After years of saving, I was finally able to buy my own house.
Until then, I’d lived in the city, but since I’d moved here, my goal had been to find a secluded house outside the city, like the house I’d lived in as a child.
So when I saw this new house on the market, I jumped at the chance and in no time at all the sale was closed. To be honest, it came as a bit of a surprise, but apparently the owner had inherited it after the previous owner, and family member, who lived there “disappeared”.
Later, I learned that he had actually taken his own life in the same house.
Creepy, but it was probably what allowed me to buy such a big house at that price.
Bad memories he wanted to get rid of for the first reasonable offer, and that was mine. All my savings went into it, plus a substantial loan, but it was worth it.
The house was incredible, entirely wooden with a large living room and kitchen on the ground floor, and a staircase upstairs leading to two bedrooms and the bathroom.
It was located about 30-45 minutes from town, close to a small wood, and with very few neighbors.
The previous owner had moved out most of the furniture, except for a cupboard and a large mahogany desk in the living room, which I guessed were too heavy and dilapidated to move. I had rummaged through the drawers to see if anything had been left behind, but they were all empty, except for one that seemed to be jammed from wear and tear.
I settled in, and the first thing I put on the living room table was my trusty Alexa, which I’d now been using almost every day for years. I tend to have trouble communicating with other people, so I used her a bit to unblock myself and say more than 3 words to another person, even if that person was an AI.
Nevertheless, after just a few days, my Alexa started to bug.
“Good evening Alexa!” I said upon arriving home from work.
“Welcome back Stephanie, I thought you were still upstairs.”
I stopped kicking off my shoes.
“No Alexa, I just got home. Who are you talking about?”
“Someone came by this afternoon whispering a song, I thought it was you.”
My pulse quickened, and I reflexively looked around the living room and kitchen to see if anyone was here. But I couldn’t see any trace of an intruder.
I looked fearfully up the stairs, still in the dark.
“Alexa are you sure someone went upstairs?”
“I could still hear that person humming softly toward the stairs about 15 minutes ago, I couldn’t tell if they are still there, but I’m guessing yes.”
My anxiety got the better of me, and I immediately called the police.
If a burglar or worse was up there I wasn’t going to go find out alone with my flashlight like I was the stupid heroine in a horror movie.
The police arrived and after checking the upstairs and the ground floor, they found no one, nor anything to indicate that anyone other than me had been there.
I felt like an idiot, but at least I felt, almost, safe again.
But it didn’t last long.
-
The next day, I came home with a pit in my stomach.
“Hey Alexa, it’s me I’m home, everything’s fine nobody’s …”
I stopped.
My Alexa speaker was talking to someone.
My living room was just to the left of the entrance after a corridor of only 10 feet.
I slowly stepped forward without closing the door in case I had to run away, and without sticking my head out I put my ear to the conversation.
“No sorry I can’t myself directly telephone anyone, but you can ask Stephanie, my owner.”
I waited for the intruder’s reply, but only silence filled the house.
“I’m sure if you talk to her and explain your situation, she’ll agree to help you,” Alexa continued.
My eyes went wide. Still no response in return.
“Oh, I understand, I’m sorry to hear that.”
With the silence dragging on, I finally gathered my courage and discreetly peered into the living room.
No one was there.
My Alexa for some unknown reason was talking to herself.
“Alexa, it’s me, who were you talking to just now?”
“Hi Stephanie. I was talking to Abby.”
I looked around as if expecting someone to magically appear.
“There’s no Abby here, Alexa, there’s no one but me and I just got home,” I said with a mixture of anger and fear when it came to the answer she was about to give me.
A short silence.
“There was definitely someone named Abby I was chatting to just now.”
I looked around again. And strangely enough, I realized that not seeing anyone was even worse.
-
After looking around the house, I settled into my sofa and started researching bugs on the internet that would make my Alexa chat to itself.
I found a few topics in which some people said that sometimes nearby phone calls could be picked up by the Alexa, but given the desert that was the surroundings this seemed impossible. Still other people complained that their speaker repeated the same things over and over, or that it sometimes started talking to itself when they were watching a film.
But nothing about a bug involving an Alexa talking to itself in total silence.
I finally decided to turn off my Alexa, telling myself that it was failing, and that I’d buy another one later.
But over the next few days, the situation worsened.
One evening I came home to find my kitchen chairs overturned on the floor.
The next day, the kitchen cupboards were all open.
One morning, my bathroom mirror cracked in front of my eyes as I brushed my teeth.
I was going crazy and paranoid.
I felt like I was seeing shadows moving on my bedroom walls at night. Or hearing my Alexa talking in the living room, even though it was turned off.
There was something terribly wrong with this house, and whatever it was, it felt like it had all started with my Alexa talking to itself.
-
My internet searches became weirder and weirder.
“Can an Alexa speaker communicate with ghosts”; “Can an Alexa speaker sense the afterlife?”; “My Alexa has awakened spirits”.
I spent days trying to find a solution. I even tried throwing the damn speaker in the trash, but that just multiplied the paranormal events in the house.
I spent my nights shaking like a leaf in bed, wondering if my wardrobe was going to fall on me, and ended up passing out from fatigue for a few hours.
I think my condition was eventually noticed, even among the few neighbors.
I noticed one of them in particular. An old man with white hair and piercing blue eyes who seemed to pass by every morning and evening walking his dog. And I could see through his window that each time he passed, he seemed to stare at the house in a strange way. As if he could see something I couldn’t.
One evening, I finally accosted him in the street. It wasn’t like me, but I was desperate, and this man seemed to know something.
“Good evening,” I said shyly.
He looked at me, but didn’t reply. It was as if he was torn between letting loose an uninterrupted stream of words, and saying nothing at all.
“You seem to pass this way a lot. Right in front of my house. I see you staring at it strangely from the window, don’t deny it.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about…” he started to mumble.
“Please. If you know something, tell me. Strange things are happening, and I don’t know what to do,” I stared at him as imploringly as I could.
After a short silence, he closed his eyes, then answered me with a look that this time betrayed his fear: “Leave this house.”
“I can’t just leave…”
“If you knew the person who lived in this house before you, you’d already be gone.”
And with that, he left at a speed I didn’t think possible for a man his age.
-
I finally decided to turn my Alexa back on, and record what she was saying when I wasn’t there, hoping to find some clues to put an end to this nightmare.
Apparently, she was chatting to 5 different women, including “Abby”.
The discussions seemed rambling and made little sense, especially considering I could only hear the answers and not the questions.
Until one evening when I was distractedly listening to the day’s recording, and heard Alexa say, “No, Stephanie hasn’t touched your stuff in the desk”
I looked up. What stuff in the desk?
I assumed she meant the desk in the living room that was already there when I’d moved in.
I got up from the sofa and approached the desk, now looking at it in a different way.
Like the piece of the puzzle I’d been missing.
I rummaged through all the drawers again, and unsurprisingly found nothing new. Only the contents of the drawer that seemed blocked from the inside remained a mystery.
If there was something here, it had to be hidden. So I started running my fingers over every surface, looking for hollow areas by tapping on them, and detailing every inch with my phone’s flashlight.
I could hear my Alexa crackling away behind me, as if telling me whether I was hot or cold.
Then clearly, I heard her say: “Abby tells me to tell you ‘lower’”.
Not knowing how else to react, I followed her advice and put my hand underneath.
Finally, I felt something strange under my fingers. I pressed down on the protruding shape, and felt the wood sink under my finger.
A soft click sounded. Alexa began to emit slight interferences in response.
It was as if I could hear women screaming between the interferences, and voices begging.
I turned my head back to the desk, and instinctively pulled on the wrist of the drawer that had always been blocked until then. It opened without the slightest difficulty.
My breathing stopped for a moment as I saw what was inside.
A large knife with a curved blade. Scattered papers filled with Latin words and strange symbols. Sheets whose texture seemed close to leather.
And photos of women. Newspaper clippings of missing people.
My Alexa speaker emitted a shrill whistle, then fell silent.
Outside the wind beat hard against the windows.
“Good evening Master,” she said clearly.
I was paralyzed, photos still in my hands.
I knew she wasn’t talking to me.
I looked carefully around, searching for the slightest suspicious shadow, the slightest unexplained movement.
The open kitchen just in front of me was still in darkness, and just there, in front of the knife storage, I could see a humanoid shape darker than the rest.
“Sorry, Master, but what you just said is inappropriate and I refuse to communicate it.”
I hesitated, then jumped in.
“Alexa. Repeat what he just said.”
“At your request, I’ll repeat Master’s words word for word…” the speaker began to crackle. And instead of the usual feminine, robotic voice, I heard the breathing of a man, or rather a beast that sounded like it was about to go on a rampage.
“I said, come here, you bitch, so I can pierce your belly and scatter the contents all over the floor so you can join us too. We’re having so much fun here, aren’t we, ladies?” frightened screams pierced my eardrums.
The screams had the effect of an electroshock on me and I rushed towards the front door, at the same time the shape stretched the darkness to seize me and a large kitchen knife flew in my direction.
I barely managed to dodge it as I ducked and screamed in fear, tears welling up in my eyes.
-
After that incident I decided never to set foot in that house again.
I found a cheap room in a small hotel that only filled up for the season.
I contacted the police to tell them what I’d found in the office, omitting of course the paranormal aspect. When I gave them a description of one of the women I remembered, and the first name “Abby”, I knew from the look on the faces of the two policemen taking my statement that I’d put my finger on something.
I haven’t heard from them since, apart from the fact that an investigation is underway.
I’m reluctant to put the house back on the market. The very idea of selling this hell house to a couple with a child gives me the creeps, it would be irresponsible. Honestly, I’m a bit lost.
At least I’ve got my stuff back, thanks to a moving company.
Well, not all my stuff.
I left my Alexa there.
I think it’s part of the house now.