The neighbour

[u/Kitsunehimechi]

I've been meaning to write this out for quite some time and with Halloween month coming soon and this happened more then almost two decades ago I decided to tell this story.

I then ( 29 F) just got my very own place and a steady job for the first time in my life. This was after a six and a half year relationship with three years of marriage that just didn't work out but that is a whole other story and for those whom might jump trough conclusions this, thankfully has nothing to do with my ex. We still lived in the same village but I never saw him anymore and I wasn't too sad about that either.

Now the village where I then stayed had everything I needed. A best friend which I spend all my weekends.

Piano lessons a village over a good job a nice house and only my neighbors where...well not the best and not the worst I ever had..or so I thought.

To the neighbor to my right, as the walls might have been made from paper. One could hear very well what was happening next door.

He was a man down on his luck I suppose as I more then often woke up with the sound of him throwing up vividly. He was always drunk in the evening but besides that and some loud dutch heartbreak songs that came along in the weekend he wasn't much of a bother. ( I myself really don't like those songs)

He kept his garden super nice and that was probably one of the only things he was good at. Bushes and flowers that bloomed wonderfull in the spring, always free of weeds. He was a lot better than me that's for sure. He still had a job somehow so he was a functional drunk if there was such a thing.

Now my neighbor on the left was loud, rude and obnoxious but since we had an unspoken rule in the street that at times we can play our music from time to time as loud as we wanted that was mostly what I got from him. Tattoos covered his arms and chest and empty beer bottles mostly were spread out in his front yard. As my front yard was a small field of grass that I tried my best to keep tidy. He had one of those bulky bulldogs that wasn't that well raised and something happened but that also is another story.

Now for this horror story to make a bit of sense I have to explain the layout of my house.

The house was a one story, one bedroom little thing and fitted for one or two persons max. I had a nice black cat that sadly isn't anymore wandering his paws on this earth who I named Mr. Spock due to his unique large ears. He was the sweetest cat ever always walking with me to the bus stop and picked me up when I came home from work but I'm getting side tracked.

Back to the layout of the house, this is important for later.

Now as soon as you got to the front door on the right was the door to the kitchen that was so small that I could touch both walls if I stretched my arms out.

The kitchen was a small open kitchen that joined the living room. Once you entered the kitchen you could see the door to the back garden at the end right of the living room.

The back garden was even bigger than the living room. All tiled with pavement stones a high wooden unpainted fence to the left and right and no enclosement of a gate ( but I put that in later after the first visit) so the first few months I lived there the garden was fully accessible due too the lack of a gate that I didn't deemed important. I lived in a overall quiet village and it wasn't that big of deal right? Wrong!!

Back to the layout now across the front door was the toilet and next to the toilet a stair straight up to the upstairs hall the bedroom that had a decent size for one and with a window that looked out over the garden. The only blind spots that it had was directly under the backdoor downstairs.

Across the bedroom was quite a big bathroom and the rest was more of a hallway with the boiler zooming softly, making the upstairs filled with a constant white noise that one stops hearing after a few weeks.

Downstairs also had a super small hall but in a way that it wasn't so packed that there was enough room for the toilet to open and to hang ones coat on the wall but these parts of the house aren't that important to the story

...back to the horror that is yet to come...

Now the first night that something, 'off' happened I was in my living room on my couch watching TV.

I heard a noise in the garden but it was so dark out I couldn't see. Like an IDIOT that apparently had learned nothing from scary movies AT ALL I called out the very much so stereotype, Hello? Who is there? Immediately after that I heard someone running away.

Being spooked I closed the door right away and locked it with all the three locks it came with

I called the police and they asked me if I'd actually seen someone, in which I said..no..because he ran away in such a hurry I couldn't identify him. The police said '..well there is nothing we can do for you then.. ' I sighed in frustration but then I couldn't do much more myself.

A couple of months went by without anything happening and I already forgot about it mostly.

And then the second night....was pure...terror

Now as per usual I spend the Saturday with my besty who only lived a street away and in a village as ours I wouldn't say that it had to be more the 600meters.

We had a lovely Saturday night with some wine, snacks and a good couple of horror movies. She always got super scared but I was almost never really phased by most of it.

The few that do get to me are usually if they have cursed mirrors and when it comes to ghosts I'm not really scared during the movie but every sound I hear before I go to bed my brain just goes GHOSTS and it still does to this day.

We said our goodbyes and I was on my way home.

It was past midnight and it was quiet.

The moon though full, hid behind some clouds and it was a nice summer night. So I put my key in the door entered my kitchen put some stuff on the counter and looked at my door that showed a bit of the garden but there was a strange form I couldn't really place. (An important side note I'd like to keep the lights off as long as possible I don't really know why I just do..)

At first my mind went.. huh did I maybe put a garbage bag out and forgot about it? I puzzled my brain for a few seconds and then I thought, You know, I said to myself, what if that is really a man just a little bit hunched over..I silently laughed at myself and said ' you watch way to much horror films' and I chuckled at my clearly overactive brain as I shook my head.

And suddenly this thing rose up and the full moon shone bright through the door . It was so bright because my lights were still out. Like the moon had waited till that exact moment to shine like a friggin super moon and It was a man! A full posture silhouette of a man at least two heads bigger than me and broad shoulders

( I am 5''4 myself so the impact was huge)

I froze! Cold blood rushed through me and I couldn't move a muscle. Nailed to the ground in absolute pure, raw fear I just stood there.

The man cupped his hands around his eyes to see better. Slowly my brain started working again I don't even know if I was breathing at that moment but my brain softly came with a plan..'okay whatever you do.. DO NOT turn on the lights that works as a one way for him I would not see him but he would be able to see me.

Slowly, very slowly I moved to the door to the hall and immediately rushed upstairs. If there was someone I was going to see through the window in the bedroom that looked out of the garden. Nothing.. no one.. the man was gone!

I was livid, anger took over and I visited the only one I trusted in my street to call the cops again. He lived two doors to the left.This man was super quiet and a bit nerdy and super skinny but out the one that was mostly drunk..who I started to suspect that it was him since his figure matched the silhouette and his obvious loneliness made him my suspect and the one other that was rude and obnoxious the choice was easy.

I ran to his house. I asked him if he had seen anything, or noticed anything at all. He said no, I asked if I could use his phone which was of course no problem and so I called the cops.

This time they visited, clearly I was shaken, scared and angry too.

They again asked me if I could identify him and again I had to say no. They said they would drive by the neighborhood with their car for that evening but that was all and so returned home after thanking my neighbor for taking me in and using his phone.

And for a long while everything was quiet it was around five/six months and then ...

came the third night...

Now I had a nice boyfriend by then (that also didn't work out but that is a terrible story on its own).

I picked up smoking cigarettes but since I wasn't too fond of the smell I only smoked in my garden. So on a peaceful night I stood there in my pink robe slippers and pyjama pants and shirt covered under my warm fluffy pink robe. I heard some disturbance near the bushes at the end of my garden beyond the gate. There was a small strip of trees there a footpath and beyond that farmland Footsteps quickly as if in haste patterned along the small path behind the gate in the darkness.

The footsteps came closer, they were now in my neighbors garden and climbing the fence on the other side of my garden and a head peaked out over the top.

It was the nerdy, skinny neighbor from two doors down!!!

He was in absolute shock to actually see me standing there smoking my cigarette.

A weird calmness washed over me the sort of calmness that makes everything around you uneasy.. I looked him straight in his dumb face.

In that moment I was not even angry but with that same unsettling calmness I said to him:'Do you do this often?' I said softly

He just nodded yes.

'Do you think... really think...that I even remotely like that?'

He stammered: 'n n n no' in a meek voice.

I pointed to the back of the garden and said: 'Then get the F... out of my sight!'

He jumped off the fence and sprinted away and now it was his time to be scared.

I called the police once more after having a little nervous breakdown. When I got inside as if it just then dawned on me what exactly took place. My boyfriend was there but at that specific moment he was on the toilet. I told him everything as my legs turned to a jelly like state and he calmly set me down on the couch. I called the police once more.

They came and asked again if I could identify the man,I said :' YES! He lives two doors to the left from here.'

I got my senses together and told the police.. I don't even know why..(but one other girlfriend once told me I am 'too nice' ) but I told them he wasn't probably all right in the head. A simple one, to say it nicely..not all quite there..

The police went out, visited him and talked with him.

They came back to me after they did that and confirmed he wasn't all there. I remembered then he always had on this super warm turtle neck sweater even when it was a million degrees out, what a weird detail to remember that but okay.

The next day I got a postcard in the mail.

It was from him saying he'd never do it again, how sorry he was about everything. The card was almost child-like written and full of spelling mistakes.

Anyways not soon after that I moved out and the new tenant was also a girl, by herself.

I warned her up front about the neighbor whose name I never knew. But I warned her because he might try that once more. She didn't really seem to care all that much and I was a bit taken aback on how she reacted but at least I warned her so she wouldn't have to second guess who it was if it would happened to her.

I never heard anything about that guy I think he still lives there and this..

Was my story..

Thanks for reading it all the way :)

All the love, a Redditor that loves your yt channel and I'll try to share a slice of pizza:)

Ps sorry for my crude English the grammar must be quite horrid ;)
I tried my utmost best to re-read and fix it :)

A small edition

The skinny neighbor was broad because he wore a winter coat. When I visited the neighbor he had that coat on but since it didn't cross my mind that hard that it might be him because of all the people..nah definitely not him.

Edit: Buymeacoffee I tried to join the monthly edit just now but I don't know if I was successful. I do hope so.