chills #1 between the ages of 2 and 5 my family livedin a house that a family friend was renting out. it was a nice house; three bedrooms, two bathroomsand a big kitchen. the whole package deal for only $250 a month-and that included the utilities. we were told when we moved in that there wereonly two floors. the ground floor and the upstairs floor wherethe bedrooms were. i remember when we first moved in and i wasexploring the backyard i had seen a window down at the very bottom of the house.
for some reason it had unnerved me so badlyi immediately burst into tears. since my parents couldn't get me to explainwhat had spooked me, they simply took me inside to calm down. this window was a source of fear and uneasefor me until we moved out when i was 5. my parents assumed that i would grow out ofit; and i did, but not until we moved out. i could never place why it creeped me outso badly but i avoided that part of the yard like the plague. my most vivid memory of my childhood happenedin this house. i had been asleep in bed one night when astrange thump from downstairs woke me up.
i've always been a light sleeper but i fellback asleep too quickly for the thud to really make any difference. i woke up again to a heavy, awkward breathingin my ear and someone kneeling next to my bed. when i opened my eyes, i saw the pale, thinface of a man peering back at me. i screamed, he booked it, and my parents brushedit off as a nightmare, but let me sleep in their room for the rest of the night. a week later my 13 year old sister woke everyonein the house by screaming at the top of her lungs.
she claimed that she woke up to a man matchingthe one i had seen crawling into her bed. she described his breathing exactly as i rememberedit, causing me to burst into tears. my parents we not pleased. my sister and i slept in their room. food disappeared really quickly. mom always just said that it was having twogrowing children and my dad in the house. sometimes things would be moved from wherewe left them the night before, but that was also brushed off. my sister assumed the house was haunted.
my parents assumed she was just being paranoid. for the next couple of years this continuedon. food disappeared, things were moved, and weoccasionally had 'nightmares' about the same strange man. when we tried to convince our parents thatwe weren't just dreaming they brushed us off and insisted we were. this obviously caused a lot of tension betweenmy sister and my parents. the night of my sister's 16th birthday camethe encounter that brought about the end of our stay there.
my sister woke us again screaming at the topof her lungs but it cut out too quickly to be normal. my parents, concerned, went to check on mysister and found a strange man in dirty clothing pinning her down and covering her mouth withhis hand. a fight broke out between the man and my dadbut the man was nearly 72 and weak from starvation. it didn't last long and soon enough the manwas subdued and the cops were called. my mom kept my sister and i in the livingroom while the cops checked the rest of the house for more people and signs of the manbreaking in. instead, they found a door leading into anunfinished basement.
when closed, it blended in with the wall enoughthat unless you knew it was there you would never see it. we had never even noticed it, and apparentlythe family friend who owned the house hadn't even known about it. the one little room was full of pictures ofmy sister and i in the yard, taken from that basement window. the reason i had always been so frightenedof that window came to light. the man had been taking photos of my sisterand i for years. that first day i must have seen a flash ofsome kind, or maybe the man himself.
the man was mentally unstable and claimedthat he was 'in love' with my sister and that i was their 'perfect daughter'. he also claimed that since my sister was now16 that she was old enough to give him another child. i'm not certain what happened but i do thinkthat he was sent to an asylum instead of prison. out of the many *ed up things to happen tome over my life, this one still takes the cake. i hoped you enjoyed the first story. if you’re feeling generous, please leavea like as it really helps out.
if you wanna see more videos like this inthe future, then subscribe because i upload a new scary story video each week. let’s get back to the stories. #2 i am alone. i’m sat in a hotel room in a town i don'trecognise. i’m done running. you can’t outrun a shadow. “never be aloneâ€i wish i’d read those words earlier. it’s too late now, they’ve latched ontome.
the whispers are getting louder. all i have left is my story, and my grandfather’sfinal warning. i discovered his body first. i can still remember the putrid smell emanatingfrom behind the basement door, the terror slowly trickling into my veins as i descendedinto the darkness. my parents were still tirelessly searchingupstairs, but i didn’t have the heart to call out to them. i knew what was down there. when the light flickered on my blood turnedto ice.
at first i could only see his feet, hoveringmotionlessly above a toppled chair. as i traced my eyes upwards i saw everythingat once. mangled skin trapped in a scraggly noose,a murky shadow cast by the dangling light, the pale look of revulsion still etched ontohis face. i wanted to scream, to run, to do anythingother than stay, but i couldn’t. time froze me to the spot, and i watched inhorror. it was our fault. no one said it, but it’s what they wereall thinking. hidden behind the meaningless platitudes wereceived from what distant friends my grandfather
had left was air of anger and disappointment. you see, my grandfather was not a good man. he wasn’t callous or cruel, but bitter anddifficult to handle. he hadn’t always been like that, but afterthe death of his wife long before i was born he deteriorated quickly into the man i knew. my mom claims that he blamed himself for hiswife’s death; she’d deteriorated into depression after accidently running over ayoung boy in the road. her heart attack could never be explainedby doctors – her life simply ended, and it drove my grandfather to become the personi knew.
by the time i began to form cogent memoriesof him, he was already at his worst. combative, impatient, even deceitful on occasion;he was not a pleasant person to be around. i was a challenging child and he never fullylearned how to cope with me. my earliest memories of him mostly involvehis seemingly endless tirades that followed whenever i upset him, which was a lot. he remained the same as i grew older, andeventually i reached the age where my mother felt under no obligation to force me to seehim anymore. she gave me the choice, and i chose to ignorehim. it sounds harsh, even cruel, but he nevermade the effort to reach out to me.
in the last six years, i’ve only spokento him once. it was in april this year – a quiet, unremarkablemorning as far as i remember it. the phone call only lasted a minute; i wasn’twilling to give him the time to explain why he’d treated me like dirt when i was younger. i don’t remember it word for word, but hesounded apologetic, and as if he were crying behind the outward coldness he always displayed. he pleaded with me to visit him, but somethingabout it just felt off. it was as if he was begging, and not in thesense that he was desperate to reconcile our differences.
i remember telling him that he would haveto make amends with my parents before i could even consider seeing him and then hangingup abruptly. i never received another call. he never rang my parents either, perhaps simplyout of fear for their response, or he just assumed they wouldn’t listen. it wasn’t until late july that we discoveredhis body. we’d received a phone call from a neighbourof his that we had remained friends with, warning us that he had not been seen exitingthe house in over three weeks, and that his usually well-kept garden had become unusuallyunkempt.
my mom reluctantly decided to visit him, justto ensure he was alive. she hasn’t been the same since. none of us have. a shadow has loomed over our family for thelast six months. my dad resurrected his old drinking habits,and my mom has sunk into depression. at first i thought it was just the grief andguilt overwhelming them, but now i think it’s something more. it happened to me as well. it started with needless arguments i wouldhave with my boyfriend that eventually drove
us to break up. i was so upset that i isolated myself frommy friends, finding no comfort in any form of social contact. it took a month of this solitude for me torealise that something was off. i’ve always been a sprightly person, feelingan endless and unfulfillable need to be productive in every second i spend awake. recently i’ve felt that even leaving myapartment is too much to handle. i’ve lost my job, my friends, i haven’tspoken to my parents in weeks, but i’ve got a feeling that they’re in the exactsame position i am.
it’s like there’s something weighing medown; something keeping me alone. curiosity got the better of me. i needed to know why my grandfather killedhimself. i thought that maybe if i discovered the reasoni might be able to move on. so i returned to the house. despite his seeming lack of interest in mylife, he’d left it to me in his will. i began searching everywhere. the police had already looked around, butit’s unlikely that they looked extensively. given the nature of his death, they didn’thave much doubt that it was suicide.
i found the letter in the room i used to stayin as a child. i don’t have much time now, the whispersare starting to make sense. i’ll transcribe the letter as quickly asi can. dearest anna,though it pains me that my last words to you must be written, i no longer have the timeto convince you to speak with me. i have alienated everyone i know, and in doingso a shadow has grown upon my heart. i am being followed. every moment of my life is now consumed withfear. they are everywhere, anna, and they do notstop.
it’s the curse of our family. your grandmother was consumed by it – sheeven told me and i didn’t believe her. i caused her death, and i have lived withmy mistake for the last 20 years of my life. now i must warn you, for i fear you may fallunder the same curse. it starts with the whispers. they are too quiet to hear at first, but theysoon start to make sense. then come the shadows. the darkness of my house has grown. even during the day, when light shines throughthe windows, the room is still dark.
you can’t escape them, no matter how faryou go. i tried to run, but the shadows followed me. no one else can see them, only me. no one will believe me, nor will they youshould they latch onto you. the only thing that stops them is others. surround yourself with others, anna. it keeps the shadows at bay. they like loneliness. that’s how they got my andrea.
i left her alone too often. for me it is now too late. i can only just summon the motivation to writeyou this letter. the whispers make sense now. the shadows are moving in. i will not let them take me, not like theytook my andrea. give my love to my daughter and my son-in-law. i hope they can forgive me. never be alone, anna.
never be alone. i don’t have much time. the whispers. they’re starting to make sense. i don’t think i can kill myself. i’m not brave enough. they’re getting louder. i can hear them behind me. the room is too dark.
why are they repeating the same word? they’re wrong. i didn’t let him die. i’m not a murderer. #3 had a weird experience at work today andi’d rather nobody make any type of connections when reading this. a little backstory: i work at a smallish insurancecompany (been there for a few years now) that is one half of a single story building (weshare the other half with a mom and pop clothing store.)
my salary is entirely commission based soi’m usually at the office working overtime, sometimes not getting out until 10 or 11 atnight. the long hours stink, but i make decent enoughmoney, so i don’t mind it too much. i say this because last night was anotherlate night. everyone had already left by around 8, leavingjust me and my close friend left. my friend and i started working here the sameday and instantly hit it off – we kind of stuck together ever since. it makes the nights go by faster, so we tryand coordinate our overtime hours so at least we have some company.
around 10:30 we started packing up our thingsto leave, maybe head to the bar and get a beer and a bite to eat. on our way out the door we heard a loud buzzingnoise, almost like a ringing alarm, coming from the building’s basement. three years of working in this building andthe two of us have never heard that sound before. it was a continuous, ringing buzz – no pausesor stops. it almost sounded like a mechanical failurewarning that you hear it big warehouses or something.
really eerie sound. since my friend and i were the only two leftin the building, we went downstairs just to check it out. we’ve both been in the basement a few timesbefore, despite anyone hardly using it. it’s your typical large, unfinished basementwith a bunch of old computers, desks, chairs, and filing cabinets all over the place. the company pretty much uses it as storage,but all the electrical/air condition units are down here, so maintenance guys are usuallythe only people that come down here. when we first heard the buzzing, that’sexactly what we thought – the ac unit had
broken down or failed. it’s been a hot summer and the two of uspreferred not to come in on monday with no ac. not that we would have fixed it ourselves,but it’d be good to call in the problem early the next day just to be safe. we got down the basement and the buzzing noisewas louder than ever. we headed to the back corner where the acunit was. seemed to be fine, but we soon realized thebuzzing noise was not coming from the unit. we walked around a bit more trying to pinpoint the location of the sound.
it was super weird because at times it soundedlike it was coming from inside the walls. we kept walking around but just couldn’tlocate it. eventually we made our way down a darker partof the basement where a bunch of old shelves and boxes are stored. it was an area of the basement i’ve neverbeen to, but it seemed like the sound was originating somewhere behind a mountain ofboxes. we kept making our way back into the basement,moving a few boxes and shelves out of the way to make a path for us until we reacheda dead end. at this point we both had our phones out touse as flashlights since it was so dark in
this corner. like i said earlier, the basement is unfinishedand hardly used, so none of the hanging bulbs in this corner were working. but we had located the source of the buzzing. wherever it was coming from, it was in thisback hallway. we kept pressing our ears to walls becauseagain, the buzzing sound seemed to be coming from inside of them. my buddy then decided to move out some ofthe boxes and shelves against the far wall, to see if there was anything behind them.
after shifting all the stuff out of the wayand sliding the metal shelves aside, we shined our phones at the far wall and were dumbstruckat what we saw. the buzzing noise was coming from a dumbwaiter. the door to the dumbwaiter was shut, but therewas no denying what it was. next to the closed metal door was a panelwith an up arrow and a down arrow. the lights for the buttons weren’t lit oranything, so we assumed it wasn’t functioning. it didn’t strike us a strange at first,because you know, it’s just a dumb waiter. but then we realized that there wasn’t areceiving door upstairs. nowhere in our office upstairs was a storagecloset or room that would house it.
this thing didn’t go upstairs at all. so that’s what started to intrigue us. the thing about the elevator was that it hada down arrow. we were in the basement. the bottom floor and already underground. where the hell did this thing go? we were about to go back upstairs when myfriend hit the “up†arrow. the buzzing stopped immediately. there was complete silence.
he tried pressing it again, but nothing happened. then he pressed the down arrow. we heard a mechanical whirring a few feetabove us and then a quiet rumbling from deep within the walls. it sounded like the elevator was moving downwards. after about 10 seconds, the rumbling stopped. we heard a muffled clang deep below our feet,which was probably the sound of the elevator reaching its destination. next we pried open the safety doors of theelevator.
sure enough, there was nothing but concretelooking up the shaft. looking down the shaft was a thin cable cordthat led straight into darkness. we shut the bay doors and made our way backupstairs from the basement without saying a word to each other. guys - there is something below my office. and we have no idea how to get there. i won’t be back into the office until monday(took today off), but my friend and i decided to stick my iphone into the elevator, starta video, send it down, and see what it records. i’ll keep you updated.
#4 when aunt norma asked me to house sit,i was hesitant. she lived in a large, old victorian set outin the woods, the kind of place that gave me the chills just driving by. the thought of being alone inside of it, surroundedby her antiques and hunting trophies, had beads of nervous sweat breaking out acrossmy forehead. when i told dad that i was thinking of sayingno, that i was uncomfortable, he scoffed at me. "don't be ridiculous, your aunt is relyingon you; she hasn't had a vacation in years! you're going."
he was a big proponent of the picking-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrapstheory, believing that if you just sucked it up and forged ahead, you'd get throughanything. it didn't matter that i had been diagnosedwith anxiety and was prone to panic attacks and that going to house was dangerously closeto triggering both. in his professional dad opinion, i was justbeing a big baby and it was time grow up. "i really don't want to do this." i said pleadingly, "what about marco or anna?" "what about them? you should be flattered that norma asked you.
it's a big house, lots of expensive thingsin it, and she trusts you to look after it while she's away, not marco or anna." "mom, please!" i tried to appeal to her protective maternalinstinct, but she frowned. "i'm sorry, cassie, but i think your dad'sright. you need to get out of your comfort zone alittle. this will be good for you." i could feel the tears of frustration startingto well despite my best effort to keep them in check and dad sighed, disappointed, "you'retoo old for this behavior, cassandra.
your aunt's only going to be gone for a fewdays. go pack, we're leaving in an hour." the drive over was quiet and tense. i knew dad was annoyed and that just mademe feel worse, more broken. i wished so badly that i could be the childhe wanted me to be, that i could be normal and he could be proud of me. instead, i sat in the backseat, hugging myovernight bag and trying desperately to ignore the churning in gut. dad kept his eyes fixed stonily on the roadahead.
aunt norma's driveway was a long and windingslope up a small hill. we rounded the curve to the house and i shrankin my seat at the sight of its uneven roofline rising in the distance. it was a three story monster of deep green,scalloped shingles, rusty red trim, and large windows, dark against the overcast day. ever since i was a kid and my brother, marco,had locked me in the tower room at the top of the house, i'd hated it. the memories of how helpless and trapped i'dfelt had clung to me, making the crowded rooms seem cramped and filled them with shadowsthat the too-dim lighting never seemed to
touch. i'd never been alone in it before and thethought of having to be now sent tiny needles of fear prickling up my arms. "come on, cassie." mom said with her best smile, the kind shereserved for times when she needed to convince the kids everything was okay, "norma leftyesterday, so you'll have the whole place to yourself." "can you stay with me?" i asked her and, even with my anxiety washingover me in waves, i was ashamed.
the look dad gave made me want to shrivelup and disappear beneath the car seat. "it'll be fine, sweetheart. you're gonna have a great time! you know norma keeps the best food in thehouse and she has that huge tv with all the channels!" "she's 18, not 8, donna." dad grumbled and he pulled my bag from myarms, "you've been here a thousand times, now knock it off and get out of the car." hurt and embarrassed, i hung my head and shuffledout after them.
mom hugged me to her side sympathetically,but i knew that her patience was also thinning and part of her believed that dad was right. i wanted to apologize and tell them i'd getbetter, that i could just get over it, but i couldn't force any words past the lump inmy throat. their goodbye was brief and barely saw meover the threshold. i stood in the doorway and watched their cardisappear back down the drive. i stayed there for a long while after they'dgone, my breath shaky, feeling small and alone in the mouth of a cavernous beast. i could only bring myself to enter fully andshut the door behind me after the rain started
to fall. aunt norma was something of an eccentric womanand it was reflected in her home. instead of family portraits, she had taxidermiedcreatures displayed prominently along her walls. some she'd killed herself during hunting trips,others she'd just seen and liked enough to purchase. her favorite, a snowy owl fixed in permanentflight over the door to her living room, stared balefully down at me. i tried to distract myself by setting up campin front of her large television, which stood
in stark contrast to the rest of the room. the sleek black flatscreen and its dvd filledentertainment center dwarfed the stiff, overstuffed furniture that looked like they could havebeen house originals from the early 20th century; an odd combination that spoke of norma's lovefor antiques, but also for high definition. it worked, for a while; i was able to relaxjust slightly with the noise of a movie filling up the quiet. i still checked constantly over my shoulder,felt the occasional rush of butterflies if i thought i heard anything unusual, but iemployed the breathing techniques my therapist had taught me and i stayed rooted on the couch.
i liked to think dad might even have beenproud of me, had he seen how hard i was trying. but the day was waning and whatever weak lightthat had been coming through the clouds outside was swallowed by darkness. aside from the living room, the house hadturned pitch black. and then my stomach rumbled. i wanted to ignore my hunger and i might havebeen able to if i'd eaten anything else that day. nerves had kept my appetite firmly suppressed,but the moment they relented even a little, it groaned and gurgled back into life untilall i could think about was food.
food and the fact that the kitchen was downa long, narrow hallway now shrouded in shadow. i hovered in the living room's entryway, myfingers scratching nervously along my forearm, an anxious habit i hadn't broken yet. "maybe two dozen steps." i said aloud, trying to reassure myself thatthe journey to the kitchen wasn't a journey at all. it was just a short walk. with my phone gripped tightly in my hands,it's screen pointed outwards to illuminate the hall, i managed to take a single stepforward.
when the floorboard beneath me squeaked inprotest, i had to fight back the urge to go running back to the couch. "i can do this. i can do this." i shut my eyes, pictured the hallway as brightlylit, and charged. i slid into the kitchen and caught myselfon the doorframe, laughing, proud. i'd done it! with the light switched on in the kitchen,i allowed myself to feel a sense of triumph. i realized it was silly, but i didn't care.
dr. jones always said to celebrate the victories,no matter how small, so i shimmied my way to the fridge for some dinner. "cassiiiieee." i froze and it was like ice had poured downmy spine. i argued with myself, one half of my braintrying to convince the other that it was all in my head, that i hadn't just heard my name. "cassiiiiiiieeeeee." but there it was again. i was certain that time.
slowly, i turned my head towards the basementdoor. i'd been so busy dancing around that i hadn'tnoticed it was slightly ajar. from somewhere down below, in the thick blanketof shadows, a thin, reedy voice, was whispering my name. "cassandra!" i screamed and threw myself at the door, slammingit shut with my whole body and turning the deadbolt into place. no sooner had i managed to get it closed thansomething thudded against the steps on the other side.
i screamed again and tore out of the kitchen,back to the living room, where i immediately called my mom. "deep breaths." my mom said soothingly. i had never been so happy to hear her. "somethings in the house with me, mom! please, come get me!" i heard my dad in the background, "is thatcassie? oh no.
give me that." there was a shuffling sound and then dad'svoice, "what's going on?" "something's here! please let me come home!" "you need to get a hold of yourself. these outbursts, you're too old for them! it's time to realize it's your over activeimagination and you're fine." he didn't sound angry, just tired, and i couldn'thold back the sob that had bubbled in my chest, "cassie, i love you, but this is good foryou.
you'll see." and then he hung up. i curled up on the floor beside the couch,my knees hugged to my chest, and i cried. any sense of accomplishment had vanished,replaced wholly by an aching, hollow aloneness. except i wasn't alone. i looked back down the hall the kitchen andi shuddered. i didn't want to leave the living room withall of its light and noise from the tv, but my bladder betrayed me. i waited until i couldn't stand it any moreand then a bit longer still.
when the threat of it reliving itself withor without my consent became all too real, i was forced from my nest on the floor. i didn't have time to hesitate despite theknots in my stomach pulling tighter and tighter. the bathroom was down the hall, halfway betweenthe kitchen and living room, and i waddled as fast as i could to it, all of my senseson high alert. i didn't hear the crying until after i hadfinished and was in the hall again. it was soft and plaintive and coming up fromthe basement. i held my breath, terrified and shiveringin the dark hall, torn between bolting and being stuck in place.
every so often, between the distant sobs andmuffled by the locked door, i'd hear my name. "cassiiiiieeee." it sounded so pained and needy, which onlymade it more terrifying, and when i was finally able to rip myself away, i was only too happyto drown it out by turning the tv up. sleep didn't come that night. every sound, every shadow out of the cornerof my eye, was the thing in the basement coming for me. i was cocooned in blankets on the sofa, myphone clutched in one hand and the fire poker from the hearth beside me, and i was shakingand crying quietly, praying for daylight.
the knocking started just after midnight. a series of dull, irregular thuds from thebasement. thud. it echoed throughout the house, and each onesent a new jolt of terrified electricity shooting through me. i buried my head in the blankets and had tofight not to call my parents; dad would just get angry. enduring it was torturous and, finally, exhaustedand too frightened to think coherently, i ran from the living room and up the stepsto the closest guest room, where i could close
and lock myself in. i sat in the giant bed, rigid and tense, earsstrained, like a rodent aware it's being stalked, and i listened. i was relieved when i realized i couldn'thear anything from downstairs, but that didn't mean i could relax. the night dragged endlessly on and it wasonly once the gray pre-light of dawn started to push back the darkness that i got any sleep. ravenous hunger woke me only hours later andi had to make the trip to the kitchen. i kept the fire poker with me and did a thoroughvisual sweep as i entered.
my heart beat hard and fast against my ribsand i was ready to turn tail and flee at a moment's notice. the basement door was still shut, still locked,and everything was just as i had left it. i was only in there long enough to make acouple quick, sloppy pb&js and wolf them down with a glass of milk before i went outside. it was a brilliant, sunny morning and i neededto get out of the house. if it had felt cramped before, it was claustrophobicnow. i breathed deeply, repeating to myself thatall was well and i was ok, and i walked along the cobblestone path leading around the sideof the house.
norma let her large yard run wild, sayingshe loved the freedom it represented. because of this, the grass grew tall, weedswere as plentiful as flowers, and the trees stretched wide and open in every direction. i would have missed the basement window, setlow to the ground and half concealed behind an overgrown bush, except for the sun glintingoff of it. i paused and scratched my arm, strugglinginternally. i wanted to look. i didn't want to look. i did.
i didn't. i needed to know. i was scared. but the window allowed me to peek in withoutactually going into the basement and, eventually, i crouched beside it. the glass was dirty on both sides and i hadto wipe away a layer of grime before i could even begin to see inside. it was dark, all i could make out was a massof shapes, all of norma's things that didn't fit in the attic.
i didn't see anything moving, didn't hearanything, and after a moment, i stood up again. "maybe dad was right." i said doubtfully. i turned away with a shake of my head and,behind me, something rattled the window's glass from the inside. it took some convincing and some crying andsome screaming, but my parents showed up a half hour later. dad marched past me, straight into the house,and i followed on his heels. "please, dad, don't go down there!"
i begged. "no! it's nothing, you've let your damn imaginationget the best of you and i'm going to show you!" i grabbed at his wrist, but he shook me offroughly. mom took my hand and tugged me gently backto her, but i was hyperventilating, the room was spinning, and i pulled away to staggerinto the kitchen. "dad!" i had to hold the fridge handle to stay onmy feet, "please!"
but he opened the door and he went down, neveronce looking back. "jesus christ!" mom flew past me at the sound of dad shoutingand she called down to him, "tony?!" "jesus christ, oh god!" he was still shouting. there was loud scraping, it sounded like metal,banging, and my dad yelling for us. i managed to get across the kitchen and, withsmall, trembling steps, i followed mom into the basement. dad was hunched over with his back to us,mumbling rapidly.
even mom paused on the final stair, her posturetense. "tony?" he turned to us and his face was a white maskof horror. i'd never seen my father so shaken and itwas almost enough to send me reeling backwards. "donna, help me!" "what is it? what's wrong?" he moved aside and mom and i gasped. aunt norma was facedown on the basement floor,pinned beneath a heavy set of steel shelves
and everything that had been on them. old books, sporting equipment, and variousodds and ends had spilled out around her. beneath the dark hair that had fallen acrossher face, her skin was shockingly white. i could have sworn i saw flecks of red aroundher mouth. was she breathing? i couldn't tell. i felt sick, awash with dizziness, and i lookedaway, unable to stomach the sight. with my eyes turned to the floor, i becameaware of about a dozen balls, golf and tennis, scattered around the bottom of the stairwell.
with a slow, sinking, i pushed myself up andwalked mechanically to the basement window. another few balls were lying beneath it. "oh...oh no..." i breathed, realization setting in like asharp blade. norma had never made it to her vacation. she must have come down to the basement toget something, had tried to pull something down and the whole shelf had come with it. that was why the door had been open. the voice, thin and pained, had been her's,calling to me.
it was her that i'd heard crying in the night. she must have been throwing the balls thathad fallen around her at the stairs and then at the window, trying to get my attention. and i'd ignored it. i'd been so scared, so wrapped up in my ownhead, that i'd not even checked. while mom and dad scrambled to get norma,who had yet to move or speak, out from under the shelf, i sank to the floor, my hands coveringmy face, and i let the guilt dissolve me into tears. #5 this is the scariest story i've ever foundmyself a part of, and one that i like to tell
people i meet at bars. most of them laugh and don't believe me, othersare very intrigued and ask for every minute detail. but i'm telling you now that it's true, andmy roommates can attest to it. for a brief few years, i went to college inone of the biggest, if not the biggest city in kentucky. in-between the university and the hustle-and-bustledowntown area was what we called "old louisville". old louisville was composed of a mish-mashof beautifully decorated and completely unkempt historic homes with building dates rangingfrom the late 1800's and on.
many of the owners did a piss-poor job ofremodeling the mansions so they were split in to apartments of sorts. and in one of these mansions-converted-apartmentsis where my story begins. i lived with two females and one male in a3 bedroom, 2 story mansion. i shared a room with the male who, for thesake of anonymity, we'll call q. the place was dirty, but you absolutely couldn't beatthe price - $200/person including utilities and it was about a mile or so walk to campus. the apartment must have been over 2,500 sqft- we had the biggest "apartment" in the house. there was a vacant apartment on the 3rd floorabove us, and an apartment beside us on the
1st floor. i cannot preface this enough to you that theplace was gigantic. when you first walk in through our enormousfront door, you're greeted by two giant staircases with old wooden banisters that led to theupstairs bedrooms and kitchen. one of the staircases led up to the vacantapartment above us, but it was sealed from the inside. on part of the landing of one staircase weeven had a stained glass window. this made more sense to me when i finallymoved in, because there were built-in pews on the first floor where our designated livingroom was.
i'm guessing it served as a church at onepoint, which now that i think about it, makes everything a tad more creepy. i'm probably not describing the layout ofthis place the best, but it doesn't really matter; the only relevant piece of informationabout the layout that pertains to this story is the staircase that led to our basement. when we first did a walkthrough with our landlord,we noticed that the staircase not only went up to our bedrooms, but sunk in to what weimagined was a basement. at the time, we didn't care to explore it,because there wasn't a light that illuminated the dark passageway, and the stairs were fullof paint cans and other miscellaneous home-improvement
type do-dads. we figured he would move all his stuff whenwe got the keys, but after living there for a month, he never came for his possessionsand we all forgot it even existed. until one night we got drunk and played hiden' seek. i should make note that q, one of the girls,and i all worked the same graveyard shift at the same warehouse in louisville. if you're from the area, you know the warehousei'm talking about because nearly 80% of it's employees are university students. but that's not the point.
the point is that we came home late everynight - usually around 4 or 5 in the morning. during the week when we worked, our 4th roommatetold us she never felt safe alone in that big of a house, so she practically lived withher boyfriend. this means that between the hours of 12 and5, nobody was in our apartment during the week. or so i thought. a few weeks in to living at our new home,things in our apartment started to vanish. not normal things though, like socks or clothesor food. our cleaning supplies would go missing.
our bowls, spoons, and even entire brand newbags of unopened toilet paper rolls would simply disappear. we didn't know what to make of it. we laughed about it at first, but after thethird week or so, it turned in to more of a nervous laughter, and i would say our friendsfound us to be a little more paranoid and uneasy when they came to visit us on the weekends. things just didn't feel right in our own home. i can't explain it. the best i can put the feeling in to wordsis that when you're asleep, you have this
unconscious feeling, even in your dreams,that someone is walking around in your home. someone that you didn't invite. so one weekend we invite a decent amount ofpeople to our house for a party. by midnight, everyone was properly drunk,and i, in my infinite wisdom, decided it would be a fantastic idea to play hide n' seek. everyone happily obliged, and one of our buddiesvolunteered to be the seeker. i rushed around the bedrooms and hallwaysturning off every light i could find, and then repeated the motions on our first floor. i had turned every light off in our home wheni turned and realized there was still a light
shining in the back staircase - the one thatled to our basement. by this point i was creeped the * out, soi yelled for q to grab his gun and come check out the staircase with me. in hindsight, having a drunken college kidwield a pistol in a house full of people where ghosts may be likely is an incredibly stupididea. but we didn't care. the liquid courage gave me the balls to acttough, and i was going to settle this shit once and for all with q. i was tired of livingafraid in my own house. so we patter down the dusty staircase, makingsure to hit every single spider web in our
way, and notice the light is indeed comingfrom the basement, but a screen door was blocking us from entering. it looked like our landlord had used a calkgun to seal off the doorway, so with the only the slightest bit of force, we were able toopen the shanty screen. at this point i let q take the lead, because,you know, he had a gun. the rest of our party had gone silent andis made a single-file line behind the two of us. q stealthily leads us down maybe 7 or 8 flightsof steps, and then the basement opens up in to a huge space.
off to the left, a brightly shining lamp,absent of it's lampshade, sat on a busted end table next to a discolored mattress coveredwith a handful of disgusting comforters. in complete awe at what we had stumbled upon,q wasn't paying attention and tripped over a box, spilling it's contents. hundreds of broken and used needles gushedout on to the basement floor. we all looked at each other, stunned. someone was living down here. underneath us. maybe more than one person.
then we started to notice our cleaning supplies,our dishes, our toilet paper. we spread out around the basement for thenext half hour or so, investigating every little thing we could. an old wooden-framed tv with bent antennasmade it's home on a broken tv stand. a photo album with faces of strangers smiling. a photo book of someone's memories lying inabsolute filth in the basement of a mansion. then i found something that made me pack everyoneup, leave the house, and call the police. lying underneath the end table was a relativelynew and clean looking manila folder. curious, i opened it and reviewed the freshsheets of paper inside.
they were release papers. from prison. a man's mugshot decorated the top, with thelist of charges below. assault. drug trafficking. domestic violence. he was released 2 months prior. long story short, the police came, found adoor in the basement that led to our back lot which we never used and was unlocked,and determined that was his point of entrance.
we think that while we were out of the house,he came in through the screen door and gathered supplies from our bedrooms and kitchen. i'm at work right now, but i'll post somepictures of the inside of the house when i get home. it is now abandoned. i went back to gather a few bits and piecesof things i had left in my room a week after we told the landlord that we were moving out,but when i arrived to the house when i got off work, i could see a light on in my bedroomand our front door was wide open. i decided to leave my things.
edit: just got back home from work and wasable to find a few pictures of the house. this was years ago. that picture of the door was the door thatled up to the 3rd story vacant apartment.