He keeps watching me. Over the past three weeks, I’ve seen a man standing on the sidewalk, staring at me through my apartment window as soon as it gets dark. Each day, he’d get just a step or two closer. But I’d never see him move in the moment. I’ve never heard him make noise outside. Never saw him do much of anything but… Watch. Until recently.
Generally, your first thought in a situation like that will almost always be to simply close the curtains and ignore it. And sure, that’s what I initially thought too. Block it out and move on. And even still… The feeling of knowing he’s still there bothered me. It’s almost like if you knew that someone was watching you sleep in a dark room. It doesn’t even matter whether or not you can see them. The presence itself is unsettling.
What’s almost as important is that if someone is committed to stalking you, you almost have to keep an eye on them, just in case they plan on doing something awful. Or at least, that’d be the hope. Unfortunately, my street isn’t well lit, so I couldn’t ever make out any precise details about the guy. Just that he seems to be a relatively average 5’10ish and solidly built. For all I know, he could be my next-door neighbor. A co-worker. My brother. Copy-paste any face you want onto this guy, and I would’ve told you, yeah, that might be precisely who that is.
I tried talking to the creep through my window the first few nights, but he’d never respond. So spurred on by a bit of liquid confidence one night, I tried to physically go up to him. To my surprise, as soon as I walked out the door, he was nowhere to be found. A quick search up and down the street and in the parking lot turned up nothing. But as soon as I got home, lo and behold, he’s standing in the same damn spot.
When I saw him the next night, I decided I was done with the games and went straight to calling the cops. Admittedly, I exaggerated details about how much of a nuisance he was to get them over more quickly. Still, what got their attention was me explaining that either they talk to him or I handle it in a very bad way. About fifteen minutes later, I had an officer knocking on my door and asking for a statement. He said he tried to make contact with the man I called about but that the parking lot was completely empty. And when he pulled into my apartment complex, he didn’t see anyone walking the street.
Honestly, I was baffled. For the second time, this guy pulled a Houdini and disappeared without a trace. Only to re-emerge as soon as I finished giving the officer my statement. Standing right back in the same spot like nothing had happened.
At this point, I’m in the beginning stages of thinking about the one thing that no human being ever wants to think about… “I am losing my freaking mind in the most literal sense possible.”
Looking back, I know I was being overly dramatic. But for a moment, I genuinely believed I was at the beginning stages of some degenerative brain condition. The only thing that broke me from the descending stairs of dark thoughts was the chime of a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.
The text simply read, “Answer it.”
Confused, I started to type up a response. But before I could finish a sentence, the unknown number was already calling. Typically it’s not good practice to answer calls from numbers you don’t recognize, but the curiosity was too strong to ignore.
When I picked up, the first thing that came through was the sound of sniffling as if whoever called had been crying… I asked who I was speaking with, and a man’s strained, mournful voice came through the other end. “Why did you pick up the phone?” he said before abruptly hanging up.
I called the number back but was met with the “We’re sorry, this number is no longer in service” automated message. I didn’t know how or why, but a little voice told me this had something to do with the man outside. I checked out the window and discovered my stalker had again vanished.
Honestly, I couldn’t even begin to process what was happening. My only real solace came from a bottle of whiskey and passing out to Netflix in a weak attempt to distract myself. The next thing I know, I open my eyes to the sound of heavy breathing. I look to the left of my bed and see a figure softly illuminated by my alarm clock. About 5’10. Solidly built.
I screamed for Alexa to turn on the light and instantly regretted my decision when my eyes darted to the face of the naked man before me. Disturbingly large eyes the size of tennis balls with pinpoint irises stared intently down at me. An unnaturally long frown where the corners of his mouth drooped nearly to the bottom of his neck, and from each corner, viscous saliva fell onto a distended pot belly.
He moved like lightning. Before I could throw my sheets off to get to the door, he was already on top of me. Meaty calloused hands with four pincer-like fingers quickly wrapped around my mouth and nose with incredible power. I squirmed in place, attempting to fight off my monstrous assailant, but no matter how much I fought, the man didn’t budge
Ultimately, the only thing I could do was look up into the face of my would-be killer. Tears streamed down his face as he kept apologizing for his actions. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is your fault. I’m sorry. I want to die too. I’m sorry.”
As the light from my world started to dim, one final look at the man above revealed irises that had now grown to fill that massive white space. In them, I could see my own reflection. Most importantly, the abject terror in my own eyes and the cold reality of my own mortality. And in a blink, everything went black.
When I came to, nothing was out of place. There was no sign of a break-in, and I couldn’t find any visible bruising on my face. If I wasn’t here the night before, I probably wouldn’t have suspected a single thing was out of order. Convinced my experience had to have been a dream, I looked at my phone in hopes that maybe the weird text and call had been too.
To my shock, one new text message read, “You had a scary dream, didn’t you? Or did that actually happen? Everything is falling apart.”
I nearly threw my phone when I finished that message. I don’t have much money and tend to keep a pretty frugal lifestyle. But in the face of whatever I was dealing with, I decided to splurge on the best security camera available and the biggest knife I could find for good measure.
That same night, with more liquid confidence in my veins, I sat and waited, watching that spot just outside my window with knife in hand.
Hours went by. Nothing. The sidewalk remained empty for the first time in days. My eyes grew heavy. I tried to fight the undefeated force of sleep, but the alcohol was telling me that my sense of self-preservation would be there to protect me in the morning.
As I lied to myself that I’d only rest my eyes for a moment, I had a fleeting thought that maybe I’d won a small victory. I thought I was free, at least for the time being. Reality couldn’t have been further from the truth.
That night, I re-lived my nightmare in an even more drawn-out fashion. After attempting to suffocate me, I remember he’d let me catch my breath for just a moment before going back and repeating the process. All the while, he’d still do that strange thing where he’d simultaneously apologize and say it’s my fault. But even that wasn’t enough for him. He’d mix in some… Personal… Details about my life. Things I’m not proud of. Things I’ve worked hard to forget… The pain of both would cause me to hyperventilate, and I could somehow feel the sting of my lungs burning in the dream world.
I’d wake up, and it’d be the same story. Not a thing out of place. This song and dance repeated for another five goddamn days. It got to a point where I was afraid to sleep. I dreaded the notion that I’d see him and be tortured physically while being reminded of all the horrible things in my past.
One night, I went for a walk to clear my mind and saw a figure walking toward me. About 5’10. Solidly built. Immediately I froze in place in his presence. Flashbacks of the nightmares went off repeatedly in my mind like little bombs. My first instinct was to run, but something else stopped me from turning around and sprinting back home. Anger. Frustration. Being so damn tired all the time.
The next thing I knew, I had this guy by the collar, and I was shouting at him like the maniac I was. “Why won’t you leave me alone?” I shouted. “I just want to be alone!”
In the struggle, he got an arm free and threw a clean uppercut to my stomach that knocked the wind out of me. Staggered, he pushed me to the ground and yelled, “Your ass is lucky I don’t have my .45!” Before running off into the night.
I sat on the ground for a moment, coming to grips with the fact that I had just had a breakdown and assaulted someone. My mind was breaking apart, and the only twisted sense of normalcy I could hold on to when I got home was that damn man right back where he had always been.
Rock bottom was coming up fast. And as the volume of alcohol stacked up, the same amount of my sanity slipped away.
It’s interesting how you can’t really understand what it’s like to have your mind slip until you’ve actually experienced it. You think that if you focus or distract yourself enough, you can keep it together by sheer willpower. All you see is someone that’s a shell of their former self. Someone that just let the things in their head go. But you don’t see the continual horror film repeatedly playing in their heads. It plays so much that they genuinely believe everything in their reality reflects their broken mind. And it becomes damn near impossible to separate the two. That’s when you truly become lost.
And it’s why when I heard a knock at my door late yesterday, I thought I’d be faced with another delusion. I opened the door, bottle in hand, knife at my side, expecting to see what I saw. A man., 5’10. Solidly built.
In almost a joking manner, I asked him how his night was and if he wanted some of the whiskey I had mostly killed. Silence. I shrugged and told him if he was just gonna be there to bother me, then I wasn’t interested in whatever it was he was doing. Again silence.
With a swig from my now almost empty bottle, I went to close the door when the man, unexpectedly, took a step forward into the light. My eyes grew wide, and my knees started to feel weak when the light hit his face. Massive eyes the size of tennis balls. An inhumanely long frown drooping down to his neck. A pot belly with streams of saliva dripping off of it. And thick, calloused hands with four pincer-like fingers.
We just stared at each other for what felt like minutes before he finally spoke. “I’m so sorry that we both have to be here. The stress is killing both of us. I just want to set us free.” With that, he charged the door. I threw the bottle at him, hoping to gain an extra few seconds. He managed to just get his shoulder in the doorframe, and I struggled against his weight, trying to close it.
I screamed for help to no avail. All the while, the man is telling me how much he hates me and how this is good for the both of us. I could see him trying to fit his wretched hands in to grab me, but just before he made contact, I grabbed the knife from my waist and slashed down. Yellow puss squirted from his hands and shot onto my pants. He recoiled away from the door in pain, giving me just enough time to close it shut.
But within moments, he was back, banging on my door and shouting, “Let me in! Let me in! I will always be here until you let me in!” I heard the knocking move to my window and then the walls. Even when he got tired of shouting, the knocking continued. Minutes. Hours. Non-stop.
The only thing I could think to do was run to my room, bury my head in my pillow, and just wait it out until finally… Daybreak. I couldn’t tell you exactly when the knocking stopped, but as soon as light filled my apartment, it was over.
The level of mental exhaustion was something I had never even approached before. Fearing it was another nightmare, I went to check the security footage. Unsurprisingly, the footage was corrupted, and I found that the camera had been ripped off the wall and smashed. When I opened the camera to see if I could still plug it into my computer, each port had unknown gooey substances crammed into them.
The proof I may have gotten from the cameras was gone forever. However… When I checked my phone, several unread texts and calls shed some light on the previous night. My neighbors were asking me who it was that kept knocking on my door. One had even gone out to see who was there and called the police but never found anyone. Furthermore, inspecting the knife from the night before revealed an undeniable streak of dried puss clinging to the blade.
I didn’t know whether to be elated or terrified. Because as far as I was concerned, I had my confirmation. The man was absolutely real. But what the hell did he want with me? All day I was thinking of something to do. I don’t have enough money for a hotel. I don’t have the connections to up and leave for a while. And I’m not sure if either of those would even work.
The best thing I could think of is communicating this story, so I’ve spent all day today writing it. Please… If anyone out there has experienced or heard about something similar, what am I supposed to do? I’m losing my sanity more and more every day, and as of late, some very dark and uncomfortable thoughts have crept into my head. It’ll be sundown soon, and I know he will come back to try who knows what. Please, anyone… Why won’t this man leave me alone?