Speaker 1: I'm a well known psychiatrist currently residing in Michigan. Though
I do adult counseling sessions, my expertise lies in children's psychology.
And this happened last year when I visited my sister's
house in Louisville, Kentucky. She lived there with her husband
and my seven year old niece, Emily. My brother in
law works in the navy, so it's mostly my sister
and her daughter. Emily has always been a happy, energetic girl.
Whenever I would visit, she would run to me and
hang like a sloth around my neck, making all kinds
of demands. But this time I noticed something strange. I
was sipping the hot coffee when Emily's school bus pulled over.
I was getting ready to get showered with pampering and
soft giggles of Emily. When she walked in with her
school bag, she seemed strangely quiet and pale. She didn't
even notice me and went straight to her room. What's wrong,
did you scold her? My sister answered no and began
to cry. She told me how Emily had changed all
of a sudden, that she always stays in her room,
scribbling in her notebooks.
Speaker 2: Well Emily's at overseas. I don't know what to do, Jacob,
can you help me.
Speaker 1: I've never seen my sister break down like this before.
She had always been the strongest one in our family.
I assured her with a hug and that I'll look
into the matter myself, that I'll talk to my niece.
After dinner, I sat down with Emily in her room.
I watched her take the life out of her black
crayon to make never ending circles on white paper. You
sure love to draw em. She didn't look at me,
just kept greasing the crayon more vigorously. I picked up
a couple of her drawings to see what she scribbled.
Unlike the usual vibrant chaos, this one particular drawing caught
my attention. It was of a worn out old house
depicting a single barred window. By looking at the drawing,
I got goose bumps. Is this the house next door him?
When I asked my sister about this house, she said
it had been abandoned for years and no one goes
near it. That night, I woke up feeling thirsty and
went to the kitchen to grab some water. While navigating
to the kitchen, a faint whispering came to my ears.
Curiosity tugged at me, so I followed the sound. It
was coming from Emily's room. Pushing the door, I saw
found Emily staring out her window and whispering creepily. I
couldn't decipher what she was saying, but her small fingers
went on making circles on the window glass. Her lips
mumbled so fast that it seemed like my niece was possessed.
Taking a few steps closer, I placed a comforting hand
on Emily's shoulder. In a quick motion, Emily turned around.
Her normally bright eyes were vacant white. Her pupils rolled
back up into her head. A terrifying smile stretch to
cross her pale face, and then, just as abruptly, she
fell on the floor. All of a sudden, she just fainted.
My sister and I rushed to the nearest emergency room
at the hospital. Emily was burning with fever, her tiny
body shivering in her sleep. She just kept repeatedly saying,
I saw him. I sign him, the house, the house,
the abandoned house. Emily's drawings, her terrifying state, They all
started to form a disturbing picture telling my sister to
stay by Emily's side. I decided to take a look
at the house next door. Something told me my answers
would be there. A thick layer of cobwebs and dirt
was covering the furniture, and any traces of life were lost.
The air felt heavy with the smell of decay. I
walked to the room upste the one with the barred window.
I pushed open the door while dust rained over me
from the ceiling. Moonlight shined through the window, illuminating the
room just enough for me to see clearly, and that's
when my heart stopped. A woman's lifeless, pale body was
lying on the floor. I couldn't see her face, but
her lifeless bony hand stood evidence that she had been
dead for quite some days. I almost threw myself up
and ran till I lost my breath. Once the cops
arrived at the scene, they told us that the woman's
name was Jeanine and she had been missing for two weeks.
Her parents said that she had ran away with her
boyfriend from a front party. It unfolded that her boyfriend
brought her to this abandoned house in a heavily intoxicated state.
The guy must have tried to take advantage of her.
When she said no, he silenced her for life. After
Emily got a little bit better, the cops questioned her
about this house, and my poor niece broke down crying.
Emily told the cops that she saw a man hurting
a girl from her window a couple of days back. Eventually,
the cops traced Janine's boyfriend, and my niece shifted back
to her normal, cheerful self and no time. Sometimes it
scares me how secretive kids can be, but then again,
as adults we must listen to them. Moving to Manhattan
was supposed to be a fresh start for us. Julie,
Timothy and I were finally settled in our new flat,
twenty one floors up, with the city scape sprawled beneath us.
Life in the Big Apple was a dream come true,
and we were thrilled about the future. Timothy was a
shy kid. He didn't talk much, but his mom was
stoked that he would become a great artist when he'd
grow up. He'd spent hours scribbling in his new drawing book, Mountains, waterfalls,
giant dragons. Timmy had always been imaginative, but soon his
art began to tell a different story. It started innocently enough.
Timmy would draw scenes from our house, family dinners, game nights,
et cetera. But there was always an additional figure in
his sketches, a man with red eyes, a big belly,
and a thick, unkempt beard. When we asked him about
the strange figure, Timmy would simply say, it's angel. He
lives under my bed. Julie and I brushed it off
as an imaginary friend, a face he would outgrow. But
one evening, Julie brought me his drawing book and it
sent a shiver down my spine. It depicted our bedroom,
would Julie and me asleep, and the same red eyed
figure standing over us watching. Julie tried to laugh it off,
saying kids in their imaginations, right, but the unease had
already settled deep within me. Soon Timmy's drawings grew more disturbing.
One showed me working on my laptop late in the night,
with the angel peeking from behind the door. Another captured
Julie in the shower with the angel peeping through the
crack in the door. I blamed Timmy's vivid imagination, but
Julie pointed out that even the color of her shampoo bottle.
Speaker 2: Was the same.
Speaker 1: I sat Timmy down one afternoon holding one of the drawings, Timmy,
where do you see Angel? Is he really under your bed? Yes, Daddy,
he says he likes our home. That night, I checked
under his bed thoroughly, flashlight in hand.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: I even checked the closets, behind the curtains, every conceivable
hiding spot. I was met with nothing but empty spaces
and shadows. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.
Then one dreadful morning, our world shattered. Julie and I
woke up to find Timmy's bed empty. Panics surged through
us as we tore through the apart, calling his name.
The windows were shut tight. We were on the twenty
first floor, so we couldn't have climbed out. The main
door was locked from the inside, and he couldn't yet
reach the latch. Then where did our son vanish? We
called the police immediately as they arrived. They began a
thorough search, calmbing through every inch of our flat. Julie
was in tears. The officer searched, questioned, and I hypothesized,
but there was no sign of our son. One of
the officers, named Detective Harper, took particular interest in Timmy's drawings.
He studied each one carefully. This angel, your son mentioned
him to you. Yes, he said that angel lived under
his bed. We thought it was just a figment of
his imagination. Harper's expression turned grim. We needed to take
a closer look at the bed. The officers pulled the
bed out and started removing the wallpaper, which suddenly revealed
a small false space behind it. My heart pounded as
they pulled back the wooden slats, revealing a narrow cavity
leading into the darkness. Harper's flashlight beam revealed a shocking sight.
It was connected to our neighbor's apartment. They burst into
the neighbor's flat a certain mister d. Santos, and there,
in a cramped, dimly lit room, was Timmy. He was
sitting on the floor, nibbling on a slice of cheesecake,
looking dazed but unharmed. Beside him, a man who fit
Timmy's drawings perfectly, big belly, unkempt beard, and bloodshot eyes
stared blankly at us de Santos. You're under arrest. Desantos
didn't resist. He just smiled, a sickening, knowing smile that
made my skin crawl. As the officers led him away,
I gathered Timmy in my arms, trembling with relief and horror.
Later we learned the full story. De Santo's had been
sneaking into our apartment at night through the hidden passage.
He had befriended Timmy, feeding him cheesecakes and earning him trust.
He got a kick out of watching us to fulfill
some sadistic voyeuristic tendencies. I filled me with rage to
imagine that he was secretly watching my wife bathing. God
knows what all he had seen, completely shattering any privacy
that we thought we had. Police informed us that he
had already had a previous arrest four years ago and
had recovered multiple recordings of him filming the tenants who
used to occupy our house. It was assumed at the
time that the man had broken into the flat, but
no one had any clue that he had a secret
space to enter our flat. We also learned his first name, Angel.
We were a normal, happy family. My wife Linda and I,
along with our daughter Anna, lived in a quaint two
story house in the suburbs. Everything seemed perfect on the
surface level until the day Anna's teacher, Missus White, assigned
a harmless project that changed our lives forever. Anna had
always loved drawing, and her colorful creations adorned our refrigerator
door like metals. One day, when Missus White gave the
assignment to her students the topic our happy family. I
expected nothing out of the ordinary, But when Anna turned
in her project, Missus White called us in for a meeting.
Speaker 2: Urgently missed on Missus Thompson, I wanted to discuss Anna's
race and drawings.
Speaker 1: I glanced at the paper she handed us. It was
a typical family portrait, but with an unsettling addition. There
in the background was a hooded figure, barely visible but
undeniably present.
Speaker 2: Who is that supposed to be? Anna calls it the visitor,
She says. At night.
Speaker 1: We exchanged uneasy glances, but shrugged it off as a
product of an active imagination. Anna was only seven, after all.
I didn't believe in spirits, but I started to keep
a track of her drawings. Over the next few days,
they became more disturbing. The hooded figure started appearing in
almost every image, inching closer to our family. Sometimes it
loomed behind us at dinner. Other times it stood at
the foot of Anna's bed. Each new drawing tightened the
knot of fear in my stomach. Concerned, we talked to Anna.
Speaker 2: Sweetie, who is this visitor you keep drawing? He comes
at night, Daddy. She says he likes to watch us.
Speaker 1: Her innocent tones sent chills down my spine. I tried
to dismiss it, but Linda couldn't shake the feeling that
something was wrong. One night, we heard noises coming from
Anna's room. We found her sleep walking in a room
while she saying a rhyme, clutching the fresh drawing in
her hands. It showed the visitor standing right next to
her bed. As I looked at the place, suddenly the
lights in the room started flickering.
Speaker 2: That was the last straw.
Speaker 1: Linda pulled her out, and the very next day I
installed cameras in her room, hoping to catch any signs
of what was disturbing our daughter. The next afternoon, Linda
showed me the drawing. The visitor was wearing a ring
with a big red ruby in it. Coincidentally, Linda's ruby
ring had been missing for a few days for two nights,
we saw nothing unusual. Then as we reviewed the footage
on the third one, our blood ran cold. The camera
became grainy. We suddenly saw Anna's bedcover slowly lift and settle.
Speaker 2: Back down, as if someone was tucking her in.
Speaker 1: Then the room seemed to have grown cold because we
could see Anna's breath in the air like a mist.
Speaker 2: It was impossible because we were in summers.
Speaker 1: Finally, the cloaked figure appeared standing by Anna's bed. It
was translucent, almost invisible, but it kept oscillating front and
back while standing in its place, as if watching her,
and then it suddenly looked towards the camera before instantly vanishing.
Linda used to visit our community church on Sundays, so
she showed the footage to the pastor, desperate for any help.
Speaker 2: What he told us was chilling.
Speaker 1: The man who lived there before us, Harold Grayson, was
a mentally disturbed man who believed that he was the
key to a battle between the angels and demons. He
was infamously spotted in a gray hooded robe buying odd
items from local community stores, which he used for some rituals.
One day, he was caught loading lots of cans of
gasoline behind his truck. When the police inquired, he said
that he had to burn the church down because the
devil lurks there. The lease broke into his house found
that he was performing rituals and storing dead animals and
his refrigerator, which he planned to burn with the church
to cleanse the place of spirits. He was arrested and
later put in a mental institution, and no one had
seen him since. Linda and I packed our bags and
decided to move away immediately. We decided to stay with
relatives until we could sell the house. Before leaving, I
saw that Anna kept looking back towards her bedroom, so
I asked her what it was, Anna, do you still
see him? Anna nodded, her eyes teary. She says, she
has returned your belongings. I rushed my family out towards
the car, without stopping to look back at the house. Strangely,
as soon as I put my hand in my pant
pocket to pull out the car keys, I found Linda's
ruby ring there. My eyes were wide and shock. I
looked back towards the house. The light and Anna's rooms
suddenly lit up for a few seconds before turning off.
Speaker 2: Again. We never returned to that place