I did grow to love my cousin-in-law, almost like a sister. But the more I recount these unnerving occurrences, the more I have to admit to myself that there is something definitely wrong with her. Something far beyond her being an awkward deaf girl with an unhealthy attachment to me. Truthfully, it’s a heavy sort of burden to have to shoulder this in the dark, so i’ll allow myself to document this, from the first encounter to whatever the end brings. Maybe it’ll all make more sense laid out this way.
First Encounter-
To start, the “first encounter” took place at my parents home in Texas, 8 years ago. I was 17 and was likely headed towards what would’ve been the best year of my life. For once I had decent grades, a pseudo-social life(Thank you MSN/Windows Live), and a somewhat fun part-time job at a place called Candelari’s Pizzeria. Terrible 5.25 an hour plus tip jar that got spread between the employees, but the place was less than a 10 minute walk from my house and the managers were some of the funnest bosses I’ve ever had. I could go on and on about how great those days were being nested in a upper-mid suburb outside of Houston with everything finally going my way for a change because A lot of things went right for me that year. But I’m here to express that moment when reality shook, and the downward spiral that followed.
So 8 Years ago on a Friday afternoon, our red Queensland heeler, Ace, barked at the sound of the Garage door opening as my step-mom, who we’ll call Brenda, pulled the Ford expedition into the driveway. I was in my room, either playing “GunZ: The Duel” or trying to get some British girl to post nudes on instant messenger, when I remembered that we were supposed to be having a guest over that weekend. That’s one guest, being one of Brenda's younger sisters. I didn’t know much of anything about her side of the family, so I was thoroughly confused when I got mid-way down the stairs and was greeted by two new faces. The aunt-in-law stood in the laundry room trying to prevent her crotch from being inspected by our dog as a tall young girl was embraced by Brenda.
There is something to be said about the way a deaf person looks at you because right then, having never been in any real contact with a deaf person before, I knew there was far more to her gaze than there should have been. As she half-heartedly returned Brenda’s embrace, her eyes somehow found mine as I stood on the landing of the stairway, and this “deep-eyed” gaze I was getting from her was already making me uneasy. In her defense, she was an imposing 14-year-old, thin and lanky due to her extended height but somehow still delicate looking enough to be considered feminine. As she grew, she’d fill out and become considerably more attractive, but as she was then, she was at the pinnacle of her physical abnormality, and it contributed to a haunting first impression.
I forced myself to stop ogling at the railing and move down the second set of stairs just as Brenda started to yell for me. I greeted the aunt, who we’ll call Lisa, and was introduced to her daughter, who we’ll call Alice. The introduction was expectedly awkward as I tried to verbally greet Alice, only to be reminder that I was just told she would be deaf to my words. To cover for this, I held out my hand for her to shake and Alice granted me a warm, peculiarly sweaty palm in return as we shook.
(Closer inspection: At this time she has common brown eyes and muddy, curly brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her face is sharply angled, which would also make her appear more mature than she actually was and contribute to this eerie aura that fed my anxiety. Her height at that time seemed to mirror my own, as I was 5‘10 and couldn’t discern a noticeable difference between us. She dressed like any average teenage girl her age, with things fitting too tightly for the sake of accentuating things that weren’t quite there yet. A tank-top, jeans, and flip-flops is all I remember about her outfit, because I was still being accosted by her gaze. )
People either look at you because it’s just etiquette to do so in certain situations, or because they are trying to see something. This 14-year-old girl, who was tall enough to be eye-level with me in my junior year, was looking at something within me, and it was horribly invasive. Alice’s unwelcome gaze made me feel as if all of my deviance was exposed for her to siphon through. That is the only way I know to describe that look she’d always give me. It wasn’t quite evil, there was just something knowing about it.
Our introduction, uncomfortable and brief, ended there. I remember making an excuse to leave, likely involving the dog, and I was free of that exposed feeling that came with being within Alice’s visual grasp. I retreated to my room to whine about this cousin-in-law of mine and her oddness on instant messenger. I remember most remarks from my friends being crude, inappropriate, and pointedly unhelpful. About 45 minutes later I snuck downstairs and left for work, shouting my departure from the front door without waiting for a response. It was incredibly lame of me to covertly exit to avoid a harmless deaf kid, but I figured by the time I got off from work and my dad was home, my unease would dissipate.
No such luck.
2nd Encounter-
Friday nights at the Pizzeria meant a late stay, so I was home sometime around 11 PM that same evening. The unease was ebbing its way back as I cut around the side of the man-made lake to get to our cul-de-sac. Lights were still on downstairs and upstairs as the house came into view.
(Observation: The house appears different somehow from the outside. I don’t want to say something so horrific as it appeared “tainted”, so I’ll just say something seemed askew. A home always has a presence to it, and my home, especially that year, had a welcoming aura. Now, even our house seemed in discomfort with Alice as it stood silent on that humid evening, unnaturally cold even despite the liveliness inside. Maybe tainted is the appropriate term.)
I unlocked the front door and was greeted by surprisingly good spirits. There was laughter and excitement coming from the direction of Brenda’s scrap-booking room upstairs. She seemed to be getting along great with Lisa, at least. I came around into the formal living room to find my Father on his synthesizer, earphones in. He caught me in his peripheral and greeted me, asked about my day, then informed me of the food in the refrigerator he brought back for me from a restaurant they went to earlier that evening. I could see Ace through the window behind him, padding around on the patio in the glow of the pool light out back.
Everything seemed more than fine, until I got to Alice.
I found her in the living room(The TV needlessly blaring) on the couch with her laptop in front of her. I didn’t need to get her attention, because any time I would enter a room her gaze hovered and cast a shadow over me like some blackened cloud. Of course I couldn’t speak to her, so I just lifted my hand to acknowledge her on my way to the kitchen. But Alice animatedly pats the cushion beside her, which I understand as her telling me to take the seat.
(Note: She wears these red rimmed glasses when reading or viewing her laptop. This girl is silent in an inhuman sort of way. Have you ever felt this sensation when someone is in a room with you or enters/exits one? There is almost a electric or magnetic sound to it. You can feel it. With Alice, tt is like the only time I am aware of her or “hear” her is when I am looking into her eyes, or when I feel them piercing into the back of my skull. Everything else about her presence is silent. No electricity, no magnetism. Just nothingness and the void.)
I can’t kindly express my reluctance to place myself next to her so I oblige and sink down beside her on the couch. I am self-conscious in a way I shouldn’t be, despite being older and thoroughly unsettled with the girl. To avoid looking at her, I watch the screen of her laptop, which is apparently what she is wanting me to view anyway. Open on the screen is a blank word document which she deftly begins to type into.
[Do you have MSN?] She types onto the screen.
I nod my head without looking at her, knowing where this is going.
[Give me your email and we can talk. (Removing her email for obvious reasons)]
I take a bit too long to visually respond and she places the Laptop on my lap. I don’t have much of a choice. I type my email onto the page and suggest that I go upstairs to my desktop and log in to add her.
[Ok. You go do that.]
I am at this point, realizing a forwardness to her personality. Maybe it wasn’t far fetched to give her my email so we could communicate, but even considering the obvious barrier, I didn’t want to open myself to someone who disturbed me the way she did. I went to my room and logged in to instant messenger to add her email. Her username appears on my list as “WiltedWorld” and I bring up a session, informing her that she’s been added. Her display picture, surprisingly, isn’t some oddly angled selfie with her wearing an absurd amount of makeup. Her DP is an image of Courage from the Cartoon show “Courage the cowardly dog.”
Mine on the other hand, has been returned to default in preparation for her. Normally it’s an image of myself but I am still feeling self-conscious with this girl. Odd considering she’s already seen me. I guess I didn’t want her looking into my eyes, even if it was only an image of me.
I do not feel like transcripting our entire dialogue as the bulk of it is uninteresting and this recant is already too long.
(Summary: I will admit that I began to warm up to her as we communicated this way, not having to be subjected to her gaze. It is generally easier for me to socialize online. She is surprisingly literate for a 14-year-old, or maybe most deaf people are that way. Her forwardness bleeds through, as she peppers in personal questions throughout our overall light banter. I feel as though she is positioning herself to be able to ask certain questions without it seeming too invasive. She’s a bit manipulative in that way. By the end of it I have revealed more than I would have thought pertinent. I find out she’s entirely deaf-mute, having been unable to hear sound since she was an infant.)
Just as my impressions of her are slowly dwindling from, “Disturbing” to simply “Quirky”, she throws me off again. As my questions about her inability to hear and deafness in general come to a head, she drops one on me by stating that she can hear this house. Right. I point out the absurdity of her statement and she insists that she indeed can hear our home by countering with something interesting. She asked me if I could hear her voice, not in the traditional sense, but if my mind had associated a voice with her words. I answered honestly, stating that I had in fact associated a voice with her, just based off of her appearance and persona. It was a subconscious sort of thing. It was involuntary.
Alice explained that, in the same way I had associated a voice with her even though I’ve never heard her speak, she had associated a voice with the house and that it was speaking to her in it’s own way. I asked the obvious question and this part of the conversation went as follows:
Foesville: What’s our house saying?
WiltedWorld: It’s not happy with me.
WiltedWorld: it doesn’t like that I can understand it.
Foesville: But is it saying words?
WiltedWorld: No
WiltedWorld: It’s not like real words. idk. It’s not good though.
Foesville: Like dangerous?
WiltedWorld: I hope not.
Foesville: When did you notice that?
WiltedWorld: When I saw you.
WiltedWorld: Am I scaring you yet?
Foesville: Lol are you trying to?
This caused her to type quite a bit in response, and it took her a moment to get back to me.
WiltedWorld: no I am being serious. I felt like when I came in something was frowning at me. it wasnt you but it was around where you were i guess. the feeling was like you werent alright with me so the house wasn’t happy with me. I get that a lot when i go somewhere i have never been before.
WiltedWorld: usually its not THAT strong and goes away. But here it was a pretty bad feeling.
Foesville: You still feel that?
WiltedWorld: now i do. like right when you asked.
That is what caused me extreme discomfort. This idea that whatever presence Alice was on about was relaying it’s feelings to her and was potentially aware of our discussion. I had to really sit back and consider whether or not this girl was simply messing with me. She didn’t know that I already felt a discomfort about her and more recently the house itself, so what she was telling me matched with my feelings in convincing form.
I honestly didn’t want to speak about it anymore. I attempted to light-heartedly swing the conversation elsewhere, and thankfully she picked up on it and went along with me. We didn’t speak for much longer before my Dad called me to help him find the mechanism he needed to blow up one of the air mattresses for our guests. I almost forgot to inform her that I’d be leaving our conversation, thinking she’d hear the commotion. Before I signed off, she left me with her number, informing me that I could text her if I wanted to speak with her since I only had a desktop. I felt a bit of insecurity giving Alice my number but convinced myself it was only so I could communicate with her as normally as possible, given the situation.
I still did my best to visually avoid Alice. Nothing of interest would happen until some time after 3AM, long after our guests had turned in. I was just beginning to wind down for bed after killing time online when I began to feel an uneasiness not unlike the sensation I felt as I looked upon our house coming from work. The room was dark, save for the light from my computer screen. I turned down the volume on my PC and lowered my headphones around my neck to really focus in on this sensation, feeling as if once again something was askew.
(Note: My room in that house was fairly large. It was once the weight room, until my Dad and I moved that into the garage below. Our home had this porte-cochere that acted like a hallway bridge separating my room from the rest of the house. My room was directly above the small garage that doubled as the weight room, leaving me truly isolated from any real sound interference. This isolation also made my room colder, being so far away from the center of the house, but before that day that was the only real abnormality.)
I would describe it as a sudden shift in the atmosphere. The kind of shift that turns serene to somber. Thanks to Alice’s information I felt as if there were an unknown presence in that room, and I was in a corner of the house with it, all alone. My eyes adjusted from not looking at my computer screen for so long. There was nothing visible. No monsters, no black shadow entity with glowing eyes hiding in the corner of my room. But now, I was beginning to consider that this Alice girl had possibly brought in something. Be it benign or demonic, something was definitely there with me. I was reminded of a novel I had read a few years ago called "The Haunting of Hill House" as I considered Alice’s depiction of the home, as if it were a living thing. Was the house not happy with me now for associating with her? Not the best time to be reminded of that one.
After all, this girl didn’t have to live here. She would get to leave and I would be stuck praying whatever this presence is packed its bags along with her. I began to grow upset thinking of how that deaf-dumb kid had shaken me to the point of disturbing my night.
And as it would have it, the presence, feeling, whatever you want to call it, dissipated with my growing frustration. I decided I wasn’t going to let a guest spook me in my own home. I decided she was a liar. Alice was the reason for my discomfort. She had been from the start.
(Note: My narrative style is very fairly long-winded. I wanted this to be well documented, being my only true encounter with something that really frightened me. I can’t possibly sum up my 8 years of knowing Alice in a single post this way, but to those interested, I hope you bare with me.)
Submitted August 13, 2016 at 01:34PM by Foesville http://ift.tt/2aRWep3 nosleep
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