The Glass Eye of Red Hollow

In the autumn of 1998, I moved into a rented house in the unincorporated town of Red Hollow, a place that seemed to have been forgotten by time and GPS. The house itself was a sagging Victorian with a wraparound porch, its paint peeling like dead skin. The realtor, a nervous man named Mr. Pemberton, kept glancing at the upstairs windows as he handed me the keys. ‘Previous tenant left in a hurry,’ he said, not meeting my eyes. ‘No need to worry about the furniture. It’s all paid for.’ I should have asked more questions, but I was desperate. My job as a night auditor at the local motel had brought me here, and the rent was unbelievably low.

The first night, I unpacked my boxes in the dim light of a single bulb that hung from the living room ceiling. The house creaked and groaned like an old ship, and every time I moved, I felt a pressure in the air, as if the walls were leaning in to listen. I tried to sleep in the master bedroom, but the feeling of being watched was so strong that I ended up on the couch, lights on, staring at the ceiling. I told myself it was just the new place, the settling noises, the wind in the gutters. But then I saw her.

It was three in the morning, and I was dozing on the couch when a flicker of movement caught my eye. Standing in the hallway that led to the bedrooms was a figure—a woman in a tattered white nightgown, her hair hanging over her face. She was utterly still, but I could feel her gaze burning through the strands. I tried to move, to scream, but my body was frozen, weighted down by an invisible force. She took a step forward, and the floorboards didn’t creak. Her feet were bare, and as she came closer, I saw that her eyes were missing—just dark, empty sockets. She reached out a hand, her fingers long and pale, and placed it on my chest. The cold seeped through my shirt, and I felt something pulling at my soul, trying to drag it out. Then, just as suddenly, she vanished, and I could move again. I gasped, sitting up, drenched in sweat.

The next morning, I attempted to rationalize it. Sleep paralysis, my mind playing tricks. But the feeling of being watched never left. Every time I showered, I would slide the curtain open, convinced someone was there, but I never saw anyone. I started leaving lights on at all times, but the darkness seemed to cling to corners, mocking my efforts. I asked my neighbor, an elderly woman named Mrs. Oakes, about the house’s history. She lowered her voice, her eyes darting around. ‘They say the woman who lived there before, Margaret, she died in the living room. Heart attack, they said, but some folks think she was scared to death. She was blind, you see, but she had this—this glass eye. She claimed it could see things we couldn’t. She kept it on the mantelpiece, like a talisman. After she died, the eye went missing. Some say it’s still in that house, waiting.’ I thanked her and tried to laugh it off, but that night, I searched the house top to bottom, looking for a marble or glass object, but I found nothing.

A week passed, and the encounters became more frequent. I would wake up in the middle of the night, paralyzed, with Margaret standing at the foot of my bed, her hollow sockets fixed on me. Sometimes she would whisper, but the words were garbled, like she was speaking through water. One night, she spoke clearly: ‘Find it.’ Just those two words, and then she was gone. I knew she meant the eye. But where was it? I searched the attic, the basement, the crawlspace—nothing. I even pulled up floorboards in the living room, but I only found dust and dead spiders.

Then, on Halloween night, I came home to find the house in darkness, even though I had left the porch light on. I entered cautiously, my heart pounding. The air was thick with the smell of decay, and the temperature had dropped to freezing. I flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. I used a flashlight from my pocket, the beam trembling as I moved it across the room. On the mantelpiece, which had been bare, sat a single object: a glass eye. It was milky white with a black pupil, and it seemed to be looking directly at me. I reached out to pick it up, but as my fingers brushed it, the eye rolled, and I heard a voice behind me—not Margaret’s, but deeper, more malevolent.

‘You found it, finally.’ I spun around, and there stood a man in a black suit, his face pale as bone. His eyes were normal, but they were devoid of any emotion. ‘I’ve been waiting for someone to disturb that. Now, you will serve as its vessel.’ I tried to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. The man walked towards me, and as he got closer, I saw that he had no reflection in the mirror behind him. He reached into his coat and pulled out a knife, its blade glowing with a sickly green light. He leaned in, whispering, ‘Open your eyes.’ I felt a searing pain as he pressed the knife against my eye, and the last thing I saw was the glass eye rolling off the mantelpiece, landing with a soft thud on the carpet.

I woke up in a hospital bed, a bandage over my face. The doctors told me I had been found unconscious on the floor of my living room, with a severe laceration to my left eye. They had to remove it. They fitted me with a prosthetic, a simple plastic eye, but I knew it was more than that. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, my prosthetic eye moves on its own, focusing on things I can’t see. And at night, when I close my good eye, I see through the glass one—I see her, Margaret, standing in the corner of my room, her hand extended, offering me a small, gleaming marble. ‘Take it,’ she whispers. ‘Take it and see.’ I always refuse, but I feel the pull, the same paralysis that used to hold me down. I’ve moved away from Red Hollow, but the eye is still with me, inside me. And sometimes, when I’m alone, I hear that man’s voice, soft and patient: ‘You will open your eyes for me, eventually.’