My cousin was a 911 operator for a town in my city. She’d had many scary calls and violent situations where people were either seriously injured or even died. Many overdoses. Many domestic violence calls, some from the same women over and over, which was heartbreaking. However there was one which is still shrouded in mystery, which she claims to be the most unsettling of them all. The call went something like this….
“911 what’s your emergency?”
“I need police….” (Whispering, but undeniably shaky and anxious)
“What’s the address of your emergency?”
“** Laurel Hill Drive”
“And what’s the nature of your emergency?”
“There’s something in my room….”
“Can you speak up, miss?”
“It’s in my room….”
“Somebody is in your house, ma’am?”
“Something (indecipherable) outside, up and down the hallway”
“Can you speak up???”
“Moving fast…”
“Ma’am can you clarify, please?”
The following statement was particularly troubling and mystifying…
“There aren’t footsteps…why aren’t there any footsteps???? I don’t understand!”
This posed an obvious question of her sanity. She meandered continually back and forth about the intruder who was seeming to “walk without footsteps”. That it (she refers to the assailant as it and not she/he) was banging on walls, kicking doors, and at one point said something about her “closet” (though my cousin can’t recall exactly if she said “it” was inside the closet or that she was simply hiding in it). I should also mention, which might be the most disquieting part of it all, is that my cousin said that she could clearly hear what she called “a racket” of noises in the background. Of course, it could have been the caller making noises for various, unclear reasons. And it continued….
(Now sobbing profusely) “It’s in my doorway…”
“Has someone broken in???”
Caller hangs up. She tries to call back, but it just rings and rings. Police arrived quickly. The call was tracked from inside the home of this address, but when they arrived, the lights were out inside and the doors were locked. Police had no cause to interpose themselves, and upon checking the windows and doors, there was no evidence of intrusion.
The police had my cousin continue to call the victim’s phone while they tried to listen, but nothing, not a sound nor a light was prevalent anywhere. The neighbors exited their homes and engaged the police. One was an elderly woman and another a young woman whose husband was on his way home on furlough but hadn’t yet gotten back. Neither had heard or seen anything strange. Nobody’s floodlights had gone off. There were no bizarre sounds or occurrences (though the elder lady claimed to have seen a “strange character” coursing the neighborhood earlier that day donning a hoodie, jeans, and brown boots). The authorities eventually wrote it off as a prank call.
I don’t know what it is about this story. It’s not outrageous, sensationalistic, or violent. It’s very short and to the point. To this day it remains a mystery, but something about the way she tells it, wide-eyed and with a sense of augury, is extremely bothering. She said it undeniably wasn’t a prank call, because the girl on the other end seemed terrified and shaken to the core. The house was empty at the time, and in the process of being sold.
I still drive past it from time to time. Maybe it’s just subconscious reminiscence or overblown perception (and interest) of the macabre, but there exists a sort of opalescent, latent darkness surrounding it. It seems dismal and pale even in the sunlight. Like a dimunition of life and positivity. I’ve had dreams about it. Seen my friends marching into it laughing jovially while I entreat them with voice box - shredding screams for them to stop. Well, enough of the descriptions. The truth is, I believe something is in that house. Demons, ghosts, poltergeists, wraiths, or whatever it is.
My cousin can’t sleep anymore with the bedroom door opened. “It’s in the doorway”, the way it was said, and the fact that it was actually spoken to her in an emergency call has, as she puts it, become “the endgame to all of my worst nightmares”.