To start off I need to ask you, do you hear that? that sound the faint scratching?
If you don’t then I hope you never do, if you do, then maybe you are like me. Maybe you can tell me what to do to get rid of it.
It would happen every night around the same time, midnight most nights. There was a faint scratching at my bedroom window, it would get louder and louder and then I would look and no one would be there.
Then it started to occur more frequently, every few hours, and then every hour and now it is happening every few minutes. I hear it wherever I go, when I leave my bedroom it is right outside wherever I am. When there is no window I can hear it on a door, a wall anywhere. It is driving me crazy and I just want it to stop.
I thought it was that crazy lady I saw about a week ago. That was when it started, the scratching the paranoia. But she is gone, if she was ever here at all. Maybe I am just losing my mind. Maybe the scratches, her, everything else that I have perceived is just a byproduct of my new found sleep deprivation. All this because of that damnable scratching.
I suppose I should tell you, just in case you notice something similar, and then you will know to stay away from whatever the hell this is. Here is what happened over the events of last week and what had led me to this point.
I was out at my favorite bar last Saturday evening drinking alone, not really doing much of anything. I didn’t have too many if that’s what you are thinking since I am pretty cheap and mostly go to the bar to pretend to socialize and feel better about myself when I do drink.
But in this case I know I was not drunk. It was close to midnight and I decided to pay my tab and head out. The bar was only a few blocks from my apartment and I started on my way home. It was a decent enough night to walk and I would normally leave my car at home and just walk here and back.
As I was walking home I heard a strange sound near an adjacent ally just a bit further down the street from the bar. It sounded like a scratching or scraping sound. It was slow and methodical but deliberate. It sounded like the scratching was on some sort of glass surface and I remember the sound was very unpleasant, like the nails were too long and digging into the glass and shrieking as they scratched.
Not being one to ignore the odd mystery I veered into the ally on my walk back, looking for the source of the disturbing scratching. What I saw was a disheveled looking woman, possibly homeless by the looks of it. She was slowly scratching a window with both hands, dragging her fingernails into the glass and making a terrible shrieking noise as she drug them along the surface.
She appeared to be doing this in some sort of trance or daze and I was not sure if she might be on something, because as I stepped closer I saw that her fingernails were bleeding but she did not seem to notice.
Inside the house she was scratching on was a low sobbing of someone in distress and it concerned me so I stepped closer. When I got closer I considered saying something, but I didn’t know if this lady was dangerous so I turned around and kept walking and resolved to maybe call the police instead, in case she was harassing someone in that house.
As I turned and started walking I tensed up at the sound of the scratching stopping. I knew it was a mistake but I took a breath and turned around and nearly fell backwards when I saw the woman was directly behind me. She was standing barely an inch away from me, fingernails dripping blood onto the ground and a surreal blank expression on her face that was somehow more disturbing than if she was more directly reacting to this disturbing encounter.
I caught myself before I fell back and slowly walked back not taking my eyes off of her. She just stared at me not blinking not moving, just the soft sound of the droplets of blood falling from her fingernails.
I kept walking back, not wanting any part of whatever the hell that was. I walked backwards and she did not follow. I kept walking until she was again out of sight around the corner. At this point I finally turned around and began sprinting back home.
When I finally got home, I went inside and double locked my door just in case and resolved to sleep it off, that freaky encounter was still getting to me but I was dead tired now.
I managed to fall asleep right away but then I heard it. It was about two in the morning and I woke up rubbing my eyes and focusing my ears to make sure I was hearing what I was hearing. I was sure now it was a faint scratching at my bedroom window.
I held my breath and prayed it was just my imagination, but then I heard the scratching continue.
After several minutes of sitting there hoping it would stop, I knew I had to do something. That crazy old woman probably followed me home I thought. I grabbed a baseball bat I had in my closest and approached my window and threw the curtain open, expecting to see her expressionless and disturbing face. There was nothing there.
I thought she might be messing with me, but I didn’t see her out there and I didn’t want to physically go outside and look. I decided to let it go and maybe I would warn the landlord or call the cops if she persisted. The rest of the night was uneventful and nothing else happened. I hoped it was behind me, but then as I was sleeping the following night at almost midnight exactly I heard the scratching again.
I didn’t wait as long this time, almost as if I had anticipated this happening, I was ready. I threw the curtain open and shouted out for her to stop, but no one was there. I shouted again even louder for her to stop and that this was not funny and I would call the cops if she didn’t. There was silence and then a loud shout from my neighbor telling me to shut up since it was the middle of the night.
Angry and now embarrassed I closed my curtains again and tried to go back to sleep. That was the first night where it happened again the same night. This time at three o’clock. I had actually fallen back asleep but jolted up as soon as I started hearing the scratching sounds. I didn’t care now I was so angry it overcame my fear and I went out side with my bat and was determined to confront this psychopath.
I went outside and around to where my window was and of course no one was there. I shouted for her to come out and if she didn’t stop I would show her the business end of this bat. My ranting and raving did not go unnoticed and after my shouting had woken someone’s dog and it was barking there were angry shouts for me to shut the hell up and more colorful language as I realized the only thing others had heard out here tonight was me.
I went back inside, defeated. I fell asleep on my sofa for the few hours remaining that early morning. I took the day off work as I did not want to go outside, I was too afraid and embarrassed and honestly I was kind of dreading driving past that ally where I first saw that creepy lady.
My day was uneventful I mostly just watched Netflix and ate junk food. By evening I was feeling ok and I had not heard any scratching all day. Just in case I decided to sleep on my couch tonight, I needed a good night’s sleep and maybe if that crazy hag was scratching my bedroom window I wouldn’t hear.
Unfortunately that night I was woken up by faint scratching at my front door. This was getting out of hand, it was driving me crazy. I decided rather than going out to confront her, which I was sure she would just vanish by then and leave me ranting to my neighbors. Rather I would just skip right to it and call the police, I would tell them about how I had seen her bothering that person a few days ago, scratching the window and that now she was accosting me and would not stop.
I waited for what felt like ages and then just as the scratching stopped there was a knock at my door. I explained everything to the police and they looked around the outside a bit, turning up nothing of course. I told them I didn’t know what to do and it kept happening night after night, but there was little they could offer for help since they could not find the suspect, they suggested maybe a security system or something if the landlord allowed it.
They departed and I felt hopeless at that point. It became more pervasive at that point.
It was a few more days, I even tried sleeping in the bathroom and I heard the scratching on what sounded like the other side of the wall.
One night I forgot to pull the curtains back and to my horror and disbelief I heard the scratching on my bedroom window again. But this time the scratching was clearly coming from that window and was continuing despite there being no one being outside!
I was freaking out and shouting for it to stop, there was a knock at my front door and it was my neighbor they were wanting to know what I was raving about and threatening to call the police on me. I told them about the scratching and even as I spoke I heard the scratching on the wall close to my door.
My neighbor looked at me confused and said to lay off the psychedelics and that there was no scratching sound, that the night was quiet besides my own screaming.
I snapped at that point and have been huddled in my room mumbling about the scratching as the frequency increased more and more. I have to stop it! I don’t know what’s going on.
Last night the maddening cacophony of scratching has been interrupted by a knock at my door. It is the police they wanted to ask me some more questions about where I was and what exactly I was doing last Saturday night. I told them everything I knew but they had an odd air of skepticism and I asked what this was about.
I was told that I was a potential witness or person of interest in a murder investigation. My jaw almost hit the floor. What murder? I thought. Apparently a woman who lived in the house connected to the back of that ally close to the bar had been found dead after not being seen for several days.
The cause of death was not revealed yet, but the questions they were plying me with seemed to focus on very specific details about what I saw or as they put it “claimed” to have seen. They asked me several times if anyone else had seen this strange old lady who was scratching the windows and to my knowledge no one had.
They eventually left but I felt even more scared and confused, on top of the strange scratching which was basically ever present at night I had to worry about being incriminated in a murder somehow.
Then I thought about the other implications, had that psycho gotten into that lady’s house after all that scratching and killed her? I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
After the police had left and I calmed my mind down I tried to sleep and ignore the scratching. I had actually fallen asleep for a while when I heard a banging on my door, it was my neighbor and he was shouting at me to stay away from him and his family. I didn’t understand what was going on, then I was told that he had seen me outside his window at four in the morning, I had been scratching at his window with a blank look on my face.
I professed my innocence and told him that It couldn’t have been me I was asleep. But to my dawning horror I had looked down at my hands and my fingernails were bleeding while I, at just that moment began to feel the terrible pain in all my fingers as I held them behind my back. I apologized to my justifiably angry neighbor and he finally left after many more threats.
I am at my wits end. I don’t know what’s happening but I am afraid of whatever it is.
Who or what is that deranged old woman. What is the scratching coming from if not her? Who killed that woman? What was I doing when I was sleeping?
My last hope is asking someone, anyone if they might know what this is.
Does anyone know? Or worse can anyone else hear it?
It’s every moment now, always scratching to get in, scratching in my mind. Daytime nighttime, windows, doors walls, trees, cars. The scratching is on everything and nothing. Never a visible sign but always that God forsaken sound. I can scarcely hear anything else.
The scratching, it’s all I can hear now, drowning out everything else.
I have plugged my ears but I still hear it like its in my own mind now.
I feel my fingers pulsing with pain but strangely jumping and moving as if on their own volition to the rhythmic scratching and I remember with fear what my neighbor told me about my own scratching outside in the night.
How can I stop this?!
I am so tired now, I need to lay down. I will tie my arm to my bed so I cant get up and join the horrible chorus of scratching in my sleepwalking stupor.
In case I do get out there at night, please don’t come near me. I don’t know what this is, or if I am safe.