“Hey! Right here Toby!” the teen shouted as he pointed furiously at the ball on the pavement. His dog, Toby quickly ran towards it and munched the whole ball with his slimy mouth. Gavin quickly knelt down, reached for Toby’s nape and wrapped the leash in a gentle but swift manner. “Good boy, next time don’t run too far huh? My back hurts!” he said with a chuckle. “Alright boy, let’s go home now. It’s getting too dark”. He stood up, holding Toby’s leash and started walking towards an alley.
“Alright, don’t make too much noise huh? Monsters are sleeping already haha” Gavin whispered to his dog as he tiptoed his steps on the wooden stairs carrying Toby. Gavin used to call monsters his two next door neighbours in the apartment he is renting for the reason when he found Toby on the streets alone, shaking and dirty. He decided to adopt him and when the two next door renters found out, they quickly point their fingers towards Gavin and his new adopted dog for every mess they would see on the small hallway reasoning that Toby might did it even though they all know that a couple of stray cats kept wandering around their whole two story apartment bringing any trash that they would find outside hoping it would fill their empty stomachs.
As Gavin reached the second floor, he started walking towards the entrance of a small squared hallway. Every side of the squared hallway has doors. If you are looking from the entrance, the layout would be one door on the right side, two on the farthest side and two doors of shared bathroom on the left while the last one on the front is the main entrance.
He walked towards the farthest side of the hallway. Standing in front of his door, he reached for his pocket for the keys making rustling noise. The monsters were too greedy with lights and for another time they did not leave any open lights on the hallway so it was very dark and hard for Gavin to move around since only a small glimpse of light from streetlights outside is his hope. And to add the fact that the apartment’s whole floor and walls are made of plank of woods so every heavy footsteps or slight bump on the wall would make a noise. Gavin hates confrontation from the monsters and he does not like hearing any petty complaints so as long as possible, he adjusts for them.
Even tho they’re monsters complaining about the wooden noises he could not control all the time, he still thinks his studio room’s a good deal for $60 a month. Saving him a lot from his work as a pre-school tutor.
Opening the door, he moved his hand repeatedly commanding Toby to go inside first. As his white medium sized dog got inside, he quickly followed, closed his door quietly and locked it. “Hey Toby, did you had a great time outside?” he said rubbing Toby’s head gently. Gavin prepared two sandwiches for him and a bowl of dog kittles for Toby.
After some time, Gavin decided it is time for bed as he realized it was already 2am and he has work later morning at 8am. “Oh shoot! Time to sleep bud. Next time bite me when I spend too much time on my phone silly dog hahaha” Gavin said chuckling. He laid down on his bed, putting his phone beside him since he uses it as his alarm clock.
Few minutes after, Gavin starts to doze off when suddenly Toby reaches for his arm and starts tugging the fabric of his sweater using his teeth pulling him off from the potential sleep. Gavin groaned, raising his head a little bit and looked at his dog. Toby stared at him, tongue out and wiggling his tail. “Toby? What’s wrong? Come on, I’m sleeping. No more play time, I have to take a rest bud”. Toby barked, and started running in a circle.
“Alright alright! Hush! They might knock again, no need to bark okay?” Gavin quickly said and sat up. He sighed, “Okay… Just five minutes of tug of war huh? I still have work later” he finally said. Gavin reached for the small cabinet on his bedside. He opened the first drawer and pulled out a wrinkled short rope, he closed back the drawer and waited for Toby to bite the end of the other side of the rope. When Toby finally bit it, he started pulling it using his teeth and with full strength. Gavin smiled and gave his best to hold the rope steadily, afraid that Toby might fall down and make other noises.
Finally, five minutes has passed and it is time for Gavin to go back to his sleep. He patted Toby’s head, slid back the toy rope in his drawer. Toby walked towards the end of the bed, near the wall and laid down on the dog bed that Gavin bought for him. As Gavin was about to close his eyes, when suddenly he heard a rustling noise from outside. It sounded like someone was walking outside on the hallway, creating those creaking wood sounds.
“It must be the stray cats, or the monsters but… That’s weird, that’s too loud” he yawned as he whispered this to himself. The sounds continued for a few minutes, distracting Gavin from his sleep. So he decided to check it outside but as he sat on his bed, he saw Toby sitting already on the floor at the end of his bed. Staring on the blank wall.
Confused, Gavin laid on his bed chest down and gently crawled towards the end of his bed putting half of his body outside. He put down his left hand on the floor to support his weight, while his other hand reached for Toby’s back and rubbed it gently repeatedly. “Hey what’s that? Should I check it out? Why do you stare at the wall?”, Toby did not even look at him and continued staring on the wall.
Gavin felt a little bit scared because for him this is not normal, usually Toby barks straight up whenever it hears a noise from outside but this time he is not barking. Just staring on the damn blank wall. More confused and scared, he tried to focus his gaze on the wall thinking that maybe there’s a small insect he could not see and it might be where Toby’s staring at.
He moved closer towards the wall, putting his right hand on the floor too since half more of his body is now outside the edge of his bed and he needs to support it or otherwise he would fall completely.
As he started looking for whatever possible small insects that might be there, he suddenly heard and felt something. The plank of woods that his hands are on, started to move up and down a little bit. The creaking noises from outside seemed to get more loud this time.
Left. Right.
Left. Right.
Left… Right.
That’s how the planks of woods moved, raising his each hands a little bit alternately. It felt like, someone was standing right in front of their wall outside walking from left to right again and again. He felt like whoever’s outside, that someone can see him and his dog through the wall. Staring right at them, observing them.
This thought spooked him, he sat up immediately pulling all his weight back to the bed. He looked at Toby, tried to call him by whispering his name again and again but Toby refused to look and continued staring on the wall.
It is now near evening, Gavin just finished his job. He was yawning the whole time since he barely had a proper sleep from the night because of the weird incident. As he walked towards the apartment. One of the monsters came outside, holding a bag of trash.
“Hey, how are you doing?” Gavin greeted first, trying to make a conversation. “Well, good. I just got home” the man in his 30s replied. “Oh really? That’s strange, are you not supposed to be at your work right now? You work a graveyard shift, right?” Gavin asked. “Aw nah man, I took a day off yesterday. I had to visit my mom.”
“Huh? So you mean you’re not here yesterday?” He asked further. “Yep man, like I said I just got home. So if you let me excuse, I have to throw this and take a rest. That’s a long hella drive. By the way, can you give this to the other tenant when she came back? She left yesterday morning, and tomorrow’s her arrival. I saw you walking, and decided to leave it to you. I might not catch her because of my work tomorrow. Looks like an important item, I do not want to take any blame if I lost it”. The man smirked and gave the small size parcel to Gavin. “Uh… Yeah sure man, thanks” he replied smiling with a hint of hesitation.
“So… I was all alone with my dog on the second floor the whole night?” Gavin asked himself as he walked again.
Frustrated, when he reached the hallway he knelt down and tried to press the plank of woods connected to his room. He tried to push it, putting a lot of pressure onto it using both of his hands to try to convince himself that maybe it is just the cats walking back and forth. But strangely, the plank of woods did not even move. Even just a little bit, the planks were too hard.
He shook his head in disbelief, stood up and tried to press his right foot on the planks hoping the pressure from his steps would make it move even just a little bit. But it proved more that the planks were too hard and impossible to bulge. He gave up and went straight to his room.
Finally, Gavin had a proper sleep. Toby’s laying on his bed beside him, snoring. But later on he felt like he needed to pee so he stood up slowly trying not to wake up his dog, when his feet reached the floor he looked up at his wall clock and saw it was 3am.
He quietly walked towards his main door. He slowly turned his doorknob open, tiptoed outside and turned his back on the hallway to face his door and close it quietly as possible. As he turned around this time to face the hallway and walk towards the nearest bathroom door, he stopped moving and froze.
An immediate rush of cold feeling crawled from his head down to his toe. There… Right there… With the help of a glimpse of light from outside, he saw this huge man. Sitting on the corner, in a tuck position hugging it’s both knees. So huge that the length of its knees are Gavin’s height and the head of this huge man can almost reach the ceiling.
For Gavin it does not look like a man. More on a creature. Hair all over his body, bloodshot huge circle eyes, grayish skin, huge closed black lips. Gavin does not know what to do, he just stood there. He can hear his heartbeat beating so fast, every breathe that this huge man do. The man just stared right at him with his huge eyes, not even blinking.
Slowly, the huge man moved his right hand towards the floor pressing his index finger showing Gavin a long thick finger with black crooked nails. With this movement, a smell slipped into Gavin’s nose and it is the most stenching smell he ever smelled in his whole life. It made his stomach twist into a knot.
He felt so confused, scared and panicked at the moment causing him to just stood there and observe what the huge man would do.
Left. Right.
Left. Right.
Left… Right.
The huge man pressed his index finger on each plank with that motion. Left… Right. Gavin’s heartbeat went faster as he felt the planks of wood floors created creaking noises, moved causing to raise his each foot alternately a little bit, realizing the huge man’s pressure was too strong.
Surely scared, he tried to walk back inside his door to open it. But each move he makes, the huge man just followed him with his bloodshot huge eyes. Not even moving his head nor blinking. What a sick sight for Gavin.
Weeks has passed after the horror incident Gavin went through, he did not tell anyone about it since he thinks they would not take him seriously and would think he is just being crazy. But he noticed some few changes, he never saw that huge man ever again, he and his dog never heard any strange noises from the hallway ever again. Gavin’s very pleased about this honestly.
But there’s this one change that made him sad, Toby started acting strange towards him. He barely approaches him or plays with him and would do anything to avoid him. Gavin thought that maybe Toby’s starting to get mad at him for leaving him inside their small room whenever he needs to work.
Anyway, Gavin decided it is not a big deal. What’s a big deal for him is the fact that…
His pants no longer fit him, he is getting taller, thick long hairs are starting to grow everywhere on his body and oh… No matter how much he tries so hard to clean himself, he is starting to have this weird strange stenching smell.
He simply could not get it rid off. But what’s the point of worrying about that right? When Gavin enjoys to sit on the floor, press his index finger on two planks.
Left… Right.
Left… Right.
Left… Right.