Snook - Unexplainable Scary Reddit Stories

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Join the Patreon! For bonus videos, exclusive livestreams, discord and more! https://www.patreon.com/SnookYT⁠ These were some Unexplainable Scary Reddit Threads! These stories were so good and creepy! What was your favorite story? And would you like to see me make similar videos in the future? Leave your thoughts down below in the comment section, and make sure to like and subscribe! Please go show some love to some of the authors YouTube channels! EmmaWatsonButDumber - https://www.youtube.com/@castellanhorror Drechenaux - https://www.youtube.com/drechenaux Credits! Go give some support to these talented authors! Whistohhhhh - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1qkmzqt/the_good_samaritan/?sort=top lets-split-up - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1wgc1eo/my_wife_is_obsessed_with_sealing_all_the_gaps_in/ EmmaWatsonButDumber - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1o5t2a3/the_people_upstairs_wont_stop_singing_happy/ Alias--TommySteele - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1mlbk4t/if_you_see_a_man_drowning_in_lake_wilcox_dont/?sort=top Drechenaux - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1wd661i/uncanny_valley/ WorldAwayTweedy - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1s0urp1/my_wife_works_downtown_no_one_has_left_her/ I was granted permission to use all of these stories. Make sure to check out all of the original authors. Timestamps!0:00 | Intro 2:04 | The Good Samaritan26:54 | My wife is obsessed with sealing all the gaps in our house, and it's driving me nuts.40:57 | The people upstairs won't stop singing "Happy Birthday," its been five hours55:41 | If you see a man drowning in Lake Wilcox, dont help him1:17:46 | The Uncanny Valley1:32:20 | My wife works downtown. No one has left her building in 48 hours.2:23:49 | Outro Make sure to subscribe to the Patreon for early access videos and many more perks! Also! Go follow me on Spotify and Instagram! Yes, my voice is human. The channels subscriber goal is 1 million, so subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up guys, and welcome back to the channel, and today we're getting into some unexplainable scary Reddit stories, and oh boy, do I have some phenomenal scary stories for you guys today. Like, in what I say phenomenal, the first story in today's video is by far my favorite Reddit story I have ever read. And you guys know, I've read hundreds of Reddit stories at this point, and it was by far my favorite, and so I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. And also, I just want to say thank you so much for stopping by. It means the world to make sure you like the video and subscribe to the channel. The channel subscriber goal is 1 million subscribers before the end of the year.

So please subscribe. It helps so, so much. And also, if you would like some wild, explicit, and disgusting bonus videos that I can't put on YouTube, where I read some confessions and Reddit threads that, like I said, are so wild I can't put on YouTube, then join the Patreon, where you also get exclusive live. streams every single Thursday where I hang out with you guys for a few hours we talk chat read some confessions read some stories it's an all around great time and you also get exclusive access to the community's discord and the first 1,000 members get the founders role on the server and those are

actually filling up really fast and so you better get in before they're gone and you also get exclusive early access content and so you could be watching this video you know five to seven days early. So everyone on the Patreon has already seen this video five to seven days early. You also get ad-free content. And so you get so-so-much value all for just $5 a month. And so please consider joining. It helps the channel out and you get some phenomenal content in return. And also make sure you follow my Instagram and follow me over on Spotify. It helps so, so much. And like I said, today's stories are just phenomenal. So without further ado, sit back, relax, grab a drink and grab a snack and let's get into some unexplainable scary Reddit stories.

The Good Samaritan, written by Westow. The Corolla died three miles past the last exit sign. The engine cutting out with a shudder that I felt in my teeth. I coasted onto the shoulder and sat there in the dark. Hazards clicking. Watching semis blast past and rock the car in their wake. My phone showed one bar. Then none.

Then one again. The tow company put me on hold before a woman with a smoker's rasp told me two hours, minimum, maybe three. Dispatchers said there had been a pile up west of Barstow, and they were running every truck they had. There's a rest stop about a mile ahead, the woman said. if you want to wait somewhere with a bathroom. I looked at the desert darkness beyond my headlights. A mile didn't sound far. A mile sounded like a death sentence.

I'll stay in the car. Suit yourself. Travel call when he's 20 out. The line went dead. I locked the doors and turned off the hazards to save the battery and sat in the darkness. watching my phone screen dim and brighten and dim again. A pickup pulled onto the shoulder behind me.

I watched it in the rear view. White Ford, maybe 10 years old. Work lights mounted on the roof rack. It sat there for a full minute before the driver's door opened and a man stepped out. He was mid-50s, maybe. Thick through the shoulders. He wore a denim jacket and walked with the unhurried gate of someone who had nowhere else to be.

When he reached my window, he made a little circular motion with his finger. I cracked the window, two inches. Car trouble? His voice was gentle, Midwestern maybe. The kind of voice that read bedtime stories and knew all the words to church hymns. tow truck's coming That's good He nodded

Looking at my hood like he could diagnose the problem through it How long they say Two hours Two hours He repeated it like he was tasting the words That's a long time to sit on the side of the 15 You got water It gets cold out here at night

But you'd be surprised how fast you'd dehydrate. I'm fine. Rest stops about a mile up, venom machines, bathroom, good overhead lighting. Safer than sitting here in the dark. I'll wait with the car. He smiled. His teeth were very white and very straight. The kind of teeth that cost money. Smart. Don't trust strangers. That's smart. He patted the roof of my car twice. Gently, the way you pat a dog. You need anything, I'll be at the rest stop. White Ford, names Gary.

Thank you. Don't mention it. He walked back to his truck. Didn't hurry, didn't look back. The Ford pulled around me and merged onto the highway. Tail lights dwindling until they disappeared. I realized I'd been holding my. breath. The temperature in the car dropped until I could see my breath. I started the engine to run the

heater. It turned over, coughed, died. I tried again. Nothing. I got out and started walking. The desert was louder than I'd expect. Wind through scrub brush, the distant keen of something that might have been a coyote, the hiss of sand against my jeans, the highway was a black river to my left, cars passing in bursts of lights and noise that left me more alone each time they faded. The rest stop appeared as a glow on the horizon at first, then resolved into a concrete rectangle surrounded by parking lot lights on tall poles. Two big rigs sat at the far end, dark and silent, their drivers asleep in their cabs,

a sedan with Nevada plates sat near the bathroom entrance, and the white ford, parked directly under the brightest light. Gary sat on a picnic bench near the vending machines, reading a paperback.

He looked up when I entered the pool of light and smiled like I was an old friend arriving at a party. Decided to take me up on it. Car won't start. Battery, probably. Sitting with the hazards on drains them faster than people think. He closed his book. Something with an old western cover. I'm fine. Water then. You look cold. I was cold. My jacket was in the car. I'd walked a mile in a thin sweater because the thought of going back for it felt like admitting I'd been out here longer than I could stand.

Okay, water, thank you. He fed quarters into the machine and retrieved a bottle, brought it to me with both hands extended like an offering. When I took it, his fingers didn't linger. He stepped back immediately, maintaining a distance that felt calculated to reassure. I didn't catch your name. Claire.

Claire. He smiled again. Pretty name, old-fashioned. You don't hear much anymore. It was my grandmother's. That's nice. Keeping it in the family. He returned to the picnic bench, sitting on the table with his feet on the seat. Hands folded in his lap.

Patient. Unhurried. You call the tow company again? Let them know where you are? Not yet. Signals better over by the bathroom. something about the building, I think. Metal on the roof blocks the interference.

I walked to the bathroom entrance. Gary didn't follow. I checked my phone and found two bars. Solid. The tow company picked up after three rings. He's still working the pile up, the woman said. Shouldn't be too much longer, you're next on Liz's list.

Can you tell him I'm at the rest stop, mile past where my car broke down? I'll let him know. I hung up. When I turned around, Gary was standing 10 feet away. Get through? Yeah, still waiting on the pile up. Those can take a while.

Depends on how bad it is, how many vehicles. He tilted his head. You want to sit? Benches aren't comfortable, but they're better than standing. We sat at the picnic table, across from each other Gary picked up his paperback and set it aside

the cover showed a man in a black hat pointing a revolver at something outside the frame you read Westerns I asked Louis Lamor mostly my father used to read them reminds me of him is he still around

passed when I was 30 heart attack quick at least a semi pulled into the rest of air brakes hissing. The driver climbed down from the cab, a heavy man in a flannel shirt, and walked to the bathroom without looking at either of us. Gary watched him go. Truckers don't sleep enough, read an article about it once. They take pills to stay awake, drive 18, 20 hours out of stretch. Then they pull off and crash for a few hours and do it all again. Hell of a way to make a living. What do you do?

contractor, kitchens and bathrooms mostly remodels. He held up his hands showing me the calluses. Good honest work keeps me busy. You're out late for a contractor. Couldn't sleep. Happens sometimes. I drive when it gets bad. Helps clear my head.

He smiled. You married, Claire? Divorced. Kids? No. That's probably for the best. Divorce is hard enough even without kids in the middle. He was watching the trucker's rig now, waiting.

I've got a daughter. Lives in Portland. Works for one of those tech companies, the kind where they have ping pong tables in the office and call their employees a family. That's nice. We don't talk much anymore. The trucker came out of the bathroom, still not looking at us, and climbed back into his cab.

The engine rumbled to life. Headlights swept the parking lot as he pulled out, and then we were alone. You're nervous, Gary said. It wasn't a question. I'm just tired. You're nervous because you're smart. woman alone middle of the night stranger being friendly he nodded slowly i tell my daughter the same thing trust your instincts be careful the world isn't safe for women the way it's safer man never has been that's good advice is it he leaned forward elbows on his knees here's what i wonder about claire what good does being careful do if he's a little bit of his knees what good does being careful do if he's

the danger doesn't look like danger. If it looks like a guy in a denim jacket reading Louis L'Amour at a rest stop, if it looks like help. I didn't answer. My daughter, Gary said, the reason we don't talk, her mother told her something before she died, a warning.

Stay away from your father. Don't be alone with him. Don't trust him. Why would she say that? Because she knew me better than anyone ever has. He picked up the paperback and turned it over in his hands, not looking at the cover. Claire, I've been doing this drive for three years now. Every few weeks when I can't sleep and I stop here every time, right here at this rest stop.

You know why? Why? because people break down out here all the time 40 miles and nothing in either direction cell service that barely works tow trucks that take forever and most of the time people just wait it out but sometimes there's a woman alone stranded and i see her car on the shoulder and i think to myself she's exactly the kind of person that bad things happen through out here. Wouldn't it be amazing if I could help? If I could just make sure she's safe until a ride comes?

That's very kind. No, it isn't. He set the book down. Kindness would be driving past. Kindness would be minding my own business. But I can't seem to do that. I see a woman alone in the dark, and I have to stop. I have to.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn't reach for it. You should check that, Gary said. Might be your tow truck. I pulled out my phone, text from an unknown number. In route. 20 minutes. He's coming, I said.

20 minutes. Good. That's good. Gary stood up from the, bench walk with me i i should wait here where he can see me he'll find you walk with me just to the edge of the light i want to show you some we walked together toward the edge of the parking lot where the overhead lights gave way to desert darkness gary stayed a half step behind me just in my peripheral vision i could hear him breathing slow and even.

This is the spot, he said. I stopped. The highway was visible in the distance. Headlights appearing and disappearing. What am I looking at? Nothing. That's the point. You can't see anything from here.

Someone in the rest stop, they can't see us. Someone on the highway, they're going too fast and nose. notice were invisible. I turned to face him. What do you want? I want to tell you something. Something I've never told anyone. He put his hands in his pockets,

and I flinched before I could stop myself. He noticed, I'm not going to hurt you, Claire. That's not what this is, but I need you to understand what you're standing next to, what you've been sitting across from for the past last hour, what you took water from. Okay.

I've never hurt anybody. Not in the way my daughter thinks. Not in the way you're thinking right now. He paused. But I've thought about it. I've thought about it more than I've thought about anything else in my life. Since I was 14 years old, I've thought about what it would be like, the sound it would make, how it would feel in my hands.

Whether they'd fight or freeze or beg, I've read about it, I've planned it, I've driven out here to this exact spot, and I've walked women to this exact place, and I've imagined it so clearly that sometimes I can't tell the difference between what I've done and what I've only wanted to do. My legs felt locked in place. Later I would wonder why I didn't run. Later, I would lie awake for months turning this moment over, trying to understand the paralysis. Say something, Gary said. What do you want me to say?

I don't know. That is the thing. I've never gotten this far before. The other times, I walked them out here and I made small talk and I let them go and they never knew. They got in their cars or their tow trucks and they drove away and they never thought about me again, just a nice man at a rest stop. But tonight I wanted to say it out loud. I wanted someone to know.

Why me? I don't know. He smiled. And it was worse than anything else he'd done because it looked genuine, warm. Maybe because you look like you'd understand. You've got that look, Claire. like you've seen things, like you know the world isn't what people pretend it is. I don't understand it at all.

No, I guess you don't. He looked at the desert, at the darkness beyond the parking lot lights. My wife figured it out. Took her 20 years, but she figured it out. Not what I'd done, because I haven't done anything. what I am. She could see it in me, she said. Something behind my eyes, something that wasn't like other people. She stayed with me anyway because she thought she could fix me or save me or some other thing that women tell themselves when they love someone they shouldn't love. And when she was dying,

when she knew she couldn't protect anyone anymore, she told our daughter, she said, your father is a monster. He's never done anything but he's. he is. Stay away from him, and my daughter believed her because my wife wasn't a liar. My wife was the most honest person I've ever known. And if she said I was a monster, then I was. Are you? Gary looked at me for a long time. I don't know. I think about it all the time, and I still don't know. what makes someone a monster? Is it what they do or what they want to do? If I live my whole life without hurting anyone,

am I still a monster because I wanted to? Because I thought about it every single day because the only reason I didn't was fear, not conscious? I don't know either. No, you don't. He took a step toward me, and I stepped back, and he stopped. That's the first time you've moved away from me.

The whole night, that's the first time. You didn't move away when I walked up to your car. You didn't move away when I brought you the water. You didn't move away when we sat at the table. When we walked out here, when I told you what I was, but now you move. Why now? because now I believe you. Good.

He nodded. That's good. You should believe me. He took his hands out of his pockets, slowly, showing me they were empty. Your tow truck's going to be here soon. You should go wait by the road. What are you going to do? Drive home, go to bed, wake up tomorrow,

and give an estimate on a bathroom remodel, Rancho Cucamonga. He smiled again. That's the thing about people like me, Claire. We look like everybody else. We sound like everybody else. We do bathroom remodels and read Louis Lamor and stop to help women whose cars have broken down.

And most of the time, nothing happens. Because the circumstances aren't right, or the risk is too high. Or we just decide not to. But the wanting is always there. every single day and you'll never be able to tell, not until it's too late. He turned and walked back toward the rest stop, hands in his pockets, unhurried. I watched him until he reached his truck. He got in, started the engine, and pulled out onto the

highway heading east, toward Victorville, toward a house where he lived alone. I stood at the edge of the parking lot until headlights slowed on the highway and the yellow flash of a tow truck's light bar appeared. The driver pulled into the rest stop and leaned out the window. Young guy, early 20s, apologetic about the wait. Hell of a night, he said. You okay, you look like you saw a ghost. I climbed into the passenger seat, closed the door, locked it. Just. Just. Just cold, I said. Long wait. He talked the whole way back to my car,

the pile up near Barstow, the overtime, his girlfriend who didn't understand why he worked nights. I didn't hear any of it. I was thinking about Portland, about a daughter who believed her mother's warning, about a wife who stayed with a monster for 20 years because she thought she could save him. The Corolla's battery was dead, just like Gary had said.

The driver jumped it in five minutes, and I sat behind the wheel as the engine idled, waiting for the charge to build. You good to drive? I'm good. Nearest gas station is about 20 miles. Get yourself some coffee. I will. I pulled onto the highway and drove east. toward the glow of Las Vegas on the horizon. In my rear view, the rest stops shrank to a single point of light in all that darkness.

And then, it was nothing at all. I never told anyone about Gary. Not the police, not my friends, not the therapist I started seeing. But I need to tell someone. I need people to know he's out there, but what would I say? say. A man talked to me. A man gave me water. A man walked me to the edge of the light and told me what he was and then drove home to sleep in his bed like any other person. Nothing happened. That was the worst part. Nothing happened and I couldn't prove anything. And somewhere in Victorville,

a man with a gentle voice was lying awake in the dark, thinking about the sound it would make, the way it would feel, whether they'd fight or freeze or beg, and I would never know if tonight was the night he stopped imagining, or tomorrow night, or the night after that.

And that was genuinely one of my favorite Reddit stories I have ever read. I mean, just the characters, the ambiance, the setting, and just had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I mean, I had goosebumps while reading it, and it made me nervous, like, seriously, like reading it to see where it went. And so hopefully you guys enjoyed it as well. But before we move on to the next story, I want to let you guys know about my Patreon, where every single week you get a bonus video, where I read some of the most disgusting, explicit, and just gross confessions I've received from viewers that I can't put on YouTube. And I also read some Reddit threads and Reddit stories that I can't put on YouTube because they're so wild and so,

yeah, like I said, insane. And so you get weekly bonus videos. You also get exclusive live streams every single Thursday where I hang out with you guys for a few hours. And you also get exclusive Discord access. And like I said in the intro, the founders members are the first 1,000 people in the server. And those are filling up very, very fast. So if you're considering joining, might as well join because you'll have that stamp forever if you join the Discord. And also you get early access to every single video. And if you were a patron, you would have already seen this video five to seven days ago. And you also get ad-free content. And so you get so, so much value all for just $5 a month. And the link is in the first link in

the description, in the pin comment. I can't wait to see you there. Please consider joining. And now, on to the next one. My wife is obsessed with sealing all the gaps in our house, and it's driving me nuts. How do I save our marriage? Written by Let's Split Up. It started out with little things. Honey, the gap between the counter and the fridge is too big. Food might fall in there.

So we extended the counter to close off the space. Next came the gap between the fridge and the cabinets overhead. Just a few inches, but dust will collect in there. I should mention, my wife's not normally this fussy. She's more of the handy one. I'm more of the neat freak on our marriage. And since all these little renovations were undertaken by her with very little involvement for me, other than to assist with cleanup, I didn't worry too much.

After she took care of the gap between the stove and the counters, the kitchen seemed pretty solid. I thought that might be the end of it. But then a few days later, my wife asked me if I wanted a new entertainment center for the TV and game consoles to sit on. What's wrong with the ones we have? I wondered as we lounged on the sofa.

Nothing just... She mumbled. She kept staring. Staring at the entertainment center. Specifically, staring at where its legs touched the floor. What is it? it, I asked. The cats, all their toys, and the dust, it all collects there.

Are you worried about the gap? I asked. Exasperated. It gets so dirty. Honey, you never care about dirt. Your fingernails look like you tilled the garden with your bare hands and you're still chewing on them. She withdrew her fingernails from her mouth and laughed, nervously. My wife is, amazing, but also grungy and considers natural dirt to be clean, but hates chemicals like the ones I use on our counters to get rid of our natural dirt, just to give you an idea of our philosophies. I said, I know you don't care about dust or dirt under there, and I sweep it out once a week. Why are you obsessing over gaps? I just, I thought I saw something, maybe a bug, something, something peeking out at me with its little beady eyes.

Honey, there are no bugs you know. I spray the shit out of the corners and crevices. Oh no. She looked disapprovingly. Then added, I just don't like how wide it is. Like someone could crawl under there. Someone could not crawl under there.

It's like four inches. Okay, she sighed. But later, after I came home from work, I found fresh boards added to the entertainment center to seal it off. It was tidy work. My wife is very good with carpentry. The new wood was a different type and thus a different color, which drove me nuts and bothered me far more than the gap had.

But I guess it was true, what she told me later. At least I wouldn't have to sweep under there. But when she started grimacing as we sat on the couch, making faces and occasionally leaning over to check the distance between the couch and the wall. I told her, we needed to talk. What is going on with you? I just keep thinking of avocado, she admitted. At my look of confusion, she added, my friend.

That's their name. We call them cotto. Avocado, that sounds like something a vegan would name a dog. They are vegan, she laughed, and then grew quiet. Were. They, you met them last summer, remember? They came with their buddy, Joey, for the cookout. I saw them last month.

Oh, that's right. I'm less outgoing than my wife, so I just have a couple of close friends from college. My extroverted wife, though, has multiple friend groups, music friends, job friends, previous job friends, high school friends, and rock climbing friends. The latter are the queer, crunchy sort who give their dogs names like Sarah or Peter while giving themselves names like, well, avocado. I did remember Cotto, now that she reminded me, tall, lanky, and outgoing. Big into home brewing and, as I recall, worked as a bartender. My wife's friends are hard to keep track of, but Cotto had stood out to me because

I'd admired their honeycomb tattoo sleeve. I remember that she came home from a trip with her friend group and was unusually quiet. Eventually, she confided that one of their group had gone missing, that no one knew where they'd gone. Shocked, I tried to ask her about it, but she avoided the subject. After a couple of days, life seemed to go on as normal. Until now. What happened to Cotto? I asked. And she kept twitching and looking around, as if unable to stop thinking about the gap between the couch and floor. Finally, she told me, we were supposed to go to the boundary waters. They planned to go to the boundary waters upstate, five days of canoeing, hiking, camping, reconnecting with nature,

escaping the daily grind of their jobs. Tammy, the accountant, Wendell, the store clerk, Abdi, the scheduler, my wife, Yumi, the assistant manager, and Cotto, the bartender. But when my wife called to make sure Cotto was ready to be picked up, they sounded strung out and mumbled that they were going to have to cancel. I think I brought something back with me from Japan, they said. What, like a bug? asked my wife.

Yeah, bugs, maybe. I don't know, I hear them skittering. I just, I need to finish plugging the gaps. Can't you do it when you get back? My wife was baffled. Cotto, the sociable bartender, was also the main organizer of their trip. It didn't make sense for them to back out at the last minute. After further prying, Cato at least.

last, admitted there were no bugs, but added, You me, I know you're sensitive. I don't want to upset you, all right? Just tell me what's going on, my wife burst. I, okay, while I was out there, the house I was staying at, someone was murdered in it. An old woman. They found her stuffed into the gap behind the refrigerator. Jesus.

Yeah, and they let me rent this place knowing nothing and didn't tell me until I kept seeing and hearing and smelling things like her ghost was still lurking around. And this is going to sound really weird, but I think what I brought back from Japan is her. I feel like I'm being watched, said Cato. Like, I don't ever see her, but I know she's peeking out at me from these places like the one she was tucked into,

and sometimes I wonder. You wonder? I can't help but wonder. Cotto's voice trailed off. My wife had never known Cotto to be superstitious, but obviously they'd been deeply affected by their trip to Japan. She chatted calmly over the phone, promising that being out of the house,

out with friends in nature on the water surrounded by reeds would be restorative. Cato agreed and said they'd finish packing. But when my wife and her friends arrived at Cotto's house, nobody came to the door. And after two hours

without responses to their calls or texts, the group left. Clearly, Cato had decided not to join them. So the trip continued, minus its primary organizer, but nobody could focus on the canoeing in the water and the reeds in the sky. My wife said the whole trip felt sour.

Wrong. Afterwards, she decided to go back to Cotto's house one more time. She found a spare key in one of the potted plants and let herself inside. In the main room, Cotto's mattress was lying on the floor. The frame propped uselessly against the wall. All the gaps between the dresser and wall, between the nightstand and bed, all were plugged with clothes, with cardboard boxes, with papers. It all seemed like a terrible manic episode.

The place was sweltering in the heat, and there were flies, flies everywhere, buzzing all around, swarming the rooms. The bedroom door had been sealed with duct tape and a note. Too many gaps. She left it alone and searched the bathroom. The kitchen. There were flies congregating around the trash, but the trash wasn't the source. She went downstairs to the basement.

As soon as she entered the laundry room, she was hit by a sickening wave of foul odor. And she flicked on the lights, and that's when she saw it. A gap between the washing machine and the wall, wider than necessary, maybe as much as six inches, nothing but the blackness and whatever might crawl in. She edged closer. Cotto's eyes, it peaked out at her from the darkness. She screamed. Cato's body was wedged in, flies crawling in and out of the mouth.

The limbs bent in wrong directions, but there was no mistaking their tattoo. And after she scrambled back and vomited, she snatched out her phone and called the police. While it rang, motion caught her eye. She swears to me even now that what she saw was Cato somehow scurrying deeper into the darkness, retreating deeper into the gap between the washer and the wall. Nobody was ever found. Everyone thinks I imagined seeing our friend decomposing down there that it was the brownies I ate that morning or something. My wife laughed without humor. But I can feel their eyes peeking out at me, and I can feel. keep wondering.

Keep wondering what? She shook her head. Could there have been something poisonous in the house like too much carbon monoxide, I suggested? I think I read somewhere that most haunted houses are checked for poisons since they can induce hallucinations. She just rubbed her hands and looked around nervously. Her foot jerked, and she pulled her legs up onto the sofa and glanced behind. ourself between the back of the sofa and the wall.

Honey, your missing friend is not in our apartment. I saw their eyes under the entertainment console. There's not enough space. I saw their eyes, she snapped and abruptly stood, told me she was going to seal the gap behind the couch, and without so much as waiting for us to have a discussion, She left. She's replaced most of our furniture now.

Everything either sits on the floor or has additional wood or fabric making it flush with the walls and the floors. Just recently, she finally agreed to see a therapist. I'm waiting for her to come home from her first appointment and tell me how it all went. I've been keeping things tidy to minimize friction between us. but it's hard to keep up with all the dusting. It gets so easily into every crevice. And I was recently cleaning and noticed that one of the boards under the Entertainment Center had come loose.

I think I accidentally tapped it in with a vacuum. I can't stop looking at it while I wait for her to come home. It's weird, but I hate seeing that a jar board out of the corner of my eye. Every time I look away, I swear in my periphery, I get this creeping feeling like there are eyes peering at me from the gap. And I keep wondering. I know it's absurd, but I just keep wondering. I keep wondering what it might be like to crawl inside. The people upstairs won't stop singing Happy Birthday.

It's been five hours. Written by Emma Watson, but dumber. I don't usually work on Sundays, but I needed some extra cash. So I took an early shift. I came home at around 2 p.m. I live in this apartment building. My apartment is on the first floor, along with another one that belongs to this dude who's rarely home.

There's Mrs. Rogue's place on the ground floor, and then the second floor has two other flats. One owned by an elderly couple, and the other by this family. I don't really see that often, directly above me. Sometimes I hear the kids in the morning moaning about having to get ready for school, and then stomping down the stairs. Sometimes I hear hushed voices and dishes clattering. After 10 p.m., everything usually goes quiet. I got to my door, and, as I was searching for my keys in my bag,

I could hear her voice upstairs. They were hushed and a little tense, stressing the words and mixing them together. I couldn't really make out what they were saying, but they seem to be talking about something really important. Now, keep in mind that I've never, ever seen these people before. I assumed they were a family because I kept hearing the kids and sounds that I generally attribute to a family home.

It's not like I've personally met them, I just assumed. Anyway, as I said, I finally got a hold of my keys and unlocked the door. yet I didn't immediately step inside after I opened it. I don't know why I let it swing open and remain there listening for two more seconds, but I'm somewhat glad I did. The moment the door was heard, the voices upstairs stopped, completely, as if they were listening to me now. I remained still.

We all studied the silence for a while. I heard a singular step on the, the stairs above. That's when my back went cold and my muscles tensed up. For whatever reason, I got the sudden urge to just go inside and shut the door behind me, which I did. Afterwards, I started putting some groceries in the fridge and doing some errands around the house, faintly at first, then stronger. I started hearing this birthday song upstairs. I smiled and side. They were planning the birthday, man. That's why they were so precocious, so nervous. It sounded like there were about five to six people singing maybe. Happy birthday, dear Jonah,

that was cute. When they finished, they started again. I did find it weird, but I assumed that the kid had asked for it again. Kids love blowing out candles and whatever. It was an awfully long song. It kept looping until reaching its conclusion. Just like the first time. It had a lot of unnecessary runs and filler and extra lyrics when they finished a little pause followed. Then they started again in the exact same way. Fucking weird family I thought. And by that time I'd gotten annoyed. So I just put on my headphones and laid down on the the couch. I fell asleep at around 4 or 5 p.m. I woke up from the nap disoriented. Man, afterwork naps hit the hardest. I'd slept until around 8 p.m. And the sun was peeking at me from behind

some buildings, a sunset that was more blue than red. A melancholy and confusion that reminded me of how liminal your house felt when you would go to sleep after school and wake up with a sore throat and a huge pillow mark on your face. With your mood ruined, your mother suddenly calling you out to go to dinner, I swallowed, staring blankly at the window highlighted in gold and rum. I rubbed my eyes, then massaged my face. I stood up to get a glass of water, walked barefoot to the kitchen, which was now sunken in that specific 8 p.m. darkness and stood still and silent, not knowing what I wanted from my life. Then I finally registered one important detail. The folks upstairs were still singing, happy birthday. I listened for a while, unsure of what my reaction should be. I wondered if they had some record.

recording playing on a loop, but that wasn't really the case. As each version sounded different from the previous, they really were weird. Or maybe their kid was just eccentric. Maybe they were practicing for some performance. I started thinking, as I said, I hadn't personally met these people before, so I had no idea what they did. Maybe they really were practicing. I put my headphones on and went on trying to make some sort of dinner,

even though I wasn't really hungry and my throat still hurt. I ate, watched my show, then took a shower. Their singing had started to piss me off. It was now approaching 10 p.m., and I felt the need to go upstairs and tell them to quit it. I'm not confrontational. I really don't like telling people they upset me, and most don't have an appropriate reaction at all. I didn't want to talk to them.

So I called my mom. I started telling her about my day, but she interrupted me, asking about the people upstairs. Oh, yeah, they've been doing it for hours. I don't know. It's starting to really get on my nerves. Well, go up to them and knock. Aren't the other residents annoyed?

The old people upstairs? I'm sure they wanted to sleep by now. Maybe I could just put on some music. could cover them up. But do you want to listen to music? No, not really. Then why do it to please them? Go upstairs, Michaela. I sighed and reluctantly agreed. After hanging up, I put on a sweater and unlocked my front door. The moment I opened it, the air felt a little colder. I stared at the dark hallway, illuminated by the ray of light from my door and another faint light coming from upstairs. I went up the stairs.

The second floor was more animated than the first. The door to the family's apartment was slightly open, and I could see light and movement behind. I slowly approached it, then peeked inside. I could see a hallway with balloons and confetti peacefully floating around. A faint smell of candles and sweetness lingered out. I didn't want to disturb. too much, so I tried to be discreet when I quietly and almost imperceptibly pushed the door slightly more. The small hallway made way to a dining room. The shadows were dancing on the walls as people clapped around

the table and sang. On the table was a cake with pink and purple frosting. Sprinkles and some writing I couldn't really decipher. The song carried on, but was hoarser than I'd remembered it. People were smiling, swaying from side to side. At the person sitting in front of the cake, the lighting was dim and pleasant, its only source being the candles. The people around were a little tense, but overall it reminded me of my own birthdays as a kid. Some boxes lay scattered on the floor. I tried to take a better look at them, or the kid. The child looked like a young boy with a big birthday hat on. He, I think, could have been around 10 or 12,

and his face was round and stretched into a big smile. I stared for a while at the teeth. I don't know what prompted me to make that observation, but he had adult teeth, which were rotten and yellow, sticking out of his mouth in abnormal directions. His eyes were wide and red, as if he'd been crying for a while. I don't remember seeing him blink at all.

In the minutes that I watched that felt like hours, he looked really shaken and tense. I'd never seen a child like that before. Never in my life. All the courage I had had before peeking through the door had evaporated. I must have zoned out watching the scene when I pulled away from my trance. The kid shifted his eyes from the candles, which had now almost completely melted and looked straight at me. I felt seeing like I'd never been before.

My heart completely collapsed, leaving a painful knot in my chest as I made eye contact with the child. His smile slowly faded, turning into a grimace. I wanted to run, but I was somehow frozen in place. Suddenly he blew out the candles, and the room was engulfed in darkness. I heard something shuffling the dark towards me, gasped and shut the door behind me, as I practically jumped down the stairs. The shuffling and scratching followed. I gripped the door and slammed it behind me just as something slammed into it from the other side.

Eyes wide and unfocused, I barely managed to lock it as the banging started. The song upstairs had stopped. I looked through the peephole. The hallway was completely dark now, but I could make out the details of the face I had looked at before in the dimly lit dining room. Only now we were at eye level, which was impossible since that had been a kid. Had it or had it been just a person? The more I thought, the more I realized I had no idea what prompted me to assume it had been a kid.

The round face, childish clothing, trying to decipher the memory meant analyzing every detail of that horrible face, a thing I didn't want to do. The banging turned to scratching. I yelled I was going to call the police. My voice died in my throat. The banging was so strong that it was. it was undoubtedly going to break down my door. Suddenly, I heard a distinct sound upstairs.

The banging and scratching and instantly stopped. It was a door opening. The elderly couple's door. Hey, what on earth are you doing? It is the middle of the night. I watched through the peephole as the kid, not a kid, walked away from my door upstairs. Quit it before I call the bleak.

It's enough that I have to hear your kid's tantrums every day, lady, but... The voice abruptly stopped. I listened, barely breathing. No scream, no sound, nothing. Faint scratching, then shuffling, then a faint cry that sounded more like forced sobs. I silently dialed up the police and barely managed to whisper what was going on, afraid that I might be heard.

As I was detailing the problem, I looked through the peephole once again to be greeted by that face, grimaced, eyes bloodshot and sunken into the head. You're welcome to join next year. That's why we left the door open. Came the voice of an adult out of the face of a 12-year-old. I gasped and ducked as if that would save me. The police came in around half an hour, which was an insanely. long amount of time. They went upstairs and sealed off the entirety of the second floor.

They refused to give me details. I had to wait for the headlines and accept some vague answers from the numerous phone calls I'd given since. Miss, there were never kids living upstairs. Two of them were grown-ups, but two of them were pretending to be kids. They refused to tell me what had happened to the elderly couple. They barely mumbled something that included kidnapping, massacre, disembowlment. Some of the victims, which had been many, were hostages made to play along.

The presents were just pieces of flesh, toys made of bones with bows on them. One of them was a teeth necklace. I'm going through a really hard time now, trying to move all my stuff without having to go to that place too often. I can't sell it or rent it out, maybe to some true crime fanatic. I moved in with my parents, but I asked them to add extra locks to their doors and windows and security cameras everywhere. They assumed I was paranoid and suffering from PTSD. I let them believe that. However, I'd watched the security footage of that night, showing the outside of my door.

The birthday boy I'd spoken to hadn't gone back upstairs. He just crawled to the window and jumped out. I don't know where he is now. I hope it goes both ways. If you see a man drowning in Lake Wilcox, don't help him by alias Tommy Steele. I know, I know, it sounds awful. but I have to warn you anyway.

It's not worth the risk. Even if the person drowning might not be him, you'll never see his face through the splashes. So don't think it's a simple matter of recognition. They say he only appears at night. But I've heard a story or two from the daylight hours of the years. It's never safe to rescue someone. The locals all know this.

But I didn't. Not until it was far too late. It was the summer of 2006. I was 19 back then. Just a dumbass kid, shouldering a dangerous feeling of invincibility. Enough so that I had become a volunteer firefighter straight out of high school.

Most of my friends went off to college, so the semester months of late 2005 had been quite lonely. I saw my best friend Carson overwinter. break, and she must have picked up on my low mood. I'll tell you what, Joey, she had said. Next summer, I'll grab Trish and Cole, and we'll all go on a camping trip. At the time, the very idea caused my heart to grow wings and soar to cloud nine. I wish I could forget that feeling.

Maybe the fall wouldn't hurt as much from a lesser height. Trish and Cole had been our friends since sixth grade. Carson and I took bets on how long it would take those two to get together, but we both lost. They were smart enough to just stay friends until they were accepted to the same college. While I had known Carson since kindergarten, they were still very dear friends of mine all the same. The four of us had gone camping with Cole's parents in the summer of 1999. The group unanimously considered the trip to be our finest hour. Hell, I still have a picture of us from that trip on my desk.

at home. You can clearly see Cole looking at Trish, and we gave him shit about it for years. Some days, I even turn it around to face me as I write. As the summer approached, our excitement grew. We'd already bought the tents, some fishing gear, and a cooler for our illicit beverages. We borrowed the rest from Cole's family. We planned most of the details out, and by we, I mean Trish, as she didn't appreciate spontaneity like the rest of us did. And I had the printed directions to Lake Wilcox in hand when Carson rolled up in her 1992 Tahoe. I quickly threw my gear and backpack in the rear before jumping into the passenger seat. The moment I sat down, Carson leaned over and gave me a hug.

Hey, there he is, came Cole's voice from the back seat as he clapped a massive hand on my shoulder. It's so good to see you, beamed Trish. As she held Cole's other hand, How have you been? Can't complain, I replied. I had my first house fire last week. Everyone made it out before we even got there. And yes, they had their cat with them.

I've never seen a cat looking so pissed off. Jesus, Joey, said Cole, shaking his head. You sound way too excited when he talk about burning buildings. Carson glanced over. agreement clear in his eyes. Yeah, I know, I said as I rubbed the back of my neck. Just promise us he won't be stupid and rush in, Trish added. I want this trip to be an annual thing, and it won't be the same without your dumb ass.

I smiled. I promise. So, Carson interrupted. You're going to tell me which way we're going first, Officer Dipshit? The rest of the four-hour drive went much the same way. It gave us plenty of time to catch up with one another, and Cole took full advantage of the cooler within arm's reach. Trish frowned disapprovingly as he stumbled while exiting Carson's Tahoe. The rest of us followed suit.

And together, we walked across the gravel lot towards the tree line. I'll give it to Trish. She picked one hell of a spot. The trees were tall, yet not so dense as to block too much sunlight or hinder hiking. perfect combination of shade and the space to toss a frisbee. I could already see several perfect locations to set up our tents. And then there was Lake Wilcox itself. The waters reached the shore no more than 50 feet from where we would ultimately set up camp.

An old dock stood nearby, going out about 20 feet into the lake. The surface was calm but moved enough to soothe any worries of stillwater. Oh, hell yeah, Cole cheered. This is going to be so sweet. Babe, you're incredible. Trish huffed, but couldn't quite hide her smile. Yeah, Trish, this looks perfect, Carson added. How did you find this place?

Google Earth, Trish replied with pride. It looked like a great place to camp. The nearest town is only two miles away in case we end up needing anything. She said, glancing at the notoriously forgetful Cole. Plus, I couldn't find anything online about people camping here, so I figured we'd probably have the place to ourselves. Well, it looks like you were right, I chimed in. I don't see any campsites. Hell, it looks like nobody's been here in a while. Well, let's hurry up and get our tents up so we can start drinking, said Cole. Effortlessly knocking the smile, clear off Trish's face.

Once we are set up, the fun really began. The drinks. The drinks. were flowing, the fish were biting, and Cole had the time of his life as we tossed a football back and forth. He blew out his knee during his senior season, and I could tell how much he enjoyed catching passes again. Carson and Tresor arranging small rocks to build a makeshift fire pit, as Carson straightened the last rock to her liking, she stood up and took off her shirt to reveal the bikini top she had on beneath. Before I could react, the rest of her, outerwear was in her tent and she was racing towards the dock. Cannonball, she shouted as she entered the water with a massive splash. We all laughed and started stripping down to our swimsuits

and leapt in one by one. The water felt incredible against my skin as I broke the surface. Carson beamed at me. Come on, Joey. Let's swim out a bit. Look, I'm not a perfect man, although I would have never risked her friendship. I did have a thing for Carson back then. It didn't take much for her to convince me to do something. Soon the depth was beyond where our toes could touch. And Carson challenged me to a race by swimming at full speed the moment I looked back to see our other friends.

Her laughter was cut short when her feet touched the bottom again, about a hundred yards from the shore. Hey, Joey, come check this out, she said as she stood up. Sure enough, my feet soon touched the bottom as well. At my full height, the water barely reached my waist. It must be a sandbar, she said. This is pretty cool. Yeah, you're right.

Think we should call Trish and Cole out here? Carson looked back towards the shore. The couple were having a blast, splashing each other back in the shallows, as if we weren't even here. Nah, she said, as she lowered her body back into the shallow water, it's like our own private island, she paused. unless you've got a problem with being stranded on an island with me. Why would I?

Yes, readers. I couldn't read a flashing neon sign. Anyway, we stayed right there for around half an hour, only swimming back as the sun began to slide below the horizon. Soon the four of us were comfortably surrounding a small campfire. Hey, can I talk to you for a sec? Cole asked me, quietly. Yeah, of course, I said.

as I set my beer down. Cole beckoned me over, and I joined him a short distance away. All right, what's up, man? Cole rubbed the back of his head at Sheebuschley. My dumb ass left the protection at home. I mean, I've got a gun in my bag. I replied.

No, dude, the other protection. Oh, well, good job, buddy. If you're asking me for one, I don't have any. Damn, I was hoping you finally had the ballast make a move on Carson. Hurtful. Anyway, said Cole. You think Carson would let me borrow her Tahoe so I can get some in town?

Why are you asking me? Ask her. Are you even sober? Yeah, I'm good, he assured me. I noticed my fuck up when I put my stuff in our tent, so I haven't had a drink since we got here. Can you ask her? I don't want Trish to know.

I rolled my eyes. Whatever, man. I'll see what I can do. Carson was hesitant, but Cole. really had sobered up in the hours we had been there, so she agreed and gave him directions to the nearby town. Cole fed Trish a story of wanting to grab some more snacks, and he left. By this point, Carson and I were quite drunk, and returned to our tents once Trish assured us that she would be all right waiting for Cole. I didn't wake up until I heard Carson scream.

Trish, oh my God, Joe, get out of here now. I never moved so fast in my life. I was out of my tent like a shot and immediately saw Carson kneeling at the water's edge. My heart sank as I sprinted towards her, but she wasn't alone. Though only lit by moonlight, I could still see that she was dragging Trish ashore, and Trish was unresponsive. My training kicked in, and I quickly rolled Trish onto her back to clear her airway. I couldn't find a pulse, so I began CPR. are. Water flowed from her open mouth with the first compression. As soon as the water stopped, I began mouth to mouth, but Carson stopped me. I'll do that. You focus on her art. I pushed down on her chest with everything I had. The sickening crunch of my friend's ribs breaking under my

hands is a feeling that will never leave me. But it was no use. As soon as I had a proper look at her face, I knew Trish was gone. Her skin had gone pale, with the telltale blue tint of asphyxiation. Her open, unfocused eyes were the final sign that my efforts were in vain. Slowly, I stopped my compressions, and Carson buried her face in my shoulder and began to cry. I hadn't even noticed my own tears until that moment. I reached down and closed her eyes. Carson, what happened? I stepped out to pee, and I saw her floating in the water.

She responded between soft sobs. She was faced down. I looked down at the body of our friend. She was still wearing her gym shorts and tank top, as if she hadn't planned on entering the water. I steadied myself as best as I could. We need to call the police, I said gently. Carson nodded and rubbed her eyes before standing up and walking back towards her tent to grab her phone.

Something else was bothering me, though. Trish had been a member of our school's swimming team. For her to drown like this made no sense. But there was one of the school's swimming team. other thing. To this day, Carson doesn't know what I saw in the water as we pulled Trish out. Eyes glazed over as if dead. Until they blinked. But they immediately vanished after that. At the time, I assumed it had been a large catfish or something. I have no signal, came Carson's voice from behind me. Shit, I'll go try. Sure enough, my phone also had no

service. Same with Trish's. And Cole has the truck, I thought aloud as the full helplessness of the situation hit me. Cole, whispered Carson. Oh God. Oh God, how are we going to tell him? I'll tell him, I said. I've had to do it before. What Carson didn't know was the day after the house fire my department had put out. I'd responded to a car accident. I had to tell the driver that his brother in the passenger seat was gone. Help me! The voice came with a flurry of frantic splashing in the lake behind me. I whipped around to see a man floundering a few hundred feet from the shore.

Instinct once again took over me, and I tossed my phone aside. But before I could jump into the water, I felt a hand clamped down on my shoulder. Wait, came Carson's voice from behind me. let go, I said, trying to shrug her hand off of me, but she gripped tighter. Joseph, something's not right. We had been friends for 15 years at that time, and not once had she called me that. Not just that, there was a fear in her voice I had never heard before. It was enough to stop me in my tracks.

I looked back and Carson was staring out at the drowning man. Look where he is. I turned back towards the lake and froze. The turbulent water was directly over the sandbar. The man was splashing in less than three feet of water. My body went cold. My instincts screamed as if I had come face to face with a mountain lion. We watched the lake in silence for what felt like an eternity

as the man continued to call for help until he stopped. The lake instantly fell silent, along with any wildlife in the area. It was as if the wood themselves held their breath, and a pale face began emerging from the water where the man had been. It broke the surface and it just,

kept rising. It finally came to a stop around six feet above the water, and that was when I noticed the body of a man beneath it. He stood motionless on the surface. As he stared at us, another detail emerged. His neck was broken. The dead eyes staring back at us were nearly vertical. The man led out a horrific screech and sprints it across the water straight towards us. far, far faster than any man ever could, with his head flopping against his shoulder the entire way. His movements weren't natural, almost like a section of film with too many cuts and sloppy editing.

Before we could even react to what was happening, he came to an instant halt at the same point the water did, less than four feet from Carson. The man glanced at the ground before him and glared at us with utter malice clear in his, broken face. What's going on? Who the fuck is that?

Came Cole's voice from somewhere behind us. The man's head snapped upward instantly. A terrifying smile full of rotten, broken teeth crept across his features before taking a step backward into the water. Cole must have noticed Trish's body as he let out a cry and rushed to her side, hopelessly shaking his dead fiancée. What did you do to her? He roared.

Tears forming in his eyes as he turned to face the smiling man, who responded by taking another step back into the lake and holding his grin. Cole, don't! Carson screamed. But it was too late. Cole charged his partner's killer. You son of a bitch, I'll kill you. Was all he got out before being pulled underwater. I dove in after him without a second third.

thought. He was our friend. He would have done the same for us. I swam after the bubble trail as fast as I could, but I only made it 50 feet before something tightened around me and snapped me down into the pitch black water. I felt a thud below me as if something heavy had impacted the lake floor. The shimmering moonlight was barely visible from the surface about 20 feet above me. My hands clawed at the invisible rope around me as my lungs began to burn. My vision started to blur. My movement slowed, though I refused to give up as a shadow block the dim light from above. Carson.

She'd found me. I hadn't noticed her following me into the water after coal. She grabbed my arm and pulled against the invisible rope as it fought to kill me. She must have noticed my struggle against my. own body, and she reached for the force holding me under. And it vanished. I was free. Carson dragged me to the surface just before the inevitable reflex to breathe could draw

water back into my lungs. Seconds after we surfaced, a muffled screech emitted from the bubbling waters below. It sounded pissed. Swim, she shouted. Leading up to this moment, I wasn't a particularly fast swimmer. However, survival instincts easily doubled. my normal pace as we frantically swam for the bank. But we weren't the only ones. A stream of bubbles was streaking towards us from behind. I felt the man swim past me just before Carson went under.

Without a second thought, I pushed myself back under water after her. But whatever this thing was, put banshees to shame. A scream reverberated through the water with enough force to permanently damage my hearing. But I could see Carson surfacing. again. We ran the moment our feet touched the bottom and scrambled ashore. I looked over my shoulder, and man, do I regret it. The man was once again standing on the surface of less than an inch of water behind us. His head was bobbing around on his shoulder, but he reached up, grabbed his hair, and used it to hold his head upright as he glared at us. The waters around him grew turbulent as his milky, dead eyes narrowed in pure hatred.

Then he vanished. The water became still. The world was instantly as it should be. Well, almost. Coal never resurfaced. Everything after that was a blur. The local sheriff and his men recovered Trish's body from the shore where we left her. There were funerals, furious, grieving relatives.

and blackout drinking on my part. But even through the haze, I noticed one thing. The deputies were very careful to avoid touching the water as they worked. They knew. That was 19 years ago. Despite my best efforts to ruin things by becoming an alcoholic, Carson married me anyway once I sobered up for good. We spent years research.

searching the history of the area and eventually we found a name. Gabriel Barnes. An alleged killer in the 1830s. Barnes disappeared from existence around the same time Sheriff Wilcox's son did. After what we went through, I'd guess Wilcox tied a anchor or a rock round Barnes and threw him into the lake that would soon carry his name. After what we went through, As for how we survived that night when our friends didn't, we eventually realized that the only difference between us and them was the solid iron bracelet Carson wore on her left wrist that day. There's one more thing I haven't mentioned. At the bottom of that lake, I saw something sticking out of the mud.

The end of a human femur. As I write this, my wife is loading our source. scuba gear into our truck. We know where that bastard is. More importantly, we know how to hurt him. We're going to burn those bones and put the son of a bitch down. But I'm leaving this as a warning in case we don't come back. If you see someone floundering in Lake Wilcox, let them drown.

Uncanny Valley, written by Drencheno. You've probably heard of the uncanny valley. It's that unsettling feeling you get when something looks almost human but not quite right. A face that is close enough to familiar that your brain initially accepts it, only for some tiny discrepancy to make your skin crawl. A mannequin, a doll, one of those old computer games with strange models. there are plenty of theories for why we react that way. Some say we evolved to avoid the sick, the deceased, or the dead.

Others think it comes down to attraction and symmetry. We recognize phases that fit a certain pattern and instinctively recoil from those that do not. The sensation certainly goes beyond just finding what you see repulsive, though. If you search up images, related to the Uncanny Valley, it isn't just that they're ugly. There is something quite off about them. But there is another theory.

Maybe the Uncanny Valley exists because, at some point in human history, there was an evolutionary advantage to recognizing something that looked human but wasn't. That something hunted us that looked somewhat like us. There are examples of mimicry and nature like that, but nothing quite on this level. You would think that, if such things ever existed, they would be gone now. Extinct, forgotten, reduced to folklore and campfire stories. They couldn't possibly still be out there. Well, I want to share three stories.

The first happened when I was four years old. I was walking down a street with my mother. She had stopped to look through a shop window, and I, being four, kept walking. Maybe I had seen something interesting. Maybe I was chasing a bird. I honestly do not remember. Things were different back then. A child wandering a few steps ahead of their parents was not treated as the immediate catastrophe it would be today.

Eventually, I got bored and turned around to find my mom. mother. She was standing a short distance behind me. She did not say anything. She simply held out her hand, a signal that it was time to leave. I took it. We walked together for maybe 10 feet before I heard someone scream my name. I turned. My mother was standing behind us, staring at me with absolute terror on her face. She was running toward me. Where did you go? She cried.

How did you? What are you doing? She could barely get the words out. The hand holding mine suddenly went limp. Then it let go. At first, I did not understand what was happening. I had assumed I had simply grabbed the wrong person's hand, as children sometimes do. Maybe the woman's clothes look.

like my mother's. Maybe I had not been paying attention. I'm sure something like that's happened to you. But that was not what happened. The woman was dressed exactly like my mother. Same coat, same scarf, same handbag, same shoes, and please remember, she was the one who held out her hand to beckoned to me. When I looked up at her face, I realized that it was a also my mother's face. Almost. At the time, I did not have the language to describe what was wrong. My mother's face was one of the most familiar things in the world to me. I saw it every day. Because of that familiarity, I think my brain had been filling in the gaps when something didn't make sense. It saw what it expected to see and ignored the things that did not fit. But when my real

mother grabbed me and pulled me away, I finally noticed one eye was spaced just a little too far from the other. One eyebrow sat higher than it should have. The nose was almost right, but the bridge was too narrow. And her expression, that was the worst. part. It was not angry. It was not confused. It was not surprised. It was trying to look like my mother. It was wearing an expression that I do not think a human face should be able to make. A careful, rehearsed imitation of concern, arranged incorrectly over features that did not quite belonged together. It looked like a doll whose face had been partially melted under a candle. I started screaming. The woman looked down at me for a few seconds. Then she turned and walked into an

alleyway. I never saw her again. My mother never let me out of her side after that. A few days after, I told my father what had happened. He listened quietly. His face getting peasanted. His face getting paler as I spoke. When I finished, he was silent for a long time. Then he told me something that had happened to him as a child. My father had grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania. He had a neighbor named John. And they usually walked to school together. It took about 20 minutes by foot. Again, this was a different time. Two children walking to school alone did not seem especially dangerous. They had a usual meeting spot near the end of the road. One morning my father arrived and found John already waiting for him.

This was strange, because my father was always the punctual one. John was usually late. Seeing him on time, let alone early, was almost unheard of. But John seemed cheerful enough. Hey, he said, check out my new hat. He pointed to a red baseball cap, pulled low. low over his forehead. The brim cast a shadow over much of his face. My father complimented him on it, and the two of them started walking. After a few minutes, John said, I found a shortcut to school.

Want to take it? My father was a kid. A shortcut sounded exciting. Sure, he said. The trail curved near a stretch of thick woods. The boy in the red cap started leading him toward the trees. Then somehow shouted from behind them, Hey, wait for me. My father turned around. John was running toward them. The real John. He was out of breath and furious,

asking why my father had left without him, why he had not waited at their usual meeting place. My father looked back toward the woods. The other John had stopped moving. At first, my father could not tell what was wrong with him. The hat still covered most of his face. He was wearing the same clothes as John, the same jacket, the same jeans, the same worn sneakers. But the longer my father stared, the more wrong it became.

The face under the cap was similar, but not identical. The jaw was too narrow. The eyes were not level. The hat hid most of these imperfections, but not all of them. Then the boy in the red hat turned and ran into the woods. My father and John never followed him. They ran to school instead. My father said he spent years trying to convince himself it had been a prank.

Maybe another boy from town had dressed up like John to scare him. Maybe he had imagined the entire thing. But he never really believed that. And I could tell he was terrified of why the thing wanted to leave. him astray, and what it planned to do if successful. For most of my life, I tried not to think about either story. I told myself that I had misremembered my childhood, that my father had embellished an old memory, that there were rational explanations for everything.

Then, this morning happened. The third main story I want to get into. My wife is away on a business trip. She left two days ago and is not supposed to be home for another three. This morning I heard the doorbell ring. I looked through the peephole and saw my wife standing on the porch. At first, I assumed her trip had concluded early. She was wearing the coat she had left in.

Her hair was tied back the way she usually wears it when traveling. She had the same suitcase beside her. I had my hand on the dead bolt when my phone rang. It was my wife. I looked down at the screen, then back through the peephole. The woman outside was still standing there. I answered. Hey, I said.

What happened? Did you come home early? There was a pause. What? My wife asked. You're at the front door. Another pause. longer this time.

Then she said, very carefully, No, I'm at the hotel. I won't be home until Monday. I was calling to ask if you remember whether or not I'd packed my charger, I can't find it, and I stopped breathing. My door doesn't have a camera, a feature I was regretting not keeping.

The peephole distorts what you see, though. Hence my confusion. I did not look through the people, people again. I moved to the front window instead, keeping low enough that whoever was outside would not see me. From the side, I could see her clearly, or it. It was wearing my wife's clothes. It had her suitcase. It had her hair. It had her face. Almost. The eyes were too far apart. The mouth was too wide. One cheekbone sat higher than the other. In the expression on its face was the same one I remembered from childhood. Not anger. Not confusion. A careful artificial imitation of concern.

It looked directly at the window. Then it smiled. My phone was still pressed to my ear. I hadn't been paying attention. Prompting for my room. real wife to say something. What is it? Are you even listening to my wife asked? What's wrong? The thing outside lifted one hand and knocked the door. Three soft taps. I whispered,

there's someone here. Someone who looks like you. My wife went quiet. Lock the door. Call the police. That's what makes sense to do, but we live far too out. The knocking came again. Three taps.

Then three more. The thing outside spoke. It had my wife's voice. Like I was hearing it distorted through an old telephone. Please, it said. It's cold. I shouted through the door. Go away.

For a moment, everything was silent. I thought it would go away. remembering those two stories. But it hasn't left. It was standing completely still. It has not moved from the front step. It has not blinked. It has not adjusted its grip on the suitcase or shifted its weight.

It continues to knock. My house was only one proper entrance and exit. That door. There are windows, but beyond them is nothing but full. forest for miles. I do not know whether it is alone. I do not know whether it can get in. I do not know whether it could follow me if I tried to run or if I could outrun it.

The knocking is getting louder. It is no longer asking me to open the door. Now it is using my wife's voice to tell me that she knows I am inside. My wife is still on the phone with me. She keeps telling me not to open the door. But a few minutes ago, the thing outside stopped knocking. I thought it was over, but two more people joined in. Not people I know, but there's something off about them as well.

This has never happened before. They're supposed to run away when they know the jig is up, but I guess they know that I'm alone. I called the police. They will likely be an hour away. I don't know if my door will hold if all three to try to break in. I don't know if anyone has any advice when dealing with these mimics. But please, hurry up. My wife works downtown.

No one has left her building in 48 hours. Written by World Away Tweety. She had said it was going to be a late night of, at the office. I remembered that first night well. 9.30 p.m. She still wasn't home. Was probably burning the midnight oil. The thought crossed me. In this sort of market, maybe that's fine. Jobs are a rarity. There are worse things than working hard. I forced myself under the covers, shut my eyes, and waited for sleep to take me. The next, morning when she wasn't spayed out beside me. I convinced myself she must have sauntered in at 11 p.m.

and left at 6 a.m. having sprinted through her morning rituals before I'd even had time to separate the blinds. My first text to her was delivered at 8.48 a.m. sitting in the uncomfortable chair of my more uncomfortable cubicle. Works really killing you. Huh? A certain flavor of guilt washed over me when I realized I still didn't fully understand what her new job entailed. The title was Project Manager, but I always found the term nebulous. My mind shot back to words she'd mentioned when discussing it, neural networks and visual processing. They were coming up on a big project deliverable. I nodded, of course, I'd always nod.

I put the phone down and subjected myself to the boring tasks of the day. A watcht pot never boils after all. Soon I'd get distracted, forget about everything, and then I'd hear from her. Corporate bureaucracy held my attention for a few hours when... My phone vibrated. I checked it out immediately. A dumb meme from a friend I hadn't spoken to in ages. Great.

already I was willing to cave on the internal rule I'd set for myself to not think about it. I sent her a new text finally. Hey, hon, where are you? And then called her to, for good measure. Her voicemail played, Hi, this is Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, A, eh, eh. I cannot answer the phone, the phone, the phone. the phone right now.

So you should just try to call me back, yeah, back yeah, back yeah, back yeah, eh, eh, eh, this is really sad. And then laughed her as her sing-song, Rayana impression, broke down and I heard the beep. I waited for the phone to buzz again, for a callback, something. When there was nothing, the next thought was, Is a good husband supposed to call the cops immediately when he doesn't know where his wife is? Or was I just overthinking things? I left work early and depersonized the entire way home.

Speeding on the freeway, stuck in traffic, waiting for the light to change, being colorblind, I go by traffic light position, pulling into the driveway, all of it done with no real lucidity. at home pacing back and forth in slippers on the hardwood floor. 6 p.m., turning to 7 p.m., turned to 9. I'd occasionally grabbed the remote, flip through some random streaming service, hoping something. The all-seeing algorithm suggested might pull me away from my anxiety,

but nothing did. So when 10 p.m. rolled around, I called the cops. After a brief transfer, once I clarified that my situation was, urgent, but perhaps not life or death urgent, the gruff voice on the other end of the line asked me when I had at last seen Ella. If this was unusual, and if she'd been going through anything recently, acting strangely, differently, following my answer that, yes, this was a little out of the ordinary, and no, nothing seemed off before today. He then got her car and licensed

details from me, told me they'd ping her phone, and assured me they'd circle back as soon as they could, maybe even send an officer to my house. They were on it, in short. Words I found comforting before I realized that the boilerplate phrase was probably thrown around all the time by them. The bit of action I'd taken suddenly put my brain into motion. Co-workers. And yes, perhaps, I was just over thinking, but still, co-workers. I spent too long workshopping the text messages to James and Preeti. Her two colleagues I'd met at a couple of gatherings now. I wish people death when they cut me off in traffic, and yet I overthinks sincerity in text to strangers. Maybe try therapy? Her voice in my head? Not now, hon. I'm trying to find you. I sent the text. Hey James, I hope you're well.

I was curious if Ella is still at the office. Preeti, basically the same text. Then back to Waden again. In the blur of anxious monotony, I melted into my sofa, twiddled my thumbs, and ordered a Grande Malka Frappuccino via DoorDash for $18 because it felt like a wise financial move. I watched the app as the little icon crept down the streets. Jennifer, the driver, still had a few stops to make. A new text on my phone.

All of a sudden, Hi, is this Matt? To the jumble of numbers I didn't recognize, but saw, were from my area code. I responded. Yes, this is Matt. Before I could say more, the three typing dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. And the next messages came through in rapid succession. My name's Ken.

I'm not sure, if you remember, but I met you at bowling two months ago. Ping. My wife May works with Ella. They work on the same team. The bowling trip was organized by some of their co-workers. They allowed plus ones. Ping. We had a WhatsApp group to organize heading there together.

That's why I have your number. Hope you remember. I'm sorry for you. texting you out of the blue. I get it, Ken, and yes, I remember, please get to the ping. My wife didn't come home last night from work. I tried reaching her coworkers, friends to, everyone. No one knows where she is. Huh? I called them. It rang, and it rang, and it rang. I was just texting you, please, for the love of all that is holy. Hello? He finally answered. Did any of her coworkers get back to you, I asked?

What? You said he tried reaching her coworkers? Did they respond? Did they say they didn't know where she was? No. None of them got back to me. Do you think something happened at work maybe? I didn't like the words coming out of my mouth. I'll call you back, I said. I hung up. place the phone down bz Ken already calling again I breathed in deep and googled the address of the high-rise

building Ella worked in it was a new build I remembered when she first told me about the job and the office she'd be working in babe look just look there's a whole page about the amenities she said

sorry I'm just slammed right now all good didn't mean to I'll look, later I'll look, promise. Of course I didn't ever actually look. A knock at my door all of a sudden. Excitement and relief simultaneously. Before I opened it and saw the Starbucks bag on my doormat, why would I do this to myself? Why would I spur hope like this? I grabbed the bag, brought it inside, returned to my laptop and steal myself for any horrific articles about the building. No articles. I nonetheless wondered if I'd been worthwhile to go there just to rule it out. Inaction would only make me spiral. Bz. Ken calling again. A few missed calls from him now at this point. Tunnel vision

was making me panic. I answered. Hi, I'm heading to the building, I said. Oh, he said. Okay, then want a carpool? I'm already en route, I lied. But meet you there? Uh, sure, I'll call you when you're... I hung up. Headed to the car.

Off the backdrop of the night, I thought about her. Ella had Auburn hair. She listened to Abba in her headphones when she vacuumed. Always Abba. Her favorite thing was shoving her phone into my face to show me something she was convinced was funny when it absolutely wasn't. She loved astrology memes. She hated the beach.

Why? I'm not entirely sure. Our marriage has been rocky lately. We'd been doing the counseling thing. It was less fighting and more distance, I suppose. The recent line she'd been repeating was that she'd always been willing to make sacrifices and change for our relationship, I hadn't. I've been fixed in place, unable to change. I secured my seatbelt, and as I did, I saw a new message on my phone from James, her co-worker.

Do not come. Anxiety now. I texted him back to elaborate on its typo-filled note. I tried calling them multiple times. Radio silence. Heart palpitations now. I decided to start driving. I pulled into the expansive downtown parking lot surrounding the tower. Past the sea of dark headlights. I expected to see an inferno or an explosion, something horrific.

Instead, everything seemed. seemed fine. Though it dawned on me that it was strangely hard to find parking. The lot was basically full despite it being near midnight on a weekend. I found purchase in a shadowy spot in the corner of the lot. Parked, rushed out, sprinted to the building. Mid-sprint, I realized I'd passed Ella's car, her beat-up Toyota Camry. There it was just sitting. like an afterthought. I peered through the foggy backseat window to see if there was anything of note in the car. Nothing.

But this did mean that either she'd left somewhere on foot or, more realistically, was still here. In the building. I continued on, the glass tower looming ahead, its windows dark and reflective. As I neared, it became clear. Here most of the floors had their lights off, the shades drawn. Meanwhile, the sound of tires over gravel. Another car circling the lot. My phone rang.

Ken, again, I answered. Is that you, he said? As I saw the man in the car two lanes down with a cell phone pressed to his ear looking my way. Yeah, I said. Find a parking. I'll meet you at the front of the building. I hung up, and then I was there at the base of the steps. James' strange text back to the forefront of my mind.

Concrete steps led up to the broad landing before the glass entrance of the building. Beyond the doors sat a barren but exquisite lobby. The abject emptiness of the lightless foyer sat rather strangely with me. Hey, I heard Ken's voice call from behind me. I continued my staring contest with the building. Then I called my wife again. Straight to voicemail. No ring this time.

Hi, this is Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, A, A, I cannot answer the phone. Ken was beside me now. Salt and Pepper Hair. I remembered our bowling excursion together. The story about him and May moving here from South Korea, after he landed an amazing job. I also remembered just how shit I was at bowling. Should we go inside? he asked.

I think so, I said. Then a thought hit me. Late. I called 911 again. 911, what's your emergency? I called about my wife earlier, like an hour ago. Ella, I found her car. It's still parked where she,

and that's when I heard the blare of the sirens and saw police droves flashing across the lot. Government plates rolling in. Sir, the operator said, actually, I think you guys are already here. I hung up, just as the lady said, what do you mean? And watched with Ken as the cops arrived. Fuck, he said. What do you think happened? I don't know.

A row of four police vehicles be lined right to the entrance. Ken and I backed up. He started calling his wife, panicked. His breath grew rapid as he waited for a voice on the other end that I could tell he knew wasn't coming. May, call me back when you get this. I turned my attention to the new arrivals, spilling out of their vehicles, donning uniforms. Thirteen or so of them pushed past Ken and myself, moved up the stage. steps to the large space in front of the doors, and began stringing yellow police tape across

the entrance of the high-rise, spreading out to hold the line. I saw a new crew about five with tactical gear on, coming up right behind. Ready to enter. I heard one of the men on the tactical unit saying to the mic on his shoulder. He pulled open the glass entrance door, The lobby beyond, swallowed by darkness, and stepped inside. Four others filing him behind him. I tried to get a better look inside, but the view through the swung open door showed nothing the glass walls hadn't already revealed. The rest of the units remained behind the tape. I cautiously made my way up the steps.

Ken remained where he was. Maybe he didn't want to hear the grisly details of what might have taken place inside. I wasn't different from him in that way, but I needed to know what was going on. An officer approached me as I hit the landing at the top of the steps. As we spoke, it felt like our words were dancing past each other. Hi, I said. Is there, we can't share any more information at this time. My wife works in the building. Can I?

We've sent in a team, but unfortunately we can't. Just tell me if it's a hostage situation. Like I said, we can't say anything. A different officer came up beside him. On the younger side. Bags under the eyes. I don't think it's a hostage situation, she said. An eyebrow raised from the other cop?

I mean, I don't really know what it is exactly. I think that's probably the best we can say, right? I paused for a second. What? I, she started, but then her expression shifted, as if she'd already said too much. She stopped herself, turned with her partner away from me, struggling with what to do next. I maneuvered back down the steps, reached Ken. What did they say, he asked.

They don't think it's a hosset situation. They're figuring it out, sent some people. Inside? Yeah, I saw. Yeah. Another look back at the building. It was almost taunting me to enter. Then, I headed back to my car. I could feel Ken wanting to ask me where I was going, but opting not to. I reached the shadowy corner of the lot again. I sat passenger side of my vehicle, readjusted the seat to incline as far back as possible. I had no idea what to do or what was happening. But a watched pot never boils. And so I let the heaviness of my eyelids shut me out from the world. Ella wasn't too far away from me.

She was right there, in that building. I just needed to distract myself. The cops would figure it out. It would all be okay. I drifted off. I woke up groggy, drooling. The lot was as dark. dark as it was when I'd first fallen asleep. I checked the time. Two a.m. solid hour and a half of an

existential nap. I left the car, approached the building again. This time sure that the time lapse would bring with it an insane amount of energy, fanfare around the front of the building. I dreaded it. Yet I moved towards it. Footstep, footstep, footstep, footstep. awaiting bad news really footstep footstep footstep footstep i had a dream once that she died most of the details slipped my mind but i remembered the feeling of that dream it had felt like my life was completely over like nothing mattered anymore footstep footstep footstep footstep again my feet brought me to the edge of the steps where a scene that was both more as well as less than met me. The police presence looked much larger now, more cars than before at least, and yet a sort of empty feeling enveloped everything. I couldn't spot a single soul amidst the scaled-up operation.

Besides Ken, of course, slumped on the walkway leading to the steps, eyes half open, drifting in and out. Where is everyone? I shouted. shuffling. I saw someone emerge from the back of one of the squad cars, looking frazzled. It was the woman from before, the one who said she didn't think it was a hostage situation. You should leave, she said. Where'd they all go, I asked again. They, she struggled. They went inside. And what did they say? They, It took her a second to finish it, but she completed the sentence by saying,

They haven't answered, just as all of the lights in the building turned on. Every floor, every room, illuminated. Before I could even say anything, they all turned off. All I could do was stand still, blink. What the hell? That happened an hour ago, too, she said nervously. Everyone who went inside, I said, trying to process. They just stopped responding? Yeah, the first team never responded when we tried radioing them. Next crew, same thing. Then

another group. And now it's just me. As if telepathically able to discern, I was going to ask her the obvious question. We have more people coming, she tagged. They told me to stay back. to keep continuinity. My wife is in there. Do you know anything? I don't. No. But something in her body language said otherwise. Please, I said. A beat. They just sent me some footage. From inside? She pointed around the lot. No, from the exterior cameras in the moments leading up. Show me. She looked at me like I was crazy. Your whole crew is missing, I continued.

If this isn't the time to mess with the rulebook, I don't know when is. A sharp inhale through her nostrils. Then a half centimeter, barely perceptible nod. She headed towards her car. As I followed her, Ken rushed up beside me, having awoken from his sidewalk nap. The officer looked back. I saying, seriously? My wife's in there too, he said, likely having overheard the tail end of our conversation.

She said nothing, just headed for a cruiser and unlock the doors. Ken and I climbed into the back seat. From the front, she pulled the dash-mounted screen towards her, tapped a few keys, then angled it so we could see. The video showed security footage of the front entrance of the building. being fast-forwarded through, hour after hour slipped by, the timestamp in the corner racing ahead as we only saw people entering the tower, never stepping out.

We reached the points in the footage where the final squad went inside, and there it stopped. She then pressed a button and started rewinding the footage. The hours ticked backwards from present moment as we saw replay of the last two days, until roughly 48 hours ago. A new instance. Someone actually leaving the building. Specifically, a man dressed in business casual with shoulder-length hair.

The entranceway flickered behind him as he stepped out. Everything went dark for a brief moment before stabilizing. She paused the footage. 48 hours ago, the last time anyone left. left the building. Do you know who that is? I asked. We haven't identified them yet. Team's not sure if he even has anything to do with it, or if he was just the last person lucky enough to leave. I squinted, tried to place the pixelated face. Then, a new thought. I unlocked the door, got out of the car. Where are you? They both started. I'll be back. Don't go

inside. I sped my way home, reached the front door, key in the lock and turn. I spent an immodestly long time searching for binoculars, snapping open drawers and cupboards until I could found them. I tossed them into a backpack. Next, tape. In a roll of string that I found in one of Ella's craft baskets. Having grabbed everything I needed, I then went back to my laptop. I looked up the details of the company Ella worked for and maneuvered to their website. Buzzwords about cutting edge research and cognitive modeling and perceptual imaging kept resurfacing over and over, ushering in a new phase of technological evolution for the human race. I went to the section about the company's leadership team next. I was smacked in the face with an oversized image of the company's two

founders. Both looked to be in their mid-40s. Well-dressed. Twins. I thought back to the face I saw leaving the building in the security footage. It was hard to tell if the memory matched what I was looking at, but at the very least, the hair looked the same. Fighting off thoughts about whether these two freaks were a red herring or if they were indeed trying to usher in Fing Skynet or something, I decided to try Ella again. Maybe, just maybe. She was somewhere else, and I wouldn't have to think about this anymore. It could be the city's problem.

I called her, Hi, this is Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, I hung up. Certainly a night filled with fruitless phone calls. When I returned to the officer, Christine's cruiser, Ken was riding shotgun now. They both remained fixed on the building. A tension permeating all around us. You said there were more officers coming, I asked. Yeah, she said.

But they're just going to go inside, right? I don't know what the strategy is now. I looked at them. 3.15 a.m. I have an idea, I said. It might be stupid, though. What is it, she asked. And it wasn't much longer after that

that the three of us were standing at the entrance of the the building. In hand, my phone, I'd tied string around it, tight, taped it for good measure too. I pulled up my phone's camera and pressed record. Then absolutely convinced this move would kill me. I opened the door to the building, no one seemed able to leave, and harnessing every bit of hand-eye coordination available to me made a very deliberate toss of my phone, trying to get it as far, as possible while keeping it face up so it wouldn't flip. The move succeeded. The phone skidding past the receptionist desk and into the narrow hallway behind it. The door closed, the string slipping beneath the glass frame. We stood still. Minutes disappeared into the ether. Then,

Ken reopened the door. I pulled the string. I brought the cell phone back out of the abyss and up into my hand. I pressed stop on the recording button, and we all squeezed together as I brought up the video that had been generated. On the dusty black screen displayed the ceiling of the lobby, and a distant sound, thumping, like something was happening in another room. And music?

Is that dancing queen? Asked Christine. I brought my ear closer to the phone. The grainy sounds of a song were far into the background. Yet, as I focused, there it was. The instantly recognizable Abatoon. Ding. The sound of a nearby elevator arriving in the video.

The door is opening. The door is closing. Then a slow scraping. Crawling. Labored breathing. pained breathing, a voice that sounded like it had never known air. I'm so sorry. The video lingered on its stationary shot of the ceiling, before being dragged back to the outside world,

ending on my disheveled reflection poking the screen. I sat with the unplaceable feeling stirring within me. Then I looked around, spotted it. a big rock near the bottom of the steps. I shifted down, grabbed it, ran back up. What are you doing, Ken? I'm going to break a window. Whatever the fuck is happening, we're going to get some attention. Do you actually think that's going to do anything helpful for us, Christine? We can't just do nothing. Lights flickered from one of the higher floors. All of a sudden, we turned our heads up in unison to catch. a bloodied hand reaching up to the window in one of the freshly illuminated rooms.

So high up, the hand brought with it a piece of paper, which is pressed flat against the window. Binoculars, I pulled them out of my bag, focused on the site. The piece of paper featured the following message in chaotic scrawls. Don't try to save us. It looked like a kindergartner had wrote it. Each subsequent word featuring more messier appendmentship than the last, as if executive function waned with each letter. The hand kept slamming the message, the paper, against the window. What's it say?

I handed him the binoculars. He looked up, froze. That's May's hand. The words came out of him immediately. Too quickly. What? asked Christine and I in unison. He handed me the binoculars,

desperation marking his voice. I think that's May's hand. You think? Yes, he said. I mean, maybe. Wait, Ken, hold on. I think I saw a blue bracelet, he said. Looking unreachable.

I fixed the binoculars against my eyes again and looked up, but the hand was gone. Only streaks of blood remaining. Was there a bracelet? I don't, I don't remember. I think I saw it, he continued. Listless. It was just like hers and if she's in danger, I have to go.

He beeline to the door. Christine rushed after him. God damn it. Take out your phone, I shouted. What, he asked? If you're going to be a hero. Matt, what are you doing? said Christine.

If you're going to be a hero, I continued, answer my call and narrate everything and we'll come find you. I waited for his expression to shift, for reality to sink in and for his bravery to disappear. But he didn't waver. Instead, he pulled out his phone. Call me, I said. And he did. A split second of my phone ringing brought back the fantasy of maybe.

Just maybe, it being Ella calling, before I snap back to reality and answered the call. All right, I said into the phone. dodging Christine's incredulous stare. Describe everything you see and don't stop talking. He nodded. Phone pressed against his ear. He entered the building. I stayed on the line.

Christine beside me. Bated breath. The lobby's dark, he said. Explain everything. Don't hold back any details. I caught him through the glass walls, taking slow, deliberate steps, inching forward.

to the end of the lobby. You killed him, Christine whispered. Don't say that, I whispered back. Then to him, tell me what you see, Ken. It's still the lobby. It's still dark. I'm going into the hallway. I see someone, something by the elevator.

They're on the ground. They don't look well, I see. And then he froze. See, the grainy, distant music in the background. again. A new track now. What? See. He repeated. See? I asked. See. See. See. Can? Snap out of it, man. See. Can? Say something. Can. Twenty-three. I was at a loss for words. Twenty-three, he repeated. What does that mean, Ken? You were just with us.

23. I heard the phone hit the ground with a clatter. The sound of footsteps. Silence besides the grainy background music. Until... The ding of an elevator arriving. Christine grabbed my phone. Angrily hung up the call.

So, she said, did you get what you needed from that? He was going to go in there no matter what I said. We need to figure out what happened. We don't need to. do anything. This is National Guard territory. We can't wait anymore. It's already been too long. My wife's in there. Yeah, so was his. My mind raced with horrific thoughts. I tried to block out the noise. There had to be a way forward. Obviously, she continued. Something took over him in there. A new, desperate theory crossed my mind. I had to run with it. Sound, I said.

What? That's what's overtaking. everyone. There's something, I don't know, maybe coded into the songs or something, something subliminal. You're going to stake your life on that? Ella's my life. The irony wasn't lost on me that my rush back to Christine's cruiser, yanked at the locked door, mirrored the same desperate push that Ken had just made. In a morbid way, his restlessness made me think I'd been moving too slowly. She sighed as I kept pulling on it. Help, I asked. What are you? Hearing protection. Do you have anything at all that can block out noise? For the final time, we stood in front of the building with a half-baked plan. Your, I'm not positive, I told her. Both of us had hearing protection earmuffs, like the one you'd

use at a range, half on. But if I wait and she dies, I continued. I won't be able to live with myself. I secured the earmuffs over my other ear and walked towards the entrance. I told Christine she didn't have to come with me, that she could wait for backup and work out a new plan with whoever showed up next. But in the reflection of the glass, I saw her pull her own hearing protection into place and fallen close behind. We stepped inside the building. Lobby furniture shrouded in darkness. I sensed a faint, electronic light casting the lightest of shadows over the walls. I couldn't hear my own footsteps as I maneuvered around the reception desk. I lifted my head, caught an expensive chandelier in fixtures high in the ceiling.

Despite attempts at controlled breathing, my heart pounded with the intensity of an intruder at the door. I peeked into the narrow hallway, and immediately my gaze dropped to the sight of the sight, of a sickly, dying thing. Flesh loose, hanging over bones and organs like cloth draped over a mannequin. I knew it was human, or at least used to be. My eyes lifted to a large TV screen fixed against the nearby wall. It had what looked to be a stock footage on it, a photo of a little girl facing the camera,

smiling while holding a flower out in front of her. A surreal, too comforting grass fields in the background. At the bottom of the screen, in a murky, blood-dark color, it read 23. I looked behind me, went to mouth something to Christine, but the second I spotted her eyes, she had a faraway stare, locked onto the image. I saw her mouth. 23. She repeated it. Christine, I said. I shook her shoulders, but nothing registered for her.

I briefly, instinctively turned back to the photo, almost as if I wanted to break my own brain just to get it, but then quickly turned away again. Christine head to the elevator, clinical in her movement, pressed the call button. Ding. The doors opened onto the sterile interior.

I rushed behind her and, stepped inside. She had already pressed the button for the 23rd floor. Between the closing doors, I noticed that the person-esque thing lying on the ground in front of us had a blue bracelet around what remained of its hand. I'm so sorry. Kay. Kay. I heard the voice rasped and wondered if, before Ken lost himself, he had recognized who he saw in the hallway. The elevator car moved up swiftly, I took my earmuffs off and dropped them to the floor. My sound theory was moot. I looked over. Christine stared ahead with a lobotomized look, while sterile corporate music played in the background, completely gone. We approached closer and closer to floor 23. A horrific mosaic of sounds

started creeping in. And as I wondered why I hadn't been overtaken, compromised the way everyone else had been, I resolved that it was best I followed Christine's actions from here on out, act like her. It was the decision I made only a split second before. Ding, we arrived. The doors opened to a wall with a large screen mounted on it.

On screen. That same. stock image. Girl with the flower. A new word at the bottom in a blood, dark hue. Left. Christine immediately turned left into the corridor. I did the same, trying to stay in lockstep with her.

Same rhythm, same cadence, same lifeless mechanical movement. We hit the end of the hall, where another display was mounted to the wall. The girl with the flower on screen again. and at the bottom of the screen, Right. Christine with a sharp right turn. I followed again, convinced I was stupidly walking right into death.

I'm coming Ella. I didn't expect the music cue. The bright synth riff off Queens I want to break free started up. As we paced the long corridor, drum machine, bass, and guitar joined. Then, I want to break free, sang Freddie Mercury. The power walk continued.

As I voiced out the side of my mouth, Christine, are you in there? To no response. We hit another wall, with another TV bolted on. That same stock photo. And the word beneath left. Another turn into a long hallway.

I followed my dance partner. I want to break free from your lies. You're so self-satisfied. I don't need you. I spotted blood on the floor. and a body up ahead. A effing body. Crawling.

The thing, person, whatever looked inhuman, trying to keep pace with Christine's brisk stride. I barely had time to clock its warped features and broken appendages.

God knows, God knows I want to break free. End of the hallway. Another screen. Flower Girl. Left. We followed the direction. It felt like we were reaching the end. But I have to be sure, when I walk out the door,

screens lined both walls of the hallway now. Flanking us, the image of the girl with the flower repeating again and again. New words pulsed at the bottom of the screens, catching in my peripheral vision. Continue. Don't stop. Get ready to shed. Let it all go.

And ahead of us, the open doors to a massive hall. I steeled myself. We entered the gigantic room, and I caught a scene that didn't fit words. Rows and rows of people. At least some looked like people. Others completely unrecognizable. Most on the floor.

Dead. Life squeezed out of them. Like they'd aged hundreds of years. Faces hollowed out, eyelids liquid. Some. trembling, shuddering, on all fours, ligaments torn, new appendages growing, changing shape. In the darkness of the room amidst the electronic glare of a large screen, I would have described most of the occupants as creatures, beyond aliens, figures that didn't make sense.

Catching Christine starting to shiver, I matched her movements, those near the back of the hall, including Ken, who I spotted nearby, were shaking, sweating, slowly losing their hair, developing strange lesions, but still, human. I was sure that near everyone who must have worked in this building was squeezed into this large hall. The music continued, the instrumental break ending, as the vocals kicked back in. I forced myself to lift my eyes to the giant projected image of the flower girl covering the far wall. It's displayed like we're all

moviegoers in a theater. I read the word at the bottom. Evolve. Freddy sang. But life still goes on. I can't get used to living without, living without you by my side. Ella.

What have they done to you? I spotted a man walking the rose, longish hair. Surprisingly, nice clothes on for such a brutal affair pair of dark sunglasses on too the only one not looking at the screen like me he seemed unaffected god knows gotta make it on my own he made his way closer under his breath he kept repeating the same word evolve examining with the carelessness of a yoga instructor so baby can't you see i've got to break free As he came within reach, I recognized him.

The photo from the website of the company Ella worked for, one of the two twin founders. He shifted past the shivering ken. Evolve. The disassociating Christine, evolve. And as his eyes met mine, evolve. I broke away from my act and forced him to the ground with everything I had. His skull cracked against the floor.

My hands synced around his throat. Yet, as I tried to force the life right out of him, he just looked curious. How are you not affected? Tell me how I stopped this, I said. A smile. As if that was never going to happen. The image he continued. How is it not working?

I realized the answer as I spoke the words, colorblind, red-green deficiency. We're working on a version for that, too. I tie in my grip. Pain was the only tool I had at my disposal. Tell me where Ella is. So you're the husband. Where?

I'm so proud of her. She's proof. Arthiromad merit. You killed her? Far from it. She's the reason me and my brother's names will live on forever. I crushed the air from the freak's lungs. He writhed, but I kept my hands locked in place long after his resistance faded.

The song ended, and then a new tune began. Abba's Dancing Queen It played as I weaved through rows and rows of horror, reaching the projector casting the image. I knocked it to the floor, smashed at it, kicking, tearing, feral, doing everything I could to upturn the sinister broadcast. Finally, the image was gone from the wall. I looked behind to see a sea of Shimeric death,

still cloaked in darkness. There were only a dozen or so people near the back of the hall who looked alive at this point. I rushed back to them, took Christine in particular. What the fuck, she said. I snatched the sunglasses off the corpse of the founder. It's an image, I said, an image that overrides your mind, gives you a command.

She was still coming back to reality. Not totally registering what I had just said. Put them on, I said, handing her the shades, then leave the building. How did you go? She took deep breaths to ground herself. Like whatever state she'd returned from was hellish beyond words. The rest of you, I said, addressing Ken and the others, blindfold yourselves as you leave. use your shirts or whatever you have on.

Christine, I pointed to her. We'll lead the way. The few survivors, still confused, shifted their eyes towards the cosmic mess of human destruction and around them. Don't linger, I repeated. Leave, eyes closed, or blindfolded, Christine leads. She put on the dark frames, looked at me. What?

What are you gonna? Don't worry about me. I shifted away from the group toward the, toward the end of the hall. I glanced back over my shoulder to see, amid crying, panic, and breakdowns, the few survivors pulling themselves together, covering their eyes with their hands or lifting jackets to obscure their sight while Christine led them out. I prayed Ken wouldn't linger near the first floor hallway, but he got there. Prayed he wouldn't see the horror of what became of May. I continued on. My eyes shot from bleeding out creature to bleeding out creature.

Shemares, monstrosity, the rare human-like corpse among the aberrations. I sat in the middle of the destruction and called her cell. One last time. Straight to voicemail. Hi, this is Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, A, A, A. I cannot answer the phone, the phone, the phone, right now. Tears fell. I wasn't totally there.

It felt like my body was grieving before my breast. brain could make sense of it. A loud sound came from outside all of a sudden. I rushed to one of the windows, peeked out, saw a nearby billboard with a new image overtaking it, the stock photo with the girl. I looked past it, billboard after billboard, screen after screen, all overtaken by the flower girl image. The word at the bottom of every display, evolve. I thought back to the security footage in Christine's cruiser, the man who left the building. I had to wonder if he was the brother, the other founder, and if he'd just now done his half of the psychopathic job. Not that it mattered, it was clear whatever they'd attempted in the building didn't work. More importantly,

Ella was gone. There was no life for me anymore. Then I heard a voice in my head. Matt. I shot up. It was vivid, too vivid. Matt, it's all right. I'm right here. It sounded like Ella. Where? Where are you? Am I?

Is this real? It's okay, hon. You can change now. I headed toward the entrance at the back of the hall, trying to find the source. I can't change, I said. I can't. It doesn't even work on.

Not that I'd want it to. Cold? Cold? Cold? I started backtracking. Warm. I looked all around me. Tell me this is a bad dream, Ella.

I knew you'd come. I kept shining lights for you. I shifted deeper into the hall again. Warmer? I felt disoriented. I wasn't seen straight anymore. Even warmer. Lights?

Ella? Every time they all turned. on, that was me. Now evolve so we can stay together. My breath quickened. A new type of horror hit me. I spotted a door at the front of the hall cast in shadow. It creaked just a hair open, with something peeking out. Ella? All of the light snapped on, as if commanded to by an invisible force. Through the horror of the all too clear room now, I locked eyes with the nightmare peaking out at me. Ella, I asked, found me. And all right, guys, that wraps up some unexplainable, scary Reddit stories. I'm really curious to see what you guys thought about today's stories.

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