“Did you hear that? I think someone is outside”, my wife whispered as she shook me awake.
I startled awake and took a second to comprehend what was happening.
“Huh? What?”, I replied.
“I heard footsteps near the window. Someone is out there”, she answered, panic quite clear in her voice.
“Are you sure, darling?”
“I’m certain. There is someone right outside”.
I moved in order to get up out of bed, and as I did, my wife grabbed my arm.
“Don’t get up and look”, she whispered to me, “Call the police. It might be someone trying to get in”.
“I can’t hear anything, Jenny. If someone was trying to get in, we would hear it”, I said to her, “I’ll go have a look. It might’ve been a possum or something you heard”.
I got out of bed and cautiously approached the window, which was covered by thick black curtains. I reached out and grasped the edge of the curtain and pulled it to one side, moonlight spilling into the room and I did.
The first thing I saw were two eyes staring straight at me through the glass. I jumped backwards, alarmed at what I saw.
“What is it? Who’s there?”, my wife cried out from the bed.
My mind immediately went to the idea that someone was actually attempting to break into the house, like Jenny said, but I studied the face for a second. I realised I knew who was staring back at me. It was Mr. Haynes. The old man that lived next door.
“It’s the neighbour. Mr. Haynes”, I whispered back to Jenny.
“What’s he doing in our garden?”, she asked.
“Hello. Mr. Haynes”, I called out through the window, “Are you alright?”
Mr Haynes didn’t respond, but instead continued to stare directly at me.
He was of an average height, and had a very slim build. Wrinkles were starting to take over most of his face, but under his eyes were where he was most affected by them. He had long, scraggly hair that was thinning on top, but flowed out the sides of his head.
His facial expression was blank, no discernible emotion was present on his face. His eyes looked almost glazed over, as they looked straight towards me.
“Hello”, I called out once more, but yet again, he didn’t reply.
“What do we do?” I turned and asked Jenny.
“Maybe he needs help”, she replied, looking at me.
I turned back to the window, and to my surprise, he was no longer anywhere to be seen.
Mr Haynes had never done anything like this before, and was usually a pretty good neighbour. We never really heard from him, and would often go long periods of time without seeing him outside the house.
If we were ever to see him, it was for one of two reasons. He was either tending to his large garden bed that was filled with beautiful red roses, or he was saying goodbye to his daughter when she would rarely pay him a visit.
It was definitely a strange occurrence to see him in our yard and staring at us through our bedroom window. I turned back around to face my wife.
“What should we do?”, I asked and looked towards the alarm clock, “It’s 11:30 at night. What is he doing in our garden? Looking into our window.”
“Is he gone?”, Jenny asked.
“I think so, I can’t see him anymore”, I answered as I scanned outside for any sign of him.
“Do you think he knows what he’s doing?”, Jenny asked me.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he is getting old. He might not be….all there”.
“Maybe”, I replied, mulling it over in my mind, “His eyes didn’t show any recognition when he saw me”.
I think, after a while of debate, we chalked it up to old age as to why Mr. Haynes was peering through our bedroom window. We decided that we would keep the curtain open for the rest of the night and stay awake in case he came back. Then, we could give him the assistance needed to get him back home.
I must’ve dozed off at some point though, because the next thing I remember is being awoken by Jenny asking me a question.
“Is that him?”, she asked, and she pointed out into the garden.
“Hmm”, I responded, still half asleep, “Where?”
“There! At the back of the garden”.
I sat up in bed and craned my neck forward to see better. I looked out across the backyard and it all looked normal, except for the two faint pinpricks of light back near the fence. I quickly realised that they were a pair of eyes, with the moonlight reflecting off of them. Everything else was encased in shadow.
It became apparent that this was Mr. Haynes when he took a step forward, and the rest of him was illuminated. He then took more steps and very slowly approached the bedroom window.
“I’m…I’m scared, honey”, Jenny said to me as I felt her grab my hand.
“It’s okay, darling, it’s just Mr. Haynes again”.
Mr. Haynes had now reached the window. He raised both his arms and pressed two hands up against the glass. Then, he leant forward and peered through the window, using his hands to block out any light reflecting off of it so that he could see in more clearly.
“Excuse me!”, I called out from the bed.
He didn’t answer, but for a moment I saw his eyes dart up and make direct eye contact with mine. It was at this moment that I noticed he looked slightly different than before. His face was covered in dirt and soil. God knows what else he had been up to.
Mr. Haynes then removed his hand from the glass and took a slight step backwards. Then his head came forward and he breathed directly onto the glass, fogging it up.
Jenny and I looked at each other in confusion and no small amount of fear. We turned back to face the window again and saw Mr. Haynes started to draw something in the fogged up glass.
He used his finger, which made a strange squeaky sound on the glass. He drew a straight line upwards and then a few more bending lines at the top of it. Once he was finished, he dropped his hands to his side and Jenny and I looked at what he had drawn.
In the glass, was a roughly drawn picture of a single rose. Mr. Haynes then raised his arm again, pointed at us and then pointed at the ground. Then, before either of us could respond, he turned around and scampered off through the garden.
“We should call the police”, Jenny then said, breaking the silence in the bedroom.
I didn’t disagree.
I phoned the police and explained to them what had been happening. They told me that they would send a patrol car round to his house to check up on him, but it could still be a few hours before it got there.
The glass-drawing incident had occurred at 2:30am and so it could be morning before the police paid him a visit. They did tell me to call them back if he did return though.
Jenny and I, slightly relieved that the police had been called, tried our best to go to sleep. We were still shaken up by what had happened, but in the following hour, we both managed to get some shut-eye.
I was awoken for the third time by a loud scream emanating from beside me. It was Jenny. I jumped up in bed and turned to face her. In the dimly lit room, I could still see how pale she looked, and that she was shaking.
“He’s he…here”, she whimpered, “In the r-room”.
I followed her gaze and slowly turned around to see what she was looking at. At the end of the bed, Mr. Haynes was standing and looking directly at the both of us. His long scraggly hair and gaunt body were instantly recognisable. He was also still covered in dirt.
I bolted upright in bed, both terrified and angry that he was in our room watching us sleep.
“What the hell are you doing in our house?”, I called out to him, trying my best to sound intimidating.
He stood perfect still and perfectly silent for a moment. Slowly, his mouth started to open, but no sound came from it.
“Mr. Haynes, are you alright”, Jenny called out from beside me, terror still present in her voice.
Mr. Haynes’ eyes darted towards her and he started to speak. I had only spoken to the old man a couple of times, but the voice that came out of him now was not the same as the one I knew.
“Mr. Haynes isn’t here anymore”, he croaked in a deep and raspy voice, “And you will lay next him”.
Jenny and I sat frozen in terror at what he was saying, and also because of the voice he was saying it in.
Then, before we could do anything, Mr. Haynes retreated into a dark shadow in the corner of the room. He walked backwards into the darkness, then he was gone.
Of course, we called the police back straight away and were told they would send a squad car out to our house straight away.
Once they arrived, we explained everything that Mr. Haynes had down to us that night. They wrote it all down and left to go over to his house. For the next couple hours, more and more police arrived at Mr. Haynes property.
It was in the middle of the morning when we found out why. There was a knock at the door, which I answered. It was a lady, in her mid forties, who I recognised as the daughter. She had tear streaks down her cheeks and it was clear she had been crying.
“Thank you for calling the police”, she said to me, “Otherwise it might’ve been a while before we found him”.
“Oh, that’s okay”, I replied, “Where did you find him?”
A few tears dripped out her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“In the garden. Under the flower bed. We still don’t know how he got there, but the police are estimating his time of death at between midnight and two o’clock. There was also something else strange. He was buried in a shallow grave, just below the roses, but next to him, another two graves had been dug”.