A horror novelist shared a terrifying memory – and we may never sleep again
He turned detective.
I started tracking the position of everything in the kitchen. One day the paper napkin holder was on the wrong side of the counter. Another day a mug was in the sink that was NOT there the night before.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
And defensive.
My bedroom door didn’t lock so I kept a steak knife under my pillow. I must’ve stabbed myself in the hand 1000 times checking to make sure it was there.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
The eerie presence hadn’t just been an opportunistic trespasser, and Grady realised this in a traumatic incident.
Then in August, I was in my room reading when I looked up. There’s an A/C vent over my bed. Behind the vent a pair of eyes were watching me.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
I freaked & raised hell until my parents searched our attic and the crawl space under our house. Nothing. I wasn’t very popular for a few weeks.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
We’re not sure how he was persuaded to keep sleeping in that room, but the next development was truly disgusting.
The last week of August our house started to smell. One night, rice fell out of the vent over my bed. Maggots. The A/C people said something had probably crawled into our vents & died.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
Turns out what had crawled into our vents & died was the guy. We lived in an old house with lots of space between the walls & big ducts. He’d been living in them since May. At least.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
The details of the creepy intrusion went from bad to worse.
He’d put a foam pad beside my bedroom vent so he’d be comfortable while he watched me. The police said he’d made lots of “drawings” but when I asked they pretended they hadn’t said anything.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
The incident, quite naturally, has had repercussions lasting across the years.
No one ever identified him. He was buried as a John Doe. To this day I can’t look inside the vents in houses.
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
But sometimes when I'm at someone’s house I’ll smell a little BO coming from their central air conditioning, and I’ll wonder who’s living back there in their ducts. Who's living in the dark?
— Grady Hendrix (@grady_hendrix) October 30, 2019
In case you were considering it, it’s very dangerous to block up the vents in your home. We know because we spent half an hour googling it after reading this thread.
Source: Grady Hendrix Image: Grady Hendrix on Twitter, @redaquamedia and @gagewalkerr on Unsplash