Scary Stories: PLEASE DON’T READ THIS POST IN PUBLIC

Don’t read it on a computer an iPad, or any large screen for that matter. Even if you live alone don’t sit with your back facing a larger room. If someone or something was particularly good at hiding, slender, quiet, and quick they could easily be in the same room as you, peering in through a window, or tucked behind the furniture.

Ideally read it on your phone, lying on your back, with the screen no less than six inches from your face. Please keep the lights on, it makes it harder for them to get close to you.

Think about whether you heard something out of the ordinary in the last few hours, such as a creak in the floorboards, the knock of something bumping into furniture, or a door inexplicably opening or shutting. If you have, please close Reddit and stop reading. There is a good chance something is watching you.]

I live in Auckland, New Zealand. Me and my girlfriend, live in uni accommodation in the city, I lost contact with my high school friends so practically my entire friend group lives in the same building. The uni dorms are very large, very full, and (unsurprisingly) VERY loud. It’s common to see and hear drunk students and party guests throughout the halls at night, you begin to tune it out over time and stop paying attention… perhaps that’s why they were less careful around us.

Anyway, orientation week was coming up and my mates and I thought it would be a good night to go out clubbing. I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere else but all the nightclubs here treat orientation like it’s Christmas. Toga parties, angel and devil nights, the whole lot. The rest of my group chat hardly ever even replies to messages like this but I can always count on Ethan and Andre to come out to town. So last Wednesday, we headed to Sapphire. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of Sapphire, it’s always too crowded, and there’s no seating whatsoever but Andre was set on going to this gig tonight so me and Ethan kind of just followed.

We got into the club with no problem as we had only a few pre-drinks. I thought I saw someone cut in front of us as the bouncer was checking our IDs. But they couldn’t have. There was another bouncer on the other side who didn’t seem to see anything so I didn’t really react to it.

Andre went off to mosh while me and Ethan went to order drinks. Ethan orders a beer, I order a Jager bomb. Just as the bartender hands me my drink, I hear Ethan’s voice next to me.

“Is that dude staring at us?”

I paid no attention to Ethan, I didn’t even look around, as I was too busy paying the bartender. I didn’t really even take in his words because I was too busy wondering how a shot of Jager and Redbull could combine to cost $12. But before I could reply, a full bottle of beer shattered around my feet. Ethan’s beer. I flicked around to see what had happened, Ethan wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t drunk. Had someone knocked it out of his hand?

But Ethan was gone.

At first, I assumed he had just headed into the moshpit to hang out with Andre. But then the bartender spoke up.

“Did you see that?” She laughed, before looking around confused.

“See what?” I replied, a bit bewildered by the whole situation.

She replied, “I swear I just saw someone run into your mate?”

I looked behind me, and looked at the ground. No Ethan is to be seen. Looking at the floor, I think I remember a pair of legs sprinting past me but I was focused on looking for Ethan, so I didn’t really register them or react to them.

Confused, I looked up at the bartender. She was gone as well? Where had she gone? There was another customer behind me in the line, and she was the only one behind the till so she wouldn’t just leave her post like that.

I was beginning to get freaked out, I pushed my way to the moshpit to Andre, maybe Ethan was with him. Andre was in his own world, dancing in the mosh pit, he was focused on the DJ, focused on the girls, focused on dancing along with everyone else.

As far as I can tell, no one but me, even saw what was standing behind him. I can’t tell you what I saw for reasons i’ll explain later but trust me when I say this thing was NOT human, although… yet… human enough, that it could almost blend into a crowd like this… almost.

I was about to call out. To scream, or point. To call security to signal Andre to run. Thank God I didn’t because as soon as that creature turned around to face me, everything clicked.

Ethan tried to point something out to me, and then he vanished. The bartender called out his attacker, and she vanished too. Yet Andre, and everyone around him, were minding their own business, and they were fine.

As it turned around to face me, its hideous features burned into the back of my eyelid. I calmly brought out my phone and began texting my girlfriend.

“I’m coming home. Do not text me, keep the doors locked until I arrive. I’ll explain everything when I get there.”

I turned around as calmly as I could and walked away. I walked up the stairs and turned up the road. I heard a side door open, I did not react.

I heard footsteps scuttling behind me, but I did not turn around.

Then, Andre’s voice “Yo Cody! Where are you going!?”

I prayed to whoever was listening that the creature was well hidden again, that Andre would not see it tailing me. I almost broke down, I wanted to scream at him to leave but I just couldn’t. So I continued walking, and then he said it.

“Who’s that with you?”

As far as I could tell, those were his last words.

I walked to the halls, I wanted to cry but this thing was still sussing me out. I wanted to break down in tears but I knew what would happen if I registered this thing’s existence. I started to wonder if leading this thing home was even the smart thing to do but I didn’t CARE anymore, I just wanted to curl up in bed and stay under the covers until whatever this thing was decided I was deaf or blind or stupid enough to leave alone.

I unlocked the gate, it clambered over the wall, I got in the elevator, IT GOT IN WITH ME. The whole ride it was towering over me, staring at me, wondering how I hadn’t noticed it yet. I walked to my apartment and knocked on the door. My girlfriend called out to me.

The second she yelled out, the creature vanished, sprinting away at an unnatural speed down the hallway and ducking behind what I think was a bin. I don’t know, I wasn’t looking. I called out to my girlfriend, who impishly opened the door, clearly terrified by my text.

The thing was very well hidden yet the hallway had very little cover, whatever this thing was, it could conceal itself very well… not that it mattered because as my girlfriend opened the door, I saw it. The creature’s face pressed up against the window behind her, watching ME. But it was different, the features were slightly screwed, slightly changed. The daunting realization hit me that no doors had opened in the hallway, and we were 6 stories up. This was not the same creature.

As my girlfriend turned around, the face at the window ducked out of sight. She turned back to me, it rose back up.

The face could switch from pressing its face against the window to vanishing beneath it with such seamless efficiency I had to remind myself I couldn’t allow myself to be mesmerized by its movements. My girlfriend was being watched… but she would never have any idea. Had it been here all night? All week? How long had this thing been here, pressing its monstrous face against the window, and yet somehow staying out of sight?

I quietly explained to her what had happened, starting by explaining that she couldn’t react to what I said no matter what. Then explaining the creature’s details, what it looked like. Maybe it was stupid but I had never been more stressed and confused in my life and I just wanted someone to talk to.

She calmly gulped, and a tear rolled down her face. She wandered over to the cupboard and started sifting through papers. I wondered if she even believed me, or whether she was just taking my “act natural advice” very seriously. But then she pulled out the drawing.

A child’s drawing… HER childhood drawing. A young girl, surrounded by at least half a dozen tall inhuman figures. I didn’t get a good look, one second she was there in the hallway, the next I couldn’t even recognize her corpse. A THIRD creature, stood in her place, her lifeless body broken and bloodied on the carpet. Her arms and legs were mangled and twisted like broken twigs, her face… unidentifiable.

If you were hoping to get a proper description of these things, I’m sorry. Now you know why that isn’t going to happen. I would rather die than allow someone to recreate that drawing, God forbid someone ever posts a sketch of this thing on the internet.

Terror doesn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling, face to face finally with this thing. But it got worse when I heard the window shatter, and the door break down. All three creatures, standing in my dining room, staring down at me as I sat, staring at my girlfriend’s mutilated corpse.

The creatures stood and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

Until finally I stood up, walked over to the fridge, took out a beer, sat right back down in my chair, and drank it calmly.

I don’t know what kind of primal willpower I had in that moment, what kind of drive or mental strength I had during the worst minutes of my life. But after I did, the creatures left. In the blink of an eye, the body had been removed, and the blood was cleaned up.

A few days later I was called into the station to help clear the air about my missing friends, I told them very little. Ethan, Andre, and my girlfriend have all gone down among ever ever-growing list of missing people…

I wonder how many others are missing for the same reason. How many innocent people are in jail, blamed for these monsters’ crimes?

I needed to make this post, I need to let people know. They no longer hide from me.

They are everywhere…

You couldn’t possibly comprehend how many you walk passed every day, how many are watching you as you drive to work. You have no idea how many dark corners they lurk in, and how many windows they stand outside. You haven’t seen how many roofs they cling to, the crowds they stand among.

If you share this with your loved ones, make sure they read it lying down. Remind them to read it on a phone and tell them to hold the phone no less than 6 inches from their face. Because more often than not, you are not alone.