Short Stories

28 - Creepy Neighbors

Prompt: A girl is convinced that she is being spied on by her creepy neighbors, but when she goes into their house, she finds a little more than she bargained for. Make your journal the entire story of what happens while she is in the house.

There is one house on the corner of the street that everyone avoids and whispers about whenever there is a neighborhood get together. It looks the same as every other house on the street except for its eggshell blue siding, overgrown bushes, and foot tall grass that has never been mowed. The people living there are rarely ever seen and lights inside the house don't turn on until the very early hour of one o'clock and turn off at four am sharp.

A lively young girl was walking home from school that fateful day. For days on end now she had felt she was being watched. Every now and then she swears she sees a curtain in the corner house shift and sometimes she swears she sees a figure following her when she's out.

One afternoon, her mother sent her with a freshly baked pie over to the creepy neighborhood house. It was a 'good will pie' as her mother called it, always the optimist. The girl walked down the street and came upon the house too quickly for her liking. She stood on the porch for a minute before knocking on the door in three short rasps. No one answered. She knocks again and this time the door cracks open.

"Hello?" She calls out. With no answer she nudges the door open a little more with her foot. The creaking of the door echos around the house but no other noise comes from within. There are stairs off to the left and directly ahead of her is a hallway that leads to a dinning room table. The girl thought that she would just leave the pie on the table and leave. The floorboards creak under her light, tiptoe steps. Her eyes dart from right to left and her ears perk, listening for any signs of life. The hall seems to stretch on and on and when it finally ends she quickly sets the pie on the table and turns to leave.

Her attention gets caught on dozens of screens in the room next to her. A room that would normally have been a living room is full of screens and any other wall space is full of pictures of the girl. Her heart starts to race and she tears her eyes away from the flashing screens. The door at the end of the hall was closed. She didn't remember closing it behind her. Blood pumped in her ears. Every little sound seems to increase, but her feet seem to be frozen in place. She can't move. Her eyes flick back and forth from the screens and the door when she makes a dash for the door.

She tugs on the handle but it doesn't budge. There are no keyholes. No bolts. Nothing to lock the door but that's what it was. Locked. She couldn't get out. There was no one in the house that she knew of but then how did the door get closed? She presses her back against the door and scans the house. Only one thing catches her eye. A cat sitting on the rail of the stairs. It stares at her, not blinking. Another girl had gone missing 2 months before. It had fur the same color as the missing girls hair. Eyes the same color as the missing girls. It even had markings around its eyes that looked like glasses. The girl that went missing had glasses.