Hey everyone. If you’ve seen my previous post, you know what’s been going on. If not, I’ve linked it here (if I did it right, nothing seems to work right anymore).
First of all, thank you to those who have given me your suggestions. Second, Holy. Shit. Someone mentioned today (or yesterday?) was Septmber 20, 2022, wtf? I can’t even process that right now.
Some folks have given some good suggestions on trying to record what’s been going on in other parts of the house when I’m not there, which I hadn’t thought of, so I decided to try that first. And I almost wish I hadn’t.
I had a couple options to do that, and I’m not super tech savvy, so first I tried setting up the webcam on my Chromebook by setting up a Zoom session. I left a few random dishes and food out on the kitchen out to try and catch who or what might be in my house. I then went back into the bedroom, on the other side of the house, and sat and waited. And waited. After a while I used the stopwatch app on my phone to record how long, and it was about 5 hours, and nothing seemed to be happening. Nothing moved on its own, no one came in, and I couldn’t hear any noises in any part of the house.
Then the chromebook closed everything out. Just shut the video session off. I swear I heard something on the other side of the house but couldn’t be sure, and I rushed down the hall. By the time I got to the kitchen, there was no one there, but everything had been placed back where it was.
At this point I was more frustrated than confused, and I check my chromebook. Still plugged in so the battery was at 100%, and it was still on. It was as if the program running had just been closed out. Which I definitely did not do. Determined, I came up with another idea.
My daughter has a video baby monitor, which is fairly low tech and isn’t connected to our Wifi or anything, so I decided to give that a try. It’s only black and white and a bit grainy but it’s always worked well enough. I set up the camera in the kitchen, again left a ton of stuff out, and turned on the monitor. At this point it was dark, and I figured if I’m being watched I may as well let whoever think I’m going to bed. So I crawled into bed, pulled up the covers, put my hand around the baseball bat I’ve been keeping under my wife’s pillow, and laid there to watch and wait. And wait. And wait.
Until. I started to see movement. Underneath the sink, I watched the cupboard door creak open. And a man crawled out. I wish I could say I sprung out of bed, grabbed the bat, raced into the kitchen and confronted this man. I can’t say I’m a brave man. So I laid there. Frozen.
I can’t say for sure because I couldn’t focus, but he seemed to be fairly bald, somewhat thin, in a dark shirt tucked into jeans. He crawled out onto the floor on his hands and knees, stood up, walked over to the camera, and clicked it off.
I don’t know how long I laid there alone in the bed I shared with my wife unmoving. I listened closely for any kind of noise. Footsteps. Voices. The hallway is hardwood, but our bedroom is carpeted. I could likely hear him coming down the hallway, unless I’d already missed it, but I’d never hear him walk across the soft carpet floor until it was too late.
I don’t know where he went, but by the time it started to get light out he had never come into our room. Bat in hand, I slowly crept down the hall into the kitchen/living room, ready to swing. No one seemed to be there. But all the food and dishes I left out were back where they belong.
I opened the cupboard under the sink, but found no one. I frantically swung all the cabinets open, but found nothing. It was then I noticed the sliding door. Our kitchen faces the backyard, and has a sliding glass door that opens out onto our back porch. Our house has a fairly open floor plan, so when you walk in you can go up a set of steps into the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and down the hall you’ll find our bedroom, my daughter’s room, my office, and the bathroom. Back by the front door, there’s anther set of steps that go down into the finished basement, which has another two doors and a crawlspace in the laundry room.
What I’m trying to get at is there are multiple ways in and out of the house, and I’ve left them all locked for quite some time now. Except the sliding door in the kitchen was now unlocked. Which could make some sense, because it can’t be locked or unlocked from the outside. So, if you were to go out that door, you could close it but you couldn’t lock it.
At this point I was done. I had to get out, and I would push through whatever anxiety that was forcing me in the house. I sprinted down the front steps to the door, and a wave of panic and nausea overwhelmed me. I tried to pull myself together and reached for the doorknob, when the doorbell rang. I instinctively ducked down. I don’t know why, for all I knew my wife was finally home with our daughter and couldn’t get in with the door locked. I peeked out the window, unsure what I would find, and saw a man standing there.
From what I could see, he did not seem to be the same man I saw last night. He was a little heavier, with dark hair and a tie-less suit jacket. After some debate with myself, I decided to open the door. He was either here to kill me or save me, and at this point I couldn’t care either way.
I opened the door, and asked him who he was and what he wanted. In short, he explained to me that someone has seen my post on here, which he stated should not have happened. Shouldn’t have “gotten through” I think were the words he used. He told me I was being watched, and needed to stop what I was doing and leave things alone. He said he wasn’t supposed to be there but wanted to offer me some advice, to stop eating my food. “Not safe” was what he said. He seemed anxious, and looking around a lot. I kept trying to see what he was looking at, or hell, if I could see any of my neighbors around.
Then I heard something, I can’t quite describe it. It was a low and quick sound. He seemed to hear it too and looked around as I did. He then fell over and dropped to the ground. Shocked I stood there looking at him, his body motionless and his mouth and eyes wide open. I was sure of it. He was dead. There’s a dead stranger on my front step. And I still can’t leave. Out of morbid curiosity, I look down at my phone, and as if mocking me, it’s still 10:24am. And it’s still Tuesday.