Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 5 True Scary Stories for a Rainy Night Alone | True Scary Middle of the Night Stories

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

These are 5 True Scary Stories for a Rainy Night Alone | True Scary Middle of the Night Stories Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:00:18 Story 1 00:07:05 Story 2 00:26:42 Story 3 00:33:38 Story 4 00:49:11 Story 5 Music by: 'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_AjpJL5I4&t=0s Business inquiries: ►[e-mail] #scarystories #horrorstories #redditstories 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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Growing up there, you learned pretty quickly that the streets weren't exactly safe, especially after dark. Crime was a regular part of life, and you couldn't go far without hearing about someone getting into trouble. Fights, robberies, and worse. It was all pretty normal. Some people called it the Wild West of Australia, and to be honest, they weren't wrong. Even the government had to step in, banning alcohol sales, and putting curfews in place.

It got that bad. By the time I turned 20, I was ready to start working and getting out on my own. That's how I ended up working as a night security guard at a local youth center. Now, this wasn't some fancy building or anything. It was just a place where local kids could hang out, play video games, watch TV, and stay out of trouble.

But it was packed with expensive stuff. And in a town like Alice Springs, that made it a target. The Youth Center had all sorts of electronics that would catch the eye of local thieves, TVs, stereos, and video games. People were always trying to break in and swipe whatever they could get their hands on. That's where I came in. My job was to make sure that didn't happen, at least during the nights I worked. I wasn't alone, though.

Most nights I worked with Simon, an older guy who had been doing security jobs for years. He knew the town and its danger. better than anyone. Simon had this laid-back attitude, but he was no fool. He'd been around long enough to know when things were about to get out of hand. Some nights, we'd just sit around and talk while keeping an eye on the place. Other times, we'd order food from the Chinese restaurant around the corner, and if we were feeling extra relaxed, Simon would send me next door to the bottle shop for a drink or two. The nights weren't always that bad, though. Sometimes they were quiet, peaceful, but there was always this feeling of tension, like something could go wrong at any second.

It was just how Alice Springs felt after the sun went down. The streets got darker, and the people who walked them got more desperate. One night, Simon sent me out to grab food from the Chinese place, like he'd done a hundred times before. It was a hot night, sticky and uncomfortable. All I could think about was grabbing a cold drink to cool down. So, after picking up the food, I decided to decided to stop by the bottle shop next door for a Coke. I'd done it plenty of times before, and it never seemed like a big deal. The bottle shop was small, and it always had a few people inside, either getting drinks or just hanging around.

But when I walked in that night, something felt off. The place was dead quiet. There wasn't anyone at the counter, and I couldn't hear any movement. It was like walking into an empty room, and it put me on edge immediately. I started walking down one of the aisles, looking for the drink fridges at the back. That's when I saw him. A man with long copper-red hair pulled back into a messy bun. He was shirtless, wearing khaki shorts and slides, and his chest was covered in milk.

He was chugging from a carton like he hadn't had a drink in days. But what really made my heart race was the hammer in his other hand and the blood dripping from it. As soon as I saw the hammer in that guy's hand, I first saw the hammer in that guy's hand, I froze. My brain was yelling at me to move, but I just stood there for a second, staring. He had this wild look in his eyes, like he didn't care about anything except drinking that milk. His chest was soaked in it, and the blood on his hand made my stomach turn. Then he looked up and saw me. What are you looking at, you, dog? He snarled. That snapped me out of it. I turned around and started walking as fast as I could toward the door, hoping I could get out

before he did anything, but I wasn't fast enough. The next thing I heard was him shouting, What did you say to me? Followed by the sound of heavy footsteps. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest as I realized he was coming after me. I made it to the door, but there was a problem. The door wasn't one of those automatic ones that slide open. It was a heavy door that you had to pull to get out. In that moment, I knew I didn't have time to open it before he'd be on me with that hammer. So instead of trying to get out, I did the only thing I could think of. I threw myself backward, away from the door, hoping to buy some time. That's when I heard the loud crash of the hammer smashing through the glass. I didn't stop to look. I sprinted toward the counter and jumped

over it, nearly knocking over a shelf of bottles. Behind me, I heard more glass shattering. He must have thrown the hammer, but I didn't want to stick around to find out if he had something else. The back of the shop was my only way out, so I ran toward the open door. As soon as I burst through it, I found myself in a narrow alley, heart pounding and breath coming in short gasps. But just as I thought I was safe, I ran into another problem. There was a man standing at the end of the alley, holding a phone in one hand and a massive kitchen knife in the other.

It looked like he was calling the cops, but when he saw me running toward him, he raised the knife like he was ready to use it. Hold on, I yelled, throwing my hands up. I'm not him. I'm not the hammer guy. The man squinted at me for a second, and I could see him thinking it over. Thank God he believed me because he lowered the knife and started apologizing, but there was no time for that. No worries, mate, I panted, looking back toward the shop. But we got a move. He's still in there. We didn't need to talk after that. We both did. took off running down the alley as fast as we could. My legs felt like jelly, but the fear of that hammer man kept me going. By the time we reached the main road, I could finally breathe again.

He wasn't chasing us anymore. Just when I thought it was over, we heard police sirens. The man with the knife and I watched as two police cars came flying down the road and stopped outside the bottle shop. One officer had a gun, the other a stun gun, and they ran inside. We stayed back, but I could hear the hammer man yelling. Then there was a loud, bang, followed by silence. It was over. Alice Springs had just gotten even darker. So after hearing all of that,

you can understand why I laugh when people, ask me why I moved away. Back when I was in high school, a friend of my moms asked if I wanted to babysit their kid for a few hours. They offered a generous rate of pay. After I proved myself capable, they asked if I'd be interested in babysitting for a friend of theirs. I said, sure. They gave me a number to call, and once we made arrangements

for me to babysit for them, they gave me their address. They lived out in East Hampton, about a 45-minute drive from my home in Medford. As soon as my mom found out, she said something like, East Hampton, huh? That's a real fancy place. So I kind of knew what to expect before I got there, but when I actually saw the house for myself, I was blown away. Their house was basically three of my mom's houses put together with a gigantic backyard, a huge pool, and even a giant chessboard with pieces half my size. The inside looked like the sitting room set from Asterisk, the fresh prince asterisk, with a cream color scheme and wood paneling, giving the place a very distinct air of class. The kid's mom and dad were very warm and welcoming, and when they introduced me to

their nine-year-old daughter, all my reservations instantly evaporated. Instead of some brady rich kid, Angie was just as delightful as her parents, and I knew from the moment that I met her that we'd get along very well. She wasn't too demanding, and was content to just watch a movie or two until she got too tired to keep her eyes open. We'd order pizza, watch some tapes, eat a ton of ice cream, then I'd either chill out or work on some homework until Angie's parents came back from wherever they'd spent the evening. Sometimes it felt almost criminal just taking that money. They paid my gas money, paid for the pizza, and even made sure the fridge and pantry were all stocked in case I got hungry after Angie's dinner time. Then with the family home being

as incredible as it was, it fast became my favorite sitting job. Now, cut to Friday, October 16th of 1992, and the family in East Hampton had arranged for me to come over for what would be my fifth time sitting for them. I drove over after school, arrived at around 4, 3rd. and Angie's parents left for dinner at around 5 o'clock. We ordered pizza, did each other's hair while we watched TV, then broke out the crumb cake at around 7. We were still finishing our slices when the phone rang, and upon hearing it, Angie spun around and asked me if she could be the one to answer it. Her parents sometimes called just to check in on us, and I figured that there was no harm in letting her pick up the phone, so I said, sure, why not? Angie ran off

to pick up the phone, and I stayed put, eating my cake. The phone was mounted to the wall, dividing the sitting room and the kitchen, so I could still see and hear Angie as she ran over towards it. She reached up on her tiptoes, grabbed the handset, and in a way that was so adorable it almost hurt, she said, Hello, you've reached the residence. How may I take your call? I watched her with a big, proud smile on my face, but following her grand introduction, a confused look came across Angie's face before she asked, Hello? For a second time.

There was another pause, and then she turned, raised the phone up and told me there was no one there. I put down my cake and then got up and walked over to her. She needed help returning the handset to its cradle anyway, so I took the phone from her, put it to my ear, then heard the sound of a deadline. I told her it was probably just a wrong number or something, and then we went back to finish off our cake.

But not ten minutes later, the phone rang a second time. That time, I got up to answer it, and when I did, I'm guessing I heard the same thing Angie did. I picked up the handset and asked, Hello? And then got nothing in reply. I asked, hello? Again.

Then after another pause, I heard the distinct sound of someone hanging up a phone, like that old plastic rattling before the line goes dead. I remember that exact. exact moment, that feeling of confusion shifting to one of creeping dread, and that made it two silent calls in just over ten minutes. I'd seen enough cheap thrillers to know that that wasn't a sign that anything good was about to happen. I just didn't think that it had anything to do with the family I was babysitting for. I thought that it was all about me, and yes, I phrased that in

a deliberately egotistical fashion, but only to reflect on how stupid and self-centered I felt afterwards, because, due to the very severe limitations of my 17-year-old mind, I became transfixed on the idea that it was a guy from high school that had been bugging me around that time. He'd slid notes into my locker at school, asked my friends to pass on pleas to call him, or my least favorite, wait for me outside the girl's bathroom before basically cornering me on the way out.

He'd also somehow managed to get a hold of my home phone number at one point, and he'd called my house one time, asked my dad if he could speak to me, and then said nothing for like the first ten seconds once I'd been handed the phone. But the worst thing was, my mom and dad thought that it was cute. It didn't seem to bother them much that his attention was completely unsolicited. The solution was, ask him to leave you alone. And then when I told them that I'd already tried that, it was, well, ask him again. And that's why when I realized that there were silent calls, my first suspicion was that my unwanted Romeo had somehow gotten a hold of the family's home phone number.

I was too busy trying to figure out how that could happen to consider any other more frightening possibilities. Angie asked who was calling, so I lied for a second time and told her that it must have been a wrong number. She might have been one of the sweetest girls I'd ever babysat. But Angie was not gullible and was vocally confused as to why someone would call the wrong number twice. I made it up on the spot, joked about them having pudgy fingers or something, which served as just enough of a distraction to get Angie's thoughts off the silent calls. I didn't think my stalker, and I use that term very loosely, had the stones to actually show up at the house. He seemed to be more about opportunity than anything else, but it was still a lingering concern for me, and one I didn't want to pass on to little old Angie. Another hour or so went by, and we were fast approaching Angie's extended bedtime of 10 p.m.

Our little secret. I asked if she wanted one last soda, diet, of course, with no caffeine and no zoomies, and then walked into the kitchen to get us some drinks. The layout of the house was such that the kitchen led to a dining room via a set of double doors, with the dining room windows allowing a view of the driveway outside. When I walked past the doors the first time, empty-handed, everything seemed perfectly normal, but when walking past it a second time, with a can of soda in each hand, I saw the headlights of a car shining down the driveway. The family had sort of an intercom at their automatic gate,

and if you didn't have the little key card or the code or whatever it might be, you had to be buzzed in to even get access to the driveway. The car was stationary, its front bumper pointed at the gate, but the intercom in the house wasn't buzzing. My first thought was maybe I just caught the car turning around, but nope, it stayed put, like it was waiting for the gate to open. Then I figured it was Angie's parents arriving home early, and that, I don't know, maybe they lost their key card or something. I walked into the dining room to get a closer look out of the window, studying the headlights as the car idled by the gate, and then suddenly, silhouetted by the car's headlestone. And then suddenly, silhouetted by the car's headlights, I saw three or four men climb over the gate

before they began walking down the driveway at a very brisk pace. I remember the feeling, this rising panic as I put down the sodas on the ledge near the window and then walk toward the phone as quickly as I could. I remember grabbing the handset and trying not to sound too panicked as I loudly asked Angie to head upstairs. This was like a whole hour before her promised bedtime, so she was very naturally dismayed at the sudden change of plans and began asking me why. I told her to be a good girl and do as I asked before putting the phone's handset to my ear.

I thought that I might hear the 911 person's voice, or at worst, the last few dials before one answered my call, but instead I heard nothing. I remember pushing the little switch to reset the phone, expecting the drone of an open line to return, but I did it once, twice, and then three times before I realized that the line was dead. I didn't know it at the time. I thought that I'd simply experienced an astronomical amount of bad luck in having the phone die on me when I needed it most, but it hadn't died. There had been no kind of malfunction. Someone had cut the home's phone line to ensure that no emergency calls could be made.

I knew the family had a second phone in the master bedroom, so after taking Angie, hand, I quickly walked us up the stairs and toward the bedroom door. By then, Angie had begun to sense how frightened I was, and she kept asking what was going on, her terror intensifying each time I let the question go unanswered. We walked into the bedroom, and when I heard no sound at all coming from the handset of the second phone, that's when I realized something much worse was happening. I know having a bunch of guys climbing a gate and rushing the house was bad enough, but the phone line being dead suggested a very chilling degree

of organization from these guys those guys were not your average home invaders if there is such a thing and realizing that brought a level of terror that I can only barely describe and by then there was no hiding my fear anymore Angie was demanding to know what was going on and I couldn't think of a lie quick enough

so I just told her the truth I told her that there were some bad men outside and that they most likely wanted to break into the house and that we needed to find some place to hide from them. I'll never forget how completely petrified Angie looked in the seconds after those words left my lips, and I still beat myself up about it all these years later, but in the moment there was nothing else I could think of. I was 17, scared out of my mind, and Angie knew her home better than I ever could. I was reliant on her to be able to find the best hiding place possible,

and that transfer of responsibility terrified us both. Right then, on cue, we each heard a loud, dull, hammering sound coming from downstairs as the men outside started to try and break in. Angie screamed, and I remember grabbing each of her arms before shushing her. I tried to be gentle, trying to keep her as calm as possible. Then I asked her where the best hiding place in the house was. There was like a voice in my head in the moments after I asked her, one that screamed at me. How the hell is she supposed to know? She's just a little girl,

an innocent little girl that you are failing to protect. I still feel, almost at least in principle, that that voice was right. In the milliseconds that had popped into my mind, a girl Angie's age probably thought the back of her closet was another dimension, or that the space under her bed would be sufficient to hide us both from violent criminals. But in reality, Angie knew the perfect place to hide, and it was nowhere I could have ever taken her. After I asked her about the best place to hide, Angie thought for a moment, then took me by the hand and started leading me towards the home's third floor. When we got to the top of the stairs, there were three doors in front of us, two of which clearly led to larger rooms, and one smaller door that turned out to be a closet.

Angie took us to the closet. When she opened the door, I saw shelves on either side. filled with boxes of old junk, along with a bookcase against the rear wall. I remember telling Angie that we needed somewhere bigger. Someplace the bad men wouldn't see us if they came and opened the door. I spoke, but it was like Angie didn't hear me. She ran over to the bookcase and reached to the back of one of the lowest shelves like she was about to retrieve a book. I was halfway telling her that this wasn't the time for reading

when I heard a loud click coming from behind the bookcase. I knew in an instant what Angie had just done, but that didn't stop my jaw from hitting the floor when she used all her strength to pull the bookcase away from the rear wall. The only reason that she could do so with the strength of a 99-year-old was that the bookcase was actually mounted on a huge set of hinges, and behind it was a short, downward-leading staircase. It was a weird feeling, almost amazed, but at the same time, I didn't feel surprised at all. Of course, they had a safe room. And of course they told their nine-year-old daughter how to access it in case of emergencies.

But what really did surprise me was just how well this safe room was decked out and how Angie's demeanor shifted completely once the door was closed behind us. I remember how she reached up and flicked on a light switch that illuminated the stairs in front of us. And then, after taking a few steps downward, she turned and told me to close the door. I followed her downstairs after doing so, and was greeted with the first of two. two rooms. That one was basically a small sitting area, complete with bookshelves, a TV, and VHS combo, with some snacks and bottles of water stacked in one corner. The next room, however, was essentially some kind of command center. There was a wall of TV monitors,

all linked up to security cameras in each room, with an attached panel of switches that meant that you could both see and hear what was going on in the house. But the most important and possibly the most impressive thing, was that this command center had a working phone. I don't know if it was hooked up to a satellite or a hidden alternate phone line, but when I picked it up and heard a working dial tone, I almost burst into tears from the sheer relief that I felt, and I called the cops. I told them everything, but it didn't make Angie feel any safer. She felt safe the second the door closed behind us, and after announcing that the bad men couldn't find us in there, she was went about deciding what VHS tape she wanted to watch until the bad men had gone away.

It got to the point where I couldn't decide if she was the bravest little girl I'd ever met, or if this was something that had happened before. Once I was done talking to the authorities, and then telling Angie that the cops were on their way, I asked if this was something that had happened prior, and she said no, but that her mom and dad had shown her what to do in case any bad men came to the house. She then put on a VHS tape and sort of settled herself down on the couch opposite the TV and asked me, do I still got to go to bed at 10 p.m.? And the question alone almost knocked me off my feet. But once I'd regained what little composure I had, I told her no, that she didn't have to go to bed at 10, and that she was probably about to have her latest night

ever. It was incredible, really, seeing a little girl acting calmer and more collected than myself in the middle of a crisis. But like Angie said, she knew the drill, and I guess that knowledge dispelled any fear of the chaos unfolding downstairs. But not only was it chaotic, what I heard over the monitors scared the living hell out of me. I remember walking back into the little control room or command center, as I referred to it before,

and taking a moment to study the little switch panel. It wasn't hard to work out how to switch the monitors on, and it wasn't hard to switch audio feeds either, but listening to what those men were saying down there made for some extremely difficult listening. I expected to see them looting the first floor, grabbing all the various electronics before running back down the driveway to load up their vehicle. But that's not what I saw when I switched on those monitors. They weren't looking for expensive goods to steal. They were looking for what I can only assume to be Angie. I realized this before I heard anyone talking,

because none of the four masked men seemed in the least bit interested in the huge TV and lavish stereo system that was in the living room. They were going from room to room, opening up closets and looking under beds, and then moments later, I managed to catch two of them talking to one another in the same bedroom that we'd been in just minutes before. One of them asked something like, where the hell is she? Before the other told him, I heard her voice. I was frozen, thinking about what? might have been happening to us at that moment if Angie hadn't taken us to this safe room. And I carried on watching the men downstairs, waiting for the cops to show up until there

was suddenly a whole bunch of commotion from them, presumably after they had heard the sirens coming from the street outside. And after that, that's when those men ran. And finally, when I could see only uniformed officers walking calmly into the rooms downstairs, I opened up that safe room door and then told Angie to stay on the couch while I went to talk to the cops. And that was the one time she openly disobeyed me, and I can't say that I was mad in the moment. She just wanted to say hi to the people who had come to rescue us. It made for a very cute ending to what had been the most terrifying experience of my whole short life at that point.

And to be honest, nothing has ever really topped it in terms of sheer terror that I felt, not to mention that skin-crawling feeling of knowing those men were after this girl that I was watching, and not just money or jewelry. The officers were then able to contact Angie's parents because they'd left the address of where they'd be that evening, and they were back home and hugging their daughter within a half hour of the cops first arriving. The police managed to catch the driver of that car, but he claimed to be just some getaway driver and had no idea what the others were planning. The others, though, were never caught, but the security cameras recorded what they'd said

about looking for the girl, and by the girl, they almost certainly meant Angie. Angie's parents thanked me for saving their daughter, and I had to actually sit them down and explain that I didn't do anything. It was actually Angie, the little girl, that had saved both of us. I'd done nothing but tell her about the guys breaking in. They said that they'd understand if I didn't want to babysit for Angie anymore. but all it took was the thank you letter that she sent to convince me that I had to stay. I mean, it definitely sweetened the deal that they promised to hire armed security in the future,

which basically meant that Angie had a second, much more intimidating babysitter, but there was no way that I could just turn my back on her. I guess that makes me sound a little crazy, but that's honestly how I felt. My love for that girl and her family overrode any fear of a repeat home invasion, and besides, if it did happen again, I knew exactly what to do to keep her safe from the maniacs who wanted to kidnap her. It was almost 10 years ago, but I remember that night like it just happened. My wife and I had been fast asleep when a loud scream suddenly woke us up. It wasn't a normal noise, definitely not the type of thing you'd expect in our quiet suburban neighborhood.

We lived in a typical two-story house, just like all the others on our street. The lawns were always neat, and nothing much ever happened here. It was the kind of place where you feel safe, especially at night. But that night was different. I sat up in bed, my heart already racing from being startled awake. My wife, Sarah, was awake too, her eyes wide with worry. What was that? She whispered. I didn't have an answer, so I got up and walked over to the window. Our bedroom faced the street, so I pulled back the curtains and looked outside. At first I couldn't see much, just the faint glow of streetlights. But then I noticed a car parked right in front of our house. Its engine was running, but both the front and back passenger doors were wide open. Two men stood outside the car, yelling at two other

men who were sitting inside. I couldn't make out what they were arguing about, but it was clear they were mad. Every few seconds, one of the men would start shouting even louder, waving his arms around. Sarah came up behind me and peeked over my shoulder. Should we call the cops? She asked. Her voice shaky. I hesitated. They were definitely being loud and obnoxious,

but it didn't seem like anything dangerous was happening. Let's wait a minute, I told her. It looks like they're just arguing. They'll probably drive off soon. We stood there watching the scene unfold. I expected the argument to end any second now, but it dragged on, just when I thought I should maybe call the police after all,

the two men outside slammed the car doors shut. With a screech of tires, the car sped off down the street, leaving the two men standing in the middle of the road. Sarah sighed with relief. Well, that's over, she said, heading back to bed. Let's try to get some sleep. But I couldn't. Something about those two men still standing in the street made me uneasy.

They were still arguing, though their voices were lower now. My instincts told me to keep watching, just to be sure they wouldn't cause more trouble. I stayed at the window, peeking through the curtains. The two men were gesturing wildly at each other. Their argument clearly not over. They didn't seem like they were about to leave any time soon, and I was starting to feel more and more anxious. Then I heard something. It was the sound of a car approaching, fast.

The roar of the engine sent a chill down my spine. I looked down the street and saw headlights speeding toward the two men. The car wasn't slowing down. My stomach dropped as I realized what was happening. The men in the street didn't seem to notice the car until it was too late. One of them barely managed to jump out of the way, but the other wasn't fast enough. The car hit him full force, sending his body flying through the air like a rag doll. I stood there, frozen, unable to look away.

He crashed down onto the pavement with a sickening thud. and everything went quiet. I turned to Sarah, my voice shaky. Call 911, I said. Someone's been hit. After the car sped off, everything seemed to slow down. I was standing at the window, watching the terrible scene unfold, unable to move. One of the men was lying in the street, not moving at all. His friend, the one who jumped out of the way, ran to him and started screaming. His cries echoed through the quiet night, sending chills down my spine. I turned to Sarah, who was still holding the phone. Did you call 911? I asked. She nodded quickly. They're on their way. I told them someone was hit. They said the police and an ambulance should be here soon. I looked back out

the window. The man who had dodged the car was still screaming, crouched down over his friend's body. He looked completely panicked, shaking his friend's shoulders, trying to get him to wake up. but I knew, deep down, that it was too late. The way that car hit him, there was no way he could have survived. Sarah came up beside me, her voice trembling. Should we go out there? Maybe we can help? I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what I could possibly do. No, I said, my throat tight.

There's nothing we can do. The ambulance will be here soon. It felt wrong to stand there and do nothing, but I also knew that rushing out wouldn't change what had already happened. Then, out of nowhere, I heard the sound of another car engine. This time, it was coming from the opposite direction. My heart sank. I glanced down the street and saw headlights,

another car speeding toward the two men in the street. My mind raced. Why wasn't this car slowing down? Didn't they see what had just happened? The man who had been screaming over his friend finally noticed the car coming. He jumped up, running toward the sidewalk, still yelling, no, no, over and over. I could hear him clearly now, his voice filled with desperation. The car didn't stop. It didn't even slow down.

In one horrifying moment, it ran over the man lying in the road. The sound of the impact was sickening. The car flew over his body as if he wasn't even there, but I could see the terrible result. Pieces of him, his clothes, his body were scattered across the street. A man who had escaped stood frozen on the sidewalk, staring in horror at what was left of his friend. His screams, now louder than ever, filled the air. It was the most heart-wrenching sound I had ever heard. I felt a nod in my stomach, my hands shaking as I watched.

By the time the police and ambulance finally arrived, it was already too late. The paramedics rushed to the scene, but there was nothing they could do except clean up what remained. The police tried to talk to the man who survived, but he was. was too devastated to say much. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the window. Even though I didn't know these people, I felt connected to the tragedy unfolding outside. It was like watching a nightmare come to life, and I knew I would never forget what I had just seen. Sarah and I sat down at the kitchen table, both of us too shaken to sleep. We didn't say much, just sat there in silence, trying to process everything. I knew one thing for sure. Our quiet, peaceful street would never feel the same again.

Many years ago, a lifetime ago it really seems. I used to work as a bouncer at pubs and clubs in Newcastle City Center. It had quite a rough upbringing, and the school playground could be a violent place. So for a lot of young lads like me who weren't particularly big or strong, you had to learn to fight if you wanted people to leave you alone. And the place to learn to fight was the local boxing gym. I started training twice after school on weekdays, then every Saturday morning for a full four hours, and I loved every second of it. I made good friends, learned how to defend myself, and instilled two very valuable traits in me, discipline and respect, both of which have served me very well over the years. By the time I was 18, I was lined up for a few actual

organized fights. But with me still being an amateur, I wasn't making any money off of it. That's where Graham stepped in. Graham was a mate of the boxing gym's owner, and seeing as he did a lot of boxing in his youth, he'd pop down to the gym every so often to see some of the lads train. But he wasn't just there to watch them train. He was headhunting for lads to come and work for his door firm. One Saturday morning, I managed to catch his attention. He told me to show up to a club in the city center at midnight for a trial shift. And if I could handle myself, then I could expect to be working every weekend from then on. It was a little bit of an I'm not asking I'm telling kind of deal. But the money was so good that no one ever turned him down. I'm pretty sure no wasn't a word

Graham was used to hearing very often. We'll put it that way. And so, that's how I started working the doors around Newcastle from age 18 onward. By the time I was 25, I had graduated from the early doors pubs and clubs to the late-night gigs that got properly lively after about one or two in the morning. These places were on another level. When I first started, there'd be two of you working a Saturday night in a single-floor pub, but by the time I was trusted to work the bigger jobs, you were looking at two, three, sometimes four-floor nightclubs that could fit hundreds of punters, but with the bigger jobs came bigger money, and if you managed to get one particular job that I got, that will go unnamed for legal reasons.

Then you made absolute megabucks. That's because, on top of your normal taxable pay, you got your extras, which is what you were paid to look the other way for the dealers gram allowed into the club. This was at the time when Ecstasy tablets had first hit the northeast, and when it did, it hit big. Times were hard for people growing up back then, as most of the shipping jobs were gone, so having happiness in tablet forms sweep through town

was like everybody wanted a bit. And since everybody wanted a bit, the money people were making was off the scale. Dealers were getting into clubs with a few hundred tablets, then walking out with 1,500 pounds. Then they'd go to the next club and do it all over again, and again, and again. There was money going around like you wouldn't believe,

and the only thing standing between the dealers and all that cash were us dormant. I suppose at some point it came down to a choice, act like complete saints, refuse to partake in any of it, and settle for your hard-earned wage, or make 200 pounds more every single night just for looking the other way with one single solitary dealer. Times that by two or three, and you're walking away with more money and extras than you did from your normal wage. And were we declaring any of it to the taxman? Were we bollocks? Things stayed sweet like that for a while, and we had a really good go of it. But the more money people generated, the more people wanted in on the action.

We started having loads of young lads, all of them unauthorized, trying to sneak bags of tablets past us to make a few hundred quid without us taxing them. At first, we just confiscated their gear, gave them a slap, and then sent them on their way. But the problem wouldn't stop, and that's when Graham passed down the order to make an example of someone. And so that's exactly what we did. we took this one lad, we'll call him Spar, who we had dealt with a couple of times before, and we kicked seven shades of crap out of him around the back of the club one night, all on Graham's orders.

It was just to make an example out of him. It wasn't anything personal. But since he ended up in hospital, Sparky took it personally. About two weeks after, a bloke I worked with called Ronnie walked out of his gym, got into the driver's seat of his car, and was about to drive home when someone tapped him. on his window. Ronnie turned his head to look, and bang, someone shot him in the face. And by some stroke of miraculous good luck, Ronnie survived his brush with death, because the bullet went through

his eye, then out the side of his head, totally missing his brain and spine and all of that. And we were made up to hear that he'd be okay. But the message was a clear one. Ronnie had been one of the fellas to give Sparky a kicking, and when we heard Sparky was nowhere to be found, we had a pretty good idea that it was him. But without knowing where he was, we were all vulnerable. He could walk up to any door in a crowd of people, wearing a baseball cap in sunglasses or something, and just boom, that would be us rubbed out. But as you can imagine, this had us properly on our toes for the next two weeks or so, and the worst thing was we couldn't even be certain that it was Sparky that we had to be on the lookout for. Graham had been the go-between from the police to Ronnie's

family and us, but as much as he had been pestering the police for info, they told him that they had no idea who the shooter might have been, nor did they have any idea where Sparky was. But Graham didn't believe them. He thought that they were treating us like mushrooms, feeding us crap, and keeping us in the dark because God knows if we'd have figured out where Sparky was, he'd have been a dead man for what he'd done to Ronnie. But then, that meant that we had no idea if or when he was coming for us, and I'd never seen so many big hard blokes acting so scared for their lives. Graham told us all that he was trying to get hold of some bulletproof vests, and that our door would be the first to get them when he did. But till

then, we had to just sit tight, hope Sparky showed up somewhere, and keep our heads on a swivel when we were at work. Two weeks after Ronnie was shot, we were all still proper on edge. But the more time that went by, we started to think maybe Sparky had run off to the Costa del Sol after shooting Ronnie, and most definitely thinking he'd killed him. And if that was the case, then we had nothing to worry about, and we might never see Sparky ever again. But it was still that worry that he was just biting his time, waiting until we'd let our guards down a bit, to strike. And that's why we could never properly relax. And so, that Saturday night, a fortnight after Ronnie was rushed to hospital, a group of five of us were working the doors of the unnamed nightclub, and three of us

had been involved in Sparky's beating, so we were proper on edge and watching the street for any signs of him and his boys. Suddenly, I hear one of the lads saying, why, hey man, who's this here then? And he's looking down the street at someone, so I walk over to see who he's looking at. And we both see this kid walking down the street towards us. He looks to be about 14 or 15, 5, 3, with a little teenage tachet above his lip. And he walks right past us and towards the doors of the club. The boss doormen was like, where the bloody hell do you think you're going, young man? And the kid says, inside. And the boss asks him, and how old are you then? When he replies 18, we all burst out laughing. The boss tells the lad, if you're 18, then I'm,

I'm Bobby Charlton, bugger off before I give you a slap. And this wee lad just walks off in a huff, but we thought that he was brilliant because he'd really lightened the mood. And this was about half one, something like that. And we were all saying, I wish something like that happened every night. But then, about an hour later, it did. We get the nod that there's a kid in the club, and that he's trying to sell tablets to the punters. And the boss sends two door staff down into the club. And who do they drag out, but the kid that we just given the knockback to, not an hour earlier? He's kicking and screaming, and the two lads are carrying him out with a hand under each arm, so his little legs are actually flailing around as they're carrying him. And we laughed so hard

that I thought I was about to blow a gasket. And off the young lad went for a second time, huffing and puffing. But before he went, the kid shouted back, I'm going to come back with a gun, and I'm going to blow all your heads off. And we were just about rolling. on the floor after he said that. This pint-sized gangster threatening to slaughter us when he probably had school in the morning. And so, we just waved him away, after telling him to come back next week for another laugh.

When the laughter had died down, we asked the two lads who went in to get him how the kid had gotten into the club in the first place. And they said the sneaky little bugger must have slipped in one of the back doors when one of the club staff took a bottle bin out to empty. You had to admire the gumption to do that. do something like that. But then the two lads told us the kid actually did have a little bag of

tablets on him, and they weren't fakes either. He was trying to flog indigestion tablets as ecstasies. They were legit. And they all had the little smiley face or bat signal designs on them. There were only about ten in the bag, but it got us thinking, where's this wee lad got tablets from? And there's no way anyone would be so daft as to send a child into an over-18 bar. And you might as well just turn yourself into a police station. So how's he got his hands on them? But it's also not like we had time to wrestle with the question. We had a job to do. And for the next few hours, when things were at their most hectic, we were occupied trying to keep order in the club. By about 3 o'clock in the morning, the busiest part of the night was over, and although it was

still bumping in the club downstairs, the crowds were starting to thin out, and people were starting to flag taxis down to make their way home. I couldn't wait to get home and get a shower. I'd had to turf about five people out that night, and I'd had drinks spilled all over me in the process. My shirt stank of beer and alco pops, and I'm just trying to run down the clock until I can call it a night. But then, about half an hour from closing, who comes walking down the street but the Newcastle kid, or at least that's what one of the lads christened him, as he came walking up the street towards us. And we're all laughing, saying things like, oh, here he comes. He's about to pull out a shooter and start blasting. And then, when he gets within about 10 to 15 feet of us, he pulls out

this big cowboy-looking pistol from his pants and points it right at us. It didn't look real. It was dull-looking, and it looked like the handle was coming off, like this wee lad had pulled the orange cap off a toy gun and brought it down to the club to brandish it at us. We're just a about falling all over the place, singing themes from old westerns, like it's a showdown at high noon and all that. We'd been that tense over the past two weeks that it was just this big release of tension, I think. I mean, we were dying laughing at the wee lad. Now for a bit of context, there was a lot of gangsters using guns at the time, like our old mate Sparky, for example. But that in turn had some unexpected consequences, because everyone was hearing about all this

gun crime. Everyone was terrified of having one pointed at them. So what robbers and other unsavory types started doing was bringing toy guns to robberies. All they had to do was flash their toy guns, or sometimes just point to a lump in their jacket like, that's a gun, that is. Now hand over the cash, and the terrified cashier would do just that. It became a bit of a thing in Newcastle at the time. So when we saw that kid pull that old falling apart cowboy gun out in that poorly lit street, we thought there's not a cat in hell's chance that that's a real gun. But then the kid pulled back the hammer of the gun, the clicky thing that they do in the movies, you know, the one.

And we knew toy guns did not do that. There was this moment of silence after we heard it, as everyone had this collective moment of thinking, Oh, bollocks. And then the moment we started to scatter, that kid fired. It was the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life, literally deafening. The street we were on at the time was quite narrow too, so when the gun went bang, it echoed off the narrow streets and made it sound like a bloody rocket exploded or something.

I had my back turned when he shot, but I remember seeing the street almost light up as he fired. I didn't know fear like that even existed, and in the blink of an eye I went from standing there in the street to cowering behind a van, just waiting for the next shots to be fired. And that silence seemed endless, waiting for the next shot. I mean, people were running, people were shouting,

but I was focused on the next shot, terrified the lad would find me behind the van and make me his next target. But he didn't, and no other shots were fired because, as it turned out, this wee lad's gun misfired right after that first shot, and since he didn't know how to fix it, he just ran off. He only got one shot, but one shot was all he needed. A second of our firm had been shot in less than a month, and this time, the victim didn't get so lucky.

I won't name him for privacy reasons, but even though we tried our best to stop the bleeding, my guy had lost so much blood that he died on the way to the hospital. And it was devastating. But the question everyone was asking was, how could that have happened? How could such a young lad have gotten his hands on drugs and guns? We were convinced that it was connected to Sparky somehow, that he'd put the kid up to shooting one of us,

but that didn't explain why he tried to get into the club to sell tablets. And that was the big hole in the theory for me, the thing that made me think something else was going on. And I was right. There was no rhyme or reason to the shooting. This young lad's older brother was a dealer and a crack house owner that kept his business on show, and his little brother idolized him. him. And so off he went, trying to sell tablets just like his older brother did. And when we checked him, he did exactly what his brother talked big about, which was not letting anyone disrespect

you. And so this young lad went to where his brother hid his gun, loaded, mind you, took it, brought it into town, and shot a young doorman dead with it. And he ended up going to a young offender's institution. And I got out of the security game about nine months afterwards when I I met the girl who'd eventually become my first wife. It was a dangerous time to work those kinds of trades, and it was those two shootings that made me decide that I had no future standing on doors. My name's Owen, and I've lived in this old, kind of quirky apartment for almost ten years. It's not fancy or anything.

It's got that 70s style that makes you think of old movies, but I like it here. The rent's good, the landlord's nice, and everything's usually peaceful. That's important to me because after a long day at work, all I want is to relax. Things were pretty normal until Aaron moved in next door. She seemed nice enough. She was about my age, maybe a little older, and had a kind smile. I learned she was trying to start over after some tough times, which I totally understood. I've had friends who had their own battles with bad habits, so I felt for her.

We'd sometimes chat when we bumped into each other at the mailbox or in the laundry room. which doubles as our mailroom. It was never anything deep, just little talks about the weather, or how slow the mail was. But Aaron always seemed a bit shy or like she had a lot on her mind. For the first few weeks, everything was calm and quiet,

just like it's always been. But then, things changed. It was a Tuesday night, I think, when I first noticed it. I'd woken up around two in the morning because, well, nature called. After using the bathroom, I was washing my hands when I felt something weird, like a vibration through the floor. What the heck, I thought, drying my hands quickly.

I opened the bathroom door, stepped into my living room, and then it happened again. This time, it wasn't just a feeling. I heard it. Thump, thump, thump. It sounded like someone was banging on a door. Oh, great, not the cops again, I muttered to myself. We had the police here a few weeks ago because of a fight. outside, but this time it was different. There were no voices, no shouting like you'd hear if someone

was in trouble or if it was the police. I crept closer to my front door, curious, but a bit scared too. The banging kept going, and I wondered if I should peek through the blinds. But as I reached for them, the noise stopped. Everything outside went totally silent except for a dog barking somewhere are far off. I stood there in the dark, listening hard, but nothing else happened. Whatever, I'll figure it out in the morning, I decided, and went back to bed. The next morning everything seemed normal as I got ready for work. I grabbed my mail on the way out, and there was Aaron, heading into the laundry room. Good morning, I said, trying to sound cheerful. She smiled back, but looked a bit worried when I brought up the banging. Oh no, you heard that?

asked, looking really surprised and a bit nervous. I nodded, and she quickly explained that it was just a friend who had come by to drop off something she left behind when she moved. At two in the morning, I wondered silently. That seemed really odd, but I didn't say it out loud. I just smiled and asked her to maybe keep things quieter at night. Aaron agreed and hurried off after that. I thought that was the end of it. I went to work, thinking it was just one of those weird things that happen sometimes. But I had no idea that it was just the beginning, and things were about to get a lot stranger. I wish I could say that the weird banging was a one-time thing, but it wasn't. Almost every night, like clockwork, at exactly 2.15 a.m., the banging started. It was always

three loud knocks that seemed to shake the whole building. At first, I'd jump out of bed to check, but I never saw anyone. It was like they vanished into thin air. This went on for, nights and it was really starting to mess with me. I couldn't sleep well anymore. Every night I'd lie in bed waiting for the banging to start and then I'd be wide awake. Even when it was quiet, I'd just stare at my ceiling, feeling tired but too anxious to sleep. One night I was so fed up that I decided I had to do something. I couldn't keep going on like this. I stayed up, sitting in my living room with the lights off, just waiting. And like always. at 2.15, the banging started. This time, I was ready. I tiptoed to my door and peered through the

peephole. The hallway was dimly lit by the nightlights, but I could see a figure at Aaron's door. It was really tall and looked like a person, but something about it was just off. I couldn't see its face clearly, but the way it moved wasn't like a regular person. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. As scared as I was, I opened my door a crack, just enough to get a better look. The figure was pounding on Aaron's door with so much force that I thought the door might break. But then, it stopped and turned, as if it felt me watching. What I saw next made my blood run cold. Its eyes were red, glowing like brake lights in the fog. It was staring right at me. I slammed my door shut and locked it, my whole body shaking.

I backed away from the door, not taking my eyes off it, half expecting that thing to come bursting through. But it didn't. The hallway went silent again, just like that. The next day, I saw Aaron in the laundry room again. I had to ask her about it. I needed answers. She looked really scared when I told her what I saw. And then, she told me something that made my skin crawl.

Aaron said that her ex-girlfriend, who was into some really weird stuff, had put a curse on her. She said it involved summoning a demon to haunt her. Aaron thought it was all just a crazy threat until the knocking started. She described it exactly like what I was hearing, loud, terrifying knocks at the same time every night. She explained that the demon couldn't enter her apartment unless she invited it in. That's why it just knocked, trying to scare her in. enough to break her down. And now that I had seen it too, the curse was passed on to me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It sounded like something out of a horror movie,

not something that could happen in real life. I left the laundry room feeling numb. This couldn't be real, could it? But the banging was real. The red eyes were real. And now, this nightmare was mine too. How was I going to get out of this? How could I stop it when it seemed like there was no way to fight something you couldn't even understand. Ever since Aaron told me about the curse, my nights turned into real-life nightmares. Every time the clock hit 2.15 a.m., the banging would start, and my heart would drop into my stomach. It felt like the walls of my apartment were closing in on me, and the darkness of the night got heavier with each knock. I tried everything to ignore it. I put on headphones, played loud music, and even tried sleeping with pillows over my head, but nothing worked.

The sound of the banging pierced through everything. It was like the demon knew exactly how to get into my head. As days turned into weeks, I could feel myself changing. I was always tired, dragging myself to work, and barely making it through the day. My friends at work started noticing, They asked if I was okay, but what could I say? Oh, a demon is haunting me every night because of a curse. They'd think I was joking, or worse, losing my mind, and maybe I was. The sleepless nights were taking their toll. I saw shadows moving in the corners of my eyes, and every little noise made me jump. I was scared to be alone, but also scared to be with people. What if the demon followed me to a friend's house. I couldn't risk passing the curse to someone else. I remembered what Aaron said about how the

curse could be passed on. It haunted me. The thought of making someone else go through this nightmare was horrible. But then, in my weakest moments, I'd wonder if I could do it, if it would finally give me peace. It felt like there was a war inside my head, between what I knew was right, and the desperate part of me that just wanted to sleep through one quiet night. One evening, I was so exhausted and scared that I couldn't take it anymore. I went outside, sat on the steps of the apartment building, and looked up at the night sky. It was full of stars, a beautiful sight that I hadn't really noticed in weeks. It made me feel small, but also gave me a weird sense of peace.

That's when I made up my mind. I couldn't do it. I couldn't pass this curse to someone else. It wouldn't be fair. Whatever this thing was, I had to face it. I had to find another way. I started reading about curses and demons, looking for any clue on how to break the curse without harming anyone else.

Most of the stuff I read sounded crazy, but I was living a nightmare, so who was I to say what was crazy anymore? Knights were still a terror, but having a purpose made them a bit more bearable. I was learning, trying to understand, the curse better, and hoping I'd stumble upon something that could help me. It was a long shot, but it was all I had. And so, night after night, I faced the banging, armed with my new knowledge, hoping that one day I'd find a way to silence it for good. Until then, I held onto the hope that somehow, some way, I could beat this curse without losing myself completely.