I have lived in my townhouse for four years now. The family right next door moved in shortly after I did. They are very private people, but they’re nice enough. I rarely ever see them, which I assume can be attributed to our schedules. I can sometimes hear their child playing through the wall.
While I rarely saw the parents, I never saw their child. I remember meeting Benny only when they first moved in, and the boy appeared to be around seven years old. His parents mentioned that Benny was homeschooled and had an immune disorder that meant he couldn’t play outside for long stretches. I assumed I always missed him when he did come outside or he came out very early to avoid direct sun.
Last week had been a mix of fog, overcast, and drizzle literally all week. I called off that Friday due to a cold and finally I saw the boy face to face. At least, I believed it to be Benny. But, he…still looked to be about seven. He was walking with his parents to their car as I was grabbing my mail. They waved meekly and I waved back, genuinely kind of excited to see them alive and well. I remarked on how they must’ve had another child since Benny was surely 11 or 12 by now.
How did I not notice? I immediately felt embarrassed because the parents looked nervous and the boy looked very…curious. I left it alone and awkwardly went back inside.
Afterwards however, I spent the night googling and researching what disorder can cause slow aging since the boy appeared to be the same age for several years. I felt embarrassed and I regretted upsetting the family, but my curiosity was killing me.
I found nothing and decided to let it go and avoid the neighbors because it left me feeling anxious and uncomfortable. I kept my eyes open however, to see if the boy ever came to play outside. The weather was still cloudy and quite foggy so I thought he may come out. I set myself up so I could just barely see outside but not be seen.
At around 8:30 at night, the boy came out and kicked around a soccer ball for a few moments, looking around every few seconds as if he was checking for watchful eyes.
I knew what I was doing could be seen as creepy, but I genuinely wanted to understand what was going on. Were there two children? Was Benny not growing properly? Is it really normal that I have only seen this child or these children so little as their neighbor? Is there some sort of neglect going on that I was too selfish to notice all of these years?
He stopped kicking the ball, letting it roll slowly away towards the fence. Then he stood in the middle of the yard facing the thicket behind the townhouses. I continued watching, waiting to see what had caught his eye.
I watched for 15 minutes thinking any moment he’d move on to something else. I know not all children play the same and he may have been daydreaming or something else. And I don’t know how long he stood there because after 15 minutes I went to sleep. Something still felt off.
The next day was sunny and I waited for the next gloomy day to see if I could spot him outside again.
A couple of days later, the weather turned dismal and he came out again. Same routine, plays like a typical child for a few minutes while scanning surroundings.
Then stands still and eventually sits while facing the thicket. I didn’t have time to watch so I set up a tripod and a camera right where I was peering through. I left the camera recording and headed off to bed.
Upon watching the next morning, I saw the boy standing in place for about ten minutes before he suddenly jerked his head back to look towards my house. That same moment, the wind picked up and a leafy branch fell from a tree and lays right in the view of the camera. The rest of the night was lost to me.
I really wanted to see exactly what he was doing while facing the trees and planned to set up a small camera in the thicket.
I’m a little ashamed to say that I called off work that morning to wait for the perfect moment to set up the small camera, hidden and secured with zip ties.
The next time the boy came out, he played a while, balanced on some invisible line with his arms spread. Looked around. Then sat and stared into the trees. I could see his face then and I felt paralyzed with fear as my body was frozen but my eyes watered. He just stared. I started to kind of feel like an idiot. I thought to myself that he’s probably a very emotionally mature child and he’s just meditating. Then he started the gestures. Not like yoga mudras or anything I’ve ever seen before. He did them so quickly…
This is the part that gets me. He sat in that position for seven hours. Seven. Hours. I had fallen asleep and woke up to review the footage on my computer. I was shocked as I sped up the video and saw him sitting in that same position hour after hour. It had become pitch black outside other than the dim porch lights coming from both mine and the neighbor’s houses.
Switching back to what was being recorded in real-time, I found the boy still sitting in the same spot. I was way past curious. Way past concerned. I was petrified. I tried to reassure myself that although this wasn’t something I could understand, maybe it was functional and meaningful for the child.
Suddenly, the boy’s eyes opened wide and darted towards my camera. “Does he see the light?” I thought, panicking. He slowly tilted forward to begin crawling on hands and knees towards camera. My palms began sweating profusely and i was shaking in place. “He’s a child. Relax.” I begged myself. He tore the camera from its place and I watched it go black on my screen. “Okay. No problem. Lock the door. Deny. Deny. Deny. Or I can say I was recording to determine which pests have been eating my tiger lillies…”
Trust me, I felt like an idiot and a weirdo during this entire era of my life so think whatever you like. But there was something very off. Something felt almost evil about the situation.
That night I bid my little camera farewell, locked every door and window and lay on the couch with the TV on all night.
I didn’t sleep a wink though. All night I heard someone walking the length of the back of my house with dragging feet. Stopping to knock softly on each window and door. I didn’t even have the guts to get up and look. I held my phone close to my chest and cried. This wasn’t a child. Did not he not have a curfew? All night long I heard the slow, deliberate dragging and knocking that eventually turned to scraping as whatever this was began to drag its nails along my windows. Whatever it was made it very clear that it had all the time in the world.
Eventually the harassment stopped, and the sun came up. I immediately picked up my phone and desperately scrolled through my contacts hoping I’d saved one of the neighbors’ numbers at some point.
‘Clarissa Neighbor’. Perfect. I felt my heart drop into my stomach as I dialed.
“Hello?” A soft voice spoke on the other end of the phone.
“Clarissa. It’s May.. your neighbor. I-“
“Listen, May. I care for you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She was sobbing.
“Something to happen?! Control your son! He can’t be more than 7-8 years old for fuck’s sake! What is this creepy shit he’s out all night doing, or don’t you even know?”
“May. It is not my son, and it’s certainly not 7 or 8 years old.”
“I’m sorry Clarissa but that’s-“
“We’ve been stuck with him for 6 years.. he’s been making us sick.. slowly taking every bit of life-“ she started sobbing more deeply. “I can feel him pulling away from us now. You…..showed an interest in him. You should have left it alone.”
I felt the blood drain from my face and the energy leave my body. I dropped the phone down beside me without hanging up and breathed slowly and shakily. I had to get out of the house.
While trying to regulate myself, I peered up at my living room window. My nerves turned to glass as I saw the boy latched onto the four corners of my window with his hands and feet. He was crouched and bent at an unnatural angle with his face peering at me. His eyes were pale brown with double irises in each and his skin was nearly translucent. He nodded enthusiastically, smiling and laughing joyfully.
He held one finger up to me as if to say “hang on” and reached back towards his back pocket. Slowly he retrieved the small camera I had hidden in the thicket to observe him. He continued nodding, smiling, and laughing as if we had some hilarious secret between us.
I was frozen to the couch and I could feel my bladder about to give way.
He slammed the camera forcefully into my window. Again, and again, never ceasing his jolly gestures and giggles until tears streamed out of his eyes, the tears highlighting his double irises and making him seem to have four distinct eyes. The glass began to crack and I knew soon he’d be falling into my living room.
I ran from my house that day and haven’t been back since. I’m staying with my cousin about 30 minutes away. She’s been on vacation for the past few days so I haven’t been alone. Tonight, she went back to work overnights at a nursing home. I’m hiding in her bedroom, praying that I made it far enough away.
I have three missed calls from Clarissa. I’m terrified to answer. And I can hear someone walking the perimeter of the house, tapping gently on every door and window…