Nearby

While it is known by some that I have a keen interest in the uncanny - seeking it out on occasion - nevertheless it proved a decidedly unsettling experience to find such a strange event taking place just a few feet from my front door.

The street that I lived on at the time was like any other, not an affluent place, nor one mired in poverty; a mix of kind, selfish, and apathetic neighbours, some taking interest in those around them, others not. It was a relatively quiet area but I had a fondness for it, as the large birch trees - which occasionally drooped over hedges and fences from both cared for and neglected lawns - reminded me of my childhood. Despite being just a few minutes from a busy motorway, only the occasional car came plodding through to disturb the peace - joined at times by sporadic domestic arguments which resonated from home to house, unhindered by the quiet - and so children played outside in the summer sun, some more pleasantly than others. I would have to describe the street from top to bottom as quite, quite, ordinary. I'm sure you can imagine then how shocked I was to find what I did surrounded by the mundane.

I should correct myself here, it was not what I found, but rather what my neighbour initially discovered. His name was Bill and he had moved in to the house next door only a few months previous, nevertheless in that short time we had grown to be firm friends; neighbourhood barbecues, Friday nights at the local pub, a shared fondness for classic films - we got on well.

One Saturday night I invited Bill over for a game of cards with a few of my colleagues. I've never been particularly brilliant at poker, but I've always enjoyed the well intended banter produced when placing bets against a good crowd. That night, neither luck nor skill was on my side and I found myself out of the game fairly quickly, so I sat back, had a few drinks, and just enjoyed the good natured ribbing.

The night flew in and before long the first suggestion of daylight whispered across the sky. Everyone else had drunkenly stumbled home by then with the exception of Bill, so both of us sat in my living room having a few more beers - something I was sure to regret in the morning - and talked about our favourite Alfred Hitchcock films, particularly what we thought he would be making today if he were still alive.

Suddenly a change occurred in Bill's expression. His eyes focused intently on a bookshelf which stood behind me and for a moment there was silence, until I asked if he was feeling okay. I assumed of course that he had perhaps drank a little too much, but the quiet spoke of more than simply an oncoming hangover. After a pause of contemplation, he altered the focus of our discussion inquiring about my interests and hobbies.

Glancing over my shoulder to the books which seemed to be the catalyst of this change, the oncoming topic was now revealed to me. I laughed at the observation, knowing full well that some would mock me, but when I told him that much of my book collection pertained to the study of the paranormal and the bizarre, his disposition changed markedly once more from one of casual conversation to embarrassment. Yet still, he proceeded.

You see Bill believed that there was something living in his house. What that something was he could not entirely be sure of, but nonetheless it was there, physical, and manifest - though there was the suggestion that it may not rely upon a purely conventional explanation.

*

From the very first night which he had spent there, he had experienced a variety of unsettling phenomena. Initially it was nothing more than a faint knocking sound which seemed muffled but nearby; however, he could not determine the origin, for its source was indistinct. Indeed at times the sound traveled as if moving, even sliding, through the walls, under floorboards, and creeping around in the hollow of the attic above.

The unusual noises continued for many weeks and to Bill it felt as though, with the passage of time, they were increasing in intensity. Frustrated by lack of sleep, for the sounds became faint or ceased altogether during the day, he concluded that the house must have become infested by a mass of nocturnal rodents; scratching between wood and sliding their fouled bodies between any gaps in the house's construction which they could find.