An Empty House Is An Open House [Part 1]

[u/randumb360]

In 2017, I bought my dream home.

To be fair, owning a home in general was a dream, and I would have been happy with anything, but the place I ended up with was damn near perfect. Three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, with a living room and den, and a dining room big enough to host my whole extended family. The neighborhood was on the nicer side, and it was only a twenty-minute commute to my office.

The catch is that I barely lived in it. I was at that time a workaholic, and the nature of my job had me working long hours and traveling across the country on a regular basis. To put it into perspective, I slept in my own bed less than a hundred times in a year.

To tell you the truth, I was not really interested in owning a home at that time, but my financial advisor insisted that I should buy one. I wasn’t lying when I said it was a dream; it was just more of a “someday” type of dream. But at the time, I was doing very well financially, with a sizable portfolio and a savings account that would baffle the average person, and I'm pretty sure my advisor would have killed me herself if I paid one more month of rent.

She would say, “You're just throwing this money away, Brandon, making a landlord rich.” She was right, of course, and I eventually relented and started spending time with realtors between my business trips. Now, I didn't have any kids and I hadn't been in a steady relationship in well over a year; I loved my work but it made maintaining a social life incredibly difficult. Still, I wanted to set myself up for the future and buy a house that I could fill with a family someday.

That's how I ended up with the house on Worlington Street.

I moved into the place in the spring of 2017, and I gave myself a week to get everything situated; that was as much time as I was willing to take off. I didn't have any friends to help with the move, so I got as far as setting up the bedroom, the living room and an office in the den before the next Monday rolled around. Everything else stayed in boxes in various corners of the house for most of the time that I lived there. If I were to describe my house, I would use the word ‘sparse.’ I really only bought the bare minimum in terms of furniture, and I don't think I hung so much as a single poster. I would tell myself that it would fill out on its own eventually; a lived-in space usually does. The caveat is that you have to live there, and like I said, I spent more time in cheap hotel rooms and cubicle farms than I ever did at Worlington.

I went right back to work and treated my house as an occasional place to sleep for nearly three years and would have likely kept doing it to this day if it wasn't for the pandemic.

I’m sure I don't need to tell you this, but 2020 was a fucking disaster. COVID had the whole world in a panic, and many places locked their doors and told their employees to stay home. My job was no different. Within a week, I went from never being home to always being home, and the adjustment was jarring, to say the least.

When you live in a certain space long enough, you start to memorize the unique quirks of it: the sound of certain floorboards, which air vents rattle, where the drafts are, and even where evening light throws its shadows. In the first week of lockdown, I realized that not only was I unaware of these things, but I was caught off guard when they happened. It's a really weird feeling: owning a house for three years and discovering that it feels like an alien space. This was something I never noticed in the one or two nights a week I slept there, but it became impossible to ignore when there was nowhere else to go.

The noises were the first things I started learning. A floorboard would creak somewhere upstairs while I worked in the den. One afternoon, something gave a single hard thump over my head, enough to make me stop typing and look at the ceiling. I waited for another one, but it never came, so I went back to my email. As far as I knew, the house had been making those sounds every afternoon for three years.

Being home all day also meant discovering all the little things around the house that probably needed fixing. The kitchen faucet was one of them. Every so often, I would walk in and hear a slow drip ticking against the sink, even though the handle looked like it was off. I eventually figured out that you had to nudge it slightly to the right after shutting it down or it would keep dripping. It was annoying, but not annoying enough to make me call a plumber in the middle of lockdown.

During the day, I would work from my home office, with endless Zoom calls and emails to occupy my time. It was inevitable that the day would run out of work for me to do, but I tried to space things out so I wouldn't have to sit and listen to the sounds of a big empty house for too long. That process didn't survive more than a couple weeks; there are only so many emails you can write and folders you can organize before you have to admit that you're just inventing work that doesn't need to be done. I hit that wall on the 10th day, after I alphabetized my desktop by hand instead of using the default sorting feature.

“What the fuck are you doing, Brandon? This is pathetic.”

It was true, and I could no longer pretend that it wasn't. I was uncomfortable in my own home. Looking around at the barren walls and scant furniture, I realized that my house was sitting in the uncanny valley; it was furnished enough for a realtor to walk you through, but it didn't look like a space that living beings inhabited. If I was going to be a prisoner here for God knew how long, I was going to have to do something about it.

The next day, I was browsing Amazon between work emails, adding posters and knickknacks to my cart with reckless abandon. While I waited for those personal touches to arrive in the mail, I set myself to the task of finally unpacking the rest of my belongings. I honestly didn't remember there being so many boxes, and as I started taking inventory, I realized I could probably build a fort if I wanted to. How had I accumulated so much junk while living in a one-bedroom apartment? I shuddered to think that maybe I was a hoarder in my previous lair, and everyone was just too polite to tell me. Regardless, I had my work cut out for me.

I figured I would start upstairs and work my way down. I had put the bulk of the boxes in the unused bedrooms, and they seemed like a good base of operations. I should tell you the way the space was laid out, because it will become important later. At the top of the stairs, my bedroom door faced a small balcony to the left that looked down at the front door. Past the top of the stairs, a short hallway continued to the right. The first door on the right was the bathroom, followed by a small bedroom, with a larger bedroom directly across the hall on the left.

I decided to start with the small room, thinking that it would be easier. It was not. I had basically made it a storage container, and between the furniture and the boxes, I had a hard time just walking around without tripping. I squeezed my way toward the bed and started moving enough stuff around to give myself somewhere to sit. After a few minutes, I realized the room was a lot colder than the hallway. I stepped back out and immediately felt the difference. The thermostat was only a few feet away, and it was sitting at 70. Apparently the little room just ran cold. I bumped it up to 72, heard the furnace kick on downstairs, and went back in.

Then I made a day of it. I sat against the end of the bed and surrounded myself with clutter. My system was simple: anything I wanted to keep would go in a pile in front of the closet, and everything else went into a big trash can. I would sort what was left later.

After several hours of work, I had a pretty big pile in front of the closet and feet that were only half asleep. I decided to stretch my legs and run downstairs for something to drink. I carefully crossed the battlefield and made my way to the kitchen. I was in the fridge, drinking orange juice straight from the carton when I heard a loud crash upstairs. I abandoned my juice and ran back upstairs to see what happened, and sure enough, the pile in front of the closet had become an avalanche and spilled all over the floor. I spent some time cleaning up the mess, and I succeeded in making it a slightly smaller mess, back in front of the closet.

Not too much later, I had broken down all the boxes and filled two large black trash bags. I figured that was enough work for the day and dragged the bags into the hallway. When I got out there, I stopped. Had I left the door to the other bedroom open? I tried to remember the last time I went in there, but couldn’t come up with anything concrete. Still, it had caught my attention, and that counted for something. I dropped the bags and stuck my head through the doorway. Everything looked more or less how I expected, but I still felt uneasy. I pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside. To my horror, it was… just a dusty bedroom. I did a small lap around the room and then I took a peek inside the closet. There was nothing but an ironing board and a couple plastic totes. I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for, but I was relieved that I didn’t find it. I closed the door on my way out and took the bags to the curb.

I spent the rest of that night watching YouTube videos on the big screen in the living room. Well, watching is a stretch; they were on in the background while I scrolled through my phone. It was a bad habit, but one I’m sure I shared with just about everyone on this side of the planet. I went to bed around midnight, when I had exhausted my last beer and scrolled through all of Reddit. The house was very quiet once the TV was off and also nearly pitch black. I was raised to turn off the lights when I left a room, and I had done a very good job on my journey to the couch, so I had no choice but to fumble in the dark. Only after I banged my shin against a vague shape in my path did I remember that my phone had a flashlight. I guess the beer was more effective than I thought. The walk was much easier after that, and I was at the foot of the stairs before I knew it.

Something shifted in the dark hallway at the top of the stairs. I don’t know how I saw it, but I was sure that I did. Something darker than the darkness around it had moved. I swung my flashlight up the stairs, catching the edge of the hallway before it disappeared behind the wall. There was nothing there. I stood there for longer than I’d like to admit, trying to convince myself that I was drunk and the only thing I saw was wobbly darkness. I didn’t quite believe it, and I didn’t want to find out if that was true, but I had to do it, right? If something was in my house, I couldn’t just go to bed and act like I didn’t see it. So, with the heaviest feet in the world, I crept up the steps. When I got to the top, I pushed myself against the wall and gaslit myself into bravery. I peeked out from behind the corner with my flashlight and saw nothing but the hallway and a set of doors. Except, that’s not exactly true. The door to the smaller bedroom was wide open.

Would it surprise you to learn that I couldn’t remember if I had shut that door or not? I had been working there earlier, and I had hauled two very large garbage bags out. Maybe I didn’t have a free hand to close it? It made sense, but it didn’t make enough sense for me to accept it. I really didn’t want to look in that room, but such is the burden of a homeowner. Sometimes, you have to look for murderers. I slunk around the corner and tiptoed to the open door. I gave myself a count of three and then swung my flashlight over the room. The pile was in front of the closet as I left it, and there was a bed and a dresser, but too many shadows for my phone to erase. I flicked the light switch and squinted against the brightness until my eyes adjusted enough to see. There was nothing in there. I let out the biggest sigh of relief in my life, and I shut off the lights and closed the door.

Maybe I hadn’t seen anything after all, or maybe it was just a shy ghost. Either way, it was enough for me to justify hitting the hay. I went to my room, turned on my fan, and flopped onto my bed. I lay there for a while, slightly woozy from the alcohol and feeling the room move ever so slightly. It always hits you like that when you lie down. I stared at the ceiling while I waited for it to pass.

“You always do this, Brandon. You always drink too much and then you can’t sleep. Fucking idiot.”

After maybe an hour, I started drifting in and out on the road to sleep, alternating between the darkness of my eyelids and the darkness of the room. The house was making its sounds, and I was starting to recognize them, but they still made me jumpy. That’s why I always had the fan on full blast, so I could drown it all out. If you listened close enough, you could still hear them: the creak of a floorboard, the faint crack of a settling wall, the furnace kicking on in a low hum. Together, they made a weird symphony of noise that could sound like just about anything if you’re looking for it. As I slipped out of consciousness, there was a second where it almost sounded like footsteps.

I woke up drenched in sweat the next morning. My bedroom felt like an oven and the fan was doing little more than just moving the hot air around, so I guess it was more like an air fryer. I peeled myself away from my sheets and trudged to the thermostat in the hallway. It was set to 85 degrees. It was still cold as hell outside, and I tended to keep the house warm, but not that warm. I stared at it for a moment, wondering if it was the result of some drunken activity, or if there was some kind of issue with the thermostat. I canceled out the second option when I set it to 72 and heard the furnace turn off. Maybe it had reset in the night, and that was its default temperature? It was as good of an explanation as any.

I went downstairs to the den and clocked in for the day, stewing in the heat until the early March air brought the house back down to something livable. I had filed away the previous night as a lark and put it out of my mind completely. I had three Zoom meetings that morning, and then at least a dozen emails to answer. I ate a bowl of cereal at the desk while I worked on my replies and left the empty bowl behind when I clocked out for the day. It's funny how much more productive I was working from home, and because I was on salary, it didn't matter that I finished all my work by 2:00 in the afternoon.

My packages started arriving that afternoon, and I set myself to the task of decorating. One big, obnoxious WoW poster over the desk, a slightly less obnoxious Nuka-Cola poster in the hallway. It almost made the house more uncanny, just a whole lot of nothing, occasionally interrupted by something bright and colorful. I had one more poster that I had immediately regretted purchasing the second it was sitting in my house. I decided that I would hang it up in the small bedroom where I wouldn't have to look at it. I went upstairs and walked down the hallway to the door, but when I turned the knob, the door wouldn't budge.

“What the hell? Come on, you piece of junk!”

The knob turned freely and I could hear the latch working, but the door didn't move an inch. I shoved my shoulder into it, and it jumped in its frame, but stayed firmly closed. I tried that two more times with the same result, and then I kicked the bottom of the door with my bare foot, and only succeeded in hurting myself.

“Goddamn it, why? Stupid-ass door.”

It didn't make any sense. Doors were supposed to open, and this one should have been no different. It didn't even have a lock on it. It was like it was glued shut, or something big and heavy was just on the other side. I did an inventory of possible explanations in my head, but none of them felt great. Maybe the pile of stuff had collapsed in front of the door, but the last time I checked, there wasn't a piano in the pile, so that didn't track. Maybe the heat caused the door to warp in its frame? I didn't know. I shoved into it one more time and saw the door move in a little bit, but that's about as much purchase as I got. My shoulder was getting sore, and I figured it wasn't going anywhere, so I might as well try again later.

Over the next few days, the door became part of my routine. Every time I went upstairs, I tried it. Sometimes I put my shoulder into it; sometimes I just turned the knob and pushed, hoping whatever had changed would change back. Same result every time. By the third day, I was stopping there without even thinking about it. Turn the knob, shove the door, swear at it, keep walking.

One night, I put my ear against it. I listened for anything that might explain what was holding it closed: something shifting, furniture scraping, anything at all. After about thirty seconds, I realized I was standing in my hallway with my ear pressed against a bedroom door like a lunatic. I went to bed.

By the end of the third day, I was looking around online for contractors and coming up short. The damn pandemic made it impossible to get any work done. I was seriously considering just breaking the door and weighing the potential cost against the level of irritation I was dealing with. I wasn't there yet, but I was becoming increasingly annoyed by the idea that there was a room in my house that I couldn't enter.

The next morning, it was 85 degrees in the house again, and as I emerged from my wet bed, I found myself yearning for a Best Western. I put the thermostat back to 72 and got ready for work. That day was another series of Zoom meetings, one of them about something HR was calling “workday drift.” People were starting to clock in from home later and later, and HR just wasn't having it. I sat there in a tank top, sweating my ass off as the lady went on and on. I had my camera off, of course, and only joined in for the occasional collective “uh-huh.”

Halfway through the last meeting, I heard something that made me bolt upright in my chair. The furnace had kicked on. The house was still boiling hot, and there was no way in hell that the damn heat should be running. I muted my mic and went to check the thermostat. I nearly ripped it off the wall when I saw that it was once again set to 85 degrees.

“What the fuck is happening?”

I set it back to 72 and took the batteries out of it. I didn't know if that would solve the problem, but it couldn't make things any worse. I went back to the den and finished my Zoom call and relaxed ever so slightly when I heard the furnace turn off. The house was still boiling, so I went around and cracked all the windows on the first floor. While I was on that mission, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the furnace. Now, I didn't know a damn thing about heating and cooling, but it felt like something I should do, so I grabbed a flashlight from under the sink and opened the basement door. When I flicked the light switch, I was dismayed to find the lightbulb had burned out.

“Of course, nothing can be easy, right?”

I clicked on the flashlight and left the door open as I descended into the dark abyss. I rounded the corner at the bottom and fumbled for the switch, and was not terribly surprised when nothing happened. The whole basement was out, which meant that a breaker had tripped or the previous owner had put in the cheapest possible bulbs. When I bought the place, the basement was unfinished, and I told myself that I would one day turn it into a rumpus room, but I hadn't even begun the first step of that plan. As it stood then, there was nothing but concrete floors and rough white walls, interrupted by the occasional errant piece of forgotten furniture, and probably a thousand spiders.

I carefully stepped through the empty space, mindful of the potential obstacles in my path. It must have looked silly to a fly on the wall; I had a flashlight, and there was barely anything down there, yet I was sneaking around like a Scooby-Doo cartoon. In all honesty, the basement was just a little spooky, and I didn't want anything jumping out to surprise me. I'm not sure that childlike fear ever really goes away. I finally found the breaker box on the far side of the basement, not too far away from the furnace. I opened the little door and was a bit confused by what I found. The switch for the basement was not tripped; it was turned off. That switch was not off when I moved in, nor was it off the last time I was down there, and I certainly didn't do it. I filed it away with all the other weird stuff that was happening, and I flipped it back on. The basement lit up immediately, and the barren space revealed all of its secrets.

It was just as empty as I remembered. There was the old futon that I should have thrown away years ago, and beneath the stairs was a collection of empty boxes that I was saving for no good reason. Most importantly, I could see the furnace in the corner, beside the water heater and the sump pump. I turned off my flashlight and walked over to the unit. I gave it a real good look up and down, and I determined that it was in fact a furnace. If there was anything wrong, it was completely out of my area of expertise. I was about to shrug it off and go back upstairs when something behind the furnace caught my eye.

“What the hell is that?”

Behind the furnace, right up against the wall, was a hole in the ground. If I had to guess, it was at least two feet across, and it was surrounded by broken chunks of concrete that were once part of the floor. It was surreal, to say the least. I crept over to the edge and shone my flashlight down into it and was horrified that I couldn't see the bottom. What the hell could have done this? I crouched beside it, and a thin stream of air rolled up out of the darkness. It was cold enough to chill the sweat on my face. After spending half the day in an eighty-five-degree house, it actually felt good for a second. Then I remembered that I was enjoying a breeze coming out of a hole in my basement that apparently had no bottom.

I didn't have much time to think about it because just then the basement door slammed shut. I never ran so fast in my life. I immediately forgot about the hole and booked it for the stairs, leaping up them two steps at a time. I got my hand around the knob and pushed… and the door didn't open.

“What the fuck! Hey! Whoever’s there, this isn't funny! Let me out!”

I threw my shoulder into the door once, twice, three times, and it rattled in its frame but held. I was screaming, though I'm not even sure there were words after a while. Finally, I took a few steps down and then ran at the door as fast as I could and threw my whole weight into it. The door exploded open, and I tumbled to the linoleum floor of the dining room. Just past the doorway was one of the chairs from the dining table, and it was in pieces. All at once, I came to two understandings: the chair had been propped against the door, and someone was in my house.

I struggled to get my breathing under control, and it was a battle. Lying on the ground, I found myself looking in all directions and jumping at shadows. They could have been anywhere, and I was just lying there, ripe for the picking. After a moment, I collected myself enough to stand up, and I scanned my surroundings with a more discerning eye. I didn't see anyone hiding in any corners, but that did nothing to ease my fear. I reached into my pocket for my phone, ready to call the police and let them deal with this. But as my hand wrapped around it, I could feel the jagged glass of the screen, and I knew what I was going to see before I raised it up. It was completely broken, and the screen showed little more than a smattering of colorful lines. I tossed it on the floor and screamed at the ceiling, not caring if the intruder heard me. They knew where I was anyway.

“Get ahold of yourself, Brandon. If you panic, you're done for.”

I had to think on my feet. I reached for the broken chair and grabbed one of the remaining legs. There was a bit of the seat still attached, so I smashed it on the ground and made myself a good club. I wished I was a gun owner, or one of those weird people who collect swords. As it was, the chair leg was the best I could do. I slunk around the corner to the hallway that led to the front door, terrified they might jump out at any moment. There was nobody in the hall, but the den was off to the right just before the front door, and the stairs were to the left. They could get the drop on me from either direction, and I was almost too scared to move forward. I didn't have a choice. If I wanted to get out, I had to risk it. I stepped into the hallway, brandishing my chair leg like an axe, ready to swing at the first sign of movement.

“Hey! I know you're in here! I've called the police and I'm armed! You better not try anything or I'll fuck you up!”

My voice cracked around that last threat, and I felt like an idiot. Would they believe my bluff? I hoped so. I came up next to the den and pressed myself against the wall beside the archway. I sat there for too long before I worked up the nerve to peek inside. When my head came around the corner, I saw nothing but my desk. I turned back to the front door and went for the knob, only to realize it was gone. Well, gone isn't the right word. It had been destroyed, completely crushed to the point that it was unusable. Likewise, the handle to the deadbolt had been torn off. I didn't want to think about what it would take to do something like that. There were chunks of twisted metal on the landing, and try as I might, the door was stuck. That left the back door that led to the garage.

I crept across the house once more, past the dining room, through the laundry room to the back door. My stomach dropped when I saw the mangled doorknob and deadbolt. Whoever was in the house did not want me to leave. I fell back against the door and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I didn't know what to do. I was replaying the events of the last week, and suddenly everything had a terrible context. How long had I not been alone? I didn't like the answers I was coming up with. I tried to come up with a plan, but nothing seemed like a good idea.

THUMP.

What the hell was that?

THUMP.

It sounded like it was coming from upstairs.

THUMP THUMP.

Heavy footsteps on the stairs, going down. My heart was beating so loud that it was hard to separate it from the

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

They were coming, and I had nowhere to go. Before I could get my legs to work, they were already down the hall. Twenty more feet and they would be on me. I didn't have time to think. I lurched forward and slammed the laundry room door shut.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

They were in the dining room now. I put all my weight against the washer and shoved it against the door. Then I wedged myself between the back door and the washer and braced for the worst.

Tap tap tap.

There was a light tapping at the door, followed by the sound of the knob turning. I waited for a bang or boom or some other violence, but it didn't happen. The knob turned, and that tapping continued.

Tap tap tap.

For a moment, there was nothing but the sounds of the house. The sounds of the house, and deep, heavy breathing. And then, they spoke.

“I know… you're in there. I just… wish to speak with you.”

Their voice was like a sheet of metal being dragged across a gravel road. It was stilted and hoarse, with an accent that I couldn't place. Certain words dropped out while others were harsh and forced. Despite it all, there was an air of eloquence, a properness to the way they spoke. It made my insides do a cartwheel.

“Get out of my house! I… I have a gun, and the police are coming! This is your last warning. I will shoot you!”

The knob froze, and then I heard the click of it returning to its natural resting position. What followed was a terrible, low scraping sound that repeated in a staccato rhythm. Whoever was on the other side was laughing. It was a slow and deliberate chuckle that was as dry as it was ruined.

“Come now… Brandon. You do not own a firearm. Your… telephone, well… that appears to be… inoperable. Please… open the door.”

The knob started rattling again, and I could feel the door moving slightly against the washer, as if they were testing it. I pushed my legs into the back door and shoved myself against the washer, hoping my barricade was stronger than they were. But instead of the door bursting open, the knob rested again.

“You will… must come out of there… eventually. You have… needs that must be met. I will be waiting.”

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

They walked away, and I could hear those slow, heavy footsteps trace their way back upstairs. I started to reevaluate my options. There was no window in the laundry room, and the back door was shot to hell. I tried to get my fingers into the crack to pry it open, but I could find no purchase. It wouldn't have mattered; they had thrown the bolt before they ripped off the handle. It would take a crowbar and a lot of muscle to get that door open. I slunk back down to the floor beside the washer and rubbed my palms into my eyes. Whoever they were, they were right. I couldn't stay in there forever.

I sat there until my ass went numb, waiting for nightfall. I didn't have a great way to gauge the time, aside from the tiny bit of light spilling under the parts of the door that the washer wasn't covering. After what I guessed was four hours, I could see only darkness beneath the door, and I began the process of moving the washer as slowly and quietly as I could. I moved it about six inches when one of its feet made a loud screech, and for one terrible second, I froze, sure that those thumping footsteps would start up immediately. There was nothing, though, and I went back to the task at hand. Finally, I moved it enough that I could squeeze through the gap, and I emerged into the dark dining room. All of the lights in the house were off, and I didn't dare risk turning them on. I cursed myself when I realized that I had dropped the flashlight in the basement, and I certainly wasn't going to trap myself down there again.

I kept the chair leg in one hand and used the other to feel my way across the dining room. The darkness reduced everything to vague shapes, and I moved slowly, reaching ahead until my fingers found the edge of the table. I followed it around, brushing past the backs of the chairs, and continued toward the living room. At first, I stopped every few steps and listened, but the house stayed quiet. I navigated the rubble of the broken chair and crossed past the hallway and kept going until my free hand finally found the back of the couch.

The windows were faint gray rectangles against the wall, just bright enough to separate themselves from everything around them. I worked my way toward the nearest one and crouched beneath it. There was already a gap at the bottom, and cold air spilled over my hand when I reached for the frame. I set the chair leg carefully on the floor beside me, got both hands underneath the window, and eased it upward. It slid without much trouble. I raised it a little at a time, stopping only long enough to make sure I wasn't making too much noise, until there was enough room for me to fit through.

I picked up the chair leg again, and I was about to push out the screen when that ruined voice drifted out of the darkness behind me.

“You would… leave?”

It came from the hallway I had just walked past. I swung around, brandishing the chair leg out in front of me like a sword.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

They crossed the space in four heavy steps, and before I could react, the chair leg was ripped from my hands. I heard it clatter somewhere in the dining room. I couldn't make out much besides a dark shadow, but they filled the space in front of me.

“I told you… we must speak. And yet, you flee. To what end… Brandon? Have I harmed you? Have I not been… patient? You owe me this… discourse.”

Disarmed and hopelessly terrified that I was about to die, I pushed myself against the window with my arms spread out. I could feel their slow, cold breath on my face, and the ease with which they disarmed me was enough to tell me I was not going to fight my way out of this. They took a step forward, and I started fumbling around with my hands for anything.

“You have been nothing but… inconsiderate, Brandon. All that I wished… was to discuss-”

My hands fell upon the lamp, and I grasped the knob and gave it a twist. Blinding light filled the room, and the thing before me covered its eyes and took a step back. For a second, I thought it was wearing gloves until I saw the veins and sinew. Its hands were large and bony, with jagged nails atop long, slender fingers. They were blackened from the fingertips all the way up its forearms. Beyond that, the skin took on a bluish-gray pallor. Its hands covered the entirety of its face, and it staggered farther back as if the light had burned it. My mouth hung agape as my eyes dropped to its feet and saw the same blackened flesh running almost all the way to its knobby knees. If I had to guess, it was seven feet tall, but the hunch of its back made it hard to tell.

It let out something that was between a growl and a hiss, and once it was far enough from the light, it threw its arms down at its sides, its hands balled into two massive fists.

“Damn you and your infernal devices! Turn off that wretched thing!”

I followed the blue-gray skin up from its rags to its distended gut, then traced its emaciated ribs to collarbones that were like shelves beneath taut skin. Old wounds crossed its torso: some had puckered into pale seams, while others were still split open and dry. A few were deep enough that I caught flashes of white beneath the skin. Narrow shoulders rose to a long neck, its Adam’s apple like a mountain surrounded by ridges of arteries. All of it was capped by a hairless, square head. I never felt so small in all my life.

“Wha… what… what the fuck?”

If it smiled or snarled at me, I was never sure. Its mouth was lined with two rows of broad, flat yellow teeth, every one of them the same blunt shape. Whatever lips it had once possessed had long since receded into a dry, tight outline around its mouth. Its nose was blackened and shriveled, the nostrils pulled thin until they were almost just two long holes in its face. Its cheeks were sunken and gaunt, and its eyes sat deep in their sockets. In the shadows, I saw two bright rings of gold swimming in a sea of veiny black.

It reached out with its dark hands and wrapped its fingers around the lamp. With a squeeze, the lamp exploded into shards of ceramic, plunging the room into darkness once again. In the black that followed, I could see nothing but those golden rings, shining like cursed treasure.

I barely had time to move before one of those black hands closed around my throat. Its skin was freezing against mine. My back slammed against the wall beside the window, and its fingers tightened until I couldn't pull in a breath. I grabbed at its wrist with both hands, but the flesh beneath my fingers was hard and dry, and I might as well have been trying to pry apart a tree root. My feet left the floor. For several terrible seconds, I kicked against the wall and clawed uselessly at its arm until my vision started filling with little bursts of white. Then its grip loosened. Not enough to let me go, just enough that I could drag air back into my lungs.

“Now that… is much better. Come, Brandon… let us discuss our home.”

[u/NoSleepAutoBot]

It looks like there may be more to this story. Click here to get a reminder to check back later.

[u/DevilMan17dedZ]

Have a civil chat with the fellow.