It’s been three days since we broke into that house. And I think it’s finally caught up to me.
Mick thought it would be easy. The owner of the house had died two days ago. It was some old guy, Dominic or some shit. I didn’t know what his name was and don’t care. I hope he’s burning in hell for this. I hope he isn’t waiting for me.
Back to Mick. He was always the one to scout it out for Tom and me. Look, we didn’t choose to be thieves, it kind of happened. We needed money and other junk, right? Everyone does. It’s not our fault, we just got good at it and couldn’t stop. So anyway, Mick told us about this place. Old guy dies alone, no family shows up, it’s in a quiet neighborhood, easy pickings. How could we not say yes?
I didn’t feel anything when I saw the house. It was this, big, rustic mansion, or some kind of castle, I don’t know what it is, I’m not an expert on houses. It was just this single house standing alone and empty. Windows were intact, doors as well, looked like it was just waiting. For anyone.
I keep replaying one part of that night in my head, over and over. We were going in through the backdoor, Tom was going to pick the lock, but the instant he stuck the pin into the keyhole, the door just… slide open. I thought it was Tom, who was kneeling there, confused, that his tinkering had made the door open, but the door opened so smoothly. Like it was… I don’t know, automatic, or when you open your mouth without thinking. That kind of smooth. It couldn’t have wanted us to go inside, that’d-
That’d be just as crazy as why I’m writing this.
The house was pretty damn cold, that was the first thing I noticed when we went inside. How cold it was. I mean, that was normal, nobody been living there for two days, shit gets cold. But God, it felt like solid ice was being dragged over our skin. I think we all had the same idea. That we had to make this quick.
We searched the house room by room. First was the living room. Nothing too special about it. I found a quarter under a carpet. The date on it was 1958, and it looked pretty old. Maybe I could pawn it off. Tom found a book of some kind, but he didn’t take it with us. I had just put the coin in my pocket when I saw him standing by the bookshelf, holding this big black tome of some kind. He had it open, in profile to me, and was scrolling through the pages. The look on his face caught me off guard. Tom isn’t the squeamish type, I’ve seen this man outright strangle a dog to death - had to be done, I swear, it had to, it would have woken the owners - but as he kept flipping through the pages, his eyebrows were pushing down over his eyes like a shield.
I asked him what he was reading, and his face shot up from the book like someone had just stepped out of the wall. His eyes were wide, his shoulders were rising and falling with every breath he took, and I think one of his hands was shaking. He shut the book without a word, threw it to the other side of the room, then told me it was worthless. I asked what was in it, but he just pushed me out of the living room. Mick was gonna pick up the book when Tom snapped at him to hurry his ass up, and I mean snapped. Like he was gonna break someone in two.
Mick did as Tom said, but Tom kept glancing over his shoulder after he went to the next room. And the next. And the next. Something about that book had scared him. I don’t know what.
When we reached the bedroom, we finally made payday. And I mean payday. When we opened up one of the dressers, it was full of tin cans, and in every one was cash. Coins or bills in denominations up to a hundred. Mick was laughing his ass off as he began stuffing shit into a bag, saying how he was gonna buy some hookers and blow the rest on cocaine. Tom was standing by the door, looking into the hallway. I asked if he wanted anything, and he said we’ll divide it up tomorrow.
I was about to look under the bed when something white slithered over the wall. My heart skipped a beat, then I went cold. That had been a car’s headlights, I was sure. I crouched down and crept to the window, peeking outside. The houses were all lined up in a neat little mismatched row, street lamps were vomiting white light, and the road was empty. There wasn’t even the faint red glow of a tailgate. I told the guys we should probably hurry it up. Mick got a bit ticked, asking why the fuck we needed to do that, and when I told his dumb ass because somebody had just driven past, he went pale and asked if it was the cops, then Tom told us both to grab whatever was left so we could leave, and then something moved upstairs.
All three of us looked up at the ceiling, mouths wide open. I’m not sure what we expected to see, but it wasn’t the white, peeling plaster or the bricks that were peering through.
Mick asked what the hell that was. I said it was probably some box that had been left in the attic, but I don’t think I believed it. Tom just told us to grab the cash and go. We did without asking another question, even Mick. As I left that bedroom, for a moment I thought I saw something. On the ceiling, like a puffy white disk or mask, but when I stared right at it, nothing was there. I realized what had happened. The way the moonlight hit it, it looked like a face. That had to be it. Had to be.
We were heading back to the car when Tom stopped and spun around, looking at the house. I asked him what was up, even trying to see if I could spot what had him so nervous, but he just shook his head and mumbled about the wind. He kept mumbling about the wind as we drove back to the apartment complex.
Now that I think about it, he wasn’t mumbling about the wind.
The really weird crap started up the next day. I called up Mike to ask if I should bring the loot over, but he didn’t want to talk about that. He said that Tom wasn’t answering his phone. Ask if I’d seen him. I said I hadn’t, and asked if we should go check out his place. Mike said yes. So we… we did.
Tom’s place was just… empty. Everything was exactly as it had been when we’d left it last night, but it was like it’d been that way for years. I can’t explain why, it just felt that way. Empty like a tomb. We searched all over that place, and couldn’t find any sign of Tom. That’s what I told Mike, anyway. What I found was his phone. He’d left a message on it, a recording. I pressed play when I got home, and…
The video starts with Tom shining a flashlight down his hallway. He was breathing really heavy, or at least I think he was. He kept scanning the whole damn thing, trying to find heads or tails of whatever the hell he was looking for, I don’t know, he just kept breathing into the phone. Then… right as the video ended, something appeared on the wall. This white, puffy disk or… or a…
It looked right at the camera.
Tom screamed for a moment - but the heavy breathing didn’t stop.
The next day, I was gonna show it to Mike, but he called me first. Said something was wrong. That someone had broken into his house, and he could hear them breathing. I told him to get out, but he said he wasn’t no pussy, that he’d take care of it. That was what he said, he wasn’t no pussy. As he kept talking, I began to realize something wasn’t right. I asked if he was alright. He said yes, and I could tell he was lying. I said I was about to come over when he screamed - then stopped. Like one minute he was there, then just gone. I said his name, and it was like talking in a void.
I called out his name, begged him to answer me, asked if he was alright… then I heard something. Real faint. But getting slowly louder. And a little closer.
I can still hear it now. Getting just a bit closer.
Heavy breathing.