signs of forced entry. The doors
were locked every night. I checked obsessively. I figured I
was just a little off. Maybe I was sleep walking,
or maybe with the drinking I'd been doing any evenings,
I was just more forgetful than usual. By the time
the leaves started to change, I basically taught myself out
of any real concern. I mean, what else could it be?
Then December rolled in, and with it came the sounds
from the attic. Nothing dramatic, No footsteps are banning, just
like creaks now, and then subtle enough that you could
convince yourself it was the window of the house settling.
The attic wasn't a real usable space, just a cramped
crawl space with a low ceiling and exposed beams. I
toss a couple boxes up there during the move, some
old clothes, photo albums, a box of stuff from my
dess garage. I hadn't had the heart to go through yet,
but I hadn't touched it since I as seemed it
was mice or a square or some other creature finding
its way in from the cold. Bell Ridge is the
kind of place where you're never more than a hundred
yards from something with fir and teeth. I thought about
setting traps, but I wasn't really eager to climb up
into that cramped, dusty space. Then sometime in early February,
I found a half eaten jar of peanut but as
sitting on the basement stairs, not on a shelf, not
on the floor, on the third step from the bottom
let off spoon inside. I just stood there staring at it.
I hadn't been done in the basement in weeks. It
wasn't really functional, just bere cement, a water heater and
a broken dryer. I'd been meaning to get hold out.
I'd never once brought food down there, but there it was,
my jar half empty. That's when I stopped sleeping all
the way through the night. One night in March, I
woke up around two a m. To a shop clatter,
not loud, but distinct, like plastic kidding wood. I grabbed
my flashlight and did a slow walk through the house.
Everything looked normal until I saw it. They add a
catch in the hallway ceiling. It was open just slightly,
just enough to see there just when flushlight. They usually
were the kind of thing you'd only notice if you
were looking straight at it. I stood under it for
a long time. Flashlight ended up at the opening. I
couldn't see anything beyond the edge, just dark, and the
are felt off cooler, like the insulation up there wasn't
doing its job any more. I didn't own a ladder
at all enough to reach it, and I wasn't about
to draw it over her chair and put my head
up into who knows what in the middle of the night. Instead,
I went back to my room, locked the door, and
slept with the flasklight next to the bed, first time
I'd ever locked a door in my own house. The
next morning, I called a pest control company, told them
I thought maybe I had racked. Was something worse up
in the attic. The guy who showed up was middle aged,
chatty at first until he went up there. When he
came back down, he was chatty any more. Said there
were food wrappers, a couple of ratty blankets, even an
anticon of beans. Told me it looked like someone had
been sleeping up there. Might have been a squatter before
I moved in, he said, though he didn't sound convinced
by his own theory. He looked me in the eye
and said he should probably call the sheriff, just to
be safe, so I did. A deputy came by that afternoon.
His name was Givens. I think he was calm, professional,
but the second he stepped into the attic and stayed
up there for more than a few minutes, I could
feel something shift. When he came back down, his face
was tight. He asked if I lived alone. I told
him yes. He asked how long I'd been there. I
said about eight months. He noded once and told me
he needed me to come with him to the station.
They'd found more than just blankets. There were note books,
pages full of messy handwriting, a jacket worn out but
still intact, a pair of boots with dried mud caked
to the souls, a hunting knife tucked into a rolled
up tall On that second fallone the one that was mine,
burnt orange case, crackscreen, it was still charged. Whoever had
been up there wasn't just squatting. They'd been living there
for months, maybe the whole time I had the attic
didn't block from the inside. That meant whoever it was
had to come down when I wasn't home or when
I was asleep. They must have watched me enough to
know my schedule, knowing when it was safe to move around.
The prince they lifted belonged to a man named Grady Miller.
I'd never heard of him before, but he had a record,
started with break ins, then a soul then at kidnapping
charge that got thrown out due to lack of evidence.
He served time a low security Facilitinia Canden and had
been released less than a year before I moved in.
They never found him. He was gone by the time
the Sherrif's department got involved, disappeared. They found signs in
the woods behind the house, cigarette butts, trampled under brush,
a little clearing with a perfect view of my back windows.
After the police packed up and left, I didn't sleep
there again. I packed a bag and drove to my
cousin Lorna's place in Waverley. The house was just outside
a town cold Miller's Hill, tupped on one of those
whining Tennessee roads where everything looks like it's been there
for fifty years, longer than it has. I've moved in
three days earlier and was trying to go for a checklist.
I'd made, just boring stuff to help me feel grounded.
First up, check all the cabinets and shelves to match
the inspector's notes. I faded the kitchen was the best
place to start. It was clean, manageable, and not as
overwhelming as they out accord the garage. I moved through
each cabinet, methodically opening doors, checking hinges lightly, pushing them closed,
and watching how they are lined. There's something coming about
the rhythm of it, simple, tangible. It gave me the
illusion that I was settling in. Then I got to
the cabinet beside the fridge. The latch was angled slightly downward,
not a huge thing, barely noticeable if you weren't paying attention.
But I was paying attention. I always leave latch's face
in the same way, randad and pointing straight clean line.
I remembered adjusting that one during the walk through, remembered
how clicked into place. So seeing Adolf kilt Her set
off a small alarm in my brain. I tightened the screw,
nudge it back into position, and chalked it up to
how settling quirks. No big deal, at least That's what
I told myself. After the kitchen, I moved down the
hallway to check the closet shelves. That's where the weird
feeling really started to creep in. I opened the whole
closet and saw my tool books, bake read a little
dented on the corner, sitting up on the top shelf.
That stopped me. I'd carried that thing in unmove and
dem myself, and I specifically remember dropping it on the
bottom shelf because my arms were giving out. It's not light,
definitely not something i'd absent mindedly lift up of shoulder
height without noticing. Still, I tried to explain it away.
I checked for dust. There was a perfect rectangle of
it on the top shelf, but it didn't match the
shape of the box. Something smaller had been there before.
The outline was clear. Whatever used to sit up there
was gone now, and my toolbooks had taken its place.
I moved it back down, trying to act normal, but
I could feel myself fidgeting more than usual. Then I
into the laundry room. I was setting things up back there,
organizing supplies. I keep my cleaning stuff in a white
plastic bin, nothing fancy, just one of those cheap ones
with the cut out handles in the side. I always
leave it by the back wall, tucked behind the washer.
When I reached for it, it was gone. Found it
right near the door. Instead. It had been rotated ninety degrees,
and inside every single bottle, glass cleaner degrees or bleach
was arranged standing up in a single puffect vertical line,
like someone had taken the time to line them out deliberately.
The bleach was sitting at the top of the line,
which was strange because the bottle leaks if he tilted
the wrong way. I checked the floor, expecting to see
a puddle or drips. Nothing and the dust were I
usually kept. The bin hadn't been disturbed, no drag marks,
just a clean and disturbed space that when I started
to slow down a little still, I kept going. I
told myself I must have moved things without noticing. Maybe
I was tired, maybe I was flustered, but the explanations
were starting to feel in. Later in the afternoon, I
turned my attention to the attic. The inspector had made
a note about the tension rods and the pulled down
ladder nading adjustment. I grabbed a screwdriver, pulled the ladder down,
and climbed up slowly, more out of habit than curiosity.
The attic was mostly empty, dry wood insulation and two
wooden crates left by the last owner. They looked old,
but not ancient. One was closed with a latch, the
other was webb slightly open. I gave in and opened
the first one. Inside it was a small portable cassette player,
the kind with the big clicke buttons. The corner was
dented and it looked like it hadn't been touched in
a long time. Definitely was mine. The second crate held
a folder, just loose papers, maybe fifty or sixty sheets.
I flipped for a few and so rows of names,
each followed by a neat check mark. No addresses, no notes,
just names and chick marks. None of them were familiar.
I put the folder back, pushed the lid closed, and
climbed back down. When I stepped into the hallway, I
stopped cold. The tool box was back out. They were
sitting in the middle of the floor, perfectly aligned with
the doorway. I hadn't even been gone that lawn. That's
than an ire, I I knew for a fact. I
had put that box back on the bottom shelf and
shut the door. I picked it up same wait, same
chip handle, same scratch across the lid. It was mine,
but now it was here, just waiting for me. This time,
I shouted back inside the closet and slammed the door
so hard I heard the hinges complain. I needed to
calm down, so I went to the kitchen and grabbed
the inspection packet. Just something rational, something with ink and
paper and dates. I flipped to the last page, for
I had written notes earlier that morning, except they were gone.
In their place, some one had written the word checked
over and over again, filling every line from top to bottom,
and hand writing that looked and cannily like mine. Same angle,
same shade to the letters. But the pressure was wrong.
I pressed hard winter write my pen leaves grooves. His
marks were faint, almost shy, like someone copying the way aright,
but without the confidence. I pulled a blank sheet and
walked toward the living room. That's when I saw it.
The cleaning bin was sitting on the coffee table, same bottle,
same weird arrangement, that leaky bleach bottle still at the top,
perfectly upright. The laundry room door was still open. I
walked back and returned the bin slower this time. I
didn't rush. I put it exactly where it had been
that morning. Then I tried calling the realtor. Her name
was Dana, straight to voicemail. I left a quick message
asking if she knew anything about the crates in the attic.
Not ten minutes later, my phone buzzed again. Call Aerody
said the house land line was calling me. I hadn't
said up the land line, I answered, expecting statock or
maybe some confused technician. What I heard was a slow,
soft tapping, like some one gently tapping their nail or
a pen on the receiver. Tap tap, tap, even was based,
almost thoughtful. It went on for about ten seconds before
the line went dead. I stood there for a moment,
staring at the phone, and then walked back toward the attic.
The ladder was still up, folded into the ceiling. I
pulled it down, clanned up again and checked the crates.
One was open, the cassette player was gone. The folder
was now sitting on top of the other crate, partially open,
like some one had just threw it. I didn't touch anything,
just closed the crates again, climbed down and folded the
ladder away. After that, I went through the entire house,
every cabinet, every drawer, every closet. I wasn't looking for
anything in particular. I just needed to know where things were.
I wanted to feel like I was the one in
control of my space. Everything was fine until I reached
the back door. The dead bolt was unlocked. That one
detail made my stomach turn. I had locked it that morning,
I remember checking it. I relocked it, then I flipped
the bolt again. It moved easily, like nothing had happened.
And maybe nothing had, but it didn't feel that way.
I went back to the kitchen, picked up that final
page again and held it under the overhead light. On
the back, in the same strange soft handwriting was a
new list of names. The first few matched the ones
from the attic folder. The last one was mine. That
was the line. That was the line. I folded the
paper slowly, grabbed keys, and left. I walked out the
front door, shut it behind me, and waited for the
latch to click. That click felt solid, reel, like the
world was still holding together. I drove into town and
bought new locks, new bolts, a steel bar for the
back door. Back at the house, I installed every new
piece before I even sat down. Then I packed the folder,
the out of papers, and the strange curried items into
a box and silted shut. I've been renting for over
a decade, basement apartments, noisy duplexes, a two year stint,
and converted garage that somehow still haunts my lower back. Finally,
after years of budgeting and bouncing between jobs, I scraped
together enough for a down payment and bought a house.
The price had been suspiciously low for the area, but
the inspection came back clean, no foundation issues, no major
electrical problems. The sailor was a quiet guy in his
late fifties, moves out of state for a job and
left the place mostly empty. Said he hadn't lived there
much the last couple years, just use it for storage.
I moved in the second week of May with my
two dogs, sparing Muffy and Mattress, and about a dozen
boxes that held what little I owned. First night, I
slept on the foe with the dogs curled up beside me.
It felt good, like a recept button. I remember thinking
how quiet the area was. No traffic, no upstairs neighbors
stomping around, just the occasional owl and the wind. Threw
the trees out back. The first two weeks were normal,
peaceful even I fixed a loose fence posts so the
dogs could run in the back yard without supervision, swapped
out the busted bath room light, got a new mail book,
started and packing slowly, making the place field like come.
The dogs adjusted fast, they were used to new environments,
but by week three they started acting strange. It started
with a weird bundle I found behind the water heater.
I wasn't even looking for anything in particular. I was
just clearing out cobboards, figuring out what pipes went where.
I noticed something toughed way back in the corner. It
was wrapped in a dirty piece of what looked like
campusle lin. It tied ship with what I swear I
was human hair. It looked brittle and some bleached, but
still tightly knodded. I probably should have just left it alone,
but of course I opened it. Inside were a few
small items, a worn child's shoe about the size of
a toddler's smith's coined completely blank on both sides, like
the face had been sounded off, and what I think
were teeth, not human teeth, too small, too sharp. I
honestly didn't examine them Laan. I just wrapped everything back up,
walked it straight to the outdoor trash ben and tossed
it in. I remembered standing there afterward, wiping my hands
on my jeans, thinking O ka, that was word, and
trying to move on. That night, the Dodge refused to
go into the hallway that led to the bedrooms and
laundry room. Just start cold in the living room and growled.
I called them like normal, nothing bare let out this
litow rumble I had never heard from him before, and
Murphy pressed herself against the back of the couch like
she was trying to vanish into it. I walked down
the hall myself, every light, aunt, checking each room. Nothing
was out of place. I even said out loud to
see nothing's there. But they still wouldn't come. The next morning,
same thing. They wouldn't go near the back half of
the house. Berr started sleeping under the kitchen table, and
Murphy called up behind the couch cushions that entire hall
we might as well have been a close air edge.
I even tried tossing treats to cooks them down the hall,
and Bear just sat down and stared at me. Like
I betrayed him. Then the lights started acting up. First
it was the bedroom. The overhead light would flicker, then
cut out completely for about ten minutes before snapping back on.
A few days later, the living room lanted the same.
Eventually the entire back half of the house had this
strange rhythm. Lights would flicker out, stay dark for a stretch,
then hump back to life like nothing happened. I figured
it was bad wiring, maybe rodents chewing through insulation, so
I called an electrician. He showed up, took a look
at the panel, checked every socket and switch, and eventually
shrugged taut. Everything looked wodly clean for a house this old.
No moisture damage, no freed wires, nothing loose. Honestly, he said,
I've seen were set ups some brand new builds. Then
he laughed and joked, maybe you've got a ghost. I
laughed too, but it didn't feel funny. It was around
then I stopped sleeping, well not, and saw meare exactly
more like. I kept waking up at the same time
every night, just after three in the morning. I wouldn't
hear anything, but I joled awake with this tightness in
my chest like some one was pushing on it. I'd
lie there frozen for a minute or two hot poundings,
struving to catch my breath. Then it would pass and
I'd be wide awake, completely alert, no dreams, no explanation,
just up. The dogs would be sitting up right in
the corner of the bedroom, not called up, not a sleep,
just sitting there facing the hallway like statues. And then
started hearing it. It was always the same sound, a low, wet,
dragging noise, like something heavy being pulled across tile. It
came from the laundry room, always late at night, always
after the lights flickered. The first time, I sat up
in bed and just listened, it didn't get louder, didn't
move toward me. It just paced back and forth, slow, deliberate.
The dogs didn't bark, they whimpered. Murphy climbed half way
on to the bed and shook until sunrise. After that,
I stopped going into the laundry room at night. A
few days later, I noticed the crossbay s door was open,
just a crack, but enough to see the dark behind it.
When I moved in, that door was sealed with layers
of old paint. I had to break just to check
it during the inspection. I shut it afterward and hadn't
touched it since. Now it moved freely, like it had
always been loose. I shut it and pushed a heavy
storage box in front of it. The next morning, the
box was across the room. I stared at it for
way too long, tried to convince myself i'd moved it
and forgot, But I hadn't. That box was filled with
power tools and old books, easily forty or fifty pounds.
It doesn't just slide around. I moved it back. Then,
without even thinking, poured a line of sol across the
Cross Bay store. I don't know why I did it.
I don't believe in any of that stuff. It just
felt like the right thing to do, like something people
do in stores when they are out of options. The
salt held for two nights. Then on the third morning
it was swept into a perfect crescent shape, not scattered,
not stepped through, just carefully curved like someone had drawn
it was the edge of their hand. That's when I
bought the camera. Basic motions answer nothing fancy. I set
it up in the laundry room facing the Crossby store.
That night, I stayed awake in the living room, waiting
to see if anything triggered it. Nothing happened. Next morning
I checked the camera. It had been flipped face down
some time in the middle of the night. The footage
ended abruptly at two point forty eight a m. No movement,
no sound, just a cut. That was enough for me.
That evening, I packed a suit case, groad some essentials,
and left for my sister's place across town. After the divorce,
things in Bridgeport just felt stale. Too many familiar corners,
too many people who knew too much. The condo soul
fast enough, and once that check hit, I didn't stick
around my body. Neil's cousin had a line on a
place down south outside a little town in Tennessee, Cold Alberge.
According to the realtor, an older couple had owned it forever.
Husband passed, wife left the state soon after, just an
old house waiting for someone to live in it again.
I didn't waste time signed everything after a ten minute
walk through. The place was dusty but solid, and I
told myself that the isolation would be good for me. Irissett.
The first few days were spent and parking, fixing things
here and there. There was no cell service inside the
house unless I stood on a specific towel near the sink.
Closest grocery store was fifteen miles out. Mail came twice
a week, but it didn't bother me. I was fine
being alone. The silence out there was different. It wasn't empty.
It just left you alone. Then on the fourth evening,
around sunset, I was hauling some old lumber behind the
shade when I noticed someone walking up the driveway. No car,
just a guy, maybe in his forties, worrying faded como
and one of those orange chanting caps. He was built solid,
probably six feet tall, and walked like he knew exactly
where he was going. When he saw me, he lifted
his hand a little, not a wave of more like
a sol motion salute. I walked up to meet him,
half way between the house and the tree line. Before
I could say anything, he nodded at the house and
said all moved and quick. I told him I had
mentioned Linda, the woman who'd rented me the place. He
didn't really react, just kept looking past me, eyes fixed
on the woods, like he was watching for something. She
never came back for her dogs, he said. I blinked,
told him I hadn't seen any dogs around. He didn't
respond to that. Instead, he tilted his head a little
and asked he opened up the lower call yet, I
said no. I knew there were two course bass one
near the front, one built into the back slope, but
I hadn't gotten around to either. He nodded once. Don't
not alone at least. Then he turned and walked off,
not down a driveway, into the woods, just disappeared like
he'd walked through an open door. Nobody else could see.
It didn't scare me, not exactly, but I did start
locking the doors at night, and I moved Kroba from
the shed to the living room. The next week was uneventful,
but a little harder to relax. I kept thinking about
the guy, wondering if he'd been a neighbor or just
some drifter who knew the place. Then came the barking.
First time. It was around midnight, woke me up of
a dead sleep. It wasn't close, but not far either,
sharp panicked barks like something chapter frantic. I got up,
looked out the windows. Nothing. Next night, same thing, this
time closer, same bark, same urgency, but had always gone
by the time I made it to the door. I
stayed up the night after that, sat in the dark
with a blanket and a warm beard by the front window.
Some time around to you, I heard it again, only
it wasn't barking. It was footsteps on the deck, heavy ones,
one step, then another, then nothing. I didn't move for
a while, just sat there, holding my breath. When I
finally stood up and flipped on the porch light, I
threw the door open fast, like that would catch somebody
of guard. But no one was there, just the hum
of bugs and the faint creak of trees shifting in
the wind. Next morning, I walked the property. Didn't expect
to find anything, but by the back cross base there
were footprints, work boots, big ones, the kind that leave
deep tracks. Is someone's been standing still for a while.
I didn't call the cops. What would I even say.
I some one might have been watching my house last night,
but left politely and didn't steal anything. I just kept
checking the locks and started sleeping with the shotgun Ey'd
used once for skeet shooting a decade ago. That weekend,
I called deryck All, friend from college. He lived in
Knoxville and always liked excuses to drink beer and swing
a hammer. I told him the place needed some work,
and I was spooked by some weird noises. He showed
up Saturday afternoon with a cooler, a bluted speaker, and
a baseball bat just in case. We grilled, patched up
a bit of siding, and I told him about the
guy in the woods, the barking, the steps. He didn't laugh,
which surprised me. Derek laughs at everything. Instead, he got quiet, nodded,
and said, let's check the crawl. We went around back
and I unlocked the rusted hatch. They suck a little,
but eventually gave way to reveal a concrete slope that
disappeared into a dark, musty crawl space. No lights, no
real insolution, just poured concrete and shadows. Derek crouched and
went first, using the flashlight on his keychain. Smells like pis,
he muttered. He crawled in a few feet, then he stopped,
there's something down here. I dropped to my knees and followed,
cold concrete on my hands. The light hit two large
metal cages in the back corner, rusted stained with deep
scratches along the bars next to them were several torn
dog fruit bags, some half rotted, and a bundle top,
lumpy and damp. We dragged the top toward us. Inside
were three dog collars, the leather had decayed and curled.
Two are tags, dusty and chopper that there didn't have one.
Derek stout for a long time. Then he crawled out
without a word. We stood in the yard, not talking,
not moving like our feet didn't quite believe they were
back on solid ground. That night, Derek left the shotgun
with me and drove home. He didn't offer to stay,
and I didn't ask. Three days later, the barking came back,
Only this time it was underneath me, not outside, not
in the woods, under the floor. I stood frozen in
the hallway listening to it echoed through the walls. Not
a recording, not some distant animal. It was right there, hasten, barking, clawing. Maybe.
I ran outside, flashlight in one hand, shot gun in
the other, and opened the back crawl hatch. Instant silence,
no movement, no sound, just the thick stillness that comes
when something leaves. The next morning, the crawl space was
empty plane, the cages were gone, the top was gone,
even the moldy bags had vanished. I took pictures sent
them to Derrick. He replied, you cleaned it out. I
didn't respond. Instead, I called lind Of, the woman who
rented me the place, told her I'd found something odd
in the crawl. She went quiet long enough that I
thought we'd lost the connection. Then she said, you found
the cages. I asked why they were there. She got
bad toward the end. I tried to clear everything before
renting it. I don't think anyone would go down there.
She hung up before I could ask what bad meant.
I was twenty seven when I moved to Tennessee. Things
had kind of unraveled all at once. The leaseaw my
apartment in Dayton was up, and my relationship six years
long with a shed dog and a Spotify account. I
didn't want to catchself when we've back in with my parents,
And right when I was figuring out what came next,
my aunt Lena called. She owned this place outside of town,
colt Stonebrook, real quiet, mosley trees, maybe two gas stations.
I hadn't seen the house since I was a teenager,
but I remembered at being set way back off a
gravel road, surrounded by woods. She told me nobody was
using it, that I could stay as long as I wanted,
said she kept it for family transitions, which was her
polite way of saying emotional breakdowns to vorces or tax problems.
It sounded like exactly the kind of place where no
one would ask how I was during the house was
small but solid, just two bedrooms and one bathroom, with
furniture that looked like it hadn't moved since the early
two thousands. The kitchen at those fake would laminade cabinets
the kind of peel if you spill anything hot, But
it wasn't abandoned. It just felt po as there were
still kangreene beans and dusty rice in the pantry, sheets
on the bed, even a flasklight with working batteries in
the drawer by the sink. I drop my bags in
the bigger of the two bedrooms, and just too there
for a second. Let in the quite settle over me.
No upstairs neighbors, no street noise, no passive aggressive fridge notes.
It was weirdly comforting. The fast couple weeks were peaceful
in a way that made me realize how tightly wind
I'd been. I didn't have a job yet, so I
spent most days fixing little things, replacing old bobs, were
sealing the shower grout, tightening the kitchen cabinet hinges so
they stopped squeaking every time I opened one. The place
slowly started to feel less like a left of her
and more like something mine. Then maybe three weeks in,
I noticed something odd about the bedroom. It was the closet,
nothing dramatic, just off center. I don't know why I
caught my attention one day, but I remember staring at
it while brushing my teeth and thinking, why would someone
build it like that? It was too far to the
right on the wall, and when I opened it it
was only about two feet deep, which didn't make sense
that wall backed into the same room. There should have
been more space. Curiosity kicked in. I grab tape measure
measured the bedroom wall from the corner to the edge
of the closet, then measured the inside of the closet itself.
There were about four feet unaccounted for. At first, I
thought maybe there was some kind of coal space or
old utility access. The house was old enough to have
wood quirks, so I knocked along the wall inside the closet.
Most of it gave that soft, hollow sound of drywl,
but there was one section about chest tight and a
foot wide that sounded different, duller, like something solid behind it.
I stood there for a while, just holding my hand
against that spot. I wasn't scared, exactly, more curious, more curious,
and I had nothing but time. I ended up cutting
out a small square of drywall, just enough to peep behind.
That's when I found the first door. No knob, no hinges,
just old royalwood wedged into a frame like it had
been fitted there by hand. It didn't match the other
doors in the house. This one looked much older, maybe
original to whatever had been here before renovations. I pried
it open with a flat head in my bomb. Behind
it a short hallway five feet long, may be less.
The walls were just dry, well painted white, no markings,
no lights. At the end of the hallway was a
second door. This one did have a knob, rassed harnish
called to the touch. There was no sound coming from
behind it, no smell, no air movement, just stillness. I
opened it. The room inside was maybe six feet by
six feet, no windows, just a chair, one plain wooden
chair in the center of the room. Sitting in front
of it was a mirror, full length leaning against the
far wall. Nothing else, no cobwebs, no dust like some
one had cleaned it recently. Behind the chair, scrolled across
the wall and thick black marker were four words sit, wait,
watch until a cop is. That's when I started feeling off,
not scared exactly, but luck I had walked into the
wrong scene of some one else's story. I stood there
for maybe thirty seconds, not moving. Then I backed out,
shook both doors, patched the drywall, and shoved the dresser
in front of the closet. I told myself it was
just a weird left of a room, maybe someone's old
meditation space. Maybe Lena used it for storage back in
the day and forgot about it. I told myself all
kinds of things, and that probably would have been the
end of it. But two nights later, around one in
the morning, I woke up to a sound, a soft Greek,
then another, the kind of sound you'd expect from floorboards
under slow, careful steps, except they weren't in the room.
They were behind the wall. It sounded like someone pacing,
not stomping, not driving, just walking back and forth behind
the drywall in space where the hallway was. The next morning,
I checked the closet. Everything looked untouched. The dresser was
still tied against it, drywall still sealed. I tried to
brush it off, but the pace and came back. Not
every night, just often enough that I started dreading the silence.
Sometimes I'd wake up just before it started, like my
brain knew it was coming. The steps would go on
for five, maybe ten minutes, then stop poll up once,
like whoever or whatever was back there didn't want to
be hear too long. Then one afternoon I came in
from stacking firewood and something was off. The bedroom door
was shut. I never closed it, not Once I stepped inside.
The closet door was wide open. My chest locked up
for a second. Everything else in the room looked normal,
fed and touched, window shut, dress of drawers closed, but
that closet. I walked over slowly, half expecting to see
something waiting on the other side, but it was just dark.
I pulled the drywall panel aside. The narrow hallway was
still there at the end the second door. I opened it.
The room looked the same, except the chair had moved.
It wasn't dramatic, just turned slightly to the right like
someone had sat in it, shifted and gotten up. That
night I didn't sleep. I lay in bed with the
light on, fully dressed, waiting. At two point fourteen I
saw it movement, not big, just something in the far
corner of the room, A shape shifting slightly, like someone
adjusting their posture. I sat up, looked right at it.
There was nothing there. The next day I drove into
town and bought a trail cam, one of those cheap
hunting models that snaps pictures when it sendses movement. I
set it on the shelf across from the closet and
aimed toward the wall. The next morning, I checked the
card at one point forty am. The footage skipped just
for a second, then it came back. There was a
figure standing in front of the closet. At first I
thought it was a glitch. The lighting looked weird, but
then I leaned in closer. It was me. Same hoodie,
same socks, same slightly and even posture. I have one
on half asleep, but it was me. The figure stared
at the wall, then took a step forward and disappeared
behind it. I should have packed my things right then
and left. Something about it pulled at me like the
room itself was waiting. That night, I opened the wall again,
walked through the narrow hallway, and sat down in the chair.
I moved out before the week was over. Told my
aunt the house had a mole problem. Said I couldn't
breathe for right at night. Now I live in a
third floor apartment with loud pipes and neighbors who slammed
their doors at all ives. I was twenty seven when
I moved into a house just outside a little place
called Whalen, Tennessee. I just packed what fit in my car,
left a note for the landlord in Atlanta, and started
driving north before the city woke up. I didn't tell
many people didn't really want to. Sometimes you are not
leaving for a better place, just a different one. The
house was a foreclosure. I bought it online for what
felt like park a change. No inspection, no walk through,
just a few grainy photos and a list of minor
repairs needed. It looked like it had been empty for
a while, long enough with the grass to swallow the
mail books and for birds to start nesting. In the eaves,
but it was mine, cheap, isolated, and more or less standing.
It sat at the end of a craft travel road,
one of those stubborn Marnch style places with red brick
and a porch that leaned just enough to make you nervous.
The back yard ran into an acre of woods, nothing
but trees and dead leaves so thick you couldn't see
ten feet in quiet, though you could hear yourself think.
I spent the first week cleaning, or trying to. Every
room had its own brand of gram. The kitchen smelled
like milty. The bathroom mirror had this sway fog that
wipe away. I replaced floorboards, cleared up dead bugs, and
duck taped a broken bench up because it rattled when
the wind hit it. All the normal stuff right. By
day four, I thought I was doing okay, and then
the back door started and locking itself. At first I
figured it was just me. I was tied distracted, running
on fast food and lukewarm coffee. The door was all
would swollen from years of humidity, with a stubborn brass
handle and a dead bolt that needed some muscle to
click into place. I remember locking it one night, really
locking it, putting my back into the twist. I even
hugged the knob to check. Next morning it was wide open,
not cracked, not halfway, just standing open like some one
wanted me to notice. I stood there a long time,
staring out at the trees. I didn't move, didn't say anything,
just listened. No wind, no birds, just the stillness you
will only get in places far from people. I finally
closed it, locked it again and forced myself to move on.
Told myself I'd probably just been careless. But it happened again,
and then again, and then again. I bought a new
de bowl, brushed off some bisky tube tutorials, and installed
it myself. It felt solid, better than the first for sure.
Next morning door was open. That's when I stopped sleeping
in the bedroom. It faced the back yard and I
couldn't deal with that any more. I started crashing and
the couch with the TV onlow. Nois helped, even if
it was just a muffled drone of some late night
in commercial. Every night I double checked the dead bolt,
shove a kitchen chair under the knock, even pile of
feep hands in front of it like a makeshift alarm.
Some nights the chair was still there in the morning,
but the lock would be undone. Other times the chair
would be tipped over or slid a few inches to
the side, like some one had quietly moved it out
of the way. Once I found my sneakers outside the
back door side by side, like someone had taken them
for a walk and brought them back. I started writing
things down, times, details, tiny observations. I made a kind
of checklist, locked the door at eleven thirty, used the
green jet a night, left brown boots by the mat,
trying to prove to myself that something was happening, that
I wasn't just losing it. Eventually I bought a security camp,
just to cheap, indoor model from a big Buck store.
I set it up in the kitchen, aim straight at
the back door. First night, Nothing happened. Second night's aim.
Then on the third night, I woke up to the
door open again, checked the footage, only there wasn't any.
The recording just stopped, not for the whole night. It
cut off a few minutes before the door opened, like
someone had turned it off. I thought the battery had died,
so I plugged it in. Still happened every night I tried,
the file would cut off right before the moment I
needed to see, so I got sneaky, set up a
second camera hidden behind some caned food in the pantry,
angle to catch the first one. That way, if someone
was messing with it, i'd see them. Didn't work. Both
feeds went dark. That's when I started sleeping with a hammer,
not because I thought it would do much, but holding
it made me feel like I had a little control left.
I'd lay there on the couch, one eye on the door,
one hand wrapped round the handle. By that point I
wasn't really sleeping, more light drifting in and out with
the TV buzzing and the hammer warm in my palm.
Then the light started flickering, always the same pattern, three
quick blinks, pause, one lawn flicker, only in the hallway.
I counted it. Time to try different bulbs, foot breakers,
even called an electrician. He came out, poked around, didn't
find anything wrong. Old houses, he shrugged. They do word
stuff sometimes. One night I was standing in the kitchen
eating cereal out of the box, lights doing their usual
flicker when that last lawn blinkit and the back door
clicked open. Not swan, not creaked, clicked like some one
turned the handle gently. I froze the door east opened
an inch or two, just enough to feel the night air.
I didn't go investigate. I grabbed the hammer, stepped outside barefoot,
and stood there, just breathing, staring into the trees like
I expected something to walk out. Nothing did, just black
trees and brittle leaves. I stayed outside until the sky
turned gray. Next day I nailed the back door. Shut, woodplank,
big nails, no gaps. I checked it three times. It
stayed shut. That night, I finally crashed in the bedroom again.
Woke up cold round three a m. And realized the
window was open. It had been painted shut when I
moved in. I remembered scraping at the frame with a
screwdriver and giving up. Now it was wide open, screen
popped out, blinds fluttering in the breeze. I closed it,
repainted the edges. Didn't sleep, just sat in the living room,
watching the whole way light to its little dance. Next
morning I went to leave and both doze on my truck.
Will wide open, no broken glass, no scorches, nothing missing,
just open. That was it for me. I drove to
a cheap motel off the highway and that is the end.
Thank you for listening and I will see you in
the next one mm hmm.