I heard the footsteps before I saw anything. I had been in the middle of a wonderful dream where John Adams and Dua Lipa rewarded me for my bravery. As Dua was handing me a comically large sack of cash, I felt someone spring into my bed, kneeing me in the groin as they did. I snapped awake and saw my three-year-old son snuggling between my wife and me.
“Hey buddy,” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes.
“He back,” my son said, his little voice quivering.
“Mr. No Eyes?” my wife asked, waking from her own dreams.
“Yes,” my son answered, “I sleep with you. Please?”
My wife sat up and looked over at me. Our bed wasn’t small, but some little boy slept like a starfish. If he stayed, I’d have to go to the couch. It was always me who got the heave-ho. I was used to it. I didn’t hold a grudge.
“Okay,” I said. “Who do you want to sleep with….”
“Mama,” he said, snuggling in close to her. My wife gave me a small smile.
“At least you’re used to the couch,” she said, trying to soften the blow.
“Let me go get your stuff, boy-o,” I said, climbing out of bed.
“Get taco cat and big blue,” he said as I walked out.
This wasn’t the first time he’d come crawling into our bed recently. It had become a semi-regular occurrence since we had moved into our new place. I can’t say I blamed him – this was a radical shift from what he had been used to.
My wife and I had met at college in Boston. After we got married and graduated, we settled down in the city. Neither of us were from Boston – or even the northwest – but we both fell hard for the city. We had chances to leave, but we both decided to stick it out. There are worse places to live.
We had a cozy apartment that was perfect for the two of us. We were cramped when my son was born, but it was manageable. Then Covid hit, and it became crystal clear that we had, in fact, outgrown the apartment. I thought we’d be looking for another apartment in the city, but my wife had other thoughts.
Without me knowing, she’d been looking for farmland outside the city for quite a while. At first, it started as mindless Instagram scrolling. Looking at cute little hobby farms and country-style décor and daydreaming. That quickly gave way to Zillow searches and comparing numbers, and, at that point, it was too late. The disease became terminal.
“I think we should move to the country.”
She had a point. The numbers made sense. Both of our jobs were going to be “work-from-home” full-time, and there would be more space for us to grow as a family. We went and saw a few places, but nothing blew up our skirts. I thought that would be the end of the farm hunt until we stumbled across our current home.
It was a fixer, to be sure, but it also was the first place that felt like home. Walking across the threshold, we just knew this was it. It was a red brick Dutch colonial revival style house built in the 1880s and retained all of the era’s charms. It was two stories, with all the bedrooms on the second floor. The rooms were “cozy” (to use Realtor parlance), but the big windows made them seem larger.
The master bedroom is where the past met modern times. There was a bathroom that had been updated and included a soaking tub. Inside our closet was attic access. I popped up there during the tour, and there wasn’t much to it. Perfect for holiday decoration storage but not much else.
The centerpiece of the bottom floor was a large fireplace in the den. I imagined the three of us snuggled up together on the couch, watching a movie and warming ourselves with a roaring fire. It was some Norman Rockwell shit, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted it. My wife’s disease had infected me. A month later, we moved.
I opened the door to my son’s room and immediately noticed the chill. His room was always a bit colder than the rest of the house. I chalked it up to poor insulation. We gave him “big blue” – a massive, sprawling blanket – so he could wrap himself up like a burrito and keep warm. I assumed, at some point, I’d have to look into better insulation, but it was already late fall, and the snows would be coming soon. No need to start ripping out the little protection that was already there.
I grabbed the blanket and taco cat off my son’s race car bed. I was about to head back to my room when I heard what sounded like something moving in his closet. This also wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Old houses settle all the time. While I was sure that was the case, it still warranted a quick glimpse. Not that I was hoping I would see Mr. No Eyes, but I had to be sure.
I deposited the blankets on the bed and walked over to the closet. I pulled down on the light cord and saw nothing but my son’s clothes. Just to be safe, I moved them to the side and checked. No Mr. No Eyes waiting for me. I shut the light off and headed out of the room.
The rest of the night was fine. My back was a little achy from sleeping on the sofa, but like my wife said, I had gotten used to it. My son was fine too – he usually was the morning after a visit from Mr. No Eyes. Little kids can be very resilient.
He came barreling out of my room and jumped on me. I braced for the jump, but he still managed to accidentally ding my balls with his knees. This, sadly, was also typical. If he harbored any thoughts about wanting siblings, he was going to have to remember to take it easy on me. I grimaced, but, like the couch, this pain was also routine.
“You okay?”
“I’m good,” I said, “how did you sleep?”
“Good! I like your bed.”
“I can tell,” I said.
My wife came walking out of the bedroom, yawning. My ancient Nirvana t-shirt – now her favorite sleeping shirt – hanging off her shoulder and her hair a frazzled mess. She acknowledged me and stretched her arms out wide.
“How did YOU sleep?” I asked her.
“Good. He likes to cuddle.”
“Maybe one day I’ll get to find out.”
“Aww,” she said, crossing to me and kissing the top of my head, “at least you get to spread out.”
“On the couch?”
She smirked and started for the stairs. “Want some coffee?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Please.”
“Dada, you have to work today?”
“I have to pretend to work today at the very least,” I said, “why?”
“Can we play hide and seek later?”
I pretended to mull it over before I gave him a very animated “Yes!” He squeezed my neck so tight that I feared I might pass out.
“We gotta eat breakfast first, though, okay?”
“Okay, Dada.”
I could smell the coffee brewing, which helped to wave away any lingering thoughts of sleep. I looked down at my boy, who was playing with some toys he kept in the loft space upstairs. “Hey buddy,” I said, “what happened last night?”
“Mr. No Eyes woke me up. He’s loud.”
“What was he saying?”
“Nothing. He knocked down my toys.”
“In the closet?”
“In my room.”
“Near your toybox?”
“Yep,” he said with no concerns.
“Does he come every night?”
“No. He sleeps at night sometimes.”
“Does he ever talk to you?”
He stopped playing and looked up at me but didn’t respond immediately. I asked again, and he looked away for a beat before saying, “He said not to tell you or mama.”
I felt a shiver run down my spine that wasn’t related to the oncoming snows. I kept my poker face, though – no need to scare him any more than he might be. “Well, you can tell mama and me anything. You know that, right?”
“Yep,” he said.
“Good,” I said.
“Does he come to your room too?”
“I haven’t seen him in my room.”
“He told me he saw you sleeping,” he said, playing with a dinosaur.
Another shiver and forced smile. “Oh really?”
“Yeah. He watches you guys too.”
“How does he watch us if he doesn’t have eyes?”
“He says he can see everything.”
“Oh,” I said. “Hey, can I get a hug?”
“I already gave you a hug.”
“I need another one,” I said with a smile.
He waited a second and then threw himself on me and squeezed tight. “You’re gonna squeeze dada’s head off.”
“Don’t be crazy, dada,” he said, laughing. I carried him downstairs for breakfast. Before I left the loft, however, I glanced back and checked. Not that I was expecting to see Mr. No Eyes watching us, but I wanted to be sure, just in case.
About three hours later, my promise came due, and I was roped into playing hide and go seek. My son wasn’t a huge fan of hiding, so that task fell to me. I didn’t mind. I really enjoyed the hiding aspect of the game. Plus, the new house had a lot of random and unique hidey-holes. Since my wife and son teamed up, I knew I could go beyond typical parent hiding spots and really dig in.
They went to go count in our bedroom, and I had free run of the upstairs. That was the one rule – you had to stay upstairs. When he was older, I imagined we’d open up the rest of the house, but we kept the playing field small for now. No matter. There were dozens of good places to hide upstairs.
I made my way to my son’s room. He always came here first, and I liked giving him a few easy wins off the bat. Made the game fun for him. I decided to hide under his bed. I moved a few of his toys out of the way and slid underneath the bed. It was a tight fit. I had to suck in my gut a bit and mentally reminded myself to hit the gym tomorrow.
From where I was lying, I couldn’t see anything. When I slid under the bed, I had grabbed a blanket and tried to hide my body. I knew it wouldn’t matter – my son would find me – but I wanted him to earn a win, too. Parenting is knowing when to throw in the towel and when to go down swinging.
As expected, I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. The game was on. The door slowly creaked open, and they entered the room. I couldn’t help but grin because seeing how excited my son was when he found me made cramming under his bed worth it.
The footsteps stopped in front of the bed, and I knew it was coming. I waited and waited, but the two of them never found me. I heard the footsteps slowly walk out of the room and back down the hall. I was puzzled – he always checked under the bed. Plus, he was so quiet. I thought he was probably going to try and scare me.
He did. He just hadn’t realized he had.
Five or so minutes later, my son came bursting back into the room. Instantly, he dropped to his knees and yelled, “Found you, dada!”
I laughed and squeezed myself out from under the bed. As soon as I got out, my son tackled me until I started tickling him. My wife came into the room, and we locked eyes.
“There you are,” she said.
“Here I am,” I said, standing up. “You guys didn’t see me the first time you came in.”
She gave me a look. “He found you right away. Your shoes were sticking out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What don’t you understand about ‘your foot was sticking out’.”
“You guys came in a few minutes before that. You stood in front of the bed and then left.”
She shook her head. “No, we went downstairs because we heard you down there.”
“Not suppose to go downstairs, dada.”
“I didn’t go downstairs,” I said.
“We heard you. I was impressed that you got back up here and under the bed so quickly.”
My skin felt prickly. Something had lured my wife and son downstairs and then came looking for me. What the fuck? It suddenly clicked for my wife too, who put a hand over her mouth in shock. I just nodded, not wanting to say anything to scare my son.
“We’ll discuss when little ears aren’t around,” she finally said.
“Should we keep playing?” I asked.
“Yes! Stay upstairs!” my son yelled and ran back to my room to start counting.
“I’m not going to hide in here again,” I said.
“Good idea,” she said, heading back to count with my son.
A few hours later, my wife and I finally had the conversation when my son was busy eating lunch and watching cartoons. I hadn’t been able to think of anything else since I first had the revelation, and I was bursting at the seams. I pulled her into the kitchen and unloaded.
“What the fuck happened? I know what I heard.”
“Me too,” she said, “I heard you walking down the stairs. I even thought That jerk is trying to cheat.”
“What did it sound like?”
“Like someone walking downstairs. Then, when we were down there,” her voice suddenly caught in her throat.
“What happened?”
“I heard you whisper my name downstairs. Right before I heard you walking back up the stairs. I heard my name as clear as a bell.”
“That’s so fucked up.”
“Tell me about it,” she said. “Is Mr. No Eyes…real? Is that insane to even ask?”
“I dunno. We both had something happen. Maybe it’s worth looking into?”
“He can’t sleep in the room tonight.”
“No. He shouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I know this puts you out, but I just can’t….” She started to trail off, and I could see her eyes getting glassy. This whole thing had thrown us all off-kilter, but my wife had heard someone call her name. That’d scare anyone.
“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. I agree with you. The boy will stay with you until we figure out what’s happening.”
“Should we call…I dunno, a priest? Will that work if we’re not religious?”
“I honestly have no idea. I’ll look into it later.”
Just then, I heard the tiny footfalls of my son walking into the kitchen with his now empty plate. He dropped it into the sink. I looked down at him and tussled his hair. “How was lunch?”
“Good,” he said. “What were you talking about?”
“Boring adult stuff,” I said.
“He said he heard you.”
I felt the air leave the room. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. My wife did. “Who heard us, baby?”
“Mr. No Eyes.”
“Is…is he down here now?”
“He was. He left.”
“Where was he?” I asked.
“Behind you,” he said, “can I have a juice box?”
I whipped my head around and looked for something but only saw the curtains on the windows. I don’t know what I expected to see. My son just laughed at me. “He’s not there now, Dada.”
“Where does he go during the day,” my wife asked.
“The attic,” my son said. “That’s where he leaves.”
“Maybe I’ll go check it out,” I said, dreading doing just that.
“He not like that,” my son said.
“Me either,” I confirmed.
“Hey, I have an idea,” my wife said, “can you draw what Mr. No Eyes looks like?”
“Why?”
“So Dada and I know what he looks like if we see him.”
“Okay!” He scampered off to his drawing area to do the only picture he’d ever draw that wouldn’t make it up on the fridge.
About ten minutes later, he came running back with what can only be described as terrifying. Mr. No Eyes’s head was thin like a pencil with bleach-white skin. True to his name, there were no eyes. He had two mouths, one on top of the other. One smiled, and one frowned. He wore what looked like a t-shirt and jeans. I wasn’t sure if that was what he really looked like or what the hands of a four-year-old were capable of drawing.
“Well,” my wife said, “this would scare the shit out of me if I saw it in my bedroom, too.”
“He’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans,” I said.
“So.”
“I dunno. I always assumed ghosts would be more…dapper?”
“Regular people die too. Maybe he’s a blue-collar ghoul?”
I laughed. We both did. I folded the art up and put it in my pocket. If I had the power to wish it into the cornfield, I would’ve.
“Maybe we should watch a movie. Something happy?”
“Agreed,” I said, kissing my wife on the cheek. “Want something to eat?”
She nodded and went out to corral the wild man to help pick a movie. We settled on an old-school Disney classic and forgot all about Mr. No Eyes. The rest of the day went off without a hitch.
Come bedtime, however, things got a little odd. As discussed, my son would not be sleeping in his room for the foreseeable future. Not until we figured out what was going on. I wasn’t sure if my room was safer – I assumed this thing could go anywhere – but my boy never freaked out when he was in there. I was hoping that trend continued.
We tucked him in our bed and ran through our nighttime routine. He was happy and thrilled to not be in his room. He kept saying it was “hard to sleep through the noise.” I asked him what noise, and he looked shocked.
“You don’t hear it?”
“Hear what, bud?” I asked.
“The buzzing…like bees. It does that when Mr. No Eyes first shows up.”
“Oh,” was all I could muster.
“Well, you’ll be safe in here, okay,” my wife said, settling the situation.
“And if you need anything at all, Dad is just outside the room, okay?”
He hugged me. “Love you, Dada.”
“Love you too, Boy-o.”
Within ten minutes, he was out. My wife and I went downstairs to clean up the kitchen and get in a few episodes of TV before our beds started calling. As expected, she answered her call first.
“I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“I know,” I said, “you missed me moonwalking a bit ago.”
“No,” she smirked, “I saw those moves.”
“That why you’re heading to bed?”
“To save you the embarrassment, yes,” she said as she stood and kissed the top of my head. “Don’t be up to late, huh?”
“I won’t,” I said, before adding, “need me to walk you up?”
“No, I can handle it. We haven’t heard anything.”
“No bees. Not yet, at least.”
“Don’t jinx yourself,” she said. “Night, baby.”
“Night.”
I heard her walk up the stairs and walk into our room. She closed the door softly, but I could still hear the click of the latch. I was alone for the first time since I heard Mr. No Eyes enter the room while I was under the bed. The thought caused me to shiver, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin the rest of my night. I turned on the Dodger game and zoned out.
I fell asleep somewhere around the sixth inning. I heard the crack of a solid hit on the screen, which snapped me awake. I flipped off the TV, stood up, and stretched. I figured it was time for me to hit the hay.
I was about to head up the stairs when I noticed my refrigerator door was open. Not just cracked but wide open. Last night’s chicken dinner was sitting on the counter, too.
“Hello,” I called out, expecting to see my wife making a late-night snack. But no one responded. I detoured from the stairs and headed into the kitchen. There wasn’t anyone in there. Puzzled, I put the food back in the fridge and closed the door.
From behind me, I heard one of the chairs from my dining room shift on the floor like someone had pulled it out. I cautiously walked over to the room and threw on the light. Sure enough, one of the chairs had been noticeably pulled out.
I was beginning to think Mr. No Eyes just wanted a late-night snack.
“At least push in your chair,” I said out loud.
That’s when I heard what sounded like white noise emanating from the living room. It started quietly, almost imperceptible, but it grew louder. Within a few seconds, the faint white noise sounded like a swarm of bees. The buzzing was intense and filled the air.
Then it went quiet. The buzzing didn’t just stop. Every noise stopped. No crickets outside. No hum of the refrigerator. Nothing but my shallow breaths and booming heartbeats.
“The fuck,” I muttered.
The hair on my arms, sensing something was off before my brain caught up, started to rise. I wasn’t alone in the room. I didn’t see anything, but I felt it in the animal part of my brain. Something was watching me.
That’s when the whispers started. I couldn’t make out the words, but it was clear two different voices were speaking. One was a nasally high-pitched drawl, and the other was a sonorous low baritone that sounded like someone stuck their finger on a record player, slowing it down. The voices came from seemingly every corner of the room all at once.
Just then, the overhead lights started to flicker until they went out.
I stood there, not knowing what to do. Normally, even with the lights off, I could kinda see my way around the house. Light pollution being what it is, once my eyes adjusted, I could manage. But at that moment, it was like someone had put a black cloth over my head.
“Why are you here?” the higher-pitched voice hissed.
I froze in place. I had no intention of responding. Without eyes, I imagined they used sound to echolocate me or something. I wasn’t sure and was grasping at straws. The fear had cemented my feet to the floor.
“You do not belong,” the deeper voice added.
That’s when the burners on my stoves turned on. The four flames lit up that corner of the room. They danced, sending eerie projections on the nearby walls. I scanned to see if I saw anything over there but saw nothing but shadows.
“The little one is afraid of you,” the high-pitched voice said.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light in the far corner of the living room. I shielded my eyes, but before I did, I saw the outline of a spindly figure in the middle of the room. I didn’t see enough in the flash, but I did make out one feature – he had no eyes.
I started to shake. I thought about my family upstairs and how they were as metaphorically in the dark as I was actually in the dark. I thought about how my son had seen this thing before and was able to function. He was so brave.
“But I am not,” the deeper voice said. Then, everything went silent again. Flash! Flash! Flash! In three different corners of the bottom floor, there were flashes of some ethereal light. Each time, I caught a glimpse of Mr. No Eyes, which painted in more of his look.
His head was thin and narrow, with several horizontal slices across his scalp. His skin was a pale blue and pulled taut over his eyeless face. His nose was nothing more than a small bump that sat above a small smiling mouth. Below that was a larger mouth that looked more like a slit throat than anything else. He looked remarkably like my son’s drawing. I might’ve been proud of the boy’s burgeoning art skills if I wasn’t worried about dying at the moment.
There was another flash near me, and I saw that monster turn its head and face me. The smaller mouth frowned, and the larger one flashed a toothy grin. When the lower mouth spoke, blood dripped from the corners of his mouth.
“You are not welcome here,” the deep voice said. My legs wobbled under me. Being threatened by a ghost was not as fun as it sounded. My eyes tried to take in everything, but all I could stare at was the oozing blood from the corners of the second mouth. It bubbled when he spoke.
Suddenly, there was another flash by the stairs, and my jaw dropped. I’d seen a bunch of wild shit in the last few minutes, but this took the cake. Some random guy was standing near the stairs. We locked eyes. I had no idea what he was doing, but he seemed to recognize me.
Mr. No Eyes turned to face him. The smaller voice called out, “You all are not welcome here.”
“Fuck this,” the random guy said and bolted up the stairs. When he hit the landing, he split down the hallway towards my son’s room. I heard his door slam.
I was still processing what had just happened when all the lights turned back on. Mr. No Eyes was gone. Everything seemed to be back to normal, but I knew that wasn’t true.
Then I saw a red splotch on the ground in front of me. Then another and another. I touched my nose and realized the source of the blood was from me. My nose had started bleeding, and I was confused as all get out. I hadn’t had a nosebleed since I was a kid, and I had no idea why it had started bleeding.
I pinched the bridge of my nose to try to stop the bleeding. I knew I needed to get upstairs and figure out who the hell that guy was, but I had to stanch this flow. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I kept muttering “clot already,” hoping my blood would hear my prayers and act accordingly.
That’s not what happened.
Instead, with my head thrown back, I heard the high-pitched voice whisper into my ear, “You will die here.”
That got me moving. Blood streaming from my nostrils or not, I tore ass up the stairs. I looked over at my son’s room, but I knew I needed to get my family to safety. Whatever Mr. No Eyes was, he wasn’t playing around anymore.
I dashed into the room, and my wife shot up like a lightning bolt. “What’s wrong,” she said, the sleep still coursing through her brain.
“We gotta go. Now.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Mr. No Eyes. He’s here.”
She snapped into action. “What did…what happened?”
“He threatened us. All of us.”
“You saw him?”
“I saw so much more than him,” I said, tossing shoes to my wife. “Get to the car with the boy, and I’ll be right behind you.”
“I want to stay with you.”
“No. Get him to the car.”
Just then, my son woke up. He rubbed his eyes and stood up. “It morning time?”
“No, buddy,” I said, trying my best to sound cheerful, “we’re gonna go for a little car ride, though.”
My wife came over to me. She saw how wild my eyes looked and the blood in my nose. “Are you okay?”
“I will be when we get the fuck out of here,” I said, “You ready?”
She nodded and scooped up our son. He clung tightly to her as we made our way toward the door. Before we left, I turned back to her and said, “If you see anything, just rush right past it, okay? Grab the keys by the door and get to the car as soon as possible, okay?”
She nodded yes and hugged our son a bit tighter. I turned to grab the handle when I heard my son say, “what are you doing in mama and dada’s closet?”
We all turned around to see a face in the attic entry looking down at us. My wife screamed, at first assuming it was Mr. No Eyes. But it wasn’t – it was the stranger I saw earlier. He ripped open the attic opening and started down.
“Let’s go,” I said, kicking my door open and guiding my wife and son down the hallway towards the stairwell.
Behind us, I could hear the stranger scrambling out of the attic. I didn’t know what he planned or what would happen if he caught us, and I wasn’t going to find out. The lights started flickering right before we took our first step on the stairs.
My son pointed towards his room. “Run, mama. Mr. No Eyes sees you.”
“The fuck,” my wife yelled, trying to turn around and get a glimpse. I blocked her view and coaxed her down the stairs.
“Just go!” I yelled as we stomped down the stairs.
The door to our bedroom opened up, and the stranger came running out. He looked at us but then froze in his place. “No…NO!” he screamed and ran back into our room.
The lights went out in the house again just as our shoes hit the first floor. We heard the stranger struggling to get back into the attic and stopped to look up. There was a flash of light, and my wife finally saw Mr. No Eye’s face.
“That’s unholy,” she mumbled in amazement.
“I don’t like Mr. No Eyes,” my son added.
The creature floated towards the room and passed through the door without opening it. We heard the stranger scream again and heard him moving above us in an area we didn’t know had attic space. My wife looked at me, confused.
“I think the Realtor lied to us about the size of the attic,” is what I managed to say.
There was a cracking sound above us, and I knew what would happen. I pushed my family back as the ceiling over us gave way. The stranger fell nearly twenty feet and hit the ground with a sickening crack.
His left femur was sticking out of his thigh. Some of his blood had landed on my face. He screamed in pain like nothing I had heard before. I glanced up and watched as Mr. No Eye’s head came into view from the new hole in the ceiling. His mouths smiled, and fresh blood bubbled at the corners.
“You are all destined for the black,” the lower mouth said. Then we heard the buzzing of the bees again. The noise filled the room. My wife and child were crying. I pushed them out the front door and told them to start the car.
Mr. No Eyes gripped the hole’s sides and slowly pushed himself out. He was planning to fall onto us like a drop of water from a leaky faucet. I wanted to run – needed to – but the stranger and I locked eyes.
He was scared, and he didn’t need to say a word for me to read his look. Please help me, or I’m going to die. I looked up, and the maniacal smiles from the creature slowly lowering itself down to the ground level and over to the painful stranger, bleeding from a torn open thigh.
My humanity won out.
I ran over and helped the stranger up. He screamed in pain, but I told him to shut the fuck up and move, or I’d leave him here. Busted leg or not, the stranger hobbled at a pace I didn’t think possible. As soon as we got to the front door, we heard a loud THUMP as Mr. No Eyes hit the floor.
“The black awaits,” the higher-pitched voice said before both mouths started laughing.
“So does my Kia Sedona,” I said, wrenching open the door.
The stranger and I hobbled out the front door and into the waiting car. My wife was screaming for me to hurry. I got the stranger into the backseat before rushing around the car and sliding into my seat.
“Drive!”
As I said it, Mr. No Eyes stood in our doorway and watched us. Suddenly, several flames erupted near the car. My son started crying. My wife looked comatose. I could feel my heart beating so hard I was afraid it would burst out of me.
Mr. No Eyes raised his arms, and they disappeared in a spreading blackness. The blackness didn’t stop with his arms. Before too long, Mr. No Eyes himself was lost to the spreading void. I noticed the shadows of the trees around our house started to bend and bleed into the spreading darkness.
“Drive,” I said again to my stunned wife. She snapped out of her stupor and put the car into drive. As she slammed on the pedal, the car fishtailed before the rubber finally caught.
I looked back, and our house had been completely enveloped into the void. As we turned down the street, I heard both voices laughing. I didn’t dare turn around to find out if he was behind us. I trusted my gut that he wasn’t.
We dropped off the stranger at the hospital, and I finally got some information out of him. It turns out he was a squatter living in the house before we bought it. Worse, he was an obsessive paranormal fan who had learned about our house’s history online and became determined to live there and see if he experienced anything.
He did.
He said he hadn’t planned on staying after we bought the house, but he was pretty dug in by then. The house, he told me, had a few strange access points that weren’t listed on any blueprints or were something you’d see if you didn’t know where to look. He had found them and taken advantage.
“Why the fuck did you stay?” I asked him later.
“I was trying to prove something was there and wasn’t ready to leave. I thought if I was quiet, you’d never notice. When I was done, I’d leave. But then your son caught me a few times, and I….”
“You what?”
“I told him about Mr. No Eyes.”
“You what?” I said, ready to rip this guy’s head off.
“I said I was protecting him from Mr. No Eyes, so he wouldn’t say anything to you.”
“The fuck?”
“Then I…well, to speed up the process…I started agitating Mr. No Eyes. It worked.”
Up to that point, I had considered not saying anything to the authorities. He’d need to leave and never come back. I assumed he’d take the offer, as he was in traction for his leg, and the recovery was going to be long and painful. But when he told me what he had done, my good nature gave way. I pressed charges. He’s awaiting trial as I write this.
Another thing I’ve since found out is that our house is quite the hot spot for paranormal comings and goings. There is a litany of stories about the farmhouse online I had just never thought to look. Who googles their house before they buy it? I had seen it, been inside it, and felt the good vibes. It seemed like a perfect fit.
When I relayed this to our Realtor, she was stunned. She’d never heard anything about this and swears up and down she would’ve mentioned it if she had. I’m inclined to believe her, but I have my doubts. Massachusetts is one of the few states where you do not have to mention paranormal issues to a prospective buyer.
After a big protest, I did send my wife and son to go and stay with her mom for a few weeks. Just until I could get things settled down at the house. I went to a local Catholic church and told a priest. A few phone calls later, he put me in touch with a “spiritual fixer” that could help. The church vouched for him but wouldn’t publicly do so. Not a surprising stance for the church to take, considering its past.
When we arrived at the house, I was surprised to see it still standing. The inky black void that had enveloped the building was gone. Everything on the outside looked normal. The inside, however, was a different story.
Besides the gaping hole in my ceiling, all of my furniture had been stacked in the middle of the living room. It was like a Jenga tower made of Ikea.
“This is not a good sign,” the fixer said.
I smirked. “You’re right. No human being would stack books like this.”
“Is there a stack of books, too?” the fixer asked, looking around the room while failing to spot my reference.
“No,” I said sheepishly. I decided to just hang back and let this guy do his thing. About an hour later, he returned and told me that “something dark was still here.” I said I wasn’t surprised, and he told me he needed to do some rituals. He said it would be best if I wasn’t there.
I came back three hours later, and the fixer was sitting outside my house. He looked emotionally and physically drained. He was smoking a cigarette and barely acknowledged my presence.
“How did it go,” I asked.
“I’ve never dealt with anything like that before.”
“Is it gone?” I asked.
He stubbed out his smoke and looked up at me. “It’s gone. For now.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Whatever that guy did….he opened some portal or something in there. It’s like a light in the dark to these things. They’ll head for it eventually. But, for now, the light’s been dimmed.”
“Can we close the portal or whatever?”
“I’ll have to ask people above me if they can help.”
“So, I just wait for some other ghoul to arrive in the meantime?”
“If it does,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a business card, “call me. I’ll send it back to where it came from.”
“What about the black?” I asked, “what was that?”
“That…that is something I’ve never heard of before. I’m gonna have to ask around.”
This wasn’t the response I was hoping to hear. “Should we stick around or what?”
He nodded, “You’re safe for now, but there’s always a chance it can come back. It may not. Who knows? If it does, though, you know what to do.”
“Run away and call the Pope?”
He smiled, “We might even need to go over his head.”
I laughed and drove the guy home. About a week later, we moved back into the house. So far, everything has gone back to normal. I went up into the attic, cleaned out the mess the squatter had left, and patched the hole in my ceiling. My son hasn’t had a bad dream since. Mr. No Eyes has stayed far away.
I’ve settled into a new routine. Every night, around sunset, I make myself a cocktail and walk the property around the house. I’ve dubbed it my “Booze Patrol.” I’m not sure what I’m looking for or what I would do if I saw something, but it helps make me feel secure.
I’m about to head out now. I’m only hesitating because earlier, when I was taking out the garbage, I heard what sounded like bees buzzing near the treeline. Odds are it was simply bees looking to find a spot to start a new hive, but considering the recent past, I’m being more cautious. I’m not going to let Mr. No Eyes come walking back into this place without a fight. This is my house. My land. I’ll fight it until I can’t.
All that being said, I really do miss our old apartment in Boston.