Moving into a new house is always difficult, or so I’ve heard. I was subjected to so much moving through my life that it began not to bother me. I got so used to moving from place to place, I hardly registered it when my parents said they had found a “forever home”, somewhere where we would live out the rest of our lives, with no more moving around.
It was a very old house, and must have been Victorian in nature and age. When we moved in, I was 14, and was by then into all the things teenagers like. Blaring music, ignoring my parents, hanging out with the few friends I sometimes made in my short times in various places.
My parents promised that we were going to stay here, in this house, forever. Both of them had found perfect, well-paying jobs in the area. I still didn’t believe them, as this was very similar to what they said at every other house.
One week passed, then a month. I began making friends there.
After three months, I realized that maybe they weren’t lying. Maybe we were actually going to live here.
Then, one night, it visited me for the first time.
I woke up suddenly in the pitch black of late night. The soft red glow from my digital clock read 11:59 PM.
I looked around my room for whatever might have woken me up, but saw nothing. Maybe it was a bad dream I just didn’t remember.
I looked over at my clock again just as it turned to midnight.
As soon as it did, I had the feeling that you have whenever another presence is in the room with you. I knew that I was no longer alone. I still couldn’t see anything through the darkness, but I knew something was in my room.
Then, the clock went to 12:01 AM, and the feeling of unsettlement vanished. I was left alone, now sweating and panicked, in my bed.
The next night, I woke up yet again at 11:59 PM. Then, when the clock struck 12:00 AM, I felt another presence. This time, I could not only feel something, but hear something. It was low, barely audible except over the complete silence of the night. It was a sound like breathing, but ragged and soft.
I sat there, frozen in my bed, listening to the noise and trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. Then it stopped, and I looked over at the clock to see that it was 12:01 AM, and all was back to being silent.
Every night, at 12:00 AM, I woke up, and there was breathing in my room. And every night, it got ever so slightly closer.
At first, I put the events off as vivid nightmares. Then, they kept happening, and whatever it was kept getting closer and closer. I began to fear what would happen when it reached my bed. Would it be nothing? Or would whatever it was hurt me?
I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out. I did a quick Google search for religious or spiritual shops in the area, and found one, which I will not name, for privacy’s sake.
When I entered the shop, I was hit immediately with the strangest smell I had ever smelled and probably will ever smell.
It first smelled simply of lavender. But then, other layers of smell began flooding my senses. There was cinnamon, pine, vinegar, and so many others I could not ever hope to put a name to.
The shop itself was small, and seemed overly crowded with items. Dream catchers hung from the ceiling, while shelves of incense and herbs covered one of the walls.
After a second of standing there, smelling the strange smell and looking around, a woman’s voice called out from what must have been the checkout counter.
“May I help you, young man?” The voice was delicate, but kind, not unlike that of an elderly woman’s. But when I maneuvered around some of the glass containers to get a better look at her, I found myself thinking that she couldn’t have been over 40.
“Do you have anything that can…” I thought about what I should say, before coming to a conclusion and speaking, “That can ward off spirits?”
I thought she would look at me like I was crazy, but she didn’t. “Malicious or no?” she asked after a second, keeping her cool demeanor.
I stammered, caught off guard by the amount of nonchalance in her voice. “I-I don’t know.”
The woman stared at me for what felt like forever, then stated simply, “You smell this?” She gestured around the room. I nodded. “This, child, is the smell of an herbal mix that I created. It should help, no matter what the spirit means to do.”
I bought a small jar of the mix, and, keeping my skepticism to myself, thanked her and left the shop.
That night, regardless of my skepticism, I put a circle of the herbs around my bed, hoping that whatever the mix was, and whatever was in my room every night, it would help.
I was wrong.
That night, I woke up at 12:00, same as every other night. I heard the breathing, just like every other night. But this time, unlike every other night, it was right above me. As if whatever was breathing was right in front of my face. I could even feel a warm, ragged breath against my eyes.
I wanted to scream, but I was frozen with fear. I couldn’t do anything but just lie there.
The breathing moved, as if whatever was making it was shifting themselves above me, until the breath was on my ear. Then, in a whisper barely audible even right next to me, it spoke.
“Peeeeeeeeeeek-a-booooooo…” it said in a harsh, dry voice.
That was it. I wasn’t going to stay there any longer. The next morning, I told my parents everything, and begged to move. To go anywhere but in this house.
But they refused. They were settling. They had finally found somewhere that they were happy, and they weren’t gonna let their child’s nightmares change that.
I still had a small amount of herbs left in the jar, so I held the jar in my hand as I stared up at the ceiling that night, too afraid to sleep. The hours ticked by slower than I thought possible, until finally, it was 12:00.
Instantly, as if the being had teleported, I felt its warm breath on my face and heard its dry breathing above me. I opened the jar and threw the herbs in its direction in a blind attempt to get it to leave me alone.
What happened next is hard to describe. Where the herbs collided with the invisible thing, they sizzled and stuck to it. It let out a mind-bendingly loud screech and stumbled backwards, its now visible form clutching at its head.
The thing was lanky, and must have been 7 feet tall, at least. It had no features defining its pale complexion or body, other than hands with fingernails that must have been half a foot long and sharpened to points.
The monstrosity now screeching and writhing around my room began to bleed. Out of every bit of skin, crimson red began seeping out and dripping onto the floor. It screeched even louder, drowning out everything else. It began to lose form, melting into a crimson puddle and then disappearing into the floorboards.
After a minute that I took to calm myself down, I ran into my parent’s room, crying. I told them what had happened through my sobs, and eventually fell asleep.
Everything was fuzzy for a while after that. In fact, there’s an entire year which I do not, if only vaguely, remember. At some point during that year, however, my family moved to a different town across the country. I was never told why, but before it happened, I remember many blue and red lights in front of our house.
Yesterday, I mustered up the courage to look up and read the newspaper archives from my town that year. In it, I found the article that filled in all of the missing gaps for me and finally gave me the details I needed to tell this story in full.
Here is the article:
Yesterday, police found the bones of over thirty people under a house in (my town). While doing a search based on a 911 call about a possible intruder scaring the resident’s son, police found a single leg bone sticking up, just barely, under the backyard porch. (con. pg. 6)
Upon further investigation, the police found the full skeletons of over thirty people under the house’s porch. After being informed of this, the residents of the house packed up and moved, leaving the police to do their work.
None of the bones were found to match any missing persons in the area, or anything in the DNA database. “Some of them looked brand new,” said Chief of Police, (name), when interviewed, “and some of them looked like they must have been 300 years old.”
The case is still being investigated.
There was nothing else in the papers about it, old or new.
All I know is that something bad happened in that house. And until very, very recently, I even managed to shut most of the events out of my memory.
That was, until last night.
When I woke up at 12:00 AM, to the sound of soft breathing in my room.
UPDATE
Yesterday, I drove back to where I thought the herbal shop was, in the town next to the one where my old house was. All I found was an empty building, with a sign stating that it had been vacant for some time, since soon after the events I described above.
Last night, the thing did something strange. I heard its breathing nearby, but it wasn’t staying still. For the entire minute between 12:00 and 12:01 AM, the noise paced back and forth by my door. Then, it was gone.
Please, help me. I don’t know what this thing wants, but it can’t be good.
UPDATE
Last night, the thing’s breath got closer and closer to me. I couldn’t find any trace of that shop or that herbal mix anywhere, on the internet or otherwise.
I don’t know how, but this thing followed me. Maybe it didn’t like me telling you about it. Maybe it’s better if I stop posting these. Maybe then it will leave me alone.
No. You need to know about this.
UPDATE
HELP ME.
IT fonD ME, aNd I CouLdn’t sTop It
sorry. the previous posts were mistakes. im sorry for wasting your tIMe. there was Never a thing in my roOm. There WeRe never bones under the house. i made It all up. i have never known an herb. i have never seen The thING. i am sorry. THIS was all a big misunderstanding. i hope you can forgive me.