When I was eight years old something knocked at my bedroom window. Evenly spaced, with pauses a little too long in between, I heard three taps: dull, resonant notes which reverberated through the glass.
It was raining then, the glass streaked with droplets and the outside obscured by gray fog. I was up late, probably later than I should have been. Were it not for the haze outside, I think the stars would have been visible. I was laying in bed just beside the window, and shifted my body under the covers to turn towards the source of the sound.
I saw a face, a foot or two from the glass and apparently levitating in the darkness. Its skin was flawless like plastic, its scalp hairless and its eyes oval-shaped holes into nothingness like the eyeholes of a mask. Its gray lips were set into neutrality, with a small sliver of darkness between them. If this face belonged to a body, it was obscured by the darkness.
Also absent were hands, and I wasn’t entirely sure how it had knocked at all.
I tossed my blanket to the side, leaving it in a discarded ball at the corner of the mattress, and stood on my tip-toes to get a good look at the thing in the window, doubtlessly wearing an expression of cat-like curiosity.
I pressed my hand against the glass. The face drew nearer. A few moments passed, and I paused before whispering aloud.
“Hello?”
A few seconds passed. Then, whispering in response, the thing at the window spoke. As it did so, its lips remained static, as though the voice was produced from some invisible machine beyond the wall of darkness.
“Hello,” it said. “What’s your name?” Its words and voice seemed, strangely, opposed; while its words flowed together, connecting with ease, the sound itself was hoarse, as though it might break out coughing were it to try and speak any louder.
The face idled, waiting for me to speak.
“I’m not supposed to say my name to strangers,” I finally mumbled.
It did not smile, but the edges of its cheeks raised, giving it the appearance of something like amusement.
“That’s okay,” the whisper continued. “But now that we’ve met, I’m not a stranger anymore.”
This logic was apparently good enough for eight-year-old me.
“Cody. My name’s Cody.”
I paused for a second. It said nothing, and so I continued: “I told you my name. Now you have to tell me yours.”
“I don’t have a name, Cody.”
“Well, that’s silly. Everyone has a name. Even my mom and dad have names.” I felt bolder, a little more talkative now.
“I don’t know if I was supposed to tell you my name,” I said, suddenly reflecting on what I had said earlier. “Is it bad?”
It looked pensive. “You told me, and nothing bad happened.”
I nodded wisely. “That makes sense.”
A moment later I heard a knock at my bedroom door. My mom saw my light was on and told me firmly to go to sleep. I told her I would in a moment.
I turned back to the window to inform my conversation partner about this development, but the face and any trace of its presence were gone.
I did try and tell my parents about “making friends with the windowman,” but they cited an overactive imagination. This wasn’t without reason, since my bedroom was on the second floor and strange men wouldn’t be peering in unless they were transporting industrial ladders around. Plus, I did have a habit of making up imaginary friends; this wasn’t really out of the ordinary.
I didn’t see the so-called windowman until a few weeks later. It was the first day of spring break and my mom let me stay up a little later since I didn’t have school. I perked up with excitement when I heard those same three knocks on my window. I had been intentionally staving off sleep in hopes of seeing it again.
It wasn’t raining, but it was dark outside. Much like before, I peered through the window, clutching the sill to boost myself higher and closer to the level of the face.
“You waited for me,” it said, tilting slightly to the side.
“I was gonna say more,” I said indignantly.
It waited for me to elaborate.
“Like—what are you?”
It did not reply.
“Are you a monster—the kind that eats people?” I blurted. “Are you gonna eat me?”
“I’m not hungry,” it said decidedly.
“You’re not very funny, windowman.”
“‘Windowman’?” it said, its voice tinged with a detached curiosity.
“That’s what you’re called—or that’s what I’m calling you, because you’re in the window,” I explained.
It did nothing to indicate further interest in the subject, so instead I returned to the topic of its origin.
After remaining silent throughout my theorizing, however, it informed me it had to depart. I said goodnight and bid it farewell before the floating face vanished from the window, seemingly swallowed by the darkness as soon as I glanced away.
After it left I began to wonder where it had to go at all. If it wasn’t talking with me, what was it doing in the meantime? These thoughts were short-lived, however, as I embraced the comfort of my bed and fell into dreamless sleep.
The windowman visited a few more times after that. These interactions were brief and sparsely spread, with them occurring over the course of several months.
Between them I would await its reappearance eagerly, though my enthusiasm softened a little after the pattern of its visits settled into stability. I was still glad to see the windomman, but its regularity stopped it from being something exceptional.
I told it about my life: about my parents, about our cat Smokey and somewhat embellished stories about events at school. It, in turn, answered some of my questions, though its answers were often short and evasive. I learned quickly not to ask about its nature or origins since it would simply ignore any such inquiries.
“Why do you visit my window in the first place?’ I had asked suddenly.
“To visit you, Cody,” it had said, and I felt a faint sense of pride at the idea of the windowman deciding to visit my window for no reason other than my presence: like it had taken a special interest in me.
It also told me it wasn’t more likely to show up if I stayed awake longer; that it would show up at a time that was convenient for me to speak with it.
“Will you do something for me, Cody?” it said finally. “I need you to get something.”
“What?”
“A frog from the backyard.” I had told the Windowman of the burgeoning frog population in our yard. My mom kept a small garden out there, though it seemed a sprawling playground of greenery to me at the time. I’m not sure what kind of frogs they were, but they were small and pretty docile.
I hesitated. The windowman had never asked me to do something before, and this request was pretty unusual. “Why?”
But the window was suddenly empty and there was no reply. So, obediently, I crept downstairs, grabbed a flashlight and snuck through the backdoor.
It took me a while of digging through the brush, but I managed to grab a small frog in my hand before it could slip away. Triumphantly, I journeyed back upstairs, making sure to lock the backdoor behind me.
When I returned the windowman had rematerialized.
I opened my palm and presented the little frog.
“It will do. Open the window.”
I unlatched the window and pulled the frame upwards. I cautiously reached forward, frog in hand, just on the edge of the darkness with the window open only a crack. The cold breeze sent goosebumps running up my hand.
A dark shape jerked forward out of the darkness, surrounding the frog and leaving an oily residue on the palm of my hand. It was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Then from the veil of darkness I heard a sickening, wet crunch and an awful sound like tearing paper.
“What did you do?!” I would have shouted if not for my parents sleeping in the other room. “What did you do to the frog?!”
I blinked tears from my eyes only to find that the windowman had once again vanished, leaving me alone.
I slammed the window closed.
The windowman took another month before reappearing. All that time let my anger pool into a well of resentment. I didn’t like the windowman anymore.
It wasn’t just that it had killed the frog. I think it was the way it did it so casually.
I had a long time to think about what I was going to say when it returned.
The darkness clinging to the edges of the face, it appeared once more outside the window.
“Coddyyy..” it said airily, in a shrill vibrato. “Bring me another frog.”
“No, I won’t,” I said defiantly. “You didn’t say you would hurt the frog!”
“Cody.”
“I don’t want to help you.”
It sighed, a sound filled with old grain as though filtered through a gramophone.
“You have to help me, Cody. You don’t have a choice.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember the second time we spoke? You asked me if I would eat you, and I told you I wasn’t feeling very hungry.” It paused, its ashen features remaining inscrutable. “But now, Cody, I am hungry. If you don’t get me another frog, I will crawl through the window and eat you.” It said this in its usual monotony like it was a matter of course; an unavoidable fact.
“Then, after I pick your bones clean, I will eat your parents, too. I will come into their room and devour them.”
I could see the extremity it had extended to grab the frog pressing against the window. It was a black hand, cloaked against the darkness and dripping with something like tar or oil. It left an imprint of its palm on the outside of the glass. The arm behind it trailed into darkness like the bough of some slimy black tree, rendered near invisible against the starless night.
I was overcome with fear. I went to scream and the hand raised a finger to the lips of the face, shushing me.
“If you are too loud, your parents will hear,” it said. “You don’t want to wake them, do you?”
Tears streamed down my face but I did my best to remain quiet.
“I will give you time. But when I come back, you will bring me what I have asked for.”
Then it was gone.
I brought the windowman a frog every time it appeared after that. I was afraid it would eat my parents if I tried to tell them about it, and I didn’t think they would believe me anyway. Plus, the windowman made it clear that I was not to tell my parents about our arrangement.
Our interactions became shorter, more curt. It would appear every one or two months and I would fetch it a frog without being asked. Often, no words were exchanged at all.
When it did speak, it was usually to give me advice on how best to avoid waking my parents when I snuck down to the garden. Other than that I avoided initiating conversation. Our relationship had gone from cordial exchanges to ransoming the lives of my family in what felt like an instant.
I never actually saw it eat the frog. It would only retract its closed hand into the darkness before I heard the splintering and tearing from beyond.
This routine persisted unbroken for nearly an entire year. I got very good at sneaking outside at night and collecting frogs for the windowman. It became a normal part of my life. It was just something I had to do like making my bed and going to school. I could have accepted it as a mundanity if not for the looming threat of being eaten lest I disobey and the gruesome fate of the hapless frogs I brought it.
I never doubted that it would make good on its promise were I to refuse to feed it.
Then something changed. It was around December and the windowman appeared. It preferred to come out when it was raining, I think, but as the weather got colder and the rain turned to snow it disregarded this.
Those three knocks on the window. By the second knock I was already preparing myself to head down to the garden. The frogs were scarce with the poor weather, and it was difficult but I managed to return with one as I always had.
I slid the window ajar and held the frog outwards.
A moment of silence.
“No,” it whispered.
“No?” I said incredulously.
“Today I need something that will sate me…longer.”
I said nothing, so the windowman filled the silence. It detailed what it wanted: “fresh” meat, and larger than the frogs I had been providing it.
I had no clue where to begin sourcing such a thing. The windowman didn’t provide any aid, so it was up to me to find something meeting its criteria.
I turned to our refrigerator. A container housing cold, leftover meatloaf was what I ended up taking since I thought it would be missed the least.
I approached the window, the container in hand. Instinctively, I held it in the same careful way as the frogs I brought as tribute.
“I got what you wanted,” I said. Hearing nothing from the face, I unlatched the window and held out the offering, pouring chunks of meatloaf into my palm.
The hand met mine for a moment before retreating into the darkness with its catch. The noise of it eating was less visceral than it had been with the frogs, but the improvement was marginal. The difference was probably more psychological, really, since for once I was absolved of the guilt of leading a helpless animal into what might as well have been the open maw of a lion.
As had often been the case with our more recent interactions, the windowman disappeared without comment. I presumed this meant that what I gave it was sufficient; it had no complaints and was, therefore, satisfied.
I was quickly proven wrong.
Our cat Smokey went missing three days after I completed the windowman’s errand. My parents put up missing posters and offered a cash reward. I didn’t tell them it wasn’t any use. I knew what had happened to Smokey, and I knew he wasn’t coming back.
The day he went missing I came home from school to find my window open, a trail of translucent black liquid forming a pathway like the mucus of a snail up to the ledge. A clump of dark gray fur was wedged into the corner of the frame, and I saw faint scratches on the bottom of the wood outline: the frantic clawing of a cat being dragged through an open window.
I felt the bubbling anger—no, hatred—of the windowman I had felt when I had first defied it. If it was willing to take Smokey, even after I had fed it, surely it was only a matter of time before I couldn’t bring it anything “fresh” enough and it would crawl through the window and eat me.
It couldn’t keep going like this. Something was going to give. An impossible request, maybe—or maybe it would just decide, for no reason in particular, to go back on its word. Eat me and my parents not because I had failed to deliver what it needed, but just because it wanted to.
I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I let the cycle continue—how long it would keep going before it became impossible to satisfy.
Three knocks on the window. It had been around a week since Smokey disappeared. I’d tossed and turned in my bed trying to get to sleep but all I could think about was the windowman. I thought, as I had many times, of the grisly image of me and my parents torn to pieces, devoured by the windowman. All it did was fuel my anger further.
And now, finally, the object of that anger was here.
“You ate Smokey,” I said flatly.
The windowman said nothing.
“You killed him. He didn’t do anything to you—didnt do anything to anybody—and you killed him.”
After a pause it spoke. “What you gave me was…substantive, but not fresh.”
“I don’t care why you did it! I’m not helping you anymore.”
Its face cocked to the side with jarring speed. “Cody…Must I remind you what happens—what I will do—if you refuse to help?” Its voice hissed like steam escaping a vent, like the flicking tongue of a serpent.
Becoming visible now was the reflective liquid of its black hand in the darkness. It began to reach through the open window, the fingers hooked into a claw. I raised my voice in reply to its words: “You’ll eat me, then my parents, right?”
“Yessss..” it hissed. “But maybe I’ll eat your parents first, so you can watch them suffer.”
“Go away,” I said.
Its fingers passed over the boundary as its arm snaked into the room through the gap. Reaching outwards—reaching towards me.
“Go away! I hate you!” I yelled, but the hand did not relent.
“Cody…”
I reached forward and clutched the top of the frame, my hand on the latch.
“Leave. Me. ALONE!” I screamed, and slammed the window downwards.
It pulled its hand away too late. It shrieked as the panel came down, splattering oily residue and chunks of something solid across the windowsill. Its arm was reduced to a stream of pooling liquid and the gray face contorted into a wide-mouthed expression of agony—the only time I had ever seen its lips move.
“You…” it whispered with strained effort, its voice cracking. But that was all it could say before its form jerked backwards into darkness, the face subsumed by shadow in an instant.
Then I was alone in my room. The windowman was gone.
I latched the window and collapsed into bed, sobbing quietly.
My next few nights were sleepless. I feared the windowman would make good on its promise now that I had defied it—return and devour my parents, then me. The vindictive fury that had shielded me from my fear had dissolved completely, and I was left with only a frantic anxiety.
But despite my worries, the nights passed uneventfully and after the first few months I grew convinced it was really gone. I did, during those months, insist to my parents that my room be rearranged just so my bed was as far from the window as possible.
It never came back. Those months of absence turned to years, and I thought about the windowman’s threats less and less frequently.
Even so, the memory of the windowman has always stuck with me. Thoughts of the terror and distress Smokey must have experienced as he was dragged through that window. The memory of the sound it made as it devoured those poor frogs. And most of all the image of that mask-like face and its hollow gaze.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s still out there. If it found someone else to latch onto, to manipulate into feeding it. If there’s another child just like I was, under the thrall of that eyeless face. Or maybe that window dealt the final blow—maybe the windowman wasn’t as strong as it liked to pretend.
Whatever the case, I’m still certain it’s not coming back. Not for me, at least. I’m not useful to it anymore, because I don’t fear its retribution.
I’m not afraid of the windowman anymore.