A Demon Next Door - A Short Story

A Demon Next Door

It was the 9th of January 1997.

My neighbors Lilly and Marshall had just moved out. They were having a baby and so, they thought it would be better to live somewhere closer to a school. I don't blame them. The nearest school from us is 5 miles away.

And so, the house next to mine was on sale for a few months. Until he moved there: Mr. Simons. He is a white male in his 50's I think, with a relatively big belly and white patches of hair on his head. Now, Mr. Simons was not really an individual you could call "normal". For weeks, I've only seen him get out once a day: to get his newspaper, milk and what seemed like books. Religious books, I think. I'm pretty sure I noticed one of them had a cross on the cover.

- "Dude, listen, there's something fishy going on with this guy!" he said. He's Jared, my friend from high school, but I like to call him "Jay". He came over to my place to have a drink.
- "Jay, come on... He's just a religious guy who doesn't like to socialize. What's wrong with that?"
- "Dude, be fun for once! What if he's not?!" He gasps. "What if he's a serial killer?" He then proceeds to drink from his glass of wine and chuckle. "Do you wanna know what I think?"
- "No, not really." I said with a straight face. His ideas are... somewhat creative. I remember one time in high school when he wanted to check an old abandoned house, thinking that place might be full of ghosts and we both ended up in the hospital because of some raccoons. Or that one time he thought our history teacher was Dracula. That's why I'm so afraid of his ideas.

- "I think we shoul-"
- "No, we're not gonna investigate."

- "Come. On. Dave! It's gonna be fun! Remember when we went ghost hunting and we ended up in the hospital for a few weeks because of some raccoons? That was fun!"
- "I still have scars from that one time, Jay. I'm not doing this again. Besides, what do you want us to do? Sneak up inside a guy's house to find out if he's a serial killer or not? That's illegal." I say and then I take a sip of wine.
- "Yeah, I guess you're right. What if he actually is a se-"
- "He's not a serial killer, Jay. Take your head out of your ass." I finish my glass of wine, stretch a bit and turn on the tv.

- "It's kinda late, perhaps I should go." He then gets off the couch and starts looking for his keys. "Hey, Dave, have you seen my keys?"
- "Umm... no? Where did you leave them?"
- "I don't know, I thought I put them there on the table but they're not here."

And so, we start looking for his keys. We look upstairs, in my bedrooms, in the kitchen, in the backyard, in my doghouse, even in his car, but we just can't find them. Eventually, we give up and he ends up sleeping in one of my guest bedrooms. It's 2am right now and so, I decide to go to sleep. I haven't stayed up this late since my last birthday 9 months ago. I close my eyes. For some reason, the room is pretty cold. I don't think it's ever been this cold before, but I don't mind. I've grown up in Minnesota, I'm used to cold temperatures. My back hurts, so I decide to turn left, with my body facing the window. I have this weird feeling someone is watching me, so I open my eyes. Two pointy, yellow lights looking straight at me through the window. As a blazing chill is going down my spine, I get off the bed and approach the window. What's the worst that could happen, right? I mean, there are no such things as ghosts, or anything. It's nothing to be afraid of. The more I approach the window, the more the image of a head forms around those pointy lights. And so, I approach it, slowly, carefully, and so, more figures start to form. I arrive. I look through the window...and... it was nothing. The lights are not even visible anymore. It must've been an owl or something. But then, a thought comes through my mind... What if... the lights are not visible anymore... because they were...coming from the opposite direction... I am shocked. I can not move. I am too scared to turn. A chill I've never felt before goes down my spine. What should I do? What should I do? Let's think this logically... I'm sure there's nothing to be afraid of. It's my house, perhaps I left my phone open and the window just mirrored something from the screen...somehow... I take a leap of faith and I look back.
There... was... nothing. No lights, no ghost, no owl, nothing. My phone: screen turned off. My lamp: turned off. I am breathing heavily. I've never been this scared of light before. I tuck in my bed again, and finally go to sleep.