It Came Through the Attic

A Kairos OG brings us the return of high strangeness in what may be the installment most likely to elicit a cautionary glance over your shoulder.

 Just before the 2016 election, I moved into a house split into two separate apartments. Well, mostly separate, as you’ll see later. The neighborhood was actually decent, but my house was the worst property in an otherwise nice area. The low rent attracted a series of….colorful next-door neighbors. 

The one I lived next to the longest was actually a relatively decent working-class guy who mostly kept to himself. At one point, though, he began a relationship with a new girlfriend who shacked up with him and brought her brood of kids along. The few, brief interactions I had with the kids were pleasant. But their mom was a total psycho. For example, when they were moving in next door, she barged in, demanding to do a safety inspection on my place. She only left when I told her I’d call the cops. I only mention that because it might have significance for what happened later.

After several months, my neighbor kicked his crazy GF out. At some indeterminate point before that, though, the kids seemed to have disappeared. It’s not that I heard or saw anything unusual leading up to it, but it gradually dawned on me that I hadn’t seen the kids around the property in a while. Neither my neighbor nor my landlord mentioned anything about it. 

Anyway, with my neighbor’s ex-GF and her kids gone, things got pretty quiet around the place. Everything was pretty normal. Then, a few months later, I came home to a really weird discovery.

As a bit of setup, I’m a night owl who often stays up well into the wee hours of the morning. One night a few weeks ago, I got up from a late-night vidya session, turned off the TV, and went to grab some food. There was nothing in the house, and thanks to COVID restrictions, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Walgreens were my only options. 

I got back around 3 AM. Nothing looked out of the ordinary from the driveway, and I didn’t notice anything out of place when I came in — until I went into the bedroom and found it bathed in a soft, blue glow.

After a moment of confusion, I saw that my TV was on, and showing the “no signal” screen.

For some important background, I’m a stickler about not wasting energy. I’m the type of guy who feels guilty about leaving a single lightbulb on in a room after I leave it. I have never, to my knowledge, left my TV on when I was out of the house. And I remember turning it off that particular time. Also, it’s an older LCD TV from probably the early 2000’s that didn’t come with a remote. The only way to turn it on and off was to push a somewhat hard-to-find button on the side toward the back. The odds that I bumped it accidentally on my way out are practically zero.

That meant the only way for the TV to be on was for someone to turn it on, but the place was empty in my absence.

Or at least, it should’ve been.

I did a full search of my apartment. The windows were still locked from the inside, except for one in the laundry room that I’d left open. But that window had a screen it in that was still intact. Even if the screen hadn’t been there, the opening is so narrow that only a super skinny person could squeeze through it without a lot of effort. Additionally, there’s a furniture right under the window with a bunch of stuff piled on it. It would be impossible to go in or out through that window without at least disturbing some of the items under it, and nothing was out of place.

As for the doors, I know the front door was locked, since I had to unlock it when I got back. I am the only one with the keys to that lock because I replaced it myself after the run-in with my neighbor’s psycho GF. The back door isn’t just locked, it’s physically barred with a thick piece of wood. I’ve tested that bar by using all my strength and every trick I could think of to get in the back door while it’s barred. I couldn’t even budge it, and I’m not a small guy.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how someone could have gotten in during the half our or so I was gone. Even more puzzling was the lack of motive. Not only was nothing of value missing, nothing was missing at all. If someone had broken in, all they’d done was turn on my TV and left without a trace.

Then I thought of something one of my landlord’s employees had told me shortly after I’d moved in. The house is one floor, but it has an attic crawlspace. This guy had said he’d been up on the other side to fix some issue with my neighbor’s dryer. He’d said that neither of our dryers were venting outside, and that a ton of lint had built up in the crawlspace. That meant he must have seen the crawlspaces above both our laundry rooms, which suggested that both attics were connected.

It might’ve been my mid playing tricks on me, but at that point I seemed to remember hearing and seeing weird things in the house, like light scuffing in the ceiling and fleeting shadows ducking behind corners in my peripheral vision. I’d chalked it up to animals and tricks of the light.

Now, I wasn’t so sure.

I called a friend who’s handy with carpentry. We spent an evening making sure my attic trap door is thoroughly sealed. Now nobody is getting through there without me knowing about it.

I haven’t had anymore weirdness since.

Thanks to AtticAnon for an unsettling account of high strangeness, indeed. It sounds like he took the right preventative measures. I would also advise that he obtain suitable means of personal protection if he hasn’t already.

And I advise readers who liked this story to check out my award-winning horror/adventure series: