Hey guys, I am a friend of the original poster from here. We’ll call him John. Painfully original, I know, but I’ve never been one for writing the way he is… or, seemingly was. It’s worth reading his account of events if you haven’t.
For some relevant context, John was a colleague of mine in undergrad and became a good friend of mine. We had begun talking to each other less and less frequently, but it wasn’t out of any ill will or hardship between us or anything- life just happened. He had poor cell reception as he denotes in his writing, and I work a lot of odd hours (10-12 hour shifts are not uncommon for me). Couple that with a fiance and three dogs and I don’t have as much time to talk to friends as I once did.
John has always been guarded. He was always polite and charismatic and tended to be a social butterfly in college- at any gathering or party, he would find his way to the center of the conversation. It wasn’t necessarily that he wanted all eyes on him- I never got that sort of vibe from him- but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. There was always though- even with his closer friends- a sense that there were walls to John’s personality, to his inner thoughts and life, that he wouldn’t allow anyone past. Maybe that included himself.
All of that is to say- I had no idea that John was struggling, at least as badly as he paints in his hastily written chronicle of the events that led up to his disappearance. And yes, he has seemingly utterly disappeared in a way that I cannot make sense of- hence my posting here- but I’ll get to that.
John had eluded to struggles with the job market and a sense of isolation, but I had no idea that his sleep and physical habits had become so disrupted, or the volume of alcohol he was consuming. And while I did appreciate the sense that he felt alone, it wasn’t until I made the drive to the lonely, lonely outskirts of West Grove that it really weighed on me how alone he might have been. I’m not sure whether that sense of complete isolation or sense of guilt for not trying to help him break out of it somehow is heavier.
I had been trying to reach John for a phone call just to chat and see how his life was going for a few weeks prior to that post. It wasn’t uncommon for us to go a month or so without speaking to one another, so it didn’t strike me as odd right away, but he was good about at least texting eventually to try and plan to catch up. Any of my attempts to contact him were met with silence, which began to be more and more concerning. I reached out to some of our mutual friends- none of which had heard from him, or expressed similar concerns- and to his family that he was still speaking to (rocky relationship, go figure). On all fronts, John seemed to be gone. So, going off only an old mailing address he had given me to send a Christmas present, I set off to check on him.
It’s about a three-hour or so drive from where I live. The entirety of the last hour I began to feel this ominous, encroaching aura- this sense of… not being watched, not really. This was different. This was this overwhelming feeling that I had already overstayed my welcome in a place I had yet to ever visit. A sense that I was fundamentally unwanted and should turn back. This was wildly irrational and I chalked it up to having never been to the town before and having too much coffee.
I eventually arrived at John’s home and pulled into a park behind his car. The car was dirty- covered in pollen, dust, and dead leaves, and it gave the sense that it hadn’t moved for some time, or that he had otherwise utterly neglected it. The interior was clean- and I didn’t see anything of note on the beige leather seats- but the outside was filthy. Frowning, I made my way across the overgrown lawn and towards the forlorn-looking porch.
The wood was long since faded from years of exposure to storms and lack of any touching up, and a board popped loose under my foot as I strode towards the door. As I got out of the summer sun and beneath the porch’s awning, a chill washed over me, and I froze for a brief moment. I turned back and realized that I was further away from the road than I would have liked- further away from civilization. I hadn’t told anyone except my fiance where I was going, or why, and if something happened…
Once again, I buried the feelings and opened the screen door. I tried the doorbell- but as I pressed the button, the faded white doorbell came loose and revealed a frayed neon green wire underneath. I lightly tapped on the door.
“Hey, John? You there? It’s me, Matthew. Everyone’s really worried about you bud, I wanted to drive to check on you.”
I’m not entirely sure what I expected, considering, but I stood and waited. I had hoped, perhaps, to hear footsteps approaching from somewhere within the house- to see a light flick on. Something. Anything.
I was answered only with the wind rustling through the branches of the hickory nut trees that shaded the home, and a wind-chime somewhere behind the house swaying in the summer breeze. I don’t think I noticed it then- but in hindsight- those were the only sounds. The North Carolina summer should’ve been a cacophony of songbirds and frogs and insects- but, nothing. Just the wind.
I sighed to myself, and knocked a bit more firmly on the door- but as I opened my mouth to announce myself once more, the door creaked open. Hesitantly, I pushed the door the rest of the way open and made my way inside.
The house immediately struck me as odd. The layout of the home- likely due to its age- was already odd. The front door entered immediately into a living room that looked like it was decorated in the 1950s- aggressively golden, with gold carpet, gold furniture, and gold wallpaper. At one point in time, it would have been the peak of interior design, perhaps, but it was now an aggressive sensory overload, and the glistening gold had long since given way to an ugly shade of yellow decay.
The next thing that was odd was that the house was… oddly dark. While the trees overhead did lend to the house being draped in the shade, it seemed almost as if the daylight did not want to breach the windows or travel all of the way across the rooms in the home. The rooms all seemed aggressively draped in shadow- and, no. There was little in the way of curtains.
That leads to the next and perhaps the largest oddity. The house was IMMACULATELY clean, but not in a conventional way. It’s of note that I lived with John sophomore year- and he was, for lack of a better word, a slob. John tended only to clean when it became inconvenient for him- and that was sparingly. Trash, laundry, dirty dishes, etc, all would pile up. Any of the disagreements we’ve ever had were almost exclusively around that. To find his home spotless was jarring- but calling it spotless is still a bit misleading.
The house more gave the impression or sense that it hadn’t been lived in at all. As I wandered from the entryway and through a grey-slate restroom and into what seemed to be his office, the house was completely bereft of any signs of life. Even the cleanest people miss small traces- a piece of dust here, a crumb there, a personal item left out for convenience- hell, even just a pen on a desk would’ve been reassuring, but there was nothing. Any signs of small comforts, too- a scented candle, maybe, or a cozy blanket- none. The beds had seemingly brand new bed sets that looked as though they hadn’t been slept in at all, and the entire house gave the impression of being a model on display rather than someone’s home.
I walked through the home and called out for John a few times, but naturally, I heard nothing. Despite the power working and the air conditioner running, all of the lights had been turned off. And, despite his car being parked in the gravel driveway- his wallet, phone, and keys were nowhere to be seen.
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I tried to reassure myself rationally- there were any number of possible explanations for this. John could’ve gone out for a walk and I could’ve just missed him- or he may have listed the home as for sale and could be out for a ride with the realtor. That would almost make sense- I hadn’t noticed a for sale sign in the yard, but, maybe he was early on in the process.
But I could not shake that sense of dread, and the feelings I’d had on the drive up were magnified ten times over as I stood in a house that smelled faintly of ozone and not at all of a person ever having lived there. Somewhere between that, the odd assortment of wallpaper and exposed wood panels, and the emptiness of the place, I began to feel a building panic- and the sense I was being watched.
I paced nervously back to John’s office- his computer was still there- and when I moved the mouse, discovered it was on the page as his original post. I rapidly read through it and felt the heaviness of the place crushing down on my shoulders as I did. I had a sense of disbelief and bewilderment- the state of his home didn’t at all match what he had described, and the impossibility of it was obvious- and yet… I knew something was fundamentally wrong. Not just with John or his disappearance, but with this house and with this place.
I finished reading and rolled back slightly in the chair and heard thunder rumble in the sky above. That’s odd, I thought to myself. There was barely a cloud in the sky earlier. I glanced at my watch to realize I’d been in the home for two hours- far longer than I’d thought.
I paused before getting up. There was something very, very off about John’s account of events. The alcoholism aside, it seemed likely to me that John was in an acute mental crisis and needed help- and not because of what he’d written, but for the sole fact that were was no pumphouse outside.
I hadn’t seen one when I arrived, and based on the location he described it being- as visible from his recliner- it was plainly and clearly not out there. I even left through the backdoor and wandered the length of the yard and the treeline beyond it, and there wasn’t any sign of any other structure- I mean, an abandoned barn for cows stood in the treeline, but it was nearly the size of the house and mostly a ruin of tin and rotten wood and not at all in line with what John had described. I frowned and went back inside.
As I pondered to myself whether or not it was a code or a metaphor for some sort of danger he may have been in, lightning struck in the clouds above, and what I saw in the brief moment the purple glow illuminated the room shook me to my core.
It was the house as it should have looked. It was for a fleeting, brief moment, but I saw it. There were empty plastic liquor bottles of the cheapest sort strewn across the floor, abandoned pizza boxes, and balled-up receipts- exactly what I had expected from John. There were looming, tall shadows seemingly cast by nothing, and the windows seemed cracked or outright shattered. And I swear I saw a set of… what looked like eyes, I guess, in the darkest corner of the room.
It lasted for only an instant- but it was more than enough. When I saw the room back in its unnaturally clean state, I upped and ran for the ugly gold living room, out of the front door and back to my car. I didn’t even dare look in my mirror until I was out of West Grove.
I’ve stopped at a hotel in the next town over. I have to go back. Something horrible has happened to John and someone needs to find out why. Given that John felt safe writing this all down here, it felt only right to… document this, here, too. I know I have to go back. As I was in a mad dash for my car- just in my peripheral vision- I saw it. The small little well-house, or its silhouette at least. And the door was open.