A few months ago, I moved into a house that was listed for rent. For less than a thousand dollars per month, I could rent a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home built in the 1970s in a neighborhood close to everything I needed. Sharyn, one of my best friends, and I had always wanted to live together but couldn’t bring ourselves to do so until she got a good job and I was finally able to pay off some debt. Sure, it was a bit pricey, but she needed to get out of her parents’ house, and it was significantly cheaper than the apartment my ex-boyfriend had left me with.
“Be sure to take lots of pictures! Sorry for making you check out the place by yourself” Sharyn told me over the phone.”Don’t worry, I’ll make sure everything looks okay!” I tried to be upbeat, but I was well aware that the “perfect home” did not exist. For this price, there had to be something wrong. I got out of my car and grabbed the key from the real estate office. I began to circle the front of the house..
The house was made of faded red brick and topped with a bright green roof. The yard was a little overgrown, but it was small enough that cutting it wouldn’t take long.“So…what do you thiiink?” Sharyn asked. “It’s cute, I guess. It has a family sitcom kind of vibe.” I said as I peered through the windows to no avail. “Ooh. Maybe we’ll have some quirky neighbors!” She said excitedly. I took a look around the neighborhood; it was quiet, with no signs of life other than myself “I highly doubt that..”
I got to the front door, it had a fresh coat of white paint on it. I inserted the key and twisted the faded gold handle while holding my phone between my right shoulder and ear. When I opened the door, I was greeted by dusty, stale air. As I stepped inside, I coughed slightly and my shoes squeaked as they made contact with the vinyl green flooring. I flipped a switch on the wall, which turned on the light of the ceiling fan to my right.
I described everything I was seeing to Sharyn, “There is so much red carpet, and green flooring…oh and wooden walls…wooden walls as far as the eye can see.” As Sharyn began to talk my ear off about the charms of wooden panel walls. I cast a glance towards the hallway that led to the rooms. It was dark; even the lights couldn’t pierce the shade within the hallway and illuminate it. Sharyn kept talking, but I could hear the crying of a woman coming from the end of the hall.
“H-hey hold on a second. I think I heard something.” I whispered. “What?! Is it a rat or something?! Hey! What is it?! Bethanie?!” Sharyn shouted through the phone. I took a step inside of the hallway, placing my hand on the walls to search for a light switch. My heart was racing. Was someone else in the house? I couldn’t hear Sharyn’s voice anymore, all I could hear were those soft sobs.
I flipped the switch when I finally felt it, but the darkness remained. I quickly turned on my phone’s torch and directed its beam forward. The small light was being consumed, it couldn’t show anything in front of me. I kept walking, the sobs getting louder and louder with each step. “Hello? “ I said, “Whoever you are…are you hurt or something?” The crying continued, and I summoned the courage to be more assertive, saying, “Hey, if you don’t say anything, I’m going to call the cops!”
I must’ve reached the end of the hallway, the source of the crying was right in front of me. I reached a hand forward and my phone let out a shrill ring. I jumped, almost dropping my phone in the process. Then I realized the hallway was now dimly lit by the lights behind me. It was just me standing there alone. I answered the call and heard Sharyn’s voice asking me what had happened. I took a moment to process what I had just experienced, but told her it was nothing.
Just after that, I left and returned with Sharyn. She had no reaction when I told her what had happened and suggested that we simply sage the area. Which we did after the paperwork was finished and we started moving in. Nothing else happened during the time we were bringing our belongings in, and nothing happened after we settled in. For a while, Sharyn called herself the ghost killer, but I couldn’t shake the unease I felt while living there.
Small things began to happen around the house a few weeks later. Something would go missing, the television would turn on or off on its own, and a door would close unexpectedly. Sharyn ended up saging the house a few more times, but it seemed like things were getting worse. We could feel eyes watching us…hear someone breathing at the nape of our neck when one of us was alone at home.
I remember coming home one night and finding Sharyn curled up next to the front door. She was drenched in a bath towel, tears running down her face. “Oh my God! What’s going on, Sharyn?” I exclaimed as she stood up and rushed towards me, embracing me. “I was taking a shower,” she said, shaking. “My face was in the hot water, then I felt something cold touch my back and run its way down. It felt like someone’s cold hands grabbed me, then I rushed out of the shower..”
After that incident Sharyn refused to bathe unless I was home. We started to feel afraid living in that house. I tried to look for another place, but we just couldn’t afford it. One night we wanted to take our minds off of the house so Sharyn and I decided to go out for drinks after work. It was fun, a brief moment of respite from the house. We drank our fears away and returned to that damned place without a second thought.
We came bursting through the front door, laughing our asses off as we remembered an encounter with a couple of guys we met at the bar. It was nearing 3 am and sleep was creeping up on us. We told each other good night and went to our respective rooms. I was exhausted so I threw off my clothes and crashed onto my bed. I fell into unconsciousness and was filled with dreams…no they were memories.
In my sleep, I was reliving memories of my ex-boyfriend. It began with the good times, such as our first date, moving in together, and sleeping beside each other in bed. Then I remembered his hand smacking my face and the scent of whiskey in the air as he grabbed my throat. I stayed with him for a long time, blaming his rage on my inability to make him happy. The memory continued for what seemed like an eternity until I finally awoke.
I was relieved to be in my bed, away from my ex-boyfriend. I just laid there for a moment, surrounded by darkness and staring up at the ceiling. I lightly touched my neck with my hand. I could still feel his fingers around my throat, a pain I’d never forget. I was taking a deep breath to calm myself when I heard the door to my room slowly open. Soft thuds of footsteps were approaching me and I felt the end of my bed sink under the weight of another person.
Sharyn must’ve been feeling lonely, I thought. “Come here you drunk bitch.” I muttered. They rested their head on my chest and their hair fell onto my face. I wrapped my arms around them and whispered, “Thank you for being there for me..” It was silent for a while, then the quiet was broken by a woman’s sobs. I realized how freezing cold my arms felt around this person and I remembered I’d heard the sounds of this crying before.
I couldn’t move, this person was holding me down. The smell of decay began to fill my nostrils as the woman’s cries grew louder and louder. I opened my mouth, taking in a deep breath to ready a scream. To my dismay, my inhale turned to choking as I felt spindly hairs enter my mouth. As she positioned herself over me, she began to lift herself off my chest, and my ears filled with the sound of cracking.
Her hair was so long and I could feel it moving inside of my mouth down my throat. She continued to cry as I struggled to breathe. Suddenly Sharyn screams rang out from the hallway. Whoever was on top of me was now gone. Without any time to think I wearily lifted myself out of my bed, “Sharyn!” I shouted with a raspy breath. I felt the blood drain from my face as I saw Sharyn being dragged out of her room by her hair from some invisible force.
Sharyn looked at me and let out another bloodcurdling scream. Whatever was holding her continued to drag her away from me. I darted forward, but as I got close, something slammed into my chest, causing me to stumble backwards. Sharyn’s body began to lift off the ground, and her cries of pain filled the house. I felt helpless as I watched my friend’s long black hair suspend her in mid-air. Then, with a loud thud, her body collapsed onto the floor.
For a while, we just stared at each other, our eyes welling up with tears and horror seeping into our hearts. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of terrible silence, we rushed to embrace each other. We ended up spending the rest of the night sleeping in my car. We spent as little time as possible in the house in the days that followed. We’d dash inside to change clothes, bathe at a friend’s house, and sleep in our cars.
Sharyn and I never discussed what happened that night. We didn’t tell anyone about what was going on at the house for fear of being called insane. After a long day of work, I texted Sharyn to see where she was, but she didn’t respond. I checked with our mutual friends, and no one had seen or heard from her that day. I drove to the house as a terrible pit formed in my stomach. Sharyn’s car was parked in the driveway, and the lights were turned on inside the house.
When I opened the front door, I was hit by a wave of what I can only describe as despair. The air felt heavy, and the house was deathly quiet. “Sharyn!” I yelled. “Are you here?” From inside the living room, I heard her say, “Bethanie… “I’m here…come quickly.” I walked towards the sound of her voice, each step heavy in the oppressive atmosphere of the house. Sharyn was sitting cross-legged in the center of the living room, with something in front of her.
A thick wooden board made of black wood with an array of white letters and numbers on it. It was beautiful, yet it instilled me with a sense of dread. “W-what’s going on here, Sharyn?” I asked with a shaky voice. She looked up at me, her eyes had dark circles around and her face looked gaunt. “I…I was hoping we would try to communicate with whatever is here.” Sharyn said as she wiped her face, “I’m hoping we could ask it what it wants…maybe try to appease it.”
I was taken aback; I’d never seen her look like this before, but it was something I recognized. “Sharyn, let’s get out of here, okay? ” I told her. “No..NO! There are no other options! We’re either staying here or going out on the streets!” When she said that, I noticed something flicker behind her, forming a shadowy silhouette for a split second. “Please, Beth, just try…please…” Sharyn begged. I didn’t like where this was going, but I owed it to my friend to give it a shot.
I sat beside her, unsure if what we were doing was right. We placed our hands on the planchette after she placed it on the board. As the wooden piece at our fingertips glided across the board, I could hear our shallow breaths and racing hearts. “Is there anyone else here?” Sharyn questioned. I felt a weight press down on my hand, and the planchette shifted to “YES.” We both laughed, surprised, and then I asked the next question. “What do you want?”
The weight stayed on our hands then the planchette moved to ”H”…”E”…”L”…”P.” “Help?” I asked, perplexed. “What do you need help with?” Something began to flash before my eyes as I looked down at the board. There was another set of hands where our hands were. I followed the bruised gray hands up… up its black and purple-covered arms….up its disfigured throat…to find a woman with long, thinning black hair staring at us, murky brown tears running down her hollow eye sockets.
The woman began to cry as our hands moved to the letters. “H.E.L.P.M.E” over and over again…faster and faster. The lights began to flicker, then the board split in half with a horrible crack. Before I knew it the woman darted towards me, pushing me down onto my back. She wailed, “HELP ME! HELP ME!” Her words resonated within me, but before I could say another word Sharyn shouted, “LOOK!”. I looked to see another entity behind the woman. It was a shape of a large man that towered us, it was a being of pure darkness that took a shadowy hand and gripped the woman’s neck.
I watched the woman being lifted up by this phantom all the while her muddy brown tears streamed down her beaten face. She spoke with a raspy voice, “He-help..Help me..” I was struck with the familiarity of this situation. The spirit of the woman was in pain and the entity behind her was the true evil of the house. Even in death this man had such a hold over her soul. I knew it all too well…giving power to a man who only wanted to hurt and control you. I looked over to Sharyn and she had the same look on her face when she found out that I was being abused by my ex-boyfriend.
“LEAVE HER ALONE!” I demanded the dark spirit. It turned towards me and despite its lack of facial features I could feel it smile at me as it dropped the woman from his grip. It stepped towards me yet I held my ground. Sharyn shouted, “NO, DON’T HURT HER!” as she clutched onto the dark spirit’s waits. This moment triggered another familiar memory in my mind. I looked towards the broken soul of the woman on the floor and said to her, “I know your pain…of course I’ll help you..”
The dark spirit took both its hands and it began to reach towards me. He wrapped his cold hands around my skull and began to squeeze. My vision began to blur and distort, then I was suddenly hit with how quiet it was. I could see that the woman was no longer sobbing as she lifted herself up. She wiped the dirty tears off her face and the once fearful expression she had shifted to resolve. The woman’s soul burned brightly as she took her damaged fingers and pulled the dark spirit off of me.
Sharyn let go of the entity, and we both watched as it struggled. The woman yelled angrily as she dragged the man down onto the floor. She ripped and tore at the shadow. Black blood began to splatter the room as the lights flickered. The sound of women crying was gone…only the agonized cries of an abuser remained. The woman continued to break down the scattered bits of the man until nothing remained.
After she was done she sat motionless and stared at Sharyn…then at me. Before us were still the broken pieces of a woman…but pieces that were being picked up and slowly put together. “Th-thank you..” she whispered before fading away into nothing. I felt something warm envelop me and slumped next to Sharyn. I rested my head on her shoulder and she placed her head on top of mine. The heavy weight was lifted, the oppressive air had dissipated, and we had survived.