I remember when I was around 13 years old, I would always go to my grandmother’s house because of my mother and her abusive boyfriend. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t break up with him, but I didn’t have the courage to ask. So everything me, my grandma, and grandfather were at the dinner table. We’d talk about our day and talk about how I was doing in school, stuff like that. Until she brought up something that made me unsettled. She said how every night around 3AM, she would hear the door to the basement opening and closing, footsteps going up and down the stairs, and her dogs barking at the door. When she would check, no one would be there. At this point, I was kinda interested in finding whatever this was.
So around 1AM, my grandfather went to work and I was still up on watching TV looking to find anything interesting on, like late night cartoons or any movies that seemed cool. It was around 2:58AM and I was hungry, so I went to the kitchen to see if I could find anything to snack on. And then, I saw the door to the basement open slowly. I ran and hid under the table hoping whatever is coming out that door doesn’t see me. I felt like my heart was going to explode. I poked my head out to see what was going on. Once the door opened, I saw a tall, pale, boney man come out from the basement. He just stood there for a while and started to walk towards me. I froze wondering if he’ll see me and what he would do to me if he did. He turned around and headed upstairs to where my grandmother and grandfathers room was. I slowly crept my way up the stairs worried about what he would do to them.
Once I was up there, I saw that my grandparents door was open, so I peeked my head inside to see what he was doing. The man was just standing there looking down at my grandparents. I started shaking and I just kept on staring wondering if he would do anything to them. Then I muttered, “Who…are you?” He then looked up at me with his bloodshot eyes. He just stood there, looking at me. I froze in terror wondering if tonight was the night that I die. He started walking towards me, so I booked it down the stair and grabbed a loaded revolver my grandfather kept in a box, just incase someone ever broke in our house. I hid back under the table to see if he would go back into the basement so I could wake my grandparents up and get out of the house. He started heading down the stairs and into the kitchen and started to dig through the cabinets knocking down plates and cups. I knew this was my chance to get upstairs.
I started heading upstairs praying to god he wouldn’t hear me. My grandma’s dog started barking at him. He turned around and saw me at the stairs near the basement. He started to pace towards me so I aimed the gun at him and shot him in the shoulder. He let out a ear-splitting screetch and ran out the nearest window into the woods. My grandparents came downstairs and looked at me like I had 10 heads. My grandfather said, “What the f**k are you doing with my gun? What’s all that noise?” I told him how there was a man inside the house. He saw the broken glass from the window and asked me where he went and what he looked like, but I just kept shrugging my shoulders. My grandfather didn’t call the cops because he believed that he could handle anything. He just decided to fix the window and sleep downstairs with me, but I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought to myself, “What if he comes back?” and “Was he going to kill them?”
It’s been 2 years now and I’m staying over and my grandparents house while they go out to the casino so I have the house all to myself. They left me with $47 in case of an emergency and they ordered a pizza for me. I decided to watch TV until the pizza got here. I heard the doorbell ring so I ran to get the $47 and swung the door open, but the pizza guy wasn’t there. Just a tall, pale, boney man with bloodshot eyes and a hole in his shoulder. He was just looking down at me…smiling.