I was the first one that noticed that something else was living with us.
It was small things at first. I’d leave something in one spot and come back later to find it moved. There would be a bag of chips that was halfway full, and two hours later they’d be down a quarter more. My first assumption was that either I was being forgetful or it was just my roommate, Sara. I didn’t know why she’d move my stuff around or eat stuff that she normally hated, but I also didn’t think I was getting that absent-minded. And it wasn’t a big deal, really. Just little weird stuff that was mildly annoying, but not enough for me to mention.
But then Sara’s dad got sick and she was back home for two weeks. Aside from having friends over once, no one should have been in that apartment but me, and things kept happening more and more. When Sara got back, after she told me about how her family was doing with everything they had going on, I broached the topic of all the weird stuff I’d being noticing. I half-expected her to laugh me off, but she didn’t. Said that she hadn’t realized it was going on as long as I had, but she’d started seeing stuff moved or missing in the few days before she went out of town. She did laugh a little when she wondered out loud if our little house was haunted, but it sounded hollow, and when I suggested we get a camera to set up and see what was going on, she quickly agreed.
Over the next three weeks, a couple of things became clear. First off, something was messing with the camera we’d bought. It would work fine, and then when a time came that something was going to be messed with inside its cone of vision, the feed would not record for five or ten minutes. Then it would be back like nothing was wrong. The second thing was…well, it was getting worse.
Initially it had just been the stuff being moved and food being eaten. Then I started feeling like I was being watched. Not in some generalized, paranoid way like “someone is watching you”. No, this felt very specific. Very personal. As though someone I couldn’t see was standing just a few feet away, silently staring at me.
It would happen mostly in the living room at first, but over the next few days I started feeling it in the kitchen, my bedroom, the bathroom. At first I’d look around for someone or a hidden camera or something that explained what I was feeling. We’d already changed the locks and the alarm code, but it hadn’t helped anymore than the camera. When I realized I wasn’t going to find anything, I tried to tell myself it was in my head. Sure, maybe something a little weird was going on, but I was blowing it way out of proportion, imagining invisible eyes that weren’t there.
During this period of me trying to convince myself it wasn’t real, Sara was doing the opposite. She wanted the house to be haunted. Initially she’d just joked around about it, but the more worried I became the more she seemed to embrace the idea that maybe there was some ghost lurking around, maybe even watching over us like a guardian angel. It got so I didn’t talk to her about it much at all, as it was frustrating to share how nervous I was getting, only to see that spark of excitement flare brighter in her eyes with every creepy moment or strange discovery I recounted.
Things changed for both us one night in June. We were supposed to grill out on our patio—we hadn’t really hung out together in nearly two months, and I think we both sensed that we needed to mend our friendship, regardless of what was going on with our house. I was outside lighting the charcoal when I heard a startled yelp from indoors.
Walking inside, I saw Sara standing in the middle of the living room. She wasn’t looking at me—at first I didn’t think she was looking in any particular direction. It just seemed like she was staring straight ahead, her expression terrified. Then she noticed me, her eyes going wider as she shook her head.
“Don’t. Don’t come in here.”
I frowned at her. “Why?”
Her face had gone pale. “I…I was walking, going to bring out the spatula and tongs…” she gestured to where she had dropped them on the floor. “…and…and…and I hit something.” Her eyes went back to what looked like empty space in front of her and then found mine again. “There was nothing there. Nothing I could see. And I backed off a few steps, but I was afraid of what might happen if I run or something. I don’t know if it’s still there.”
Heart pounding, I nodded. “Well, okay. Um, just…walk sideways as far as you can and then walk toward me. If it didn’t move, maybe you can get past it.” I looked over and grabbed my car keys and phone from the nearby table. “Just keep coming, that’s it. Okay, let’s go.”
We ran out of the house and out to my car, and once we were inside and going, I didn’t stop until we were at a motel across town. We checked in and then sat scared in our room, talking about what it might have been and what we should do next.
Sara said it seemed wide and heavy, but it gave, like a person would give if you bumped into them. Said it seemed shorter than her too—that she only felt it as high as her stomach, though she immediately stepped back once she realized she couldn’t see anything there.
I wanted to make a joke of it, or explain it away, but I couldn’t. Instead I told her I believed her, and that we needed to start thinking about if we were willing to stay in that house anymore. I’d already half-decided that I wasn’t ever going back there beyond packing up my stuff, and I thought Sara was of the same mind. Maybe in the moment she was, but by the next morning she was talking about how we couldn’t just up and leave in the middle of our lease, especially without somewhere else to go. I argued with her, told her that was stupid, that we could figure out something until we found a new place. That we couldn’t stay in a place with some thing that we couldn’t see or understand, but that could decide to hurt us at any time.
This seemed to almost make Sara angry. She reminded me that whatever it was, it hadn’t done anything to hurt us other than eat a little food and move things around a bit. And it was little. Maybe it was the ghost of some lonely child or something.
I pointed out that I didn’t think ghost children ate chips or could be bumped into, but she just stared at me for a moment before shrugging. She said we could leave, but we needed to find a suitable replacement house first. In the meantime, we would just be careful. I could have argued harder, demanded that we not sleep there another night, much less the weeks or months it might take to find a new place together. And if she still refused to listen to reason, I could have just left on my own.
Part of the reason I didn’t was because I knew I’d have a hard time finding a decent place to live without her help. As it was, she was paying most of the rent and over half of the utilities, and I didn’t see my money situation improving any time soon. But the bigger part of why I wouldn’t leave her was because she was my friend. I didn’t want to leave her alone in that house with…well, whatever it was. So I went along with it. I figured I’d just spend all my spare time looking for us a place and we could get out within a week.
By the end of that first week, my hope of finding us a place was quickly fading. This house was perfect for a lot of reasons, including being in a good neighborhood roughly the same distance from both our jobs. Finding something like that in our price range wasn’t going to be easy, and it was becoming clearer by the day that Sara wasn’t that keen on moving. It frustrated me, but I tried to tell myself that maybe I was overreacting. Nothing else had happened since we’d come back that past Friday, at least so far as I knew. We were sitting watching t.v. one night when I decided to ask Sara about it.
Still watching t.v., she shook her head. “No, nothing bad.”
I stared at her. “So something has happened.”
She looked at me briefly before looking away again. “Um, yeah. But again, it’s nothing bad. It’s kind of sweet, actually.” Sara sighed. “But I knew you’d freak out again, so I just haven’t mentioned it.”
Reaching across the sofa, I grabbed her arm. “What’s happened?”
This time she turned to meet my eyes, her expression already growing defiant. “It keeps holding my hand. Like a little kid would do.” When I just stared at her in shock, she shrugged and went on. “It’s only happened a few times, and the first time it scared me. Or at least I thought it did. You were at work, and I almost left and called you, but then I realized I was overreacting. I was just startled, not scared.”
I stood up, shaking. “Startled? Bullshit! This…this thing is fucking grabbing your hand and you think you shouldn’t be scared?” I shook my head. “It’s in your head or something. It has to be. You’re not dumb, and this is really really stupid.”
Sara was frowning up at me like a petulant child. “You’re making too big a deal out of it. This has been going on for days and nothing bad has come from it.”
Something struck me then. “When’s the last time you went to work?”
“I don’t know. A few days. I decided to take a few days off, big deal.”
“Okay. And when’s the last time you left the house? I’ve been assuming you were just beating me home, but I can’t think of the last time I saw you outside of this place.”
She shrugged, her voice softer and trembling as she lowered her gaze. “I don’t know, okay? A few days.”
I knelt down in front of her, grabbing her hands. I kept my voice at a whisper, though I didn’t know if it’d matter. “Sara, something is really wrong here, okay? We need to get out of…”
The air was knocked out of me as I was shoved across the room and hit the TV stand. I was dazed for a moment, and when I got it together enough to think of Sara, I looked up just as she was going into her bedroom and closing the door. Tongue thick in my mouth, I staggered to my feet and tried her bedroom door’s knob before beating on it and yelling for her to open up. I thought she wasn’t going to answer at all, but then I heard her voice, soft and shuddering with fear, just on the other side of the door.
“Just go. Please. It’s okay.”
I felt a stir of relief at hearing her voice, but also at her telling me to go. I wanted to go, wanted to go more than I’d ever wanted anything maybe. But I also didn’t want to abandon my best friend. Hitting the door again, I yelled for her to come out, to come with me.
“I can’t. They won’t let me.”
“What? What do you mean ‘they’?”
“Oh God. Oh God oh God. There’s more than one of them. You need to go before they decide they want you too.”
I rested my forehead against the door for a moment, blood drumming in my ears as my heart grew cold. I think I whispered that I was sorry. Maybe I even lied and said I’d bring her help. All I know for sure is that I ran out into the night and never went back.
That was two years ago. I haven’t heard from Sara since that night, and I’ve made a point not to look for her. Partially out of guilt, partially out of fear, but mainly because I don’t want to be infected by whatever got my friend. I want to forget all of that, even forget her, if it means I can go on and have a normal life.
For a time it seemed to be working. I moved to another state and essentially started over, which made it simpler for me to forget. Easier for me to lie to myself that whatever had seen Sara and claimed her had forgotten about me.
Even though, in their own way, they revealed themselves to me first.
I woke up last night, skin cold and sweaty in the dark. That wasn’t strange—I have terrible dreams often, and I don’t sleep well on the best of nights. Still, this was different somehow. The darkness of the room felt heavier, and as I climbed out of sleep, I realized the hand I had draped off the bed didn’t move when I tried to shift over onto my back.
Something was holding my hand, its spongey fingers woven firmly with mine. Letting out a scream, I started yanking at my hand desperately, realizing too late that there was shifting weight behind me on the bed.
An invisible weight draped over me—a massive, unseen arm, maybe, though it felt cold and soft and strange through the thin cotton sheet that lay between it and my skin. The weight curled around to my front, cradling my chest and sliding me backwards a few inches as my back pressed against the larger bulk of the thing. A cold, spicy smell filled my nostrils, and I began to gag in between my feeble attempts to scream.
The things gave no response to my cries for help, keeping me, holding me, touching me in the dark for hours before finally letting me go without a sound and only one sign. It was a sign that didn’t say ‘good-bye’, but instead ‘see you soon’. Not a warning, but a promise. A promise that they would always find me.
When the sun started to rise, the larger one behind me pushed back the hair at my neck and pressed an unseen, burning kiss there. I shuddered and tried to scream again, my voice nothing but a raw, squawking whisper by then. It didn’t seem to matter to them. A heavy weight shifted off the bed as unseen things uncoiled from between my fingers.
For a few minutes I was terrified, violated, paralyzed by fear but desperate to get up and move, run away, fight if I had to, just so long as I could be away from them forever. But as the sun rose, I felt myself sinking. I was so exhausted, and I’d think more clearly after some rest. And after all, they hadn’t really hurt me, had they?
I gave a final, violent shudder as I cried into my pillow, and then I was fast asleep.