I never believed in ghosts. Even as a kid, when the other children in my neighborhood would whisper about strange shapes in the dark or shadows crossing their bedrooms, I rolled my eyes. Monsters and spirits were things for stories, for movies—not for real life.
That's probably why I agreed to Caleb's dare.
It started one evening at Mason's Bar, our usual hangout. Caleb had that mischievous glint in his eye that always spelled trouble. He leaned in close over the table, lowering his voice just enough to hook us.
"You guys ever heard about the Hollowridge house?" he asked.
I hadn't, though the name alone felt heavy. Our friend Eric smirked, shaking his head "The old dump on the edge of town? Place is condemned."
"Condemned," Caleb repeated with mock drama "Or cursed?"
He let the word hang. Then, leaning even closer, he told us the story.
According to local whispers, the Hollowridge place had been empty for nearly fifty years. A family lived there once—a husband, wife, and their young daughter. No one really remembered their names anymore. One night, the neighbors said, everything went wrong. The family simply disappeared. No signs of struggle, no blood, nothing. Just an entire life, abandoned mid-step. Dinner plates left half-full on the table. A kettle whistling on the stove until it burned black. The father's wallet still sitting on the counter.
"They just vanished," Caleb said, eyes wide "Like the house swallowed them."
Of course, the police had searched. They never found a trace. The property was sold, resold, then finally boarded up. Teenagers told stories of hearing voices through the walls, or seeing a pale face staring down from the second-floor window. People driving by swore the windows shifted, tilting inward like eyes focusing on them.
They started calling it "the house that watches".
Eric laughed it off "Urban legends.... Every town's got one."
But Caleb grinned and looked at me "So prove it. Let's check it out. One night inside... If you're brave enough."
I should have said no. I should have laughed in his face, called him an idiot, and walked away.
But I didn't. Maybe it was the drinks, maybe my ego, maybe some dark tug inside me I didn't recognize yet.... I agreed.
We drove out two nights later. Just Caleb and me—Eric bailed at the last minute, saying he had to work, though I think fear got the better of him.
The house was worse than I imagined.
It stood at the end of a broken driveway, strangled by weeds and creeping ivy. Two stories of peeling white paint and black shutters, one hanging half-detached. The roof sagged, the porch leaned, but somehow the structure still stood, defying time.
What unsettled me most were the windows. They weren't just shattered—they gaped, jagged edges like sockets without eyes and yet, as I stood there staring up, I felt them focus on me. Like the entire facade of the house had tilted in my direction.
Caleb clapped me on the back, laughing "Scared already?"
I forced a grin "Not a chance." But my palms were slick with sweat.
We climbed the porch steps. The boards groaned under our weight, the kind of deep, brittle groan that feels like a warning. Caleb jimmied the front door open with the crowbar he'd brought, and we stepped inside.
The air hit me first. Thick, heavy, and stale, like stepping into a cellar that hadn't been opened in decades. Underneath was something sharper—an iron tang, almost metallic, like blood left to rust.
Our flashlights cut through the darkness, beams slicing across layers of dust. The living room lay before us, eerily preserved. A sagging sofa faced a fireplace, a coffee table coated in grime. A clock sat on the mantel, its glass cracked, the hands frozen at 3:17.
We moved cautiously, every footstep stirring the silence. The floorboards popped in protest.
The kitchen came next. My stomach knotted when I saw it. Plates sat in the sink, crusted with food turned to stone. A pot rested on the stove, its bottom scorched black. A child's cup sat on the counter, faded cartoons smiling from its surface.
It looked like a family had left in the middle of dinner and never returned.
I tried to shake the unease, to remind myself it was just a house. Just abandoned walls and junk left behind but as I traced my flashlight across the cabinets, I noticed something odd.
The dust.
Everything was coated with it—except for a single patch of counter by the stove. A patch shaped like a handprint.
"Hey, Caleb," I called, but when I turned, he was already in the dining room.
The table was set, plates and cutlery arranged neatly. I swallowed hard "This is…weird, right?"
Caleb shrugged "People probably staged it....For scares."
"Fifty years ago?" I shot back.
He didn't answer.
We climbed the staircase next. Each step whined beneath us. Family portraits still lined the walls, their colors faded but the smiles frozen. I paused at one: a man, a woman, and a little girl with hair in braids. Their eyes seemed too sharp, too alive, like they knew we were intruding.
At the end of the hallway stood a door. Unlike the others, which hung loose on rusted hinges, this one was intact. Almost…cared for.
Something about it tugged at me. My hand reached for the knob before I realized what I was doing.
Inside was a child's bedroom.
A small bed sat against the wall, a faded quilt neatly spread. A dresser leaned in the corner, mirror cracked but intact. Toys lay scattered across the rug—blocks, dolls, a wooden rocking horse that sat perfectly upright.
My flashlight beam passed over the wallpaper, patterned with roses but the damp had warped it. The roses looked wrong—elongated, stretched, their petals twisted.
I leaned closer.
They weren't roses.
They were faces.
Dozens of them, warped and fading, mouths slightly open as if whispering.
A shiver tore down my spine.
"Dude, you coming?" Caleb's voice called from the hall.
I jerked back, heart pounding "Yeah," I croaked, but when I turned to leave, the rocking horse creaked.
Just once.
By itself.
I froze in the doorway, staring, but it stood motionless. The silence pressed in, thick and smothering.
I hurried out, closing the door behind me.
I didn't tell Caleb what I'd seen... Not yet.
That night, we rolled out our sleeping bags in the living room. Caleb joked about ghosts and tried to spook me, but his voice felt distant.
I couldn't stop thinking about the wallpaper. The faces.
And the way the rocking horse had moved when no one touched it.
As I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling beams, I realized for the first time in my life—
I was afraid of the dark.
The first hours of the night dragged slowly. My flashlight had died to a faint beam, so I relied on the flicker of Caleb's lantern, which cast weak, shifting shadows across the room. Every time I closed my eyes, the house seemed to breathe.
Caleb, of course, had no trouble sleeping. Within minutes he was snoring, rolled on his side. I lay awake, my heart refusing to settle.
At first it was just creaks. Old wood shifting, I told myself but gradually, a new sound joined in.
A murmur.
I thought it was Caleb talking in his sleep, but when I leaned closer, his breathing was steady, dreamless. The murmur came from elsewhere—from the walls.
Low... Rhythmic... Like whispers sliding through plaster.
I held my breath, straining to catch the words, but they were just out of reach, like voices in another room.
Then, abruptly..... silence.
I almost relaxed—until I heard it.
Breathing.
Not Caleb's.... Not mine.
A slow, deliberate exhale from behind the fireplace wall. Then another.
The hairs on my neck prickled upright. I sat up, heart pounding so hard I thought it might wake Caleb. My lantern beam swept the walls....Nothing.... Empty.
But the breathing moved.
From the fireplace to the ceiling, crawling across like a spider. Then to the far corner, closer and closer until—
"David"
A whisper.... My name.
I froze. My stomach turned ice. It wasn't Caleb's voice. It was higher, Softer.... A woman's.
I shook Caleb awake, panic tightening my throat "Caleb—did you hear that?"
He blinked at me, groggy "Hear what?"
"The voice!"
But the room was silent again.
He smirked "You're letting the stories mess with your head. Go back to sleep."
He rolled over. I sat rigid for what felt like hours.
Sometime past midnight, I must have dozed, because I woke to the sound of something moving upstairs.
A faint creak....Then another.
I strained my ears. The unmistakable rhythm of wood bending under weight—footsteps.
"Caleb," I hissed.