I noticed I was being followed a couple of days after the lockdown.
Living on a street with mostly elderly people, they wisely keep to their homes nowadays. The neighbourhood is abandoned when I’m doing my daily jog (still allowed in my town). But empty streets or no, someone was stalking after me.
It wasn’t just the feeling of being followed: I soon realised I heard something too. Steps, following the exact same rhythm as my own steady trod.
First, I figured it was an echo. Then I spotted movement from the corner of my eye. Swinging around, I confronted my stalker.
No one to be seen.
Yet something invisible hung in the air, a few feet ahead. It was almost tangible. Someone had been there only seconds ago.
But nothing weird happened for the remainder of my run, so the incident left my mind pretty quickly.
It wasn’t until evening that I got really scared.
My days are pretty standard for an average single guy in these strange times. I tried to get some work done from home, swiped Tinder aimlessly and then went on binging Netflix until midnight.
As I got ready for bed, I looked out of my bedroom window. Up the empty street, past the parked cars, and eventually down at my neighbour’s front yard. I startled. Someone stood in the long shadows of the house. And it wasn’t my neighbour.
The figure was twice as tall as the average human being. Seemingly bald. Other than that, I couldn’t see much. I wasn’t even sure if he saw me. But I felt goosebumps down to my balls, and couldn’t turn away.
I blinked my eyes once and he was gone. Vanished into thin air. It took me some time to find sleep that night.
As I went for a jog that morning, I spotted my across neighbour Ed in his front door, smoking his pipe.
I waved, and yelled: “Hi Ed. How you doing?” We got along splendidly, despite the forty year age gap.
He shook his head miserably. I crossed the street, halting at the edge of his lawn. “What’s wrong?”
“You haven’t heard? Mrs. Miller got admitted to the hospital yesterday.”
I frowned. Mrs. Miller was my next door neighbour.
“Corona virus, presumably”, he continued. “Coughing, out of breath, the whole shebang. Heard she’s on the ICU. Makes me concerned about my own health.”
I nodded gravely, not sure what to say. “Well, just stay at home, and let me know if you need anything. You got enough food?”
“Plenty. Thanks kid.”
I nodded once more and resumed my jog. On the way home, I passed Mrs. Miller’s house. Her cat sat on the windowsill. I imagined he looked sad.
I had already stepped over the strange symbol on the pavement, before realising it was there. I turned. The drawing stood out somehow. It wasn’t regular chalk, but looked more like black paint.
The symbol itself didn’t resemble anything I had ever seen before. It looked a cirkel at first glance, though on closer inspection the lines moved in all kinds of impossible directions. They seemed to shift and change from every angle I looked at it. It made me feel dizzy.
I managed to pull my gaze from the thing and went home. During the day, I kept eyeing Mrs. Miller’s house and the symbol on the street. I couldn’t push the glimpse of the strange figure in her yard from my mind.
Over the next days, more and more neighbours got admitted to the hospital. A couple of them died, Mrs. Miller being one of them. I had noticed Ed stopped smoking his pipe outside in the mornings. The virus got a grip on my street. It even made it to the papers. ‘Street of Death’, one of the sleazy papers headlined. My parents called me all concerned, but I told them not to worry: I was young and felt fine.
Still, my street looked more abandoned than ever.
But was it?
Whenever I went outside, I spotted more figures like the one in my neighbour’s yard. In the shade of a tall tree. In a dark alley. And even more disturbing: behind the upper windows of my absent (or dead) neighbour’s houses.
Always from far off, never up close. Other than the distance, they didn’t seem too concerned that I saw them. I got it in my mind they always looked as if they were waiting for something. Something in their demeanour. It looked taunting, challenging.
Beside the mysterious men, I noticed more and more of those strange symbols appearing on the pavement.
I pointed them out to Ed, in the rare occasions he peeked out of his front door.
“I know”, he said. “Kids, probably. Don’t got nothing to do now the schools are closed.”
“I never see any kids in our street.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe at night? Anyway, I notified the city and they sent a cleaning crew. They weren’t able to scrub it off. Gonna return with something stronger, they told me.”
It all sounded very strange, but until that point I hadn’t given it much thought. We’re living in strange times, right?
That all changed the day after.
My usual run leads me through this short tunnel under the railway. The sparse lighting inside had been broken for weeks, and for a couple of feet, it’s actually pitch dark. I had never paid it much mind.
But back on the street, that feeling of something creeping after me had returned. So before entering the tunnel, I halted shortly. Hesitating.
Then I shrugged my head and went in.
Focussing on the other end of the tunnel, I made out the square of light that was visible up ahead.
And the tall figure with a bald head, who darkened the exit. I halted.
The unreasonable thought flashed through my mind: *he is waiting for me*. I turned around, ready to go back, feeling like a crazy person.
But from the way I came an identical figure silhouetted against the light of the entrance. They had me cornered. I peered around. God knew what else lay hidden in the dark.
I didn’t know what to do, so I slumped to one of the walls, terrified. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my messages, not seeing a thing. Every once in a while I eyed both ends of the tunnel. Every time, they were still there. Unmoving.
I don’t know how much time had passed when I looked up and realised someone stood in front of me. The dark shape was barely visible. My heart thumped loudly in my chest, and I couldn’t move.
Then a light, trembling voice reached me from the dark. “Hello?”
It was just some kid. I moved upwards to comfort him. He ran away terrified, the sounds of his footsteps echoing through the tunnel.
I saw my stalkers were gone. Cutting my run short, I trotted back home as fast as I could. From that point on, I decided to skip my runs altogether.
A few days in, an ambulance showed up in front of my house. They took Ed to the hospital. Seeing his age, it wasn’t that surprising. Still, it came as a shock. I hoped he would be okay. Prayed even. Hadn’t done that in years.
That evening, I heard a sound I couldn’t place. Ever since the sightings, I had been afraid to look out of my window. Now I couldn’t suppress my curiosity and peeked outside.
Someone was hunched over the sidewalk opposite Ed’s house. The strange sound originated from there. I stood looking for a while. Then it was just like before: blink of an eye, and the figure was gone.
But he had left something on the pavement. I could not make it out in the sparse moonlight, but I would bet a hundred bucks it was one of those symbols.
My gaze slipped unconsciously to Mrs. Miller’s house and I startled. There was only one window on the side. Up there, one of them stood looking at me. Although I could barely make him out, I *felt* his gaze.
Moving my eyes from the window to my own front yard, I staggered backwards. With trembling hands I drew the curtains and suppressed a whimper. One of them was just a couple of feet removed from the glass.
I tried to stuff the thought away, but wasn’t able to. I just couldn’t help but think they were closing in on me.
The next morning I developed a cough and slight fever. I felt too sick to work, even from home. I slept most of the day away and awoke around four in the morning. There were no nightmares, no figures standing at my bedside. Still, something was wrong in the house. I couldn’t place it. Something had changed in the atmosphere.
I felt terrible, and coughed out my lungs for a full minute.
Then I heard an undefinable sound from downstairs. Like a low hum, but not in a mechanical way. Listening more closely, I realised it was a voice.
I pondered about calling the cops, but made the terrible decision to check it out myself. Slowly, heart thumping, I made my way down the stairs, wearing only my boxers. The voice had stopped. The house was silent.
I reached the ground floor. Of course, the light switch in the living room didn’t work. The curtains were closed, but I couldn’t see a thing.
I more felt then heard the presence. Someone stood beside me. I moved a few inches, and felt something cold brush my naked shoulder.
Then I stumbled in such a violent cough, that I almost fainted. Somehow, I managed to turn away from the living room, and crouched to the front door on all four.
I could almost ban out the unnatural crooning voice, coming from the living room. Almost.
Stumbling outside, I dropped to the ground in my front yard, still coughing.
Right before I fainted I glimpsed my living room window. Somehow, the light was on. And one of them stood looking at me. For the first time I could see its horrific, indescribable face. But more terrifying than the monstrosity of his features, was his face expression. He was actually grinning.
“Hey, you all right?” someone queried from the other end of the street. Then all went black.
So yeah, I’m writing this from the hospital. It turns out I haven’t been diagnosed with the corona virus. Just a very bad case of pneumonia. I’m hearing Ed’s in the same hospital, in the strictly isolated corona ward. He’s very sick, but alive.
My parents went by my house to get some of my things. Dropping them off at the hospital, they asked about the black paint on the pavement, right in front of my place.
A couple of more days and I’m allowed to go home.
But I’m not so sure it’s my home anymore.