John's Story

My friend, we’ll call him John, came over to my house, this wasn’t anything new, as we normally spent all day with each other. When he had gotten to my house, I had three other friends over, each of us were telling the others scary stories that happened to us. Well, we said they happened to us, most of them were just made up to top the person before.

I doubt that any of them were true, but each one seemed to be effecting John a little more than normal. He just sat on the couch, not saying anything. Each story seemed to make him introvert more, so after a few stories we asked him what was happening. It took a little coercing before he was willing to tell us what was bothering him. This was the story he had told us:

“I woke up in the middle of the night, a couple of nights ago. At first I thought I was still dreaming, but then I realized it was one of those times when I was half awake and half asleep, you know when you can see and hear what is happening but can’t really move. So, I heard some talking, and that is what made me think I was still dreaming. But after a little bit I was able to move, so I turned and saw a couple of shadows standing at the foot of my bed.

“So my heart was racing. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I didn’t want them to know I was awake. The knife I keep in my room was on my dresser, so there was no way I could get to it without those people seeing. They were still talking, so I tried to listen to them. It was kind of hard to make out everything they were saying, the whispers they were using were barely audible.

“One of them was saying, ‘…about killing him. I mean, that could cause some real problem for us.’ I was terrified at this point. But then the other started to speak; ‘We can handle him some other time, let’s get out of here.’”

I couldn’t believe the story he was telling us, John always had a bad poker face, and this entire time he was able to keep the same somber look on his face.

“I heard them start to leave, but I still didn’t feel safe moving. That’s when I heard one of them come back into my room, and walk right next to my bed. My entire body start to tingle and I was doing my best at pretending on being asleep. It was so hard though. He was standing right next to me, looking down on me. I could feel his eyes on my face as I lay there. Then he spoke to me, my entire body went weak as he spoke. ‘I know you’re awake, and I know you heard us. We’ve been watching you for some time, and we will watch you even more now. But if you tell the police about this, you won’t make it through another night.’

“I was frozen. I didn’t know if he expected me to do something or not, but I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. That man stood at the side of my bed for what felt like an eternity, then he simply walked out of my room, closing the door behind him. I heard the front door open and close and a car drive away.

“I don’t know what those people were doing in my room, or why they are watching me, but I haven’t slept in the past couple of days. Do you mind if I crash here tonight?”

I told him he could stay as long as he needed to. This was something that we all felt we needed to handle and we all agreed that he shouldn’t go back to his house until it was. The most obvious solution was to go to the cops. It took John a few hours of convincing before he agreed to tell the police what had happened to him.

After he had gotten off the phone a general feeling of relief came across the room. It took some time but by the time our other friends had left my place, we were all able to joke and laugh about things. John still wasn’t fully himself, but he was at least able to have a laugh with us.

I setup the couch so John can sleep on it, my apartment was a one bedroom otherwise I would have offered him his own room. We stayed up for a little after midnight, talked and had a few drinks, then went to our respective beds.

A few hours later I was woken by grunting coming from the living room. At first I thought that John was just having a bad dream, so I was going to check in on him. But, when I opened the door I saw two figures standing by my couch, one of which was bent over, right about where John’s head should be. I wish I could say that I ran into the living room and saved my friend, but I didn’t. I closed the door to my bedroom as quietly as I could, and locked it.

The grunts died down a little later and I heard footsteps headed towards my front door. I decided that I wasn’t going to open my door until the morning. It was perhaps the only thing that saved my life that night. I heard a voice come from the other side of the door, the voice had some kind of southern accent to it, but what he said was clear enough for me to know these must have been the same people in John’s house the other night.

“If you tell anyone, you will end up just like your friend. I trust you will make a better decision then he had.”

Shortly after the front door opened and closed.

The next morning I was scared to leave my room, I thought the living room would have been a bloodbath. But there was nothing there. John was missing, but besides that, there was nothing that wasn’t as it should be. I didn’t see a drop of blood anywhere.

It has been years since that night, and I still think about John. I feel like I am the reason he had died. If I hadn’t push him to telling us that story, he would still be here. If I had done something, anything, besides just locking myself in my room, he could still be alive. But the most haunting thing, the thing that keeps me up at night, is when I think of what those people had done to him.