Those are the only words that struck me in the suspect’s deposition. Following his interrogation, my informer, a police officer, had shared all the new details of the ongoing investigation with me that same morning.
“Barry, be careful with this.” He told me while handing me a folder.
“Look, I just wanna find my niece.” I replied.
He certainly had a strong, negative feeling about the whole situation since he knew me from the army. I have never been one to wait for others to resolve a problem for me, especially when I am able to do something about it. Let the police handle it? Out of question for me, therefore, after parting ways with my informer, I drove straight to my house to prepare for my own investigation.
Flashlight and phone ready, desert eagle loaded, and a picture of my niece in the pocket, I spent the rest of the day boiling with impatience while waiting for the next day to make my move. I could not get my mind off the pictures of the dark footprints taken during the night, in some of the missing person cases. At around 3am, I had reached my limit, hopped into my truck and drove to the destination. The suspect mentioned a derelict and abandoned wooden house I had previously searched in vain one afternoon. Upon arrival, despite my military past, an intense feeling of dread robbed me from the zeal I had mustered all this while. The silence, the darkness, the simplicity of the building’s layout, and its sorry state just would not let me see it as just a house. Flashlight in hand and turned on, I stepped into the house, accompanied by the creaking sounds of the wooden floor. I could not believe my eyes and I did not remember it like that, but the house was spotless clean inside as if a neat and meticulous person lived there.
A few seconds later, I heard running footsteps upstairs and I immediately unholstered my gun, ready to investigate. I walked up the creaking stairs, conscious that whoever that was up there knew I was coming. I found myself facing a window at the other end of a corridor. I approached, taking glances at the closed doors on both sides until I noticed something strange yet familiar just below the window: two bare human footprints facing the window, so dark that they seemed to be burn marks as well on the wooden floor. I crouched and touched one of the footprints. A burning sensation struck my fingers, prompting me to remove my hand. I stood up intrigued, and looked behind me to ensure that nobody was about to attack me by surprise. At that moment, I heard creaking sounds that were not caused by my movements. I looked back in front of me then at the footprints and jumped back in fear when I noticed that they were no longer turned towards the window. They were facing me.
I started stepping back, and in complete disbelief, I watched the left footprint disappear then reappear in front of the right one. The right footprint then imitated its left counterpart as I understood that an entity stood before me and was now approaching me with slow steps. I aimed at the emptiness above the footprints and shot while still stepping backwards, not knowing what else to do. Since it did not work, I started shooting at the footprints to no avail. The moment I tried to reload, the entity ran towards me. Two dark and hot handprints appeared on the chest area of my jacket when the entity pushed me and sent me flying across the corridor. I hit the wall behind me, fell, then rolled down the stairs. I started crawling towards the exit while hearing creaking sounds from almost everywhere. When I looked behind me, I saw many handprints and footprints covering the floor, walls and ceiling as many more of those things, some of them walking on four, emerged from their hiding places. Two footprints then landed, each on either side of my waist. I turned on my back and tried to seize the entity in vain. It noticed the picture of my niece that had slipped out of my pocket and lifted it, as dark fingerprints appeared on it. I snatched it back, angering that freak, which then proceeded to strangle me. I do not know which one was the worst between the strangling and the burning. I was on the verge of loosing consciousness when I noticed that my flailing arms began to fade or getting translucent. In my heart, I apologized to my niece before I blacked out.
The pain resulting from the burns on my neck woke me up. I stood up and looked around me in confusion. It was sunrise and the house was back in its complete madhouse state, with trash, disorder and dust everywhere. I picked up my gun, my phone and the picture of my niece, then looked around unable to spot anything unusual. There was no trace of the entities except the hand-shaped burn marks on my neck that I saw on the rear view mirrors of my truck after bolting out of that nightmare. The reason for my survival remains a mystery to this day, just like the whereabouts of my niece. Whether during the day or during the night, I never returned to that house.