First things first, this little adventure of mine happened when I was around 11 to 12 years old, so I would appreciate it if you were kind enough to cut me some slack. That said, here is some basic info and my apologies if its hard to understand.
I was living in the suburbs with my mom and dad, we had a two-story home with a garden, neighbouring two other gardens. Think of it as a basic neighbourhood from any Tim Burton movie, nice people, nice neighbours barging in asking for butter or some other kind of such basic stuff. As my dad used to say: “you don’t even have to lock your doors”. The layout of our house was quite simple. The living room and kitchen were connected on the bottom floor, somewhat separating them was a staircase that had a small middle floor with stairs leading to the second floor continuing to the left. The second floor was more of a hallway with rooms. My parents’ bedroom was to the right on the top of the stairs, if you turned left from the stairs, you would see my bedroom right at the end of the hallway and finally our bathroom was in between these rooms. Also, the hallway had a section with railing from which you could see part of our living room to the right. The first five bottom stairs were quite loud if you were to step on them (that will become important later).
Anyways, my parents thought of me as a responsible child, so I didn’t have any babysitters and they left me at home alone every time they went out. I preferred this. I liked to be alone and play with toys or videogames till late hours of the night, frankly I liked it too much. Sometimes my mom shouted at me for not doing my chores. She was mostly shouting about dirty dishes (every piece of kitchen utensil had to be clean, that was her quirk), but then I figured something out, these shouting instances would take more and more time from my playtime. Since I was smartass of a kid, I made system, I would do chores, of course not perfectly and then play. This system of mine would leave my mom just reminding me of some small things that I had “forgotten” to do (no more shouting, yay). Doing this every day almost seemed like a muscle memory and I wouldn´t even be bothered by doing it. Then I noticed that after I finished my chores I had about an hour and a half to play till my mom got home. I´ve gotten so good at guessing the time length that I didn’t even need clock, call it a sixth sense if you want. I would finish my chores and my mom appeared every time I got the gut feeling (again…trust me…this is important).
Finally, the story.
It all happened one night when my parents went to a party at their friend’s house. Once again, they left me alone. They were going to get home quite late, this only meant one thing, gaming night, maybe the longest one yet. I crafted a plan, maybe something that could be called a “war plan”. I had everything figured out, even had backup plans for my backup plans. As anyone could have guessed…nothing went according to those plans, did not order any pizza (I was too scared of the delivery guy), did not drink the whole 2l bottle of coke and I fell asleep around eleven o´clock. I still had a good time, but the body of a twelve-year-old is not made for the whole day of school and then being up till the next day. That night was quite hot and uncomfortable for sleeping, so I woke up after only about 35 minutes.
I am awake, well more of a “zombie awake” style, just grunting and just hearing sounds that my bed made every time I´d move. Then after a while of uncomfortable lying in bed, my body decided that I needed to go to the bathroom. So, I am awake and looking around my room for something to pee in, after a while I gave up and decided to go to the toilet. I unwillingly opened the door, stumbled across the hallway leaning on the wall on my right side, until I made it to the start of the railing which meant that I was next to the bathroom, I turned and blindly stretched my arms in goal of finding the door handle. When I laid my hands on the door, I made a decision that I won’t be switching on the lights. Everything went fine, I did not flush the toilet since this was not my first time waking up late and I was used to not flushing in case I would wake up my parents. So, once again I went for the door, but when I was opening the bathroom door, I heard the all-familiar sound. At that time, I didn’t know what it was, so I stood puzzled with my hand on the door handle. As I stood there in my zombie state and thinking about the sound, I heard another one.
This one… Ohhhhh… this one did the trick. It was the second step doing its cry for help under the pressure of someone’s foot. This realization almost sent me back to the toilet. But after what seemed like ages (was probably just a couple of seconds) I made the rational decision that my parents were home, so I opened the door.
When I stepped into the hallway, I was right at the start of the railing, I knew that if I shifted my body to the left, I could see the bottom of the stairs. So, I am there, almost midnight, in the middle of the hallway, half-asleep, trying to focus on the first steps. I didn’t see anyone there which didn’t make any sense, I haven’t heard familiar cries for help from the other steps, which for me meant that no one went up. I had my head over the railing, lurking in the shadows and waiting for someone to come, but then in the corner of my eye something shined. This quickly caught my attention and I looked to the left side; my eyes were fixed on the small mid floor. For a moment I haven’t seen anything shiny and thought to myself that it was just my imagination, but then it appeared, I saw it more clearly, it seemed like a triangle of some kind, but then it disappeared as quickly as it appeared, then again…and again. This magic trick in shadow had rhythm, rhythm I knew quite well, usually right after gym class, it had rhythm of heavy breathing. A lot of ideas went through my mind while I tried to focus on the huge black spot in our house that was the mid floor. I have never been this focused before, you could shout at me, and I wouldn’t even notice it. It was one of those instances where you focus so much you can’t see even what is right in front of you.
So, I am there, still as a board, just looking at this huge void. But as anyone who was a child once knows, this type of focus wears off easily. Then I heard it, I heard the breathing itself and realized that the huge shadow was bigger than usual. Then I saw the whole picture, I saw a silhouette with a Michael Myers style of knife. The silhouette was standing on the mid floor, not moving, almost as if it were lurking in the shadows like me and waiting for someone. Thank God for making people freeze when panic kicks in, the person could not see me in the dark, just because I didn’t make any sudden moves (at least that is what I think happened here). But the frozen state didn’t last forever, and with teary eyes and the highest pitch my 12-year-old lungs were able to make I screamed for mom. I saw that person moving, with what I thought was supernatural speed, heard metal clunking against something hard, I didn’t bother to look back, I just ran into my room, shut my door screaming and crying. Screaming for my parents for what I thought was hours, not even understanding that they were gone.
After these so-called hours, I came back to my senses and stopped screaming. I did not hear anything, just the normal sounds of the neighbourhood, the sounds of the fan pointed at by bed, and me sobbing. The house was quiet, just me in my room, I wanted my parents, I wanted my mom. Now comes the part where everyone will be shaking their heads. I opened the door. I walked down the hall and investigated every room for anything I could take and wash. My child brain in absolute state of fear, thought that this “ritual” was the only way of summoning my mom to my rescue. I went downstairs, almost blind from tears coming down my cheeks, I looked around for what I could clean, I washed every piece of dish, every fork, every spoon, every knife, every bowl, and plate in the entire house and yes, even the knife that I had found on the stairs. Now, I didn’t see the most obvious problem. The problem my dumb young fright-stricken mind focused on was that I didn’t recognize that knife and thought I would somehow get into trouble if my parents found it. So, I put the knife in the trash outside, came back home, closed the only open window on the bottom floor, and went back upstairs into my bed. In my mind I knew that this would bring mom home. Yes, I had a phone, I knew that if anything were to happen, I must call them for help, but in this state, I just did what I did. I was there in the bed, still sobbing and waiting for the gut feeling… then I woke up.
I woke up the next day when my mom whispered: morning sunshine. I went downstairs, ate breakfast like nothing happened and frankly not even thinking about what happened, or not wanting to, maybe it was just a bad dream from my sugar high. Our good neighbour then came over while I was eating. I was in the living room watching weekend cartoons and enjoying my cereals, so I didn’t see our morning visitor. All I heard was him saying something about that he was just coming back from work trip and promised to bring milk home but didn’t get any since he was driving all night and nowhere was open. My parents said to help himself and sent him to the kitchen. He looked nervous according to my mom, but my father made a joke while the neighbour was in the kitchen, saying something about how he would be nervous too if he had to come home empty handed. I didn’t even notice how long was the neighbour in our kitchen until I went to put my bowl into the sink and saw him. He was looking defeated, like he lost something and couldn’t find it. I don’t know if he even noticed me, but when I saw him, I remembered the nightmare.
Nothing significant happened after that, until about two hours later, when the police came to our door, I was in my room when they came. Later, I found out that they were investigating a double homicide in the house right next door. Woman and her daughter were killed, husband was the suspect, but they couldn’t find any hard evidence, nothing to pin him on the scene of the crime, they didn’t even find murder weapon. Large carving knife was their best guess. My parents did not want to meet with that neighbour anymore. Yes, we are talking about the same neighbour that was in our kitchen asking for milk. I know that I should have said something, but back then I just didn’t put the two together, I was in a shock that I´ve lost my friend and her nice mom that would make the best pies in the whole neighbourhood. Weeks went by, everyone and even my parents avoided the only surviving neighbour next-door, until he decided to move. Before he left, the whole area of our little town felt heavy. Sad with the fear of an unknown killer. After that, it started to fade away. I haven’t told anyone about the nightmare, it just seems surreal as years came by, maybe it was just a dream, and maybe I saved the murderer from prison.
I’m an adult now, have my own kid, and still have no idea if this vivid nightmare is real or not. It doesn’t seem so, but still, I am torn. To the dear neighbour, just in case: Let’s never meet again.