I (25 Male) moved into my first house three months ago. I was pressured by my parents into buying a house so I could have independence from them, at least that was their excuse every time I argued against it. For some background, I struggled financially for the four years I was in college, throwing student debt on top of that, to say the least, I stayed at my parent’s house afterward so I didn’t have to go homeless. I lived there for two years before they began to try to push me out. They always claimed that I needed to be my own man and start my own life because they were my age when they had me. I was sick of having to live with them and their complaining though and I finally decided to move out for my own sake.
I searched for two weeks, scouring every housing website on the internet for something that was close to my family and most importantly, affordable. I eventually settled on a reasonably sized two floor house with a basement and shed for storage. It was costly as you can imagine, but it was the perfect size to raise a family and live out the majority of the rest of my life in. I would’ve been set for life I thought so I went to see the house in person. While I was given a tour of the house, I didn’t seem to recall any out of place noise, particularly a tapping noise like I stated in the title. That was until I went to the basement. I’ve read plenty of horror stories before and I had to admit, this would be the perfect plot for one, the tapping didn’t sound like any leaking pipe I’ve ever heard before. Luckily I wasn’t the only one who heard it as it was listed on the website I found the house on. Nothing went south until I moved in.
I ultimately decided to buy the house as everything else was in working order and the house was perfect in almost every aspect. I moved in straight away, living alone in my new house. The first thing I decided to address in my new house was the sound coming from the basement. I wouldn’t claim that the basement was unfinished, but it definitely wouldn’t be considered much of a living space, especially so due to the fact that rain would typically flood the basement for short periods of time, just about an inch or so. The basement is split into two areas, one for utility, and another for a room. the utility room seemed to be the area where the noise was coming from. I figured that it was just an exposed pipe that happened to tap against the concrete walls of the basement so I covered all exposed piping in foam material. Problem solved, the tapping stopped.
The tapping however did not stop, the moment I reached the top of the stairs and turned off the lights in the basement, the tapping noise started again, quicker than before. I guess thats where the expression “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes from, as I seemed to have made the problem worse. I could now hear it from upstairs in my living room. The last thing I wanted to do was to call someone down here to inspect and fix the problem because that would be too expensive for how much money is already going into this house. The tapping persisted though, it progressively got worse throughout the next few days and I had to order sound proofing foam for the basement. After installation the noise was muffled, at least enough to continue on.
I still wanted to solve this problem, and I am not one to back down on a project half finished, so I took to google to find my answer. Nothing I saw could have been the source of the problem though until I came across a forum that said to use an emf detector on the area to find the source. I thought, why not, worse case scenario I don’t find the problem. Luckily newer phones have emf detectors built in to them and I downloaded an app for it. I got back home after working overtime the night I was going to go and find the source of the problem. A storm began after I ate but I decided to head down anyways.
I turned on the emf detector app, and had a shovel in hand just incase I had to get into the floor or walls. I started my descent, each step creaking the rotting wood that took me to my basement. Just as I thought it couldn’t get worse the lights flickered and eventually died. Maybe buying a cheap house was not the best idea was my first thought but reassured myself that I couldn’t have been the only one who had lost power. There was no sign of this storm getting better but I kept my determination to find this problem. I continued down the stairs slowly, now with my phone’s flashlight on so I could see. Intervals of lightning giving me vision to each room of the basement even for just a second. I made it down, but unfortunately to the splash of water. This wasn’t the first time this had happened but it was worse this time. The water was three or four inches high in my basement. As I trudged along into the utility room, I waved my phone around to no avail. I began to head to the back of the utility room, away from the piping I had long thought was the source. I waved around for a bit before finding a signal.
Whatever the tapping was, it could also tell it was spotted as the tapping increased along with a slight groan coming from the source. It happened to come from the ground so I blindly dug with my shovel through the gravel of a floor, blinded by the inches thick of water splashing as I plunged my shovel into it. Finally I hit something, as soon as I did, all things went quiet except for a siren I could hear in the distance. I figured that that was the source of the groaning noise as I had no intent on finding out what it could have been. I must have hit a rattling pipe going through my floors as that would make the most sense. But I was wrong as I blindly grabbed for it, it felt rough, not particularly smooth like you’d figure a pipe would feel like. It was roundish as I picked it up. I didn’t have to bring it up more than a few inches to see it through the water, it was a skull. A child’s skull. A shock of adrenaline went through my spine as I stared at it. I didn’t feel alone anymore, dropping the skull back in the water as I became scared to look around at the rest of the basement.
Lightning now striking and the tapping beginning again, now becoming more of a slamming noise. I get up, no one else is here. I turn my phone towards the stairs and start to back away. As I do, the lightning casts its light upon the basement making my eyes catch a shadowy figure near where the skull is. This figure had to be an adult. As the lightning had finished casting its light, I began to hear it trudging towards me through the water, starting at a walking pace. Realizing that it couldn’t catch up to me at that speed it began to power through the water. It began to get closer and closer, I was moving as fast as I could into the other room, ignoring the stairs. Lightning struck again as I looked back towards the entrance of the room, I could once again see the shadow figure, now holding a bottle, continuing towards me. Thunder wasn’t the only thing that I heard after that strike this time, there was a constant whistling. The whistling noise grew and I could hear the figure stop. As soon as I could hear the glass bottle in its hand break, I was swept unconscious from what I now know as the tornado that passed through my town which explained the siren and the whistling.
I was recovered from the wreck. I asked if there was anyone else found in the wreck that used to be my house but they claimed they couldn’t find anyone. As for the skull however, the skull was eventually brought to the authorities and they found it belonged to the child of the previous owner. A town drunk, who claimed one day that his son ran away. Though in reality he killed his son in a drunken rage and buried the evidence. Not being able to live with himself the father was found dead in a river not to far from the house a couple of days afterward. The house went up for sale after a few weeks and nobody bought it until a year later when I found and purchased the house.