The Crawlspace Watcher

January 23, 2013

by Noe

During my sophomore year at Millbrook High, I met a girl named Elena through an online forum for horror enthusiasts. We bonded over our shared interest in the paranormal, and eventually started dating. Elena was a firm believer in the supernatural, while I was more skeptical, always seeking tangible evidence. I would find it sooner than I ever wanted.

Elena suffered from terrifying night terrors. She would call me at 3 a.m., her voice trembling, describing a creature that stalked her in her dreams. It would drag its elongated body through the narrow hallway of her apartment, pausing at each doorway, waiting. She could feel its gaze on her, even when she couldn’t see it. I tried to comfort her, telling her it was just a nightmare, but she insisted it felt real.

One weekend, I stayed over at her place. We were lying on a pile of blankets in her living room, watching a series on my laptop. She had fallen asleep, her head resting on my arm. She always said she slept better when I was around, and I believed her. The clock on the wall read 1:47 a.m. when I heard it: a faint scratching sound coming from the hallway.

I froze, listening. The sound grew louder, like nails scraping against the wooden floor. I gently tried to wake Elena, but she was in a deep sleep, her breathing steady. I decided to investigate. I rose quietly, my heart pounding, and peered down the hallway. It was dark, but I could see the faint outline of the bedroom doors. The scratching stopped.

I walked slowly down the hallway, my bare feet cold on the floor. As I passed the first door, I glanced inside and saw a dark mass in the corner, shaped like a crouched figure. I blinked, and it was gone. I shook my head, blaming my imagination. But then I heard whispers from the next room, soft and urgent. I moved closer, pressing my ear to the door. The whispers ceased, and the door creaked open slightly on its own.

I pushed the door fully open. The room was bathed in moonlight from the window. In the center stood a tall, thin figure with elongated limbs, its skin the color of ash. It had no face, just a smooth expanse of skin where a face should be. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. It raised a hand, and I saw its fingers were too long, the joints bending backwards.

The creature took a step toward me, and I stumbled backward into the hallway. It followed, moving with a jerky, unnatural motion, its head tilting as if studying me. I ran back to the living room, shaking Elena awake. She woke with a gasp, her eyes wide. ‘It’s here,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I’ve seen it too,’ I replied, my throat dry.

We huddled together, watching the hallway. The scratching resumed, then stopped at the threshold. A dark shape stretched across the floor, cast by something standing just out of sight. We didn’t dare move. The shape lingered for what felt like hours, then slowly retreated, and the presence faded.

We never slept there again. We moved in with my parents, but Elena continued to have night terrors. I couldn’t sleep either, afraid of seeing that thing in my dreams. One night, I woke to find Elena standing over me, her face blank, her arms hanging too low. She was humming a tune I didn’t recognize. When I called her name, she blinked and asked what was wrong, unaware she had moved.

In the weeks that followed, I started noticing changes. Doors in my parents’ house would creak open on their own. I’d see fleeting shapes in the corner of my eye. And every night, I heard the scratching—soft, persistent, as if it was learning to find me. I knew then that the thing hadn’t been in Elena’s dreams; it had been in her apartment, waiting to be invited. I had walked into its domain, and now it was following me, watching from the crawlspace of my mind, waiting for the moment I would be alone.

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