Warnings: Home Invasion, Stalking, Implied Death, Alcohol Use, Smoking, Toxic Mindsets.
A.N. - This takes place before the events of the film.
"Hey, they need you down at 6 Belmont Street. A sorority said they're having some kind of trouble with the phone lines." The hurried voice of a distracted boss rang in your ear, and the call went dead seconds later.
Listening to the droning dial tone was unnecessary, for the dark and windy street of which he spoke laid before you. While returning the telephone to its cradle was a simple task, taking the first step into the snowy outdoors required a hard day's worth of courage.
Most of the flora had become laden with ice and withered into a sickly brown for the winter. What survived was a measly combination of elderberries clinging to sagging branches and Black Gums struggling not to shed their final leaves.
The few conifers that bordered the snowy hills were narrow and appeared as though they would blow over in a strong wind.
Every visitor to the salted streets was bundled in a thick, fur-lined coat and hat.
The large tree in the centre of the park had branches like fingers, with curly sprouts of wood winding into the sky and then spreading apart from each other.
A Tudor-style house stood at the end of Belmont Street, surrounded by dead trees and tall bushes strewn with colourful lights. On one of the side windows on the bottom level was a blue wreath in the shape of a star, and the yellow curtains behind it were thin enough to allow you a glimpse of a fireplace.
Dangling in the middle of the front door was a round wreath aglow with red lights. It was tied to a red ribbon and sat on a hook just below the small, five-piece window on the top of the door.
A wooden fence surrounded the entire property, its pointed top reaching the stomachs of the average passers-by. The gate was hanging open and obscured beneath the scraggly branches of trees stripped of leaves by the cold of winter.
Weeds and brambles had overgrown the edges of the fence and had begun to climb it.
The sidewalk was buried so deep in snow that it was hardly distinguishable from the yard of the sorority house, with the fence acting as the sole divider. The snow ate up your winter boots like quicksand, and you raised them to shake off the white pellets after every other step.
The walkway to the house was a straight shot from the road and was paved with cobblestone. It took roughly ten seconds to walk at a leisurely pace and was bordered by two half walls of stone, both bearing a globular lamp.
Multiple pairs of footprints had disturbed the snow before yours did. Most of them were either approaching the doorway or leaving it, but there was one pair that meandered towards the east-facing wall of the house.
The wall was swamped with vines that winded like snakes, so much so that the plaster and wood underneath it would have been invisible if not for the bright lights of red and green. The impressive length of these scrawny vines led your eye to the dark window of an attic.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about it was that a part of you expected to see someone looking back; however, the shadows were too dense to give this thought any satisfaction.
A sorority girl met you at the entrance within a minute of your rat-a-tat at the front door. She introduced herself as Jess and grappled with the doorknob before jimmying it open, a grunt of frustration slipping past her lips.
"Thank goodness you're here. Barb was getting anxious about her mother calling." The words tumbled out of her with a certain urgency that had you walking into the house as soon as she stepped back.
You gazed at the living room, noting the pattern of red and black roses in the curtains that overlooked the front of the house.
Potted plants decorated the space around each window, and their lush leaves grew tall enough to block some of the glass.
A second woman peeked over the back of a couch with a trail of smoke floating around her mouth. Barb was her name, and she had propped her boots on a coffee table littered with beer bottles of varying fullness. Upon lowering her cigarette, she snagged one of the bottles and rose from the cushion.
There was a rogue amusement in her smile as she looked you up and down. "You do a good job, and I'll let you have some of this." Barb pointed a finger at you and nodded, extending the bottle in your direction before pulling it back.
Turning away, she inclined her head and took a swig of the beer. Her footsteps sauntered to the kitchen, and the staircase she passed on the way drew your eye to what little of the upper floor you could see.
The stairs disregarded the wood and tile of the first floor in favour of a carpet, which continued to the second floor. It had a rough texture to it and was reddish-orange like pumpkins and candy corn.
All the visible curtains on the second floor had been drawn, and their floral print contrasted with the dark brown panels jutting out of the walls and the milky white wallpaper.
"We were thinking of having the phone around here," interjected Jess. She motioned to a pair of armchairs and the end table between them. "Would that work?" Waiting for your answer, she tilted her head and adjusted her black sweater.
You scanned the room and began knocking on the nearby walls, listening for a hollow spot behind the drywall. A subsequent knock resounded through the house every time your knuckles hit the wall.
Just as you were starting to have doubts, a deep echo sounded from the wall that was adjacent to the staircase. "That'll work. Where's your box?"
Jess tugged the sides of her coat to fold them across her torso. "The phone box is out back," she said, ambling to you.
A curt nod was your response, so she led you to the back door and pushed it open. The old hinges squealed in a noise similar to the yowl of a cat as they were forced to bend. A gust of cold air rushed inside the house, blowing past your face with a howl like a human voice.
The land was frigid that night. There could have been anything crouched and waiting at the edge of the woods, watching you when you could not watch it back.
The blue and orange lights that were strewn about the house cast your shadow upon the snow. It reached the tree line, and a more paranoid side of you thought it would be snatched and bring you with it.
Entertaining such musings had made the wind far chillier than before, which prompted you to turn back. You unfastened the latch on the phone box and were faced with two wires tucked into a larger wire.
The smaller wires pivoted in different directions and each bore a unique colour, ranging from blue to green. The larger wire was black and encircled them like a hose.
Resting your hand on the metal cover of the phone box, you counted the wires again before turning your eye to Jess.
Jess let the door close behind her and remained in the doorway, observing you with an expression of curiosity.
"Where's your attic?"
She glanced sideways and opened her mouth a bit. At first, no reply came from her except a slow nod. Then, after a moment of contemplation, Jess grabbed the doorknob and pulled the back door open. "This way."
You followed her to the base of the stairs, where a chocolate brown desk and a corded telephone sat together against the wall. Decorative flowers and posters were lining the walls around the desk, and it was all illuminated by a red and yellow light.
The attic was tucked into a tight corner in the middle of the staircase. It was accessible by way of a short ladder, one that was sturdy and thick.
After giving the sight a quick nod, you turned back to Jess. "I'll start downstairs."
Jess nodded in agreement and returned to the living room while one of the several doors in the upstairs corridor opened. Barb staggered out of it, her face sour and her brown hair ruffled. She held an unlit cigarette in her right hand and was flicking it between her fingers.
The door to Barb's room was adorned with a wreath, its electric lights having been replaced by empty wine bottles.
A muffled creak groaned above your head. "I'm no exterminator, but are you sure you don't have mice?" you asked, lowering your eye from where it had been attempting to see through the ceiling.
Barb responded to the idea with a brief mix between a scoff and a cough. "We might," she muttered, shrugging and looking towards the stairs. "You're free to check. None of us goes up there anymore."
You crept onto the lowest rung of the ladder and gazed up at the attic door. It opened inward, you discovered, when a slight push from your hand caused it to reveal nothing but blackness for a brief moment.
Before Barb could descend the stairs, you turned to her and called out, "Why's that?"
Barb stopped with her palm resting on the handrail. She glanced back at you and then took the first step down as if debating whether to ignore the question, but her eyes flickered over the attic door. "Honestly? It smells like someone died up there."
There was a twinge of uncertainty in her voice, one that led you to peek at the darkness looming overhead again.
The sick and musty odour was as strong as a punch in the gut. You reached through the air and, with your knuckles, rapped three times on the ceiling.
A brief silence ensued, during which time you glanced at various spots on the door and started to lower your hand.
Then, there came the sound of skittering, like tiny feet scrambling for traction on a wood floor. It was followed by a series of thumps from a creature much larger than a mouse. The noises approached the door, and after a pause, three knocks were heard.
You retreated from the ladder and pulled your arm close to your chest. It took many seconds for you to yank your eye away from the door, but once you managed it, your first steps were down the stairs.
Jess was standing beside the desk with the telephone raised to her ear. The faint sounds of inane screams and nonsensical mumbles were radiating from it until you tapped her shoulder.
"Could I borrow that phone for a minute?"
Jess spun towards you with a slight jump, widening her eyes and jerking the telephone closer to her body. Upon recognising you, she glanced at the floor and shuffled her feet. "Oh, I'm sorry." Her voice was little more than a whisper, and she had yet to release the telephone.
A shakiness was present in her words, as was a tendency to peer at her surroundings while speaking. It took a few seconds of gathering her bearings for Jess to look you in the eye. The tension in her shoulders remained when her left hand, which clutched the telephone, neared the cradle.
She tilted her head and pursed her lips, peeking around with a lost and disquieted reluctance. "But yes, you can use this one."
The telephone was pushed to your chest as if touching it had burned her hand, and Jess stepped away from the small table. "I'm done with it," she murmured, eyeing the telephone with a deep frown.
It gave you a moment's hesitation, and you watched her march out of the room before lifting the telephone to your ear. After spinning the correct sequence into the rotary dial, a click preceded the tired hello of your boss.
You twirled the cord around your wrist and scanned the entryway for any listeners. "It's colder than a moose's hooves out here." Finding nothing but a closed door looking back at you, you allowed your voice to rise a bit. "The job's coming along, but I'll be needing a break when this is over."
A sigh carried on the other end of the call, the sound of a man torn between too many problems. "They'll want you at the college when you're done there."
It was a nice way of saying that you were in for a long night, so you diverted your attention to the peals of creaks from above. "You still have the number for that exterminator?"
A quick and simple "yeah" sounded from the telephone. "You got rats chewing on the lines?" he asked, his voice garbled by static.
Untangling the cord from around your wrist, you leaned back to peer through the handrails to the top of the stairs. "Maybe. They're nesting in the attic, I think."
* * *
The stench of rot singed your nostrils like fire, and in it was the musky scent of mould and dust.
The attic was carried by a wood floor that creaked with each step, the joints in the boards flexing and then settling as the weight shifted from one spot to the next.
There were cobwebs draped over every piece of furniture.
Standing with a vertical pole through its belly was a white pony wearing a red saddle, the kind that children and adults with childish hearts rode for a nickel outside of convenience stores.
A rusty birdcage hung from a thin string attached to the curvature of the ceiling.
In the corner nearest to the front window sat an old rocking chair, one that had not seen use in years. A candle had been lit and placed atop the windowsill to overlook the walkway to the house.
Once you were done feeding the wire through a gap in the plywood, you stood and moved to exit the attic. It was when you were a couple of steps from reaching the door that you realised it was partially open.
The door slammed as soon as you noticed it, and a cool shade of darkness fell over the attic. Your eagerness to leave waned like a flower shrivelled. Any intention of seeing who it was became locked behind layers of sweat and clammy palms.
As bravery lost and regained its hold on you every few seconds, you closed the distance between yourself and the door as if a monstrous beast was ready to lunge through it at any moment.
You peeled back the door, crawled down the ladder and were relieved to find an empty corridor. The stillness of it was toying with your mind as though it were begging to be broken.
Nearing the stairs was a simple task until a hint of movement caught your eye and halted your next step.
The bedroom door at the opposite end of the corridor was swaying. There were no lights on in the room, which forced you to goggle into darkness once again.
Nothing came to you, and no sounds were heard. Something was there, living in the shadows and meeting your gaze with an invisible eye. Just as soon as the thought occurred, you shook your head free of it and listened to the hum of the air conditioner clicking to life.
This house was not yours to snoop, so you turned and walked down the stairs when all you wished to do was rush down them and out the front door. The chances of some creature hurtling from the darkness and jumping you were haunting for every second that your back faced the doorway.
You arrived on the first floor without suffering an attack, gaining just enough courage from this to not run when a clink echoed from beside you.
Barb was downing another bottle of beer and had discarded an empty bottle next to a full one. She hauled a radio onto the coffee table with one arm, and her hand missed the dial twice before landing on it and cranking the volume.
The clarion guitar riff and harsh-voiced singer of a rock-and-roll song swelled in the living room.
Thunder cracked like the thrash of a whip, booming and pounding in the dark skies until it collapsed into a rainstorm. The fat raindrops burst against the sidewalks, roads and homes in a volley of water. They were swept crosswise in gales of wind that howled like wolves in the night, and the rain pelted the windows as if made of stones.
The occasional bolt of lightning flashed in your eyes as you stared through the glass. To your palpitating heart, it seemed like the storm was seconds away from pouring into the living room. While any car was risking a few dents by venturing into it, any person was flirting with drowning or getting thrown by a roaring gust.
The smell of beer and rain was in the air. You peeked over your shoulder at the armchairs, where Barb lifted the bottle in her hand and tipped it at you. She then shook it as if baiting you, so you chose to take a seat on the couch and put your back to the storm.
Jess descended the stairs, her feet thumping along each step. Her hair was frazzled, and her face was strained with a familiar urgency. "Thank you for hiring that exterminator," she shouted over the din of the music before stopping at the side of the couch. "He never sent us a bill."
This distracted you from digging your fingernails into the cushions. "That's strange," you murmured, relaxing your fingers a bit in thought. "He didn't get back to me yesterday."
Jess glanced between you and the window, and her gaze focused on nothing in particular until a wave of concern washed over her countenance. She turned to Barb and leaned forward, her eyes wide. "Barb! Did he leave?"
Without looking, Barb nodded drunkenly. "He stunk up the place," she grumbled, her voice reverberating due to the beer bottle pressed to her lips.
The ring of a telephone broke the silence of confusion. It came from the newly installed unit on the end table, which buzzed unattended until Jess approached it.
Barb cocked her head, widened her eyes and curled her lip into a bitter mockery of a smile. "Would you look at that? Our first incoming call." It was as though she could divine that the caller was not her mother, and the fact loaded her words with a sardonic edge.
Despite this, she reached for the telephone and snatched it before Jess could do the same.
Shallow, rapid breaths rolled into her ear. The faint static warped the sound into an undulating hum.
Barb opened her mouth and produced the first syllable of a word, which was cut off when the breathing exploded into screams. It was a wild and senseless kind of screaming that had no end and, in any other situation, would have come from the lips of a dying man.
"Where's the baby?" he howled, repeating the question over and over again with all the fervour of someone whose life depended on the answer. The panting was animalistic, like a beast heaving its lungs after a hunt.
Barb yanked the telephone away from her ear and looked askance at it. Her head leaned back, her nose scrunched, and her eyes narrowed in disgust and bewilderment. "What the hell?" she muttered, debating whether to hang up or not.
Jess fixed the telephone with a wide-eyed stare. She appeared as though she were reliving a horrific memory, and you recalled the conversation that had been unfolding when you asked to use the telephone in the other room.
"No!" shrieked the caller as if racked with agonising pain. "Let me taste it! Let me taste it!" This chant continued as his pitch and speed increased with each utterance until his voice became croaky.
Barb jerked her head up and shifted in her seat, crossing her legs and folding one arm across her chest. "Listen here," she started with a snap, only to pause once Jess motioned for the telephone.
No sooner than a second after she mumbled hello into the receiver did the voice erupt in furious shouts of "Not you! Not you!"
Both Barb and Jess turned to the last person in the room, you, with Jess glancing back and forth between the telephone and your eyes while Barb furrowed her brows.
It took the two of them exchanging looks of puzzlement before Barb shrugged and Jess handed the telephone to you.
You had half a mind to slam it on the cradle and walk out the door, but the caller talked before you could make a definitive decision.
As if he could identify you by the sound of your breathing alone, his breaths calmed in an eerie instant. "Agnes," he whispered, "don't tell them." He spoke like one child sharing a secret with another, unwilling to speak louder for fear of his parents hearing it.
Your breathing quickened a bit. The thuds of your heart pounded a smidge faster, and as the room seemed to stretch in front of your eyes, it was as though you could hear every noise in the house at once.
A grandfather clock ticked, the logs in a fireplace crackled, and the floorboards above your head creaked for the umpteenth time that day.
You inhaled a tad louder than you had intended, and the caller shushed you with a sound like the hiss of a snake. "It's okay, Agnes." There was an excruciating slowness to his voice, a deliberate inflection in each syllable. "Billy's here."
Dismay shot up your spine like a bullet. The chill that came with it was akin to a splash of icy water crashing over your head, running down your arms and dragging a shiver out of you.
Barb stepped forward, bottle twirling in her hand, and leaned her head towards you. "What's he saying?" she asked without care for her volume.
A splurge of obscenities burst out of the telephone at the interruption, and aside from calling Barb a pig in so many colourful ways, Billy focused on his descent into screeching like a banshee.
This sent Barb reeling away from you, where she gritted her teeth and threw the bottle onto the coffee table. "I've had enough of this!" She wrenched the telephone out of your hand and thrust it onto the cradle with a resounding bang.
Barb then collapsed on the couch and drew a hand to her forehead, which was slick with sweat. "Our first call, and it's some wacko," she grumbled.
Jess stared at the telephone as though it were about to lunge at her. After a tense moment of eye contact with the cord, she crossed her arms and looked at you. "I do hope that doesn't become a habit."
Quiet unease was rooted in her voice like a fungus, and when you offered no affirmation, she shifted and glanced at Barb.
Barb was lying supine with her legs draped over the armrest and her left hand dangling from the cushion. A half-empty bottle was pressed against her side, and a cigarette was pinched between two fingers in her right hand.
She was snoring lightly, her head rising and falling every few seconds.
The voice of Jess came from the base of the stairs, and you turned to find her with one leg on the first step. "I'm heading up to take a shower. You can let yourself out the front door." She nodded at the door while saying this, which led your gaze to it.
As Jess arrived at the middle of the staircase, a putrid odour backhanded her across the face. The bulk of it rolled from somewhere above her head. She turned back and forth and scanned the ceiling for stains until a fresh line of stink drew her sniffs to the attic door.
Jess hovered by the handrail for many a second, observing the door with the vigilance of an animal sensing a trap. She crept toward it, and her head lifted to judge the length of the climb.
Just as you were reaching for the doorknob, the door swung open after a moment of battle with the hinges.
A pair of sorority girls strolled into the house in a merry fit of laughter, their arms draped in shopping bags and their eyes locked on each other. Clare was the name of the girl with untidy brown hair, and Phyl was the name of the girl with frizzy hair and octagonal eyeglasses.
You lurched back to avoid bumping into them as they walked forward for a couple of seconds without noticing you. During that time, you were maneuvering to their side and taking brisk steps with your arms slightly extended in an attempt to not put your foot down on top of theirs.
"Pardon me," was all you said before you slipped past them and stumbled into the entryway.
A crash was heard from upstairs as soon as your shoes hit the outside world, and your head spun around to cast a final glance at the house. Fuelled by a surge of adrenaline, you pumped your legs and carried yourself to the edge of the property.
Clare looked between the stairs and your silhouette, which was disappearing into the heart of the storm.
Phyl looked at a passed-out Barb and then leaned forward to peer around the closing door. "Who was that?" she asked, momentarily dismissing the question when Jess came down from the staircase to greet them.
The storm battered you with fat pellets of rain and strong winds, but there was not a single moment where you considered returning to the sorority house. You held out your hand to be a thin shield for your face and stomped your way through the murky air.
Melting snow clung to everything below your waist. It was like swimming in ice water, but you persevered until the contours of a house approached your left.
Behind the window stood your next-door neighbour.
She was a little old lady who, at this particular moment, was clutching a coffee mug as if letting go of it meant unspeakable doom. The neat and dry fabric of her mustard yellow dress was in stark contrast to your rain-soaked attire, but your eye soon concentrated on her horror-stricken face.
Her eyes were stretched to their limits, her mouth was hanging open, and her forehead was creased so sharply that a vein was visible. She turned to watch you sprint past her home like someone observing their worst nightmare come to life.
What caused your gaze to linger on her was when she looked at something just behind you. In the split second that your eye caught the reflection on the glass, you saw a dark shape at your heels.
It flashed in the lightning and vanished before you could discern any details. You told yourself that it was the cruel hand of paranoia sinking its claws into your brain, but this did little to placate the way your heart jumped and banged against your ribcage.
Once you reached your house, you crammed the key into the keyhole and twisted it as if about to break it. The click of the lock disengaging brought a wave of relief that swept you into the entrance.
You doubled over, panting and throwing your hands onto your bent knees.
Many seconds passed before you spun towards the door and slammed it.
A torrent of raindrops gushed from your clothes, and the puddle accumulating at your feet was soaking into the floor. The earthy scent of wet dirt was entrenched in your nostrils like a toy stuck up a kid's nose.
When you turned to collapse on a chair, your eye was dragged across the floor to where an additional pair of footprints walked in a different direction. The shoes were outlined in rain just like yours, and they had taken shelter in the darkness of your bedroom.
You raised your head with a cautious slowness, straightening your back and clenching the fabric of your pants.
The blackness that returned your stare seemed deeper than the depths of the ocean, and you strained your ears to hear the presence that had followed you. Every shift in the house, every crack of the walls flexing became the precursor to something leaping out at you.
A thought was spared for the knives in the kitchen as well as the telephone beside the oven. An oppressive sense of nausea advised against pursuing either of those items, suggesting instead that you flee through the door from which you had entered.
Three knocks came from the bedroom.
Without the attic to muffle them, these knocks were much clearer and closer.
It was as if a fist had squeezed your heart and stolen your breath.
In that frightful instant, enduring the storm was a welcome distraction from confronting whoever had invaded your house. You wrenched the front door open and hurled yourself down the street.
Rain splashed on your face as you smashed your feet into various puddles and whipped through the wind. The howls of the storm dampened any sounds from within your home, and you did not wait to see if anyone followed.
The house of your next-door neighbour came into view, its brown shingles glistening in the downpour. You crashed into the front door in a refusal to stop and began pounding on the wood. "Let me in! Let me in!" you shrieked over the claps of thunder and strikes of lightning.
A little old lady emerged from the living room and stood behind the window, her hands wrapping around a steaming mug of coffee. She eyed you with a look of shock and disbelief, and the mug slipped from her grasp.
It landed on the avocado green carpet, bounced once, and poured coffee into the fibres.
The little old lady did not give the spill the briefest of glances. A finger rose from her side and pointed at you, trembling and struggling not to fall. Her mouth opened wide in a voiceless cry, which earned another plea from you.
It was barely audible among the roars of wind, plops of rain, and booms of thunder.
A shake of the head was her response. It was rapid, so much so that it seemed instinctive. She shoved her finger at you multiple times, and her lack of care for the coffee streaming around her shoes was enough to stay your panic for an instant.
After a moment spent panting in confusion, you gestured to yourself and nodded with a frantic urgency.
She shook her head again and jabbed her finger at you with more intensity.
You dragged your breaths out of your lungs as uneven puffs, and your eyes were jerking from the window to the door. The tightness in your chest and the throb of your heartbeat swirled in you like a typhoon and cast a hazy veil over your mind.
Overcome by a light-headed spell, your vision began to blur and distort the sight in front of you. Every thought was screaming at you to beat the door open, yet you fought this impulse with as much strength as you could scrounge.
It was then that the hairs on the back of your neck stood up. A warm gust of breath had rolled against them in a steady rhythm.