Randy grumbled, tapping one finger repeatedly on the table. He was scrolling through a Facebook writing group when he spotted the story he’d uploaded there yesterday. His hand instinctively ruffled his hair.
The number of likes on the post hadn’t increased even a little. He sighed. Being a writer was so hard. The number was stuck at fifteen likes. And one laughing reaction.
Randy checked the account that had left the laughing reaction. What were they laughing at? Was there something funny in his story? Of course not! It was horror fiction. And Randy hadn’t slipped any comedy into it.
It was enough to ruin his mood instantly.
Especially when he saw a comment promoting the person’s own writing. They had no sense of propriety. They had their own wall, after all.
What a fate... what a fate....
Randy had spent nearly a month researching this story. His efforts hadn’t been easy, either. He wanted to avoid plot holes and make the story acceptable to readers. He had even visited the location where the events in his story had taken place.
Because Randy had based this story on a true story. He thought readers would like it, too. Some authors who added “true story” to their titles always attracted plenty of readers. Without fail, they always got a thousand likes.
Was it because those authors were already famous?
Who knew.
Randy remembered that writing this story had required him to steel himself and visit an abandoned house on the outskirts that had been deserted for ten years—all alone.
That was where he’d gotten the story.
They said a woman haunted the house and never hesitated to frighten people who passed by. The woman had committed suicide after her husband caught her cheating on him. And proof of her infidelity, in the form of a sex tape, had spread across social media.
The woman always appeared with her head twisted backward. She crawled everywhere and ran quickly like a spider. Yet so far, despite all his visits to the abandoned house, Randy had never seen an apparition.
Maybe the story was too exaggerated. Or maybe he simply couldn’t see supernatural beings.
Randy stared at the laptop screen, which was still on. He felt reluctant to finish something that received so little appreciation.
He took a moment to reflect. Then he reread his writing from beginning to end. Learning punctuation and the craft of writing hadn’t been easy. He had spent two years studying them between his college obligations.
Randy thought his writing was pretty good. There weren’t any punctuation errors, either. And yesterday, he had finally dared to post his first story. This was the result.
A few possibilities began to cross his mind. Maybe it was because he was still new to the writing world. Or maybe his writing simply didn’t resonate with readers.
Or maybe his story had sunk because Randy had noticed that most members of the writing group preferred stories about infidelity featuring homewreckers, with antagonists so unbelievably evil they made the devil look tame, and protagonists so weak that the slightest touch made them sick.
What if... Randy just added a little homewrecker flavor to his story?
“Arrghh...” he shouted in frustration. He trudged toward the bed. His brain felt like it was burning from thinking about it.
Randy’s desire to write suddenly plummeted. It would take a long time to bring it back.
He grabbed his phone and started scrolling through social media. At least it eased the burden on his mind a little. Without realizing it, something horrifying was already watching the laptop screen he had left on. It continued displaying the first chapter Randy had written.
Bang!!
A cool breeze brushed against Randy’s toes. He jolted awake at the sound of the window banging over and over. It kept opening and closing in the wind.
Randy sat up, rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep while still looking at his phone. The screen was still displaying the open social-media account. Meanwhile, he had forgotten to close the window. He looked at the clock on his bedroom wall.
One in the morning.
The wind was blowing hard. Tree branches scraping against the window frame made an incredibly irritating noise that sounded frightening in his ears.
With an annoyed click of his tongue, he got up to close the window he’d forgotten to lock. A light drizzle began pattering against his face. The road in front of the boarding house looked deserted. The tree leaves thrashed wildly in the strong wind.
Randy was about to close the window when he blinked at something strange that caught his eye. He rubbed his eyes once more before looking again.
Right at the end of the road. Beneath the streetlight’s dim glow. He saw someone standing there... alone.
The figure had its back to him. He couldn’t see its face. But looking closely, he could make out waist-length hair, a knee-length white dress, and a somewhat tall, thin frame.
It looked like... a woman.
His brows drew together. At this hour? What was she doing standing outside alone? And it was about to rain, too.
Unable to make sense of it, Randy shook his head. An odd, unfamiliar feeling began spreading throughout his body. This wasn’t normal anymore. Especially since, no matter how long he stared, the figure didn’t move from where it stood.
Randy rubbed the back of his prickling neck. Suddenly, the room felt colder. Was it because of the rain, or was something else causing it?
He hurriedly closed the window. Then, for a moment, he pulled the curtain aside again to peek at the woman he had seen earlier.
She was gone.
Randy flinched and straightened. The woman was no longer standing there.
Bzzzt... bzzzt....
The bedroom light flickered, making a strange, frightening sound.
“Oh, no! Don’t tell me the power’s going out,” he muttered irritably. The moment he said it, the light went out.
Randy could only resign himself to the situation as he felt his way along the wall. He headed for the phone lying on the bed. He needed some light, at least for the moment.
Feeling around, his hand touched something cold and slightly soft. Randy pressed on it repeatedly. Its texture was like... like human skin.
Slowly, the thing crawled onto his hand. Randy swatted it away, thinking it was an animal. But afterward, the thing seemed to clamp down on his arm.
He panicked. Meanwhile, his other hand had found the phone. He quickly turned on the flashlight and aimed it at the hand that had been holding the strange object.
There was nothing there.
His heart pounded. He swept the phone’s flashlight around the entire room. Silence.
At least he could breathe a sigh of relief.
Knock... knock... knock....
Randy froze. The window was being tapped with an extremely soft knock. He stood rigidly in place, unable to move. He didn’t want to look, let alone go closer. His gut was telling him something was wrong.
“Excuse me....”
Then he remembered that his room at the boarding house was on the second floor. There wasn’t a single staircase, gap to climb through, or anything else that could allow someone to get up there and knock on the window.
He edged backward. Beads of sweat began rolling down his forehead. Then a soft whisper sounded right beside his ear.
“Hee hee hee....”