I live in a smallish suburb. My bedroom is on the first floor, and I’ve been living here with the same neighbors for over thirteen years without issue. My parents were the only other people in the house at the time, but neither of them were anywhere near the direction of my window. I’m also fairly well acquainted with the local dogs, birds, stray cats, and occasional possum in my neighborhood. On plenty of occasions, I’ve heard dogs barking, cats yowling, and birds chirping.
But none of them sounded anything like the creepy whistling I heard last night.
I promise I don’t have any physical or mental conditions that would cause me to hallucinate. In addition, there is a carbon monoxide detector in the house, plus my window was open to allow for outside air flow.
…
11/15/2022
I was in my room with the lights on and the blinds closed. I had just finished showering after a long night of watching recorded lectures for a class.
Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a person whistling outside my window. It sounded faint, eerie, breathy, and organic. It wasn’t shrill enough to be a coach or referee’s whistle, but too deliberate and rhythmic to be the wind. It happened at short, calculated intervals, like:
WHISTLE
Pause.
WHISTLE
Pause.
WHISTLE
Pause.
When the whistling started, my hair stood on end. I felt the unmistakable sense of dread, as if I were being watched. I mean, I’m already used to creeping myself out by reading scary stories every now and then, but this was just next-level. You know, like the feeling of a thousand pinpricks in the back of your neck.
Feeling scared, but not in immediate physical danger, I reached for the biggest, most intimidating weapon I could find. My hand grasped the hilt of a three-foot-long, double-edged broadsword made for practice cutting. It was fully sharpened on both sides, and could do serious damage based on the test cutting I’ve done (given a brief interest in HEMA and Chinese martial arts a few years ago).
Facing the only window in my room, I took stance about six feet away. My heart was pounding. I impulsively blurted out the first thought that came to mind:
“Come in, I dare you. I heard you don’t like iron. Well I got some long, hard iron just for you, bitch!”
With the brandishing of my sword plus my verbal warning, the whistling stopped. I strained my eyes toward the narrow slits in the blinds. After a few seconds, I thought I saw a humanoid silhouette scamper past the window in a hunchbacked pose. It was about five feet tall, but would have been taller if it stood up straight.
After it left, I said a prayer for protection, then went to sleep. For the rest of the night, nothing else happened.
I didn’t manage to snap a picture since it was over so quickly, so here’s a quick sketch of the scene from my perspective. It may not be 100% to scale, but the general shapes and proportions of the creature are roughly accurate.
…
11/16/2022
I still have no idea what that thing was. I’ve browsed other subreddits to try and ballpark what type of cryptid it might be, and the closest thing might be a “crawler” of some kind.
However, I’m not so sure anymore. The creature in question had limbs that were much too short to fit the traditional description. In addition, it moved too slowly, in contrast to the usual, faster-than-the-eye-can-see crawler movements.
My curiosity is burning me up inside. I’m the type of guy who needs a logical explanation for everything. I need to figure out exactly what I saw.
So tonight, I’ve decided to wait outside my own window, and see if it shows up again. I really should’ve brought a gun, but my parents are strict on their “no guns” policy in the house. So instead, I brought my trusty broadsword with me. It hangs in a leather scabbard by my side as I type, but I hope I won’t need to use it.
…
11/17/2022
Last night was uneventful. I’ve been watching the area outside my window for hours to no avail. I even roamed the small backyard a couple times, but observed nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t even feel the same feeling of dread I did the night I first heard the whistling.
Oh well, I’m exhausted from pulling an all-nighter. I’ll tone it down to a couple hours each night, and I’ll keep you all updated day by day.
…
11/18/2022
Guys, I have some news! While it didn’t happen to me directly, it involves a guy I went to high school with. He lives in the same neighborhood. Last night, he was brutally attacked by something when he went outside his house to investigate a strange noise. He’s currently in the hospital, and I’ll be on my way to pay him a visit.
It was shocking to see Freddy in a hospital bed with a million tubes sticking out of his body. He had been a linebacker on the football team in high school, so injury was nothing new to him. But this was on a different level. Thick gauze bandages covered his arms, legs, torso, and neck. The left side of his face was similarly patched up.
His one uncovered eye looked at me and crinkled with a smile. “Nathan,” he croaked. “How’s the ol’ nerd doing these days?”
“I should ask you the same thing!” I replied. “What’s your condition right now?”
“Stable, but I lost a fuckton of blood at first,” he said, wincing as he recounted the experience. “I’ll have full use of everything once it heals, but for now I’ll be less mobile than the old lady at the nursing home!”
“Glad you’re safe now, man,” I replied. “So what the hell happened, dude? I heard you got broke into or something.”
He chuckled. “‘Broke into?’ Man, I got my ass kicked! Bro must’ve been bulletproof, too! You should’ve seen my 9mm do jack-shit!”
My eyes widened in shock. “Hold up, you’re telling me that you shot him and he still did this to you?”
He nodded, which looked painful with all those tubes and bandages. “Yeah, man…” he replied.
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Some pale-ass motherfucker with a head too big for his body. He didn’t look like he had a face until he opened his big-ass mouth full of teeth like Jaws. Short and skinny, too, and hunchback like the dude from Notre Dame.”
The realization hit me. “Shit, I think I saw the same thing!” I replied. “Outside my window like two days ago.”
“Did it, like, whistle at you?” Freddy asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Same, bro. That’s why I went outside. To see what was up,” said Freddy. “That motherfucker charged me, so I popped two in his dome. But he just kept on coming! He was on me before I knew it, and went all Freddy Krueger on me with those claws.”
“Ay, you’re a tough motherfucker to survive that,” I said with an affirmative grin.
“Bro, if my girl didn’t step outside and save me I’d be dead!” he replied. “Emily ran out with this big-ass Gordon Ramsay-looking chef knife and screaming like a banshee. When that motherfucker saw her, he bolted like Usain!”
I couldn’t help but to chuckle at the visual. “Damn, that’s crazy,” I replied. “I myself had to pull some nerd shit to scare him off that one night- “
“Hi guys, so sorry to interrupt but all guests have to leave the room right now. We’re getting the patient ready for a secondary checkup,” said a pleasant but authoritative voice behind me. I turned around to see that the nurse had returned.
“Ay Freddy, looks like I gotta go now. Catch you later, nice talking to you,” I said.
“See ya, nerd,” he replied as the nurse took over.
As I walked back to my car, several thoughts were running through my head.
First of all, Freddy is a lot cooler than he was back in high school.
Second of all, it’s interesting that the creature that attacked him was the same one I saw the other night.
Third of all, it baited him outside with the same whistling noise it tried to use on me.
Fourth of all, it appears to be bulletproof.
Fifth of all, the only reason it fled in both cases was when I threatened it with a sword and when Freddy’s girlfriend threatened it with a knife. So, I have a hypothesis that this creature can only be hurt or killed by edged steel weapons.
I snickered to myself. Nerd.
…
11/19/2022
It’s back.
I was chilling in my room at 1 AM last night, when I heard two sharp taps on my window.
Jumping to my feet, I peered through the narrow gaps in the blinds. I saw the humanoid creature scuttle away. Grabbing my sword, I raced outside to confront it. But by then, it was long gone.
I never saw or heard anything else for the rest of the night.
…
11/20/2022
Tonight, I decided to wait outside starting at sunset. At this time of the year, that meant 5 PM.
The area outside my room is a long, but somewhat narrow corridor. The ground is smooth, flat concrete, with a wooden fence on one side and the outside wall of the house on the other.
Armed with my broadsword, I read a leather-bound Bible in the light of a rechargeable lantern as I waited. In retrospect, the environment would have been more ideally suited for a spear, where rapid thrusts in a narrow corridor would’ve been an almost foolproof strategy. But I only could use what I had at the moment, so the broadsword would have to suffice.
I don’t know why I decided to play hero today. All I knew is that there was a dangerous entity going around and hurting people in my neighborhood, and that no modern, conventional weapon could hurt it. No amount of bullets or tasers from scared policemen could take down the creature. They would only be subjected to serious injury and death without knowing its weakness, and they sure as hell wouldn’t believe me if I told them.
It was up to me and my archaic nerd weapon to stop it.
Keeping my sword hidden under a blanket, I sat in a camping chair just outside my window, in the same spot where the creature had set foot before. It was a cold night, and my breath created puffs of steam in the frigid air.
Hours passed, and I was getting bored. But I kept reading to pass the time, and soon enough, it was 1:30 AM…
The same time the creature had arrived on the other two nights.
I heard a faint scratching from beyond the gate. It was about twenty feet away from my position, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
I needed a way to bait the creature into ambushing me. I felt dirty playing its own game, but if that’s what it took to ensure the safety of potential victims in the future, then you bet I’d do it without hesitation.
I knew that in many cultures, whistling at night was a good way to attract all sorts of malevolent spirits and demons and entities. So I stood up, and started whistling.
It wasn’t much, as I don’t whistle a lot. But I tried to emulate the instrumental of “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic, a song I had been listening to.
Like a shark smelling blood in the water, something scuffled just outside the gate. A shadowed figure leapt clear over the almost-six-foot-tall fence. As soon as it hit the ground, it charged towards me. To this day, I still remember the pale humanoid form, with the too-big head and too-skinny limbs. It appeared to have no face, just a blank, smooth, and rounded surface where a human’s facial features would’ve been. Wicked black claws tipped the six fingers of each hand, which were outstretched in my direction as it scuttled forward with swift, but not imperceivable speed.
I tried my best to stay calm, which is not easy when some grotesque abomination is charging at you. I threw my blanket aside and grabbed the hilt of my broadsword in one swift motion. But I didn’t draw yet. From my own experience as well as Freddy’s, I knew that a premature display of the blade would cause it to cease its attack and retreat, before I could counter with an attack of my own.
It was like time slowed down. The creature was running in slow motion, and I remember being hyperaware of everything around me: the next-door neighbor’s light in their second-story window, the rustle of the breeze in my hair, the fine details of the creature, including the fault line that had spread across its “face” and parted to reveal a black mouth full of sharp, obsidian-like teeth…
Now!
I yanked the hilt of my sword, drawing the thirty-three inch blade from its scabbard. The flats glimmered blacker than night, while the honed edges gleamed like twin rays of divine light.
I’ll never forget the ear-rending screech of claws against concrete as the creature dug into the ground, attempting to skid to a stop.
I’ll never forget the sickening wet plop of the two halves of the creature hitting the cement as I brought my sword down with a mighty swing. I cleaved it from left shoulder to right armpit, then embedded the blade in the wooden fence with a solid thunk.
I’ll never forget the wretched sight of pitch-black blood splattered across the wall and the floor and the fence.
I’ll never forget how the police acted all hush and shut-up about the incident when I called them on the phone with trembling hands. How they called a secondary “cleanup” service to deal with the mess. How a service member wearing a hazmat suit pushed a hefty check into my hands, in exchange for staying silent.
I suppose I’m breaking those conditions by sharing my story here, but the fact is that people need to know. My friend was seriously hurt by that creature. Who knows how many more could’ve been terrorized, maimed, or killed if I didn’t play vigilante that night?
I still don’t know what that creature was. If you asked me, though, I would guess that it’s an escaped government experiment, based on the way the police and the special cleanup crew were involved.
Regardless of what it was, all I know is that it fell by my sword. Literally. Some random nerd with a replica broadsword killed it with one slash.
So if you ever hear whistling outside your window at night, forget the gun and grab a blade.
