before bed
The house teems with activity—shadows darting everywhere, faces peering around corners, dark shapes gathering form and detail to grasping at me as I pass by... I slide my scolecite ring onto my finger, take some mugwort, and head to bed.
hallucinations
like a bird in a frightened room
...and when I turn to go back into the dining room I see a small shadow dart from one side of the room to the other, from one side to the other. Very distinct and very dark against the afternoon light coming through the window shades, it’s wings beating rapidly as it moves from left to right. I go in to… Continue reading like a bird in a frightened room
the watcher
...and mid-way through the episode, I look up from the sofa to see a large dark figure move from where it was standing in the entryway, heading towards the front stairs and out of sight. Startled, in spite of myself, I sit for a moment staring at the empty doorframe, waiting for the motion detector on the stairs to register the… Continue reading the watcher
attention
Working early at the store, music playing overhead while I stand at the counter and tap away at my computer. Preoccupied with personal gripes and past arguments—sifting through parental and paternal confrontations long past and never happened. My mind, in short, on other things. “Hey.” A hoarse whisper, loud, from someone standing in the open space to my left. I… Continue reading attention
alarm
I hear the door opens as she enters, the floorboards creak as she approaches the bedside, feel her palms on my shoulder as she shakes me awake. “You have to wake up, you have to wake up, you have to wake up…” Insistent, urgency in her voice. I twitch, struggling against the paralytic bonds of sleep. When I open my eyes, I am alone… Continue reading alarm
doo wop
I wake, half asleep, in the downstairs guest room, fumbling for the alarm clock on the bedside table. The clock radio is warbling a doo-wop tune from the 60s, the music is tinny, fading in and out of the radio static. “Let me in...” the voice sings, mellow and soothing. “You can’t resist me... Let me in... Let me inside...”… Continue reading doo wop
hereditary
Sitting at the dinner table, my daughter suddenly turns and looks over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” She turns back around. “That was weird,” she says. “I heard someone say ‘Yeah’ behind me.” We go on with our dinner and I make a mental note to talk with my wife. We’re starting to see more activity around the house. There’s a little… Continue reading hereditary
not a cat, not a dog
This evening as I was taking my daughter upstairs to bed, she froze outside her open bedroom door. “What’s wrong?” Staring into her room, she said “I just saw a cat or a dog or something on my bed. It looked up at me and then slid under the covers.” I turned the lights on and we went in. Of… Continue reading not a cat, not a dog
rush
As I’m setting up the ironing board, something rushes towards me from the living room... low and broad and dark, like a wall of shadow. I do not flinch. It breaks around me like a wave around a rock, dissipates into streamers of fading black and gray... and then is gone.
not a bat
“She says she saw something in the back stairwell,” my wife tells me. Our daughter is eight years old and not prone to flights of fancy or making things up. Also, we have been very careful to not let her overhear any of our conversations about what is going on here at home. When I talk to my daughter, this is what… Continue reading not a bat
daylight come and me wanna go home
Sitting alone in the couch tonight, I slowly realize that I can hear someone singing. Somewhere in the house, a man is singing. It has a muted quality, as though it is coming from very far away. I stand for a moment and listen. I recognize it. The clear voice, the calypso intonation is unmistakeable. Someone is listening to Harry Belafonte,… Continue reading daylight come and me wanna go home
music again
In my office tonight, getting ready to sit down and write... I stop. Music. Unmistakeable. Somewhere, someone is playing music. The house is asleep. I’m the only one awake. Yet there it is. Unmistakeable. I go out and stand on the front porch, just in case it’s a neighbor. Nothing. Back inside, the house is quiet. I stand in my office, head cocked...… Continue reading music again
cat below
Working late, I hear one of the cats crying below in the basement. It is a faint, plaintive sound. I set aside the story I’ve been working on and get up with a sigh. Our two cats have been a considerable amount of trouble lately — skittish, fighting with each other late at night, becoming more and more territorial. Or,… Continue reading cat below
shimmer
“There was something in the back hallway,” my wife tells me over dinner. “I saw it right before we were leaving.” “What did you see?” She thinks for a moment. “It was a blur in the air, almost shimmering. Just a movement...” Gooseflesh on my arms, the back of my neck. “That’s interesting you say that.” “Why?” “Tell me what else you… Continue reading shimmer
morning visitation
...and as I open the door leading from my office to the front of the house, I see a pale shape, not much more than the impression of a white dress moving through the light coming in the windows. It flows from right to left. I stop. I blink. It is gone.
stench again
That smell again. A warm, yellow smell of rotting fish. My youngest daughter and I are in the back hallway when it drifts past. It almost seems to stop and turn back, encircling us for a moment. I look down and see that my daughter has wrinkled her nose. After a moment, the stench dissipates. I can find nothing that might’ve… Continue reading stench again
a sad girl
...lying in bed this morning, I woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening. I hear my wife slowly close the door behind her. I hear her footsteps on the floorboards, approaching my side of the bed. I cannot move, cannot open my eyes. I feel a fingertip on my arm, just inside the hinge of my elbow. The footsteps move away.… Continue reading a sad girl
doppelgänger
...and as I walk back into my office, I see — or I think I see — a man standing to one side and looking through my filing cabinet. It is me, myself. I am the one standing there, dressed in the same clothes I am wearing today. I blink. He is gone. I am gone. Unnerved, I get back to work.
the walking men
Three or four times now, while I’ve been walking in the neighborhood with my youngest daughter, I’ve seen a man wearing a long black overcoat and a fedora. Three times now. Three different men. One of them is quite young, perhaps in his early twenties, with scraggly facial hair and glasses. Another is older, around my age. And another was… Continue reading the walking men
“Hey Dad?”
Walking through the office I hear — or I think I hear — my son’s voice, very distinct and clear, call to me. I look back down the hallway but, of course, no one is there.
flake
Packing up for the day, getting ready to head for home... I reach for my cell phone and watch in amazement as a bright flake of light, a translucent chip of yellow-white light about the size of my fingernail, floats up from the screen towards my face. I blink, shake my head. It is gone.
stench
Over the holidays, there were a number of points when I noted a pungent smell in the little hallway at the back of our kitchen — a cloying stench, like rotting fish. (I do not care for this little hallway. It feels off to me, somehow. There is a mirror of it upstairs and the one gives me a vague… Continue reading stench
ragged
Sitting on the toilet in the back bathroom, I hear a sound at the door — as through someone pressed against it from the outside, maybe one of the cats? But the door has nearly an inch gap at the bottom. I can see nothing outside. A few minutes later I am jolted into a panic by the sight of something… Continue reading ragged
whisper
As I come into the front room of our house, I hear man’s voice whisper something — a single phrase, very distinct but unintelligible. Cleaning up in the back bathroom, I hear voices pitched in an argument — just a few lines back and forth — again, distinctly audible but no words can be made out.
gitchy
A strange atmosphere hanging over The Last House tonight. The sky outside is heavy with rain, but it doesn’t look like any will fall. The heat is heavy, like a hand on your chest. Inside . . . everything feels pressurized, oppressive. There are shadows moving through the rooms, vague shapes darting here and there in the periphery of my vision… Continue reading gitchy
early morning
Woken by my daughter early this morning, unable to get back to sleep so I head downstairs to sit in the predawn dark, looking up from my book from time to time as little beads of shadow stream across the floor like dark mercury. An hour or so later, I hear footfalls overhead. They move through the laundry room to… Continue reading early morning
peeking
Later... Sitting in the living room, talking with my wife while our daughter plays . . . I see someone peek around the corner of the entry leading into the dining room, a brief flash like someone pokes their head out for a quick look and then ducked back behind the wall when I looked in their direction. Still cheating… Continue reading peeking
mossy
Sitting with my youngest daughter this evening, something lingers in the corner of my eye. I have a vague impression of something olive green, mossy, no more than three feet tall. A spindly figure standing in the little hallway leading to my office. Then it’s gone.
laundry room
As I came into the laundry room this morning, a shadow moved in the dim light from right to left — coming from the hallway and passing through the closed and locked door at the top of the back stairs. The shadow was large, as wide as a refrigerator though not as tall. It has a solid mass to it,… Continue reading laundry room
lavender dress
My wife went to the market one afternoon this past weekend. The weather was warm and she was wearing a long lavender dress, very lovely. The dress has bare arms and drapes in a style reminiscent of a statue of a Greek goddess. While she was out, a flash of color caught my eye in the back hallway. I saw… Continue reading lavender dress
masks and shadows
Changing the sheet on my daughter’s crib tonight, strange flashes of faces in her room — white and black, bold stripes and contrast, large teeth and bulging eyes framed by wild hair . . . almost like the stark, menacing glee of Japanese oni masks. These flashes, somewhere between a mental image and a visualization — not quite registered by the… Continue reading masks and shadows
robotic
... a brief visual flash this morning, something white and glossy scuttling across the floor towards me . . . about as wide as the coffee table, slightly taller, ducking its head to pass beneath it . . . insectile . . . vague impression of shiny black eyes, stripes along the legs and torso . . . attention and… Continue reading robotic
early morning
Pushing through the soft fuzz of the baby monitor, my daughter’s cries jolts me awake: “Daddy, daddy, daddy...” I’m up and across the hall before I have a chance to clear the mist from my head. Standing over her crib, I pat her back and tell her it’s okay. Once she settles down I head back to bed. I make the… Continue reading early morning
doing the dishes
...and as I turn to put a glass in the cupboard I startle and flinch backwards from the dark figure standing right at my left shoulder. Vague impressions . . . someone looking into my face . . . a male presence about my height but larger, heavy-set almost . . . broad head, the bare suggestion of something there… Continue reading doing the dishes
footsteps and flashes
After dinner, my wife runs to the store. My daughter and I play in my office. The whole time, my skin is crawling. I have a sense that someone — or multiple someones — is passing through my office, moving past us unseen. The sensation is uncanny, disquieting. My daughter seems not to notice. When my wife returns, I make… Continue reading footsteps and flashes
honeysuckle
About a month ago I noticed that whenever I walked into the kitchen of our house I could smell honeysuckle. This went on for a number of days before I mentioned it to my wife. She couldn’t smell anything. Even more strange, this only happened when I walked through a particular doorway. Coming in from another entrance, there was nothing. It’s… Continue reading honeysuckle
music from an unknown room
And, again, there was music playing when I laid down to take a nap earlier today. Faintly . . . as though someone was listening to a radio in another part of the house. But, of course, no one was.
music from an unknown room
And, again, there was music playing when I laid down to take a nap earlier today. Faintly . . . as though someone was listening to a radio in another part of the house. But, of course, no one was.
again
The voices again tonight. No music this time, no men. One or two women, I can’t quite be sure. Possibly a child. I told my wife about the voices a few days ago. She could tell tonight that I was hearing them again. And, of course, she cannot. We keep a fan going at night, even in cold weather. White noise. She suggested… Continue reading again
raised voices
Two or three times now, I have found myself unable to sleep because of the voices. It sounds for all the world like two men having an argument somewhere in the house. Sometimes there are women’s voices mixed in. Sometimes there are children. I can almost just make out what they’re saying. Almost. Sometimes there’s music as well, faintly. But… Continue reading raised voices
the pedestrian
Waking up in the winterdark, I head downstairs. Cold floors and echoes of early morning dreams. I pass by the front door and see someone out on the sidewalk, a dark shape bundled up against the cold. Halfway to the kitchen, I stop. The dark shape picking its way along the crust of snow, another echo in the back of my head.… Continue reading the pedestrian
nursing home
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated November 4th, 2001] This place is full of voices. I can’t tell if what I’m hearing is from one who is here or who used to be here — but it hardly matters which. I’m hearing voices all day.