Chapter Text
“Valerie! How many goddamn boxes of books do you have?” Her brother, Elias, shouts from the bottom of the stairs at the front of the house. His fiance laughs loudly, “oh chill out Elias, you would have the same in your D&D books.”
Valerie snorts as she holds open the old door for him. His fiance is following behind holding the last box, once she enters Valerie closes the door behind her. “Thanks for coming over and helping me out with this, especially you Amy,” she tells the couple as they set down the boxes by the couches that were collecting dust.
“It’s not a problem, Val,” Amy replies, giving Valerie a small side hug. “Is there a reason why Noah wasn’t able to come and help unpack? This is a huge milestone for you.”
Before Valerie could give an excuse, Elias mutters, “because Noah’s a useless bastard…”
“He’s not useless,” Valerie says, obviously frustrated. “He’s just been really busy with work. Why do you hate him so much?”
“Knock it off Elias, we both know you don’t like him,” Amy tells him with a frown. “But he’s your little sister’s boyfriend, give him a small chance.”
“He already ruined it from the way he treats her.” He says under his breath.
“Just… pretend for my sake okay?” Valerie asks, looking up to him with pleading eyes. He sighs, just nodding in response as he gazes at her with sad eyes.
They sit there for a minute in silence until Amy breaks it. “You haven’t given us a tour of this old ass house, you should show us around, all we did was see the living room and kitchen.”
“Fine with me,” Val answers with a shrug. “I need to look into the history and everything as well, the realtor didn’t even know.”
Elias grins, “what if some really creepy stuff happened.” He wiggles his fingers in her face. “What if it's haunted ?”
Valerie swats away his hand with a snort, “like anyone would want to stay here.”
“Val…” Amy speaks up, looking at her with a raised brow, “you live here now.”
“Oh…”
Elias laughs loudly, “it’ll be nice once you renovate everything, then they’ll want to stay here.”
“I kind of like the old look in here, but a bit of modern technology would be nice,” Valerie replies. “Anyways, I’ll show you the upstairs then we can work our way down from there.”
Amy and Elias agree, following her up the old staircase. They venture around, Valerie showing them her room, along with the guest bedroom. Amy looks around with a grin while Elias just points out all the flaws and what needs to be repaired around the house. Valerie was just constantly rolling her eyes at his antics. They go to the end of the hallway, a giant mirror hung on the wall from the previous owner.
“Jesus that is old,” Amy notes, tracing her fingers along the engravings of the stained wood. “But, it is so pretty holy shit. Why would someone leave this here?”
Valerie looks at it, she is right, it is beautiful but also throws her off. It looked expensive, but it was also covered with dust. Some specs of brown were dried on the edges of the mirror. “Weird, but I’m keeping it, it looks fancy.”
“Needs a deep cleaning too, goddamn,” Elias mutters, scratching at a brown fleck. “What even is on it?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll clean whatever it is later, let me show you downstairs.”
The group goes back down stairs, looking into the living room and opening random doors, most of them were closets but there was a weird looking one set in almost the middle of the house.
“Hey Val,” Amy called, looking at the door with furrowed brows. “Where does this door lead to? It has a weird lock on it.”
Valerie walks over with Elias on her heels, she grabs the lock and inspects it, “I’m not sure, but I know I was given the key for here.”
She digs through her pockets, pulling out a set of keys. She tried a couple different ones before getting the one she needed. She unlocks it, and opens the door slowly. A cold breeze pushes into them, immediately giving the trio a chill up their spine. The steep set of concrete stairs can be seen leading into absolute darkness. Elias pulls out his phone and turns on his flashlight. There was a string attached to a bulb and Valerie started walking down the steps. She makes it to the bottom and pulls on the string.
The basement was now fully illuminated, spiderwebs hung across the space. It was basically all concrete, some boxes still sat in the corner of the room. Amy and Elias climbed down the steps and stood behind her. “Damn, Val,” Elias said to her, punching her shoulder softly. “I almost pissed myself watching you go down these creepy ass steps.”
“I live here now, so I have to not be afraid of it,” she replies as she shoves him. “You’re such a baby.”
Elias sticks his tongue out at her back as Valerie walks over to the boxes, kneeling down while blowing the dust off of them and cringing when it gets in her face. Amy kneels down with her, "these look like they've been here for a while… no way it could be the last occupants."
Valerie shrugs once more, "maybe. But there haven't been occupants for a long time so I'm not sure why they didn't just get rid of the boxes."
"Probably didn't even know that they were down here," Elias jumps in, looking over Amy's shoulder. "Still weird though."
Valerie cuts open the old tape that was on top of the box and slowly peels it open. Immediately old photos and cassette tapes could be found wrapped in packing paper. Valerie picks them up with care, inspecting them. It seems like there are home videos on the tapes from how they’re labeled. In the photos there's a picture of a family of 4, a mother and father with their two boys. The photos were all the same, the only difference was that they were taken in different years. These photos weren’t old, but they weren’t new either. The family seemed old school, wanting to have that antique feel since the dates on these photos were just from the early 2000s.
“These are creepy looking,” Amy says as she looks over Valerie’s shoulder at the photos and tapes.
“They’re not too bad,” Valerie replies, gently putting the photos and tapes back into the box and closing it. “I’m guessing there’s more photos in the two other boxes so I’ll take them upstairs and just look at them later.”
Elias goes over and picks up the two other boxes as Valerie picks up the one she opened. They take the boxes upstairs, shutting off the light and closing the door behind them. They both set down the boxes in the corner of the living room.
Amy puts an arm around Valerie's shoulder as she looks around. "You have a lot to do around here."
Valerie nods, giving the both of them a grateful glance. "Sure do. Thank you guys for coming and helping me though. I really appreciate it."
"Of course," Amy says, "you came and helped us move in so we had to repay the favor."
“Anyways, we should get going, let you unpack.” She tells her and gives her one last squeeze before pulling away. “Call us if you need anything okay?”
Valerie nods and gives her a warm smile, “I will.”
“Good,” Amy grabs Elias’ hand and starts to lead him out the house. They leave down the steps and Amy waves back to her. Valerie waves back, then closes the door with a loud creak. She looks around at the boxes with a sigh, not ready to even start unpacking.
Valerie grabs the first box, looking at the messy sharpied label on the top. Books , she moves to the next, books… the next, books, books, books . It’s all books. She sighs dramatically as she decides to move to her bedroom. She goes up the creaking stairs and walks down the short hallway, eyeing the old mirror as she goes to her new room once her back is turned she starts to get a weird feeling. She doesn't feel… alone. She turned back to the mirror and her eyes widened in fear. There was someone standing right behind her . She whips around, her eyes starting to water from fear. Once she looked to where they were standing they were nowhere to be found. She pulls out her pocket knife once more and opens it. She walks into every room carefully, trying not to step on the creaking floorboards. Every room turned out empty, there were no places to hide so it was a short search. She walked into her own room, nothing was out of place.. Valerie holds herself as she looks around her room, taking deep breaths to try and calm herself down.
It was probably just my imagination, she thought as she started unpacking her clothes. She opens a dresser, preparing to put her clothes away. She goes back to the box, pulling out shirts, pants, and other pieces of clothing. She tosses them into the dresser carelessly, not caring to spend time putting everything away, still obviously freaked out from the figure she saw. She finishes that box and goes to the next, repeating the process until all her clothes are out of the boxes and put away. Once everything was put away she decides to change into clothes more comfortable, she just chooses a simple t-shirt and shorts. Every second she was on guard, looking over her shoulder and shutting the blinds in her room so no one saw her.
Valerie looks around, her bed hasn't been set up along with anything else in her room so she decides to go sleep on the couch for the night until she has it all set up. She heads downstairs and pushes the boxes off of the couch and grabs the blanket that was laying on top of a box. She plops down on the couch, plugging in her phone as she looks to see if she has a message from her boyfriend, Noah. She frowns, upset that he hasn't bothered to check in with her. She opens their chat together and starts typing.
Hey baby, hope work is okay, message me when you get home okay?
Noah <3
Yeah yeah I know, I promise. I'm out with a friend right now, I'll text you later.
Just visit me soon? This house gives me the creeps.
Noah <3
That’s your own fault, you moved there.
Yeah, I know. I love you.
All he had sent her after was just a simple thumbs-up, not even I love you back. Valerie just sighs as she gets comfortable, laying her head on the armrest as she looks at all the stacked boxes in front of her. Valerie couldn’t stop thinking about that person she saw. Was it just a trick of the light? Her own imagination?
She couldn’t even shake that feeling of being watched. She tucks the blanket closer to her body as she stands, plugging in a lamp and letting it stand on the floor as she lays back down on the couch, feeling just slightly better. She puts down her phone and pulls her blanket over her head, too paranoid to be sleeping in the open like this. Eventually, after tossing and turning she falls asleep.
You know me…
She could hear someone. It sounded like a man, looming over her as she ‘slept’. She freezes, trying not to move as her eyes dart around. Her blanket was covering her face. Tears spring into her eyes as she tries not to hyperventilate. She feels hair on the back of her head being played with, fingers running through it and letting drop over and over again. The man who looms over her hums a tune under his breath, keeping purposefully quiet.
He sighs, dropping the last of her hair he had held and goes into the kitchen. She could hear him rummaging through her boxes. She can hear water running, then the glass clinking on the counter. Then, his footsteps disappear.
Valerie finally lets out a loud sob, as she lays there terrified. She fumbles with her phone as she takes out her pocket knife, dialing 9-1-1. She steps quietly into the kitchen and her eyes land on the island counter. There was a vase with flowers in them. She puts her phone to her ear with shaking hands as the line rings once and then clicks, a voice comes through, “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
Tears fall down Valerie’s face as she stands there, frozen. She felt violated as her shoulders went up to her ears. “Someone is in my house.”