He was awake already, sitting up. His eyes were wide, fixed on the ceiling "You hear that?" he whispered.
I nodded, relief and terror mingling. At least it wasn't just me.
The footsteps paced slowly back and forth above us. The room above was the child's bedroom.
We exchanged a glance, unspoken words passing between us. We had to check.
Lantern in hand, we crept up the stairs. Each groan of the wood sounded like a gunshot in the silence. The hallway stretched unnaturally long, lined with watching portraits.
The door to the child's room was ajar.
A dim glow spilled from within, though we hadn't left any light there.
Caleb pushed it open.
The rocking horse creaked back and forth in the glow of the lantern, though no one sat on it.
The wallpaper seemed different. The faces clearer now, their eyes darker, mouths stretched wider.
I whispered, "This isn't right."
Caleb stepped inside as if pulled by a string. He knelt before the rocking horse, his face inches from it.
"Caleb!" I hissed, grabbing his shoulder.
He didn't move... Didn't blink.... His lips parted.
"She says you're next."
The voice that came from him wasn't his. It was too soft, too cold.
The rocking horse stopped abruptly.
Caleb turned to me. His eyes weren't his anymore. They were black, pupils blown wide, the whites swallowed whole.
He smiled, but it stretched too far, skin pulling unnaturally.
"She's waiting for you," he said.
Panic surged. I bolted, stumbling down the hall. My lantern shook, shadows lunging with every step. I didn't dare look back.
The house groaned around me, floorboards flexing as if alive. Whispers poured from the walls, rising louder, overlapping voices in a language I didn't know.
"Stay..... Listen.... Belong."
I crashed through the front door into the night air, lungs burning. The heavy atmosphere lifted the instant I crossed the threshold.
The stars shone overhead, distant and indifferent. The cool night breeze hit my face like a slap.
But Caleb hadn't followed.
I turned back once, heart thundering. The house loomed silently, windows black and empty.
Watching.
I don't remember how I made it home.
The next morning, I told myself I would go back for him. That maybe he'd played some twisted joke.
I returned with the police.
But the house was empty.
No Caleb... No lantern.... No rocking horse.
Just dust and silence.
The officers shrugged, saying maybe Caleb had run away. Maybe he was messing with me.
But I knew.
The house had taken him.
And deep down, I knew it wasn't finished.
That night, I dreamed of the child's room.
The rocking horse creaked back and forth. Caleb stood beside it, his smile too wide, his eyes black pools.
"She's waiting," he whispered.
When I woke, the sound of creaking still echoed in my ears.
And from the corner of my dark bedroom came a faint whisper.
"David"
I stopped sleeping after that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face—the little girl from the portrait. Braided hair, hollow eyes, lips moving soundlessly. And behind her, always, Caleb, standing too still, smiling too wide.
The police asked questions, but I had no answers. They searched the woods, the house, even the old well nearby. Caleb was never found.
His parents stopped speaking to me. His mother couldn't look at me without trembling. His father clenched his jaw so tight I thought his teeth might crack. I could see the question burning in their eyes: "Why did you come back when he didn't?"
I didn't have an answer for them either.
Because sometimes at night, when I'm too tired to fight off sleep, I think I know the truth. Caleb didn't stay behind.
He came with me.
The first time I heard it at home, I convinced myself it was just in my head.
I was brushing my teeth when the bathroom light flickered. The mirror warped, just for a second, like water rippling and in the reflection—over my shoulder—I saw him.
Caleb.
Grinning.
When I turned, the bathroom was empty.
But the mirror fogged with my breath, and on the glass, as if traced by an invisible finger, a single word appeared:
"Stay"
It escalated quickly.
The shadows in my apartment grew longer, stretching toward me. I'd wake at 3:17 every night, the same frozen time on the clock in the Hollowridge house. The air would thicken, metallic and sharp, the exact scent from that abandoned kitchen.
And always, the whispers.
Sometimes they came from the walls, sometimes from the floor, sometimes from right beside my ear.
"David… come back… she's waiting…"
I stopped turning off the lights, but it didn't matter. Darkness crept in anyway, bleeding from corners, swallowing the glow of lamps and streetlights.
One night, I woke to the sound of wood creaking in my living room. Slowly. Deliberately.
Like a rocking horse.
I didn't own one.
I tried to run.
I booked a motel three towns over, telling myself distance would help but when I opened the door to the room, my stomach dropped.
The wallpaper.
It was patterned with roses.
At first I thought it was coincidence—old, tacky motel design but as the hours passed, the roses warped. Their petals stretched. Faces emerged, whispering, just as in the Hollowridge bedroom.
By midnight, the rocking horse sound returned.
And when I glanced at the mirror above the sink, Caleb stood in it. Not behind me—"in it". His hand pressed flat against the other side of the glass, his grin splitting wider and wider until it looked inhuman.
I left that night, without even checking out.
But the truth had set in: distance didn't matter. The house didn't need me to be there anymore. It had followed.
It was watching from everywhere.
I stopped working. Stopped answering calls. My friends thought I was grieving, spiraling. In a way, I was but not for Caleb.
For myself.
Because I knew what was coming.
It wasn't just haunting me. It was claiming me.
The breaking point came three nights ago.
I was sitting in bed, every light blazing, TV on static just to drown the silence. My eyes burned from exhaustion.
Then—flicker.
Every bulb went out at once. The room drowned in black.
The static cut to silence.
From the corner came the creak-creak of the rocking horse.
And then, her voice.
"David"
High, soft, childlike but underneath it, a chorus. Hundreds of voices layered beneath, men and women, old and young, all whispering together.
"Stay..... Stay.... Stay"
I couldn't move. My body locked. The air pressed down on me, thick as water.
And then I saw them.
Faces blooming in the dark. Dozens, hundreds, overlapping, stretching across the walls.... All watching me.
The mattress dipped beside me. A weight pressed against the sheets, as though someone small had climbed onto the bed.
I turned my head, shaking, and she was there.
The little girl. Pale skin, hollow eyes, braids framing her face. She leaned close, so close I could smell the rot on her breath.
"She's waiting," she whispered.
And then her mouth stretched impossibly wide, and she screamed.
I woke on the floor, gasping, ears ringing. The lights were on again. The TV hissed static.
But my reflection in the black screen wasn't mine.
It was Caleb's.
Grinning.
Now I understand. The house doesn't just take people. It keeps them. Collects them. Every face on the wallpaper, every whisper in the dark—they were once like me. Once alive.
And soon, I'll join them.
Because I've started losing time. Hours vanish. I'll find myself standing in the hallway, staring at the wall, fingernails dug deep into the plaster or sitting in front of the mirror, smiling without knowing why.
Sometimes my reflection doesn't move when I do.
Sometimes it smiles on its own.
I'm writing this as a warning, though I know it won't help. You can laugh, dismiss me as insane but the truth is simple.
The house that watches is not a place.
It's everywhere.
It followed me home. It will follow you, too.
And once it looks at you—once you feel its eyes—
You belong to it.
Forever.....