☆Creepypasta Stories☆

~Propane~

Thump.

The girl jerked awake. She glanced at the window, afraid of what she would see, yet it revealed nothing but the dark night. They're back, she thought anxiously. A week ago, the girl awoke to find that somebody had spray painted loops and scribbles of blue and red on their garage door. Mom thought it was a rival gang at first, maybe trying to intimidate the girl's brother's clan, but the girl wasn't so sure. She'd never seen gang graffiti like this; usually it was only one color, and they'd write out just a letter and a number, like the "X4" she'd seen in a bathroom stall at school. If they used a lot of colors, it was to paint a nickname in cool, bubbly letters, like the ones under the bridge on her walk home. This looked nothing like that graffiti.

She had thought it was silly at the time, but the next morning as Mom was leaving for work, she noticed something lying across the top of the driveway. It was a long, wooden board with nails poking through it, sharp side up. It was a good thing Mom noticed, because it would have popped all of her tires for sure.

The girl was anxious about it, though nothing bad had happened. The events were strange, more than anything, but Mom said she'd ask her boyfriend to stay over the next night to keep them safe. That made the girl feel a little better, but something happened that night, too. The girl thought all those globs of white on his shiny BMW were just bird poop. It looked like a whole flock of giant birds had unloaded their intestinal burdens right on his car on purpose, and since the girl didn't like him much, it made her laugh. Mom's boyfriend got mad and cursed a lot, though, because the globs turned out to be paint remover. He'd have to get the whole car repainted.

Somehow, targeting a full-grown man like that made the girl more frightened than anything else. It didn't feel like teenage pranksters anymore, nor gang rivalry.

At the present, she was worried she wouldn't be able to hear anything even if someone was right outside the door, because her heart was pounding so hard in her ears. She strained to listen for another sound anyway and -

Thump. Thump.

Her eyes darted to the source of the noise and realized it was coming from her brother's bedroom, which shared a wall with the living room. They're probably doing it, she cringed in discomfort. Her brother and his girlfriend were supposed to be watching her. She didn't really need a babysitter, but Mom's boyfriend didn't want to come over anymore. Mom had night classes and wouldn't let the girl stay here alone, since someone kept messing with the house.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The girl turned up the volume on the TV to drown them out. She'd fallen asleep watching Nickelodeon, but now an old show in black and white was on. She considered just going to bed, but her room was upstairs and the staircase was dark. The laughing and talking from the sitcom was comforting. She would just fall asleep on the couch, and Mom would put her in bed when she got home.

By the time the episode ended, the thumping from her brother's room was long gone. Now, he was playing his rap tapes, and even though she liked the music - and she'd even steal his Walkman when he was out of the house and listen to them - the deep, shuddering bass penetrated her heart at night and set her on edge. It would be less overwhelming if she went upstairs, so she resigned herself to brave the darkness and try to fall asleep in her bed.

As she rose from the couch to turn off the television, she thought she glimpsed a flash of light from outside. She froze. A car? Their house was set against a hill, so the living room windows looked out on mostly sky and treetops, not roads or sidewalks. It couldn't be a car. Lightning? But there hadn't been a cloud in the sky all day... Just as she had convinced herself she had imagined it, the girl saw the light again. It was a flashlight. Someone was walking through the yard below their back deck, and the beam from their lamp flicked up through the trees as the figure stepped over larger logs and stumps.