An Unexpected Guest

Originally posted on /r/nosleep.

A year ago, I went to visit an old friend of mine from college named Chris. He lives in Connecticut with his wife Susan and their son Todd. The plan was for us to hang out for a few days, so they had promised to prepare a guest room for me.

When I arrived, Chris took me aside.

“I know we promised you the guest room,” he said quietly, “but something’s come up. Susan’s Uncle John just got divorced and she offered him a place to stay until he can find an apartment. He won’t be in our way, but I had to let him have the guest room.”

“No problem,” I said, “where am I sleeping then?”

The Room With Too Many Shadows

It was my friend Tommy’s 11th birthday and my first sleepover. My mom dropped me off at his house in the afternoon. It looked modest from the front, but when Tommy led me inside, I discovered that it was actually fairly big, with at least five large rooms on the first floor alone.

“My mom set us up in the basement.” He said, leading the way to a small door just off the kitchen pantry.

I envisioned a dingy cellar like the one my family had. Ours was a single, tiny room that looked like miners were still in the process of digging it out. Nobody spent the night in our basement unless they had eight legs and six eyes and shot webbing out of their ass.

Tommy’s basement was like a whole other house. There was a small room with a couch at the bottom of the stairs, but in the far wall was a swinging door leading into a kitchen almost as big as the one we had just left. In the basement kitchen there was another door leading out to the back yard, and a long hallway that extended deep under the house.

“Jesus,” was all I could muster.

“The basement was set up as an apartment to rent out by the people who lived here before us.” Tommy explained. He pointed down the dim hallway. “The first door on the left is the bathroom. Second door is a closet. We’ll be sleeping in the bedroom on the right.”

“What’s the door at the end?” I asked.

Peek-a-boo

I’m scared out of my mind. I don’t know what to do.

I was an only child. Not that my parents didn’t try to have a large family. They actually had three children before me. Two boys and a girl. Unfortunately, all three of them died in their infancy, before I was born. My mother used to think I was blessed. She called me “Fortunata”, which means lucky.

I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.

I was born in 1977 in a hospital in Indianapolis. A few months earlier and I would have been born in New York. You see, my father had just taken a new job teaching at IUPUI, and he and my mother moved out there while she was six months pregnant. I think it was because of this that I survived.

Four years ago, we lost our daughter, Madeline, the same way my parents lost my two brothers and sister. I’ll never forget the morning I woke up and realized it was not to the sound of her crying from the bassinet at the end of our bed. I crawled over the blankets to peek at her. For a while, I thought she was just sleeping peacefully. Then, I realized her chest wasn’t rising and falling… she wasn’t breathing.

The Babysitter

I wrote this while working on a new persona to share stories on Reddit. I didn’t feel like there was enough interest to keep it going after two stories. This was the first of the two.

The year was 1989. The McCallisters had just moved to the small town of Northfield. Todd McCallister had finally gotten his teaching license along with a job teaching history at the high school. Maria was content to stay home with their two children: Alexis, a rambunctious four year-old, and Franklin, who had just learned to walk. When the children were down for their afternoon naps, she got a little time to herself, which she spent neatly stitching together a variety of plush animals.

The town was quiet and peaceful, nestled in a shady valley, mostly bordered by forest. The noisiest it normally got was when the occasional train passed through on its way to other places. The biggest story the police blotter ever got was a drunk and disorderly.

It’s In The Blood

My daughter has begun seeing things. I don’t know if they’re imaginary, like any child’s mind is prone to creating, or something more, like the things I’ve seen.

I’ve told you all last summer about the stories she started telling me, about the “man” who would come to her window and tell them to her… about the claw marks I found in the sill. I’ve also told you about the attack she suffered almost a year ago when I took the advice of redditors and stood up to a terrifying spirit that was stalking me. To say that she’s been through more than a normal five year old is an understatement.