I am writing here in hopes to comfort myself from the thing terrorizing my husband and me. I’ve heard that this post has a number of people who have dealt with similar problems as mine. I should begin by saying that this is not some kind of story I have written up for entertainment, I need help and answers for how to solve this. I recently bought a house with my husband. It was supposed to be a sweet place for us to make memories after our marriage. The house was bought for cheap, it was really all we could afford on our budget. The listing was set on a normal housing site so really there should have been no problems. We moved in a month ago in November, the house was a bit old and creaky, but that’s what we got for the amount of money we paid for. The first problem was the leaking. One morning I was vacuuming and I noticed a stain on the wooden floor almost rust colored. I cursed and looked up at the ceiling expecting to see some water damage, but nothing was there, the ceiling was fine. It was strange, where could the stain have come from? I looked around till I noticed the wall, it was bleeding. Just in the middle of the wall a rusty colored red oozed out. It startled me, but I like to think before I react there must be a logical reason to this. So I got a towel and dotted the wall, cleaning up the red from my wooden floors and floral painted walls. It was disgusting to clean up, but really I didn’t want to ruin my new house. I threw the red stained towel into the wash and went about my day. It was weird but I had things to do and one weird thing couldn’t keep me from my duties. I wish I had cared a little more, maybe then I wouldn’t be dealing with this mess.
When Larry, my husband got home, he kissed me and began to say, “ The house looks good so far.”He grinned a toothy smile I fell in love with, but then he paused looking at something behind me. “What is that?’He furrowed his brow.
As I turned around I saw red oozing from the yellow wall, but what was strange was we were in a different room than where the red had originally come from. Larry walked closer to the wall and touched the red ooze.
He quickly cursed, “What the Hell is this?!”, I ran over and observed his hands.
Where the red ooze had touched his hands it stained them black. He had quickly rubbed the ooze on his pants so the only black parts of his hands were his fingertips.
“Larry, are you okay, do you need ice?”, it was all I could think of asking. I had no clue what happened to his fingers, maybe a chemical burn? Instead of responding Larry was staring at the wall spaced out, as if I wasn’t even there.
“Larry…?”, I reached to touch his shoulder and he jolted away from me.
“I…I am fine it must have been just some weird paint…”, He gave me a toothy grin and that gave me the belief he was fine. After all, I had fallen in love with that toothy grin and it gave me some comfort. That night was our first time sleeping in the house. I was tired from cleaning and organizing the house so I practically fell into bed. I waited for Larry to come join me, he normally would come in and wrap me in his arms as we fell asleep, but after twenty minutes he still wasn’t in bed. I was alone in the dark room. It was not fully set up so it was just our bed with a bunch of boxes surrounding it. The floors in the room, similar to most of the other rooms in the house, were wooden. The house seemed to creak and sway, I felt like a scared child in the dark.
“Larry…Larry..?”, I called out my voice a bit shaky. I feel a bit ashamed at how scared I was, but the dark and lack of my husband was starting to scare me. There was no response, then my thoughts got the best of me. I was worried something had happened to him, so I got out of bed walking across the creaky floors with my phone flashlight.
“Larry, are you okay…?”, I tiptoed out of our room and I felt as if something was watching me. I tiptoed a bit faster, continuing to call for Larry. I had checked all the rooms except for the room with yellow wallpaper and the one with floral wallpaper, since both of the rooms had the red ooze.
I bite my tongue before walking into our floral living room, “Larry please, I’m scared.”
The room was empty, my heart began racing. That left the yellow entryway, the place Larry had touched the ooze. I walked towards the entryway feeling more and more watched as I got closer. Then I saw a shadow in the shape of my husband standing by the wall, however my heart did not stop pounding.
“Larry…can we go to bed..?”, I almost whispered out. Then I flashed my phone light onto the shadow. I gasped my hands shaking, that was my husband but he was mostly covered in a red ooze and the parts that weren’t covered were stained that chalky black. I almost didnt recognize him, but when I saw his face it was plastered with a big toothy grin. I screamed, closing my eyes hoping for this nightmare to go away.
Then I felt two hands shake me awake, “Veronica…Veronica…VERONICA!” , my husband called my name and I shot up in bed. The lights were on and my husband looked at me with concern.
“Whats wrong darling…?”, he cooed. My breath was shaky, but slowly I got it under control. I had been asleep? That was strange I hadn’t remembered falling asleep.
I looked at him trying to muster a smile, “I..I’m fine just had a bad dream.” I looked down at his hands and noticed he was wearing gloves.
“Gloves…?” I said looking at him.
“Yeah, its a bit cold in here.”, He showed his toothy grin that seemed to not be as comforting.
“Oh I see..” I said, “I am ready to sleep now, how about you?”
He paused for a moment, “Yeah I am too .”, and with that we both went to bed.
That morning I woke up exhausted, I rubbed my eyes as I got up preparing to go to work. I went through my normal routine brushing my teeth and hair, putting on clothes, and make some toast and coffee. Something was wrong though, but I couldn’t place what it was. The timer went off for the coffee and I took out two mugs for my husband and I. Then it hit me, where was my husband?
“Larry coffee is ready!”, I called out and waited for a reply.
There was silence so I grabbed my coffee and checked the time, and realized I needed to get in my car or I’d be late to work. I didn’t have any paper to leave a note, since we were still unpacking, so I just left the coffee in the kitchen and texted Larry saying there was coffee in there. I then slipped on my shoes and headed out to the car. Larry’s car was still in the driveway, but I thought nothing of it since it was his day off. I got to work and began to edit the final draft for my paragraph in the newspaper. I work for a newspaper company. I won’t name which one, because I don’t think it is very relevant to the story. During my break I checked my phone to see if Larry had texted me back. However when I went to check I just saw that he had read the message, but had not responded. It was strange for him, since normally he would respond right away to my text and would tell me how much he loved me. I didn’t have much time to dwell in that though, because I had to get back to work. After a long day I drove home. I was looking forward to seeing how far Larry had gotten to setting up the house, since we had agreed to take turns unboxing on our days off. I pulled up to the driveway and opened the door to the house sliding off my shoes on my way in.
“Honey I’m home!”, I called out but there was no reply,”Larry?” I called again.
I placed down my bag and began to search the house for him. I started in the kitchen where I found that the coffee had been cleaned up. I smiled at least I knew he had gotten the coffee. I began to walk twords our room after searching the rest of the house, and yes I even searched the two rooms which had the red ooze. Now something about our house was that we had an attic, but in order to get to it you would have to pull down a latch on the ceiling in our hallway leading to our bedroom. After pulling on the latch a ladder would unfold and would allow you to climb up, and when you wanted to close the ladder you would just pull on the latch and it the ladder would fold back up and automatically lock. We had been warned by the real estate agent that if you happened to be in the attic and the ladder closed behind you you would need someone to unlock it from the other side, since the door would auto lock leaving you trapped. Now when I got to the hallway I saw the ladder leading to the attic was down. I called out to Larry thinking he must’ve gone up in the attic to clean or to put some boxes up there. I called out to him one last time, before I decided to climb up the ladder.
“Larry are you up there?”, I said this slowly going closer to the ladder.
Then I heard a CRASH in the attic.
“Larry!?”, I frantically said running up the ladder.
I got to the top and turned on my phone light, since the attic was pitch black. I shined the light taking the last step into the attic. I looked around before I noticed the red on the walls. There was a lump in my throat as I walked closer to the walls. I shined my phone light observing the walls closer. My stomach was in knots as a terrible realization came to me, not only was the walls in attic bleeding red the red ooze spelled out the words “THE BLOOD TURNS TO BLACK THE BLACK TURNS TO ASH THE ASH FEEDS THE WALLS” I felt sick my stomach was churning into something unsavory. The room began spinning, what the hell was wrong with this house? Why was this happening? Then I passed out, and as soon as I had fallen asleep I woke up to my husband looming over me.
My head was aching, “Larry..? Is that you?” I mumbled.
He waited a minute before responding, “ Yes darling it’s me.”
I sat up and quickly looked at the walls, “Larry give me my phone.”
He didn’t question me and just handed it to me. I turned on the flash and began looking for the message. There was nothing, it was gone, or was it even there in the first place?
“What..where did it go?”, my eyes widened as I got up and searched the attic for the message.
“Darling what’s wrong?”
“It’s..it’s gone.”
“What’s gone?”
“ The red ooze! It was all over the walls-“ I said rambling, looking back I must’ve seen crazy.
“ I don’t know what you’re talking about. I found you up here after searching for you. Then I decided to check the attic to see if you had accidentally locked yourself up here,and that’s when I found you.”
“No..that’s not right. That couldn’t be..” I mumbled pacing around the attic.
Larry came up behind me and hugged me from behind. That should have been comforting, but he was ice cold. I looked down and noticed he was still wearing gloves. I tried to push him away, but he clasped on harder.
“Why are you so cold and you are still wearing those gloves? ”, I asked this still trying to get away from his arms.
“Veronica, I think you need some sleep.” , he said, picking me up bridal style.
I couldn’t argue, my head was pounding and maybe he was right. I didn’t know what was happening, maybe moving was putting some kind of stress causing me to pass out and have nightmares. He took me downstairs and placed me into our bed kissing me before lying down next to me.
“I love you.” He said.
“I love you more.” I smiled waiting for him to respond, but he didn’t.
Something my husband and I did was when we said I love you, we would say a sequence of responses. Yes I know it’s cheesy, but we’ve done this since before we were married. After saying I love you he would say I love you to the moon and back, and I’d say I love you so much I’d buy you the moon, and lastly we would say at the same time and I’d love you for eternity. Again I know it’s cheesy, but it was just one of the things that made me love him even more.
“I love you to the moon and back.”, I said his line hoping maybe he would finish our little ritual.
“ You are so sweet.” He replied.
I just rolled over, trying to ignore the pit in my stomach. Something was wrong with him. He wasn’t acting like his usual self, and it was making me sick. I decided to sleep, hoping when I woke up I wouldn’t be so paranoid. I drifted to sleep without any problems and I didn’t have any nightmares. However that was short lived, I woke up to my husband leaving our bed and walking out of the room. I waited a couple minutes before checking the time; it was 2:19 a.m . I opened up my phone and opened my messages app. I texted myself “This is not a dream.” What I’m going to say may sound paranoid but I then covered myself in a blanket and opened the notebook app and wrote the same thing. If the walls were alive then I didn’t want them to see me writing this message. I pushed the covers off and put my phone in my pocket. Then I slowly got out of bed and headed to the entryway, trying to make as little noise as possible. He was there again in the entryway, I crept up trying to see what he was doing. He was whispering something, touching the walls as he continued to mumble.
“It’s almost time, it’s almost time she doesn’t know, the walls must be fed.”
My heart almost stopped everything began to spin again. I fell backwards cursing. Larry turned around and I think he smiled but it was to dark to tell.
“Oh Veronica.”, he hummed walking closer to me, “ You are so foolish.”, at this point he was towering over me.
“Larry,wh..what the hell are you doing.”, I knew he was smiling as his white teeth shined in the dark. Oh god were they always that sharp? What happened to the smile I fell in love with?
“You will realize soon, but not yet no not yet.” Then he punched me in the head causing me to pass out.
That brings me to right now, I woke up in my bed with my head pounding harder than last night. I asked Larry and he said I must’ve hit it harder than I thought last night in the attic. I almost believed him no…it that thing is not my husband. That was until I looked at my phone, the text was deleted but the notebook page was not. I was not asleep what happened was very real, in fact I don’t think I was ever dreaming, everything that happened must have been real. Please someone help, I can hear him singing in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Larry can’t cook or sing, that thing is not my husband. The walls must be fed and I think I’m it’s next meal. I think I’m going to try and sneak out without my husband noticing, so I can get to work early and research this stupid house. I guess working in a newspaper company has its perks. If I don’t respond I am probably dead. Please tell me if you guys have any idea what is going on, any advice is welcomed.