The Glass-Eyed Rider

The old farmhouse on Cedar Lane had been in our family for generations, but this story isn’t about the house. It’s about what happened on the morning of September 14th, 2019, when the world tilted just a little too far.

My sister, Lena, was seventeen, a year younger than me, and she was supposed to be heading to the county fair with her friends. I was in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee, watching the dust motes dance in the sunbeam that slanted through the window. The moving truck from the neighboring property was due to arrive that day, and I was curious about the new family, but that wasn’t what caught my eye.

A blur of motion on the gravel drive. A girl on a bicycle, a bright orange bike with a banana seat, exactly like Lena’s. But Lena was outside, waiting on the stone wall by the gate. This girl was riding straight past the window, and as she passed, she turned her head and looked at me. Her face was a mask of pure malevolence, and her eyes – they weren’t normal. They were glassy, like a doll’s, and I could swear they reflected the window, not the road ahead.

My heart slammed against my ribs. I dropped the coffee cup – it shattered on the floor, but I didn’t care. I ran to the front door, my mind screaming. As I passed the hallway, I glanced at the rack where we kept our bikes. There it was, Lena’s bike, leaning against the wall, untouched, dusty from yesterday. She hadn’t ridden it today.

I threw open the door, expecting to see the girl, but instead, Lena was sitting on the stone wall, exactly where I’d seen her from the window. She looked up, her face pale. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her voice trembling.

I looked past her, down the drive. Nothing. No girl, no bike. But that’s when I saw it – the moving truck had arrived, and it was parked right in front of our gate. And in the driver’s seat, a woman was staring at me with those same glassy eyes, a smile that didn’t reach them. She held up a hand and waved, and I saw that her fingers were too long, and her nails were black like beetles.

The truck’s engine revved, and it began to pull away. As it passed, I caught a glimpse of the side: ‘Holloway & Sons, Estate Movers’ – but the address listed was an abandoned asylum on the outskirts of town.

I turned to Lena, my throat dry. ‘Did you see that girl?’ I asked. She shook her head, confused. ‘What girl? The truck just arrived. I was watching for it.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying the image of the girl’s face, the way she looked at me with such hatred. At 3 AM, I heard a scratching at my bedroom window. I pulled the curtain aside, and there she was, the girl, hovering outside, her face pressed against the glass, her mouth moving silently. Her eyes were now completely black, and she pointed at the moving truck, which was still parked across the road, now dark and empty.

I stumbled back, and when I looked again, she was gone. But on the windowsill, there was a small, glass eye, like from a doll, and it was staring up at me. I knew then that the house was no longer the only thing on Cedar Lane that was older than it looked. The new neighbor had brought something with her, and the girl on the bike was just a messenger.

In the morning, I went to welcome the new neighbor. The door opened before I could knock, and the woman from the truck stood there, her eyes now a milky white, but still seeing. She smiled and said, ‘So you’ve met my daughter. She’s been waiting for someone to play with.’ And behind her, I saw the girl, sitting on a dusty bike in the hallway, her head tilted, and I knew that Lena and I were no longer safe in our own home.