In the summer of 2010 I was alone. I was continuing some of my undergraduate research through a paid program that floated me financially until my final year of college. I had lived alone before, and I'm the type that isn't really bothered by the solitude.
Not unlike other remote liberal arts colleges, the campus becomes a ghost town during the summer. Especially so when you never really venture into the small town that's grown up around it. This particular university is nestled in a river valley in central Pennsylvania, complete with the autumnal foliage and cemetery of fallen Union soldiers.
I lived near the school but just off campus property, directly next to such a cemetery. It was a century-old house that had been renovated more a number of times to both preserve its history and exploit broke college students.
The layout was pretty odd because of such renovations, which only added to the character, and I guess I'm also the type that likes that sort of thing. The house was originally built as a place to store ice. To get into the front door you have to ascend a very steep flight of stairs. Originally the staircase was a ramp, where blocks of hewn ice would slide down for customers. Some untold number of years later the place changed hands and instead of ice, the ramp was used to move slabs of granite or marble that would be carved into headstones for the neighboring cemetery.
All of this background made the place appeal to me. It was cheap, near the school, and there was a charm to having a walkway made from the headstones of people that had defaulted on their. My small alley-way patio, if you can even call it that, was an extravagant slab bearing the name Mary Shriner, and the marble underneath the doormat was Douglas McKinney.
There were downsides, of course. The house was loud and creaky anywhere you went. The insulation was terrible, exacerbated by the fact that it was on this old oil heating system which was far and away the most expensive part about living there. The electrical circuitry was old too, which always made me worry about sparking a fire - a serious danger in old northeastern towns I learned.
During that summer, I spent my time in two places. All day in the lab and all night at home. The lab had air conditioning which was awesome, but I had to have an electric fan once I got home or the summer nights were just too much. I'd play some old videogames, watch movies, read, then go to bed and repeat. It was all very nice...
That is, until the power went out. During the late summer months, rainstorms would knock power out from time to time. But something odd began to happen. A few times the power would go out, but only my house. Not too strange considering the age of the circuitry, but the power for the streetlight and my house were on the same grid. I know this because I had an electrician scope the place and fix some stuff when I moved in. When it was too hot to deal with not having a fan, I'd walk up to my lab and sit in the AC and by the time I got back it would usually be back on. I started to notice that after a point, only my house would be out of power and the streetlight never went out, even though it had in the past. This was only annoying at first, but nothing unsettling. That changed when things began happening that I couldn't dismiss out of hand. One night the power went out again. I packed up, unplugged all my electronics since I only had one surge protector, locked up, and hit the lab.
When I came home, all of the lights were on. All of the electronics were plugged in.
I was shaken. I know I unplugged them. I'm a careful and thorough individual. Did I unplug them? I must have forgotten. How unlike me. Yeah, I must have forgotten. There's no way. The place was still locked when I got back. I won't forget next time.
The next power outage, I packed up and did my usual routine. I made doubly sure to unplug everything in the house. Locked every entry. When I got back everything was plugged in again. Nothing stolen, nothing moved, nothing different at all other than every thing in the entire place was plugged in. Even things I had never plugged in, like a coffee maker that was in the kitchen when I moved in. I would be rattled, but after sitting around vainly waiting for something spooky to happen I would eventually just resume my routine.
One night, as I was watching some movie, I paused to take a leak and make some noodles. Most of the things barring a few electronics were just left unplugged at this point because I figured all the power outages would fry my stuff. While in the kitchen, literally one room away, the power went out for a minute or so. When it came back on, everything in my house was plugged in again.
Panicked and scared shitless I grabbed a baseball bat and just stood in my kitchen. My hear was flipping out and I was trying to breath quietly, and even in the total stillness the only sounds I could hear was my breathing and the refrigerator humming back to life.
I just waited there. I waited for anything. And nothing fucking happened. At this point the whole ordeal was messing with my head so much that I just wanted some answer. Any answer. I would conjure a million explanations, however remote, to put myself at ease. It must be someone fucking with me. It has to be. No one is town but maybe they came back early and are pranking me. I don't know anyone that would really do that, let alone go this far, but it has to be someone fucking me. How else can the plugs be physically moved? How do they plug them all in so quickly and without me noticing? How are they getting in?
After a number of times, I started to get a little paranoid. I tried to think of ways to get any kind of evidence. I put salt on door handles, made little tripwires out of fishing line, set up video cameras. In retrospect none of these made any sense, since the lights would be off when anything happened and there was no night-mode on the video camera. No sounds, no movement. Hours of footage, dozens of little traps. Nothing.
A Japanese post-doc that recently got back from Japan asked me one day, having only arrived a day or so before, "Why are you always tired, you look like you haven't slept in days." At first I just made up reasons, but eventually I told him the entire story. Believing I was kidding he fired off the standard battery of to-dos. Call the electrician. I did, he even said that they didn't notice any outages in my area. Set up a video camera. I bought one specifically because it seemed like someone was breaking in constantly to fuck me. Call all the people you know. I did. There aren't that many to begin with, but most of them don't live in the same state.
I even went so far as to start moving my things into a closet. I would put all the lamps, chargers, super nintendo, everything except the TV (too heavy) into a closet and leave. They would all be plugged in when I got back. The post-doc just thought I was being weird, but when I had him over to watch a World Cup match, thankfully it happened while he was around. There was no question something was going on, as he had personally unplugged the rice cooker while playfully mocking my newly developed habits.
In total, there were 3 power outages that seemed normal, 3 power outages where it was only my house and not the streetlight,and 12 power outages where things were physically moved either within an evening or within minutes.
I'm a biologist and a man of science, and this is the most terrified I've ever been. I have no theories and no leads. I still have no fucking clue what was going on or what it means. I'm not sure I'll ever know. I'm not sure I even want to.
Submitted February 13, 2015 at 02:10PM by triloknight http://ift.tt/1Ek22x5 nosleep
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