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I thought we were haunted...

I thought we were haunted...

Nov 05, 2022

Our house is an old Victorian, in a quiet neighborhood with neighbors on either side of our house as well as across the street. We have a playground just a few houses down the street with a big park for our 3 year old son to slide or swing til his heart is content... What's around our house isn't the problem. It's what is inside, in the darkest corners at the quietest of times.

It started small. We noticed quickly that there were a lot of little trinkets of religion all around the house. Light switch plates had Jesus on them, there were pale spots on the walls where the old couple had put up their crosses and the years had stained the wallpaper around it but left a void in the yellowing where the crucifixes had hung.

It got stranger though... there were Jesus blessing cards carefully pinned to the rafters in the attic. But the most unnerving thing we found, was a solid iron cross made of welded rebar that was buried in our dirt floor basement.

We aren't religious so we removed these things as we found them but when I happened upon the cross while trying to level the floor to pour concrete, I got a tension in my gut. My wife told me I was being dramatic and that it wad probably just a chunk of a welded grid or something that was dropped and never picked up.

That is, until it started...

Our son is 3 but we haven't found much of a need quite yet to rid ourselves of the baby monitor to hear him when he wakes or has a bad dream, sometimes he refuses to sleep. Anyway, we laid in bed, my wife was asleep and I was just dosing off when I heard something from the monitor. It sounded almost like a whisper but it was definitely not our tiny boys voice.

I got nervous and laid there listening, and after a while of silence I assumed it was my dozing mind running wild. After a while of silence I decided to go to sleep. Again as I was close to sleep, I heard something but this time it was loud and woke my wife as well.

We both sat up and looked at each other in confusion. We heard it again, a raspy voice whispered our sons name. I jumped to my feet and grabbed the only thing I could even consider as a weapon, a claw hammer I had left on my dresser after replacing a few of the floorboards that had bowed and warped with time.

I ran into our sons room first and to my surprise, there was nothing there....

Things kept getting stranger, like we were being messed with every day. Our car keys would be moved, after putting them on the hook next to the door, I would find them in a drawer in the livingroom or random things would fall without warning. Like things that couldn't have fallen on their own.

Of course I mentioned it to my wife and she called me crazy. Things got tense in the house. We argued quite often by this point and my son seemed playful and happy but... less himself. He had the look of emotional strain that no toddler should have and it broke my heart.

One day, I got home from work and after hearing my wife and son shouting from inside, I just stood at the welcome mat and read it "welcome to our happy home" it wasn't happy anymore, none of us were happy. I considered turning around and driving around for a bit but with a sigh, I opened the door.

It was the usual, my son rushed to me for a massive hug and in the middle of a tight and happy squeeze, I felt a tremor or fear and gasp.

I pulled him back and looked at him and saw the wide eyes. I followed the gaze and saw only a shadow in the corner of the kitchen.

I brought him into the other room and worked to get that smile back and it worked. We played in his toy room and watched Pokémon and he seemed to completely forget whatever he thought he had seen.

That night I woke to him whispering and groaning. I listened for a few moments because a lot of the time, he settled back down on his own but this time I could hear him weeping. My heart broke for him and I got up. I grabbed my bottle of water on my bedside table for him to have a sip of something, I know I got drymouth when I woke from nightmares and my boy and I were very much alike in every way...

I opened the door and saw my boy laying in his bed. He looked at me between long, thin fingers as the needle thin nails gently ran down his face and lifted to repeat, in a soft petting.

The massive creature that stood with its back to me was thin and grey, it's whole body was hunched, almost having to crawl on hands and knees just to fit. It had long, thin hair that looked like it was painted with that "vanta black" paint that made me wonder if it was my eyes playing tricks on me and there really wasn't any hair on the things leathery flesh.

On either side of its head were long and pointed horns, or rather when I first saw them I thought they were horns, and this was a demon trying to take my son or something but then it turned just a little and I realized that they were actually ears.

One ear twitched and suddenly it's head spun to face me. If I thought the things body was frightening, it's face was the thing that nightmares woke up in a cold sweat from. It's inhuman smile was filled with thousands, millions of needle like teeth that dripped with saliva that had a yellow syrupy consistency.

It's eyes looked like a pair of holes in its face until I saw the tiniest white dots that expanded amd contracted as the moonlight poured into the window and faded again as the mood fell behind the clouds.

I dropped my water bottle to the floor in utter shock and panic but it washed away instantly as I heard my sons quivering voice just weeping the one word "Daddy".

I looked at the creature with some strange new strength.... but the fear was still there, I spoke "take your hands off of my son!"

It's eyes grew wider as did its smile, "But, you have welcomed me... to your haaaaappy hooooome." It's voice had a vibration to it, like running a wet finger on a crystal glass' rim. I could feel it's words singing in my head when it spoke, and the sound seemed to linger in the air while it stood quietly grinning. It's hand finally stopped petting my son and its long fingers easily wrapped around his head.

It was then that I reacted without thinking and charged forward. I fell to the floor and quickly realized there were tiny little creatures that tripped me and began crawling over me. The giggles from the tiny creatures echoed as the world faded to black.

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It has been months now... my wife swallowed a bottle of pills not long after our son disappeared because nobody believed our story. We were blamed for him missing but they didn't have any evidence to hold or charge us. I was fired from my job because of the allegations and nobody will hire me, but I don't care... the house was foreclosed on, but I don't care...

I want my son back. And after breaking into the place that my happy family once called home, I came upstairs and went into the room that had been my son's.

I researched relentlessly for answers, for hope... Now here I sit, waiting for the runes I carved into the floor to draw the elf back. I let the pouch of iron shavings swing back and forth from the drawstring loosely wrapped around my finger. I clenched the piece of iron rebar that rested across my lap when I heard the feint humming whisper, like a wet finger on the rim of a crystal glass......

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