The Weight of Hollow Feet

Ever since the incident at Marcus’s place, I’d been sleeping with one eye open. The thumping on his roof had been relentless—a heavy, measured tread that went on for hours, as if something massive was pacing back and forth, waiting for the right moment to come down. We never found an explanation. No branches, no animals, no footprints. The sound just stopped one morning, leaving us with a shared paranoia that we couldn’t shake.

Last night, I was video-chatting with my best friend, Renee, in her new house out in the countryside. We were doing our usual routine: going through our class notes, scrolling through social media, and sending each other memes about badger-badger mushrooms. The connection was stable, the light from her desk lamp casting a warm glow on her face. Then, mid-sentence, she froze. Her eyes flicked upward.

‘Do you hear that?’ she whispered.

I heard it. A deep, resonant POUND POUND POUND above her ceiling, followed by a sickening CRACK CRACK that vibrated through the speakers. Her beagle, Biscuit, started barking frantically, running in circles around her chair. Renee pressed her hand to her chest, her face pale. ‘Something is on my roof,’ she said, her voice trembling.

We tried to rationalize it. There was a single oak in her yard, but its branches were bare and nowhere near the house. She had cats, but the noise was too heavy, too deliberate. We listed every possibility: a deer fall, a raccoon fight, a branch scraping—but all of them died in our mouths. Because the truth was, we both knew what it sounded like. It sounded like the same thing that had haunted Marcus’s roof two weeks ago.

That’s when the noise changed. It became rhythmic, like footsteps stalking along the shingles. Slow, deliberate, patient. Renee’s cats, who had been under her bed, now hissed and flattened themselves against the floor. Biscuit whimpered, pinned his ears back, and bolted to the corner of her room. Renee gripped the edge of her desk. ‘It’s circling,’ she said. ‘It’s circling the chimney.’

I told her to call the police, to get out of the house, but she shook her head. ‘The police? They’ll think I’m crazy. And I can’t just leave—what if it’s waiting for me out there?’

I watched as she moved her laptop to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse. The moon was half-full, casting pale light over the wet shingles. Nothing. The thumping stopped. A dead silence settled, so thick I could hear Renee’s breath and the hum of her computer. Then, from the corner of her room, a sound that made my blood go cold: a low, guttural groan, like massive wood bending under pressure.

Renee spun her camera toward the noise. Her room was a wreck—her bed had been shoved against the wall, her clothes strewn everywhere. But what caught my attention was the floor. A crack, dark and jagged, ran from the base of her bed to the closet door. It hadn’t been there a second ago.

The groan deepened, and the crack spread, widening with a sickening pop. Renee stumbled back, knocking over her chair. Something was pushing up from below, from the crawl space under her room. I shouted into the mic, ‘Renee, get out! Now!’ But she was frozen, staring at the shifting floorboards.

Then the floor gave way. A hand—pale, long-fingered, with nails like blackened claws—thrust through the debris, grasping at thin air. It was followed by another, and then a head: humanoid but wrong, features blurred as if carved from old wax, eyes like pits of tar. It hauled itself up through the gap, its body too thin, too tall, and made a sound like dry leaves rubbing together.

Renee screamed, and I could only watch in horror as the thing lunged for her. The screen flickered, then her camera dropped to the floor, showing only the ceiling. I heard a scuffle, a choke, and then silence.

I’ve been trying to call her ever since, but the line is dead. I’m typing this at Marcus’s house, where I fled in the middle of the night. But I can’t shake the feeling that TAP TAP TAP on his window—the same sound that started this mess—is not a branch. It’s footsteps. And they’re getting closer.