The Red-Eyed Crouch

We moved to the old farmhouse in late autumn, when the fields were stripped bare and the wind had a bite that cut through even the thickest coats. My parents had inherited it from a distant uncle, and we thought it would be a fresh start after the accident. I was sixteen, and my cousin, Lily, who was my age, came to live with us after her parents died. We shared a bedroom in the converted attic, with slanted ceilings and a single dormer window that overlooked the fallow land.

At first, the house was just quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that makes you hear your own heartbeat. But soon, we started noticing things. A floorboard creaking when no one was there. The faint sound of a child’s laughter from the empty hallway. Doors that were open would be closed when we returned. I chalked it up to the old house settling, or my imagination, but Lily was uneasy. She said she felt watched, especially at night.

One night, I woke to a strange pressure in the room. The moonlight cast long shadows through the window, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the draft. I turned over to check on Lily, and that’s when I saw it. A dark shape, hunched over her bed. It was black, like a void, but I could make out two glowing red eyes and what appeared to be twisted horns. It was small, but it was crouched as if it had been leaning over her, and when it saw me, it turned its head slowly. Those eyes locked onto mine, and I felt a primal fear freeze my limbs. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Time stretched, and then, in a flash of instinct, I grabbed the old Bible my mother had placed on my nightstand. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed, my voice a trembling whisper. I didn’t open my eyes until I heard a faint hiss and felt the presence leave. I didn’t look at Lily’s bed again; I just pulled the covers over my head and prayed until dawn.

The next morning, I told Lily what I saw. She laughed nervously, saying it was a nightmare, but I saw the fear in her eyes. She admitted she’d been having nightmares herself, of a creature whispering her name, telling her to come closer. We agreed to leave a lamp on at night, but the presence only seemed to grow bolder. A week later, my sister and her best friend were home alone while my parents and I went to town. When we returned, we found them huddled in the kitchen, pale and shaking. They said they’d heard tapping on the walls, and then a deep voice from the attic, calling my sister’s name. They had run out to the barn and waited until we got back.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, watching the shadows, when I heard it again: a soft, shuffling sound from the corner. I turned on my flashlight and swept the beam across the room. There was nothing, but the air was cold, and I felt a presence in the corner. I prayed again, but this time, the creature appeared, fully visible. It was not just a shadow; it was a twisted, emaciated figure with skin like burnt leather, its eyes glowing like embers. It opened its mouth, and a voice like dry leaves whispered, ‘You cannot hide from me.’ I screamed, and my parents burst in. They saw nothing, but they saw the terror on my face. They decided we would leave the next day.

But as we packed, I noticed that Lily was missing. I found her in the attic, standing at the window, staring out into the dark. She was muttering something, and when she turned, her eyes were red, and a smile that wasn’t hers stretched across her face. She said, ‘The land is hungry, and it has chosen you.’ I ran to get my parents, but when they came, Lily was normal, confused, and scared. The house had changed her, or something in it had. We managed to leave that night, but as we drove away, I saw a hunched figure in the rear window, watching us with those red eyes. I didn’t tell the others, but I knew that we hadn’t escaped. It had attached itself to Lily, and it would follow us wherever we went. To this day, I still see it sometimes, crouched at the foot of my bed, waiting for me to close my eyes.