I’ve always minded my own business, maybe to a fault. With that came never quite noticing small things that were happening around me. A neighbor moved out here, a coworker quit there, that kind of stuff. But when stuff began happening in my own house I had no choice but to notice it.
I live alone, as a rule. I’ve had roommates and I’ve had partners, but I’ve found through those experiences that cohabitation just isn’t for me. A rogue fork in the sink is one thing, but flies fluttering around as if they owned my kitchen, cockroaches scuttling after they’ve made themselves quite at home, is a whole different issue that I’ve decided to mitigate through ensuring I have complete, sole, control over my living space.
When I broke up with my most recent less than cleanly boyfriend I was at a loss. The housing market was insane, and I had no time in which to properly scout a new home. Due to this I found myself signing the dotted line on an apartment I’d only spent fifteen minutes in, one that was in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston and came with more than just a few creaks here and there, but I chalked all the weird noises I’d heard at the walk through up to age.
I didn’t even have time to get settled in. The first night I laid down in my bed, cozied up under my specifically curated comforter, when I heard a gentle tap tap tap that made me think someone was at the door. I ignored it, thinking it was just a fleeting figment of my imagination, when it came again, just as gentle as before. Tap tap tap. I laid in bed, eyes wide open, weighing whether or not I wanted to check the door. I decided against it and drifted into a fitful sleep, one in which my dreams were haunted by solicitors bothering me at every moment in which I may have finally had a singular chance to relax.
When I woke up for the third time is when the taps turned into an incessant banging; they sounded as though someone desperately needed to be let in. No longer able to ignore the noise I begrudgingly tore off my perfectly warmed sheets and rose to my feet, stumbling down toward the entryway. When I arrived there wasn’t a single noise to be heard. No whistling of the wind. No minuscule buzz of the electricity that ran through my home. I couldn’t hear a single thing.
I went to the door and opened it, braced to give the intruder a piece of my mind, but when the door swung open there wasn’t a single soul on the other side. I ducked out into the sharp, cold night air and looked around, but there wasn’t anyone there. No one in sight. And so I closed the door and puttered back to bed, knowing there was almost no chance of going back to sleep.
When I turned to enter my bedroom I froze, hand on the doorknob, and inescapable feeling of dread raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I shivered, and I brushed it off. What was there to be afraid of? I knew no one was there but me. I grasped the knob, having to try and turn it more than once due to the slippery sweat that had layered the palm of my hand, and the moment the door began to open a sudden, shrill shriek pierced the air, causing me to cover my ears in an absolute panic to make the sound stop.
The incessant noise pierced every one of my senses simultaneously. It lasted for a minute, and then two, and then three. I lost count. I cowered in the hall, clutching my ears, trying to ignore it, trying to will the sound out of my eardrums, but it persisted all the same.
The next morning I awoke in the hall, in the fetal position, still shaking. I felt like garbage, and I called out of work.
I considered all the possibilities. A person living in a crawl space. A feisty neighbor who’s vents aligned perfectly with mine to deliver their wailing into my home as if our dwellings were not separated by thin walls, but in the back of my mind I knew that this would only escalate. This was not a worldly problem, and to be honest, an otherworldly problem was the last thing I needed.
I stayed at a hotel for two days, but my bank account urged me to return to my new home. The moment I attempted to step foot across the threshold I was met with the front door slamming in my face. Whoever was clearly haunting this home hated roommates more than I did, I surmised.
The haunting only escalated, and it scared me to my core. What began as wailing turned physical. I’d awaken in the night to horrible, sharp pains running up and down my legs and I’d whip off the sheets to reveal deep, throbbing scratches. In the darkest corners of the room I’d see the glow of eyes, floating alone, without a face to call home.
The most terrifying thing yet happened to me last night.
I was laying awake in bed, awaiting my nightly terrorization, when a whisper hit my ears.
Help. It sounded like a little girl.
Every single hair on my body rose simultaneously.
My head perked up and I listened intently, waiting to see what would be said next.
It just repeated itself help, help, help, was all I could hear.
“Hello?” I shouted, hoping to hear anything else.
“Hello?“ I heard myself echo throughout the house, my voice bouncing off the walls and growing louder and louder with each repetition.
“Who are you?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer but still hoping that, somehow, I would.
All that met my ears were an echoed “who are you,” making me hang my head.
I decided to attempt to make my way toward the kitchen. I had managed three steps before I was stopped in my tracks by the most excruciating burning sensation I’d ever experienced. It began in my toes and made its way up my shins, and further up my body, until my entire being was engulfed in excruciating pain. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk, I could only scream. The screams sounded off the walls and, with the little bit of attention I could pay, I noticed that they sounded exactly the same as the screams I’d heard on my first night here.
The pain continued for minutes, hours, days. I truly have no idea how long I stood, frozen, wailing, waiting for the searing of my flesh to cease. When it finally did I immediately left my home, taking nothing but my phone with me. I have no idea what is wrong with my house. I’m back in the hotel for as long as my credit card will allow. I have no idea what is going on, but I don’t think I can go home.