Something in the house

I am sure every single one of us have experienced those uncomfortable moments in life where you feel like you're being watched. It can be a disconcerting experience, often putting you on edge and results in a brief reconnaissance mission to put your mind at ease. 99.9% of the time it'll be nothing more than an echo of a primal instinct long since abandoned by our species once the need to defend ourselves from predators passed into history. But what about that other 0.01% of the time? How would you handle a situation where you thought you were safe and secure in your home only to discover that you were in fact, not alone at all!

My name is Jason and I think there is someone...or something inside my home with me.

First allow me to provide some context. I am twenty-five years old and work a full time for a large courier company as a logistical support agent. I don't come from a broken home, I was never beaten or abused as a child and I don't take drugs. On the occasional weekend I'll drink alcohol with my friends at bars and clubs. In the grand scheme of things I am fairly ordinary. Just a typical guy living an otherwise normal life. Were it not for what has been happening to me I'd go as far as to say I am entirely unremarkable.

I managed to secure a mortgage for this house a little over a year ago. I was able to provide a healthy deposit thanks to an inheritance from a frugal grandparent upon her passing. For the first six months of living here I was delighted to have taken my first step onto the property ladder. 

The building sits on the edge of an altogether English village. Think thatched roofs, well kept rose bushes and bi-annual village fetes and you won't be far off. Based on the home report I received prior securing a mortgage the house was built sometime around the mid 1920's and was owned for much of its life by a single family. Large wooden support beams stretch across many of the rooms inside and if you're over six foot in height you may find yourself having to crouch slightly to avoid them.

I won't bore you with the entire layout of the building. All you need to know for now is that there are two bedrooms upstairs, a large loft space above them and a generous garden to the rear which backs onto what seems like endless fields of green, grass broken up only by a distant woodland area some miles away. I am writing this account while things are still happening so if anything else in here becomes relevant I'll be sure and let you know.

I think that will probably do for context. Old house, English village and one very tired and anxious man.

So for the first six months everything seemed to be going great. I was working long hours to pay for the various bits and pieces every new homeowner requires. Kitchen appliances, beds, furniture to sit on, that kind of thing. Although these can be expensive I actually found it much harder to gather the small, seemingly insignificant items. My first few weeks saw me eating off of my one single plate while using plastic cutlery I had left over from a camping trip some years earlier. Week number one saw me face the harrowing challenge of not even owning a kettle which in turn meant no tea or coffee to start my days which was literally the worst! First world problems I know but a problem all the same.

Over time though I have found my footing. Twelve months later I now have most of the things needed to successfully look after myself like an actual adult. However, not everything has been so successful. I haven't even finished unpacking boxes yet and the spare second bedroom has become something of a storage space and a painful reminder that I should stop procrastinating.

When I said the first six months were going great that's not to say everything was perfect. There were instances of things being a little odd from time to time. Nothing to serious but I'll give a couple of examples. Boxes I'd emptied would appear repacked days later. I would turn off the lights before bed and awake the next morning to find them all turned back on once more. To be honest with you I put this down to my exhausted state of mind more than anything else. With the long hours at work followed by the process of settling in I figured it was just tiredness. I must have just forgot some tasks I'd carried out or got mixed up.

This went on for a while and it actually got to the point where I bought myself a white board for the kitchen. This would allow me to write down the tasks I'd accomplished each day and I could keep track of things a little easier. I was quite proud of myself for that little stroke of genius at the time.

It's really the following six months that I want to talk about though. This is where I stopped blaming my memory for these incidents and have gradually watched as my life began to unravel.

At the time of writing this we have just entered the month of December. The nights are dark and frosty now and the sun sits low in the sky during the day ensuring the temperature seldom rises into double digits. My home doesn't have a fancy modern heating system and instead relies on a large coal fire to warm the place up. I was told that it heats the pipe work throughout the building and while this is true, it only works once you've lit the damn thing. This is of itself no trivial task when your body is shivering, teeth are chattering and your warm breath literally evaporates as it meets the cold air.

I only mention the heating because as the pipes begin to heat things can get a little noisy. The first time I experienced this it gave me the fright of my life. I had been sitting watching the fire take hold, my living room bathed in an increasingly cosy orange glow when I had decided to make myself some tea. As I stood in the kitchen I heard an almighty bang from one of the bedrooms. This was not what I was expecting while sat at home by myself. Adrenaline kicked in immediately and I headed for the stairs making sure to grab a kitchen knife en-route. I remember standing at the bottom of that staircase looking up into the inky darkness. My heart beating hard as I tried my best to swallow the lump in my throat. Every step I took resulted in a loud creak on that old wooden staircase ensuring my approach was anything but stealthy.

In all honesty I don't even know how I'd have reacted had I been confronted with someone in the bedroom. I'd love to say I would have been brave. The strong man protecting his castle and all of that but in truth I was fucking terrified! Thankfully it turned out to be nothing. I didn't actually learn about the noisy pipes thing until days later when speaking to the elderly man that owned the village shop. Apparently it was a fairly common problem with these old buildings. Eventually I would get used to it I was informed as I purchased my dinner for that evening.

The thing is though, these pipes would begin to make these same noises even when the fire wasn't lit. I came home from work late one evening and before I had even opened my front door to enter I could hear that familiar crash. The house had been empty all day and the fire from the previous night had long been extinguished. What made this all the stranger was that the second I swung the door open the noise stopped entirely. I of course did the now familiar lap around the property to ensure everything was safe and secure. Sure enough all of the windows and doors were closed and locked.

This did put me on edge and would become a semi-regular occurrence. Sometimes it would happen as I was entering or leaving the property, other times it would be when I'd been home for hours. There was no pattern to it either other than that it would never occur in the room I was currently inside. If the scale of the problem had stopped there I think I could have learned to live with that. It would appear however that I am not that fortunate.

Approximately two months ago I started seeing some things that I can't explain. I'll elaborate further in a moment but I just want to remind you first that I don't take drugs and I never drink alcohol at home. My kitchen is located to the rear of the property and looks out onto a long, narrow garden. A small, waist high wire fence separates the bottom of my property line with the grassy fields beyond.

It was dusk the first time I saw something. I was standing at my back door enjoying a cigarette as the encroaching darkness began to envelope the countryside. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and the long shadows that had been present less than ten minutes before were now just a hazy shade of black. I had all of the lights turned off and was enjoying the crisp evening air between puffs as I scanned the gloom beyond. That's when I saw it, a pair of eyes staring right back at me from the bottom of the garden.

Now I live in the countryside and before anyone says it, yes there is a wide array of wildlife that we share our land with. I've seen foxes, badgers, rabbits and even the odd deer since moving in but I can categorically say that those eyes belonged to none of these animals. They were large, almost too large. They stared right back at me, unblinking, a reflective glare never shifting from the fixed point of their focus. I stood for a moment looking back, I don't even think I realised what I was seeing at first. The longer I looked at the things glare though the more uncomfortable it made me feel. Not once did it move, I couldn't even hear a sound from whatever it was. I just felt deeply unsettled by whatever was staring at me from the bottom of my garden. 

I don't know how long I stood there but this thing never took its eyes off of me for even a moment. I just remember being overcome with a desire to get away from its glare. I slowly backed into my kitchen before quickly closing and locking the door. By the time I'd done this and gone to the window the eyes were gone, retreated back into the darkness I assume. I was left with a very uncomfortable feeling for the rest of that night.

Ever since then I could swear that I've seen it inside my house. I would be in a room doing something and would detect the slightest of movement in the corner of my eye. Of course there would never be anything to see moments later when I turned to look properly. I would then explain it away as a trick of the light, maybe just a reflection bouncing off of something. There had to be a logical explanation because the alternative was far to unsettling to acknowledge.

The two bedrooms upstairs are separated by a short straight hallway. This area is met by the top of the staircase and other than the hatch for the loft is entirely empty space. I like to leave both bedroom doors open at night as this allows the heat to circulate. The reason I'm telling you this is something happened a week ago that now has me afraid to close my eyes.

I was laying in bed, my room illuminated by a small lamp as I read a book before sleep took me. The house was entirely silent and aside from the odd distant hoot of an owl or some other bird of the night everything was still and calm. It was during this silence that I heard something that had me instantly wide awake. The familiar creak my stairs would make when they were stepped on! I froze instantly, my entire body on alert.

Maybe I just imagined it?

As I held my breath I heard it once more. Something was definitely there, slowly making its way up the staircase!

I was frozen with fear. What are you meant to do in this situation? I was half naked, alone and afraid. My eyes were fixed on the hallway as i waited for...well, I don't even know what I was waiting for. I just know that I couldn't move.

Another moment passed in complete silence. I let out a short sharp breath, my fight or flight impulses locked in a stalemate with one and other.

CREAK

That familiar sound yet again! Still I sat there, bolt upright and barely breathing. A long time went by as I waited. Waited and watched as my mind raced with every worst possible scenario it could conjure up. Every horror movie, every spooky story, every true crime murder, it all flashed by at lightning speed. I must have eventually fallen asleep. Last I recall was checking the clock and it saying 1:15am

The next thing I remember was waking up, the time now displaying 3:58am. I was still sat upright and for the briefest of moments I had forgotten the events that transpired mere hours before. As the haze of sleep began to shift though it all came flooding back to me with crystal clarity.

I then did what I would always try and do. I looked for a way to make sense of things. Maybe it was just a dream brought on by the events at my back door? Yeah, that must have been what it was. Just a stupid vivid dream from an overactive imagination. As I sat there trying my best to convince myself of this I glanced out of my door and into the gloom of the spare room beyond.

Right at that very moment I knew this was no dream! Amid the murky shadows of stacked boxes there it was. Two huge, unblinking eyes staring directly at me! I won't lie, I began to weep at the sight of this. There I sat, frozen and vulnerable while quietly sobbing to myself. Eventually I managed to utter a single phrase.

"What do you want?"

The eyes remained transfixed on me but no answer came. So I just sat there, it's all I could do. It could have been five minutes or five hours, I don't even know. All I do know is that before the sun reappeared those large eyes closed and whatever had tormented me through the night was gone.

This now brings us almost up to date. It's Sunday evening now and I've barely slept since the bedroom incident. Things went somewhat quiet after that hellish night. The random noises and subtle movements in my peripheral vision were still very much there but nothing seemed to escalate. That was until around an hour ago!

As I write this I am sitting in my car across the street from my house. I'm wearing a t-shirt and some joggers, sat in the semi-darkness as frost crystals begin to form on the various trees and hedges nearby. I can see my breath and am so cold that my fingers hurt as I hit the screen of my phone to type this. Something else happened and I have reached the point where I don't think I can go back into that place.

I got home from work a couple of hours ago. All I wanted to do was have a hot bath and go to bed. Work has been difficult lately and let's just say my sleep deprived state has done nothing for my productivity. As had become a regular occurrence I opened my front door this evening to the cacophony of banging pipe work in the bedrooms and all of the downstairs lights turned on yet again. This had become almost normal for me by now and I simply went through my normal routine of going room to room turning everything off.

The banging stopped and the lights remained off so I made my way into the kitchen and turned the kettle on. I took a mug from the shelf knowing that a hot cup of tea always seems to make things seem a little easier. Milk went in first followed by two sugars and finally…

"Fuck! Do I not have any teabags left?"

Yes I really did say that out loud to myself. I desperately searched the back of the cupboard for a loose one that had hopefully escaped the bag and was in luck. My fingers came into contact with that familiar round shape as I discovered a single solitary bag. Hot water then went into the mug and as I waited for it to brew I decided to write a reminder to get more teabags on my whiteboard that was still conveniently nailed to the wall behind the kettle. At this point it was a jumble of half written reminders mixed with my various observations of my 'house guest'. I grabbed a dry cloth and wiped the whole thing clear before adding a new message to my future self.

JASON GET TEABAGS - DON'T FORGET!!!

I then made my way through to the bathroom. Plug securely in the drain I began to run a well deserved hot bath, the plan being to lay back with that cuppa as I soaked the weeks stresses away. I stood watching the water level slowly rise. It was strangely relaxing and I felt my eyes beginning to close. Before falling asleep on my feet though I went back to get that tea.

Five minutes later I was slipping into the bath, tea carefully placed nearby and within easy reach. The house was dead silent and aside from a single solitary candle flickering on the window sill it was pitch black. I genuinely felt the tension begin to fade away as I lay there.

Ten minutes or so passed and I slid down, submerging my entire head under the hot water. I would remain there beneath the surface with my eyes closed as I listened to my heart beat. The events that followed all happened fast, it couldn't have been more than two or three minutes.

As I held my breath under the water, eyes still closed tightly I suddenly became aware of something blocking the light from the candle. It was only for a brief moment but it was noticeable. The subdued orange of the flame vanished for no more than a second and although my eyes were closed I could still see the change in light around me.

I immediately sat upright, water splashing over the side of the bath. Quickly drying my face I surveyed my surroundings.  Nothing was out of place though. Everything was exactly as I had left it. I was just about to rationalise this strange event as my imagination when I heard the definite patter of feet running from one bedroom to another above me.

I jumped out of the bath and quickly dried myself off before throwing the clothes I am now wearing over my shivering body. I realise getting dried and dressed may seem unusual given the circumstances but the last thing I wanted was to confront a total stranger while I stood there, naked as the day I was born. I know it sounds silly but until you're in that situation I don't think any of us know how we would react. I ran up stairs as quickly as my legs would carry me and fully expected to find nothing at all, same as every other time.

Making my way into my bedroom first nothing appeared to be out of place. The room was exactly as I had left it that morning before I went to work. However as I turned to check the spare room I was greeted with a sign of absolute carnage. Every single box had been torn open and there were clothes scattered everywhere. I didn't even have time to react to this sight before another loud bang rang out, shattering the silence. This time it sounded like it came for the kitchen.

My heart was racing as I made my way back downstairs and ran through the house. As I flicked on the lights I was greeted with my white board laying on the floor face down. The nails I had used to attach it months before were still stuck in the wall. I'm not sure what made me do this but I just had a feeling that I needed to check what was written on the other side. I knelt down and with fingers trembling I slowly turned it over. My fears were instantly confirmed as I saw deep gouges crudely spelling something...

GET OUT

I didn't need to be told twice. I knew the house was locked up and whatever had done this was still in here with me! I jumped to my feet and ran toward the front door. As I fumbled for the keys to escape I glanced around, my gaze directed to the top of the stairs. It was then I noticed the loft hatch wide open and in the deep darkness beyond there it was again! Those wide, unblinking eyes staring back at me. They were deep and burning and I could feel the anger in its piercing gaze.

And now here I am, sat in the car alone and afraid to go back inside. I don't know what to do anymore. I just know I can't go back there, I know I'm no longer safe. It wasn't meant to be like this but my house is not my own and I know that now…

[X](https://castbox.fm/va/2767203)