In my work as an historian I often come across odd documents in the archives. I came across a set of deeds and an old diary one day while doing some research on the memory-making activities of 19th-century American labor unions. I was immediately entranced. It is one of the wierdest and oddest documents I have ever found. I don’t know whether to believe it or not. I want to thank the archivists at the Pesequmannah State archives for their dutiful and exemplary service.
Anna-Marie Filikins moved into the house at the end of Coyote Street on October 18th, 1956. She was dead the next day. Joseph McCandle moved into the house at the end of Coyote Street on October 14th, 1964. He was dead five days later. Robby and Janice Tonfile moved into the house at the end of Coyote Street on October 15th, 1974. They were dead four days later.
Owen Roche moved into the house at the end of Coyote Street on October 17th, 2022. For now, he’s still alive.
“The Queen bed goes into the guest bedroom, the king into the main.”
Owen’s voice, normally a baritone, but now squeaking into the upper registers as he shouted at the movers, bounced around the house. He was stressed. Dealing with a divorce, moving across the country, a lack of sleep, and the incompetent movers had finally gotten to Owen’s normally taciturn psyche.
There was a light at the end of the tunnel. His day was almost done. The beds were the final piece of the moving puzzle. Soon the three guys who had helped haul his stuff from the U-Haul, along the way dinging and denting everything they could, would leave. Owen would be able to sit in his new recliner, eat half a carton of beef and broccoli from the first Chinese place to show up on Grubhub, and drink three Bud Lights. He’d look at his phone while a couple of episodes of The Office played in the background. Maybe the Phillies would win. An auspicious start to a new beginning. It would be the last nice night of his life.
The next day, waking up at the crack of dawn with that muzzy-headed feeling of a not-quite-hangover, Owen went to take a shower. The house at the end of Coyote Street was an old one, raised well before the start of the 20th century. Built largely of brick, the reception was bad in most of the house, though Owen had plans to set up a mesh network for the Wifi.
The main bathroom, attached as an en suite to the master, was massive. A clawfoot tub sat in the middle, and a walk-in shower, clearly a later addition, loomed on the side. A double sink completed the amenities. Owen nodded in approval as he waited for the water in the shower to heat up. He undressed, happy with his new situation. He was still shocked that he had been able to afford such a place. It had been a lucky break in a year full of unlucky ones. Things were getting better.
“Owen.”
Owen whipped his head around trying to figure out who had called him. He saw nothing. No one. There couldn’t be anyone else but him in the house. Couldn’t be. He had tripled-checked the locks before he had gone to sleep. Even slightly inebriated he had remembered that.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
Taking his towel and wrapping it around his ample waist Owen peeked out of the bathroom. Nothing. The voice had been loud, loud but layered with something else. A dissonance, barely audible but there, nonetheless. As if someone had been screaming in the distance.
“Owen, come to me.”
“Who’s there? Who is this?”
“Owen. You’re mine.”
As Owen frantically searched his house, the voice continued to talk, commanding, berating, and screaming at Owen. Soon a buzzing noise filled the air, getting louder and louder until it was all Owen could hear. Paralyzed by the sound, Owen fell to the floor, sobbing.
Then, after what seemed like hours, the noise stopped. There was no more voice yelling for Owen. The sound of a chickadee could be heard through the window. Owen got up, tentative as a newborn doe with his first steps. He looked at his phone, trying to gauge the time. It had died as he lay writhing on the ground. The sun was still in the sky, but closer to setting than rising. Owen had missed most of the day.
Still unwilling to admit what had just happened to him, Owen found the box that contained the contents of his meager liquor cabinet. He cracked the seal on a bottle of some local whiskey he had purchased on his drive here. He had meant to toast to new beginnings. Now he drank to forget. He did not want to deal with what had just happened to him. The more he drank the more he was sure that it was a stress hallucination. The result of all that pent-up rage, anger, and frustration coming out of him. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.
He was hungry. He ate the rest of the beef and broccoli and polished off the Bud Lights. The Phillies had won. Everything was fine Owen thought. He’d just have to avoid that bathroom for a little bit. Not a problem. He had three of the damn things. Owen was deciding between Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 when the light above him flickered. Owen decided that it was most likely a moth that had gotten into the house. Not a big deal. Houses like this had that problem. It was part of their charm.
Then the light turned red and the voice from the morning started screaming. Its unholy sound filled the room, its jagged timbre piercing Owen’s skull. It rattled around the room, as the TV burst, and the light bulbs exploded. The room was still a deep red, a sick crimson. On the walls appeared symbols, written in black and white sludge. They dripped and seeped down, along the walls and into the carpet until it seemed as if they were alive. The lines melded, conjoined, and fused with one another until they were an unearthly amalgam of gelatinous fluid. Arms reached out of the muck, reaching and grabbing for Owen as he tried to get away. His struggles were in vain as he was engulfed by the demonic sigils. The reached down into his throat gagging his screams, choking him until he died, pinned down on the carpet of his new house.
As Owen drew his last and final breath the sigils disappeared. The room returned to its natural color. The light bulbs reformed, never broken. Owen’s phone chirped on. He had thirteen missed texts. The time was 12:01 am.