I’m hoping this won’t be too long, but I also hope you’ll bear with me and offer any assistance that you have to offer. I have nowhere else to turn to so this is my last option. A little preface I should tell you before I get into it, as a musician and producer, I have spent a long time tuning my ears into different methods of hearing. Ways of hearing nuances in sound, for how something sits in a mix, or combining noises in sound design. Give me enough time or if I have the capacity to use enough of my brain power, I can hear details in sound to notice repeating samples or the differences in reverb and sound sources. Boring and pointless information to most, I am well aware. But it is because of this I know what I heard. I know what I heard, and I still cannot explain it. I understand that this place has some experiences with happenings like this, so if any of you have any explanations that might assist me in achieving comforted sleep once more, please do tell. Words cannot describe how much you would be doing, if not only to my peace of mind, perhaps for my family too.
It was my it was the evening of my sister’s birthday, and our mom had to go out. Unbeknownst to my sister, she had pulled me aside moments ago to tell me that she was going to head over to our grandmothers who had supposedly spent the day making a cake. The plan was for her to go and return with my grandmother as well as a cake, keeping it as a small surprise for my sister. My mom had already briefed me on this a week ago when she made the phone call to my grandmother to make sure she would be available, but still she felt the need to remind me. Maybe she just wanted to emphasise her ‘incredible planning skills’ or maybe she accurately thought I would’ve forgotten, regardless I was disinterested either way. Because of this, when my mom and I appeared from the kitchen, she told my sister she had a work emergency and had to go out quickly. She left us with a hug and instructions to make the pizza that had been left in the fridge if we got hungry before she got back.
As soon as the door had closed, my sister had run off towards the living room to place herself in front of the TV. I followed her in there and sat down next to her, scrolling aimlessly on my phone. Though the TV was unable to hold her attention for long and after roughly 20 minutes trying to tune out her irritating, nonsensical programming, she suddenly grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs to her room. “I wanna show you something cool”, she was giggling as we rounded the corner to her room. She sat me down on the floor and produced her school bag from her bed, beginning to produce numerous birthday cards that she lay out on the floor waiting to show me. She picked one up and handed it to me, grinning mischievously as she told me to open it. But before I could, my phone started to buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out to see my mom’s face flashing on the screen as it waited impatiently for me to pick up the call.
I stood up and gave Alice a quick push on the head as I walked around the corner to my room to answer the call.
“Hey Mom, what’s up?
“Will? Will, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you, are you alright?”
“Will, will I… I need you to listen to me.” Her voice was shaking, it sounded like she had been crying, but I couldn’t tell.
“Yeah I… what’s happened, are you ok? What’s happened.”
“Will, I need you to grab Alice and get out of the house right now ok?
“Mom I don’t… I don’t understand, what’s going on!” I was trying to keep a calm head, but my heartbeat had shot from 0-60 at record speeds. I could feel my pulse in my ears, and I kept swallowing uncontrollably as I tried to process, or even just understand what my mom was saying.
“Please. Please can you just grab Alice and…” She went quiet for a second, “Is the back door still open?”
“I… I think so yeah…” I pulled my door open to round the corner back into Alice’s room.
“Just please… grab Alice and get out.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second and told Alice to grab her stuff. I was met with a familiar ‘why’ from her.
“Just… we need to… it’s a birthday surprise.”
She piled her birthday cards back into her bag and excitedly stood up. I took her hand, squeezing it tightly in my own shaky hand, my phone still connected to my mom in the other. As we got to the top of the stairs, I stopped. I could’ve sworn I heard something.
“Where are we goi-” Alice started up, before I let go of her hand and clamped it down over her mouth. I tried to mime to her a playful shush action, but I don’t know how convincing it was.
In the silence of the house, a slight, muffled creak sang out from downstairs followed by the faint but definite sound of something soft and heavy shifting.
“Mom… are you downstairs?” I whispered into the phone, my hand still hovering over Alice’s mouth though lucky for me she didn’t seem to be interested in making a noise. I don’t know whether she was playing along as part of the game, or because she had caught onto my shaky demeanour. Either way I was thankful. I pushed my fingers down on the volume button before my mom had the opportunity to speak, leaving her at minimum volume as she said, “No.”
“I can hear something moving downstairs…” I breathed into the phone, not even sure if the phone would be able to pick it up.
I have to conclude that it did, as I heard what I assumed was a response, “Bathroom! Now! Lock the door!”
I grabbed Alice’s hand again, and pulled her into the bathroom, closing the door as quietly as possible, and gingerly turning the lock. The lights were off, but the light switch was outside, so it was too late to change that. Though even if we could’ve turned them on, I wouldn’t’ve for fear of our location being too visible through cracks in the door or through the obscured glass of the window that faced out towards our backyard.
“Why are we locked in the bathroom?” I had been staring into the abyss of the door before she spoke, looking down to see Alice tugging at my sleeve.
“Were uh… hiding… and uh if were found, were um… ah shit… uh… then we fail the game.”
“You’re not meant to say bad words…” She glared up at me, as though trying to imitate me.
“I’m sorry, I’ll pay you a Fiver to make up for it… I’ll pay you another 100 if you stay quiet… s-so we can win the game.” I couldn’t seem to tell her the truth, but she didn’t question it. Maybe I was trying to protect her from the fear that was gripping at my lungs, or maybe I just wanted her to obey without question. Still, that seemed to do the trick.
She stepped back and dropped her schoolbag to the floor. She climbed into the bathtub and lay down, and I pulled the toilet seat down and sat, elbows on knees and eyes never leaving the door. Our only light was that which flooded in from the window behind me, plus a little yellowish blade of light that pushed its way under the locked door, tinting the colour of the few little things that sat immediately in front of it. My heart was beating in my ears, but I forced it down as I focused all my attention on any noise that might come from the other side. My silent question was soon followed by the slow squeal of the top step of the stairs, diagonal from us. “Did you hear that?” I pointed at the door as I whispered the words. Alice shook her head.
There was something slowly dragging over the carpeted floor outside the bathroom. Something large and heavy. It sounded like someone dragging a massive mattress over the lip of the stairs and across to where my bedroom was.
“Will what do we win if we win th-“
My head whipped around to face Alice, glaring at her. She went silent and sunk back into the bathtub. I felt bad, but I couldn’t apologise. My expression softened a little and I lifted my finger to my lips in a silent shush motion. In the silent whisperings of the house, a voice called out from around the corner from the bathroom door.
“Hello?” It couldn’t be, but it was. The voice that called out from around the corner was that of our grandmother.
Alice was already moving, sitting upright in the bathtub prepped and ready to call out, but she stopped herself and looked at me. I shook my head and turned back to face the door.
“Can I help you?” The voice spoke again from the other side of the door.
Alice couldn’t help herself, in a quiet voice before I could stop voice she replied, “Nanna?”
Her call was immediately answered by the sound of the sliding. A loud fervorous movement sliding desperately from around the corner and slamming up against the bathroom door. All of the soft yellow light seeping through the crack under the door was expunged, leaving us isolated with the lonesome shine of the moon as our illumination. The bathroom turned cold and dark felt even less comforting and even more lonely.
It spoke again “Can I help you?”
The only thing that could tear my attention away from the door was the dull aching pain that was from within my hand. I looked down to see my phone still held in my white knuckled grip, trembling slightly. The screen was still lit, and it looked like the call was still open.
I lifted it to my ear once again and shakily whispered into the phone, “Are you still there Mom?”
“I’m yes… yes yes I’m still here w- what’s happening?”
“Are you with Nanna…”
“I…” she went silent for a second, “Yes yeah she’s… she’s here.” Her voice was trembling.“Alice and I are locked in the bathroom. There’s someone outside that sounds like Nanna…”
“It’s not her, just- just stay there… don’t leave. I’m on my way back, call the police right now Will, I’ll be there soon. Don’t fucking leave, do you heave me?”
“Yes Mom…”
“Don’t leave just stay there and I’ll…” The phone went silent. I looked down at the little black screen. Nothing. Dead.
“No, please god no!” I said loudly without thinking, before clamping my hand over my mouth and once again staring at the door. The phone screen flashed for a second with it’s dead battery image, a passive aggressive request for charging. I was moments from tears, my head falling towards my hands and my back slouching forward, completely defeated.
I could hear another sound of sliding against the bathroom door, combined with the slight creaking as it strained to sustain the weight that was pressed up against it on the other side. Before the silence of its ceasing could recover, the voice spoke again. “Can I help you?”
“Will…?” Alice’s tiny voice broke through the increasingly loud pulsing of my blood surging through my ears. She was looking at me worriedly. I stood up from the toilet seat and went over to sit next to her on the bath mat next to the tub.
“Are you ok?” her face was expressing a deep concern for me, and expression that was nearly never displayed by her.
“Yeah, I… yeah I just spoke to mom. She said she’s on her way back. And if we can stay in here till she gets back, we uh… we win. Sound good?”
“Do you promise?”
“I do…”
She lay back down in the bathtub and proceeded to produce her birthday cards once again from within her schoolbag, like she had been in her bedroom.
The door was still blocked from the other side, something resting against the other side of the door still blocking out the light. Whatever it was that had been moving, it was still waiting on the other side of the door, but for whatever reason it had not attempted to get the door open, and for that I was thankful. Though just as I tried to calm what little remained of my nerves, there was another sound. “Can I help you?” Another lingering silence before a quieter muttering plea, “No, please god no!”
It was identical. My inflection, pitch and tone. It was my voice. Not as a played recording, or imitation. It was as clear as I spoke it, only muffled slightly from behind the door. My blood turned cold.
“Was that you will?” Alice mumbled from inside the tub. I knew I would continue to lie to her about everything being alright, but her voice sounded unsure, and it was possible that she was starting to become afraid. I suppose theres only so long you can try and tell someone everything is fine while you cower on floor of your locked bathroom in pitch darkness.
“N-no…”
“What’s going on…?” She was gripping her bag tightly to her chest for comfort, her eyes wide with anxiety.
“It’s just a game… it’s a ga-“
“Don’t lie to me!” She stood up, glaring down at me, still sitting on the floor. Too loud.
Once again there was a loud creak from the door followed by the words “Don’t lie to me!” I never thought I could be so scared and disgusted by the sound of my own sister’s voice. But there it was. The scraping on the door was growing louder, and more desperate. The weight on the other side of the door lifted and then rammed into the door in a soft, wet, agonising thud. It spoke again. “Please God… I help you… me…” and then it slammed into the door again. Another thud. And another. I have had many scary occurrences, or near death experiences in my time on this planet. I have seen things I wish to erase from my memory and felt things I wish my brain would never have been able to register. And still I can say, never in my life, have I felt such bone gripping fear as I did in this moment. My legs were barely working, and nothing would move without shaking. My system was full of only adrenaline, and yet all I could think to do was lie down and give up. Nothing was as it should be as my mind raced with every thought in the world and hopelessly tried to purge itself of all of them. The only actions that were successfully translated from my brain to my body was to climb into the bathtub and wrap my arms around my sister, clutching her tightly as though my trembling feeble body would have been any defence against whatever was on the other side of the door, forcing itself against the door over and over again.
With each collision a terrifying jumble of words was called to us, in the comforting and fearful voices of my Grandmother, sister and myself. It seemed relentless, light flashing under the door with its movements before it bowed in the middle, a narrow beam of light shooting in from the doorframe as the door itself slowly began to cave under the repetitive pressure. The loud, rhythmic impacts had almost tuned out of my hearing as they became cyclical to the point where the greatest shock came when they stopped short, the door still barring most of the space between the bathroom and the outside.
Our voices called to us once more, “Please… help… me…”. The words lingered in the air for a second, then what sounded like exposed flesh sliding gently against the door, though I didn’t dare look. Then it screamed. The sound of my grandmother. The sound of my sister. The sound of my own voice screaming in joyful elation, screaming in abject terror, screaming in agonising pain. Every emotion imaginable was forced into that scream, tormenting my ears before it was broken by another gut wrenching fleshy thud against the door, splintering and caving in on itself, barely holding on to its hinges as it valiantly stood to protect us. The next impact that rang out through the house didn’t come from that door though. There was the impactful sound of the front door being broken in on its hinges, followed by the charging sounds of footsteps and the authoritative voices of police officers as they flooded into our house. I dared looked towards the bathroom door but other than a swift colourless motion at the corner of the door I can’t be sure I saw anything. Seconds later the faces of three policemen appeared at the cracked bathroom door, calling out to us in reassurance. With shaking legs and pale white faces, Alice and I gingerly moved towards the door and wrenched the lock open, swinging the now bent door open and following the policemen down the stairs. I didn’t mention it at the time, but I am more than certain that the back of the door and the floor of the hallway to down the stairs had what seemed to be a clear gelatinous fluid lightly coated over all of them. But the next time I would look days later there would be no evidence as such.
That night, my mom, Alice and I all stayed at my Dad’s and we stayed a few nights after. Even after my mom would move back to the house Alice and I refused to go with her, though in time Alice would return home. I still refused to be there and less than a year later we ended up moving house entirely. I didn’t know at first but would soon find out that my grandmother had died two days before Alice’s birthday, though no one knew till my Mother got to her house. She would find her on her living room floor missing her tongue and larynx. My family don’t celebrate birthdays anymore, and we don’t talk about it. But I have spent so many nights thinking about it. From every angle, every possibility, everything but I have absolutely no theories as to what happened that night or how. I still sleep lightly years later, and wake to any sound no matter how quiet. My brain is always ready, and never trusting of any voices I hear. Faces are real. Don’t trust what you hear.