The Thing in the Window

It was a Friday afternoon and Julie was walking home from elementary school with her friend, Meghan. They decided to take the long way home to Meghan’s house today because the weather was a beautiful, crisp autumn day. They wanted to crunch as many leaves on the way as possible. Julie was going to sleep over Meghan’s house tonight, so she had packed a change of clothes and a toothbrush in her backpack. They passed by a house with front steps that were overflowing with pumpkins. A soft breeze rustled the leaves in the trees overhead; dancing shades of yellow, orange and red, a mesmerizing inferno in the sunny autumn afternoon.

                “Do you have any homework this weekend?” Meghan asked.

                Julie was lost in thought, looking at the foliage overhead.

                “Julie?”

                Julie started. “Oh, um, I don’t think so…”

                “Neither do I. I can’t stand homework. It’s so-“

                But Julie was already lost in thought again. She didn’t know this neighborhood as well as Meghan. She always loved being in a foreign place. They were entering a more wooded area now. There were only trees and shrubbery on either side of the road. They passed a peaceful little brook with bright green leaves hanging over it, and Julie imagined a bunch of tiny creature scampering over the leaves, delivering acorns and seeds and other treasures to some unseen nest deep in the vegetation. They passed some old train tracks and soon were in residential territory again, walking towards a side street on their left. There was a few houses lining the street, but it took a sharp turn further down, so Julie couldn’t see what was at the end of it. 

                “Hey Meghan, can we walk down here?” Julie asked, indicting the side street.

                Meghan suddenly became silent (she’d been talking busily since they’d passed the pumpkin house).

                “Meghan?”

                “Uh, sorry, it’s just that…yeah, ok, I guess…”

                Julie didn’t press any further. They turned down the street. It was an ordinary suburban street with ordinary houses on either side of it; some had Halloween decorations hung up, others were simply plain. The street veered to the right and continued on, probably ending at some other street further ahead. Shortly after passing this bend, Meghan suddenly stopped. She began to speak in a soft whisper, making a small pointing gesture towards the next house on the block. Julie hadn’t been paying attention to it until now. It was a little further away from the other houses and surrounded by dense trees and bushes on either side. It was a fairly large house, painted tan and lined with numerous large glass windows on its first floor and a few more on its second. The tan paint was severely chipped everywhere and the whole place had a faded, somber look. There was tall grass and weeds growing all around it. It was the sort of place that had probably been sitting there for years, in plain sight but completely unnoticed by all who passed by it.

                “See that house,” Meghan said quietly. “Number 18? I’ve always been afraid of that house ever since I was really little. That’s why I didn’t want to walk down here. There’s something…strange about it.”

                Julie trotted merrily a little ahead of Meghan to get a better look at the house.

                “Julie! …be careful!”

                Julie simply smiled. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was a bit of a show-off. She liked taking risks that her friends wouldn’t take. She moved a step closer to the house. Meghan walked up to her now. 

                “Is it haunted?” Julie asked.

                Meghan looked at the house for a moment, but quickly averted her gaze. “I don’t know, but when I was really little, my Mom was walking with me one summer around this neighborhood. She was holding my hand the whole way, but at one point she got distracted when someone called her on the phone. I wandered off a bit and ended up in front of this house. I think it’s been abandoned for a long time…anyway, that day it was a little later than it is now, it was still light out but the sun was setting soon. I remember all this perfectly. I’m not making this up, but I saw something, something in the window, right there!” she gestured shyly towards the rightmost of the three large windows on the second floor.

“What was it?” Julie asked.

                “I don’t know. It was just…a thing. I’m not lying, I swear. I could tell it wasn’t human or an animal…but it was definitely alive. I saw it move! And I got really, really scared and ran back to my mom. When I told her about it, she walked over to the house with me and had me show her where I saw the thing. I pointed, but of course there was nothing there anymore. I wasn’t seeing things. I remember it clear as day.”

                “Then what did it look like? Describe it.”

                “It…” Meghan looked at the window on the far right and shuddered. “It was like the darkness in the window took shape and came to life. It’s hard to describe. It’s almost like…I could feel it more than see it.”

                Julie looked into the darkness of the windows. She found herself shivering a little bit now as well. 

                “Can we please just go?” Meghan said.

                They kept walking. As they were leaving the house behind them, Julie thought it was strange that it had no driveway of any sort. Soon they had left the side street far behind and were continuing towards Meghan’s house. With the weird house near the train tracks safely and firmly in the past now, Meghan’s spirits were up again, and now she was talking about what she wanted to dress up as for Halloween.

                Julie was walking down empty streets. It was late evening and the sun had already set, leaving behind a glow of twilight that illuminated her path. She looked to her right and to her left and could see yellow lights illuminating the windows of houses, and some that were illuminated by the eerie blue glow of a television screen.

                She wandered down a side street that was both familiar and unfamiliar somehow. Every house on this street was dark, as if everyone had either abandoned their homes or gone to bed early that night. Every house except one. It was a large house to her left, surrounded by thick vegetation. It was full of tall windows that were illuminated by bright yellow light. Strange figures were silhouetted by the light, shadows of all different shapes and sizes dancing in the windows, all of them facing her with glowing yellow eyes. It was like a party for ghouls. Suddenly the big double doors of the house slowly swung open, spilling a piercing yellow light onto the street. It seemed like Julie was invited to join the festivities… She began to slowly walk towards the light and eventually was totally engulfed by it.


Julie opened her eyes. It was cold. She pulled the blanket closer to her. She was lying on a sleeping bag that Meghan had provided for her on the floor of Meghan’s bedroom. Meghan seemed to still be asleep. Julie turned on her back and stared at the ceiling. It must have been really early in the morning; it was still fairly dark, but the soft light of dawn faintly illuminated the ceiling. She thought about those black shadow creatures wriggling and dancing in the windows of that house. She decided that she had to go back there. But when?

                Over the next week, Julie found herself afflicted with a strange obsession with that old house. She decided that she would return to it that Friday. She told her mom that she was sleeping over Meghan’s house again that night, but Meghan had no idea what she was planning. She wanted to go alone. She’d go after school and walk the same way that they had the previous Friday. She wanted to explore that house. It would still be light out, so there was no reason to be scared. She packed her lucky stuffed elephant though, just in case.

                That Friday afternoon, as planned, after the school bell rang, she headed for the house. She wasn’t used to walking by herself around town, but she found the way pretty easily and soon she was walking over the train tracks and heading down the side street. She approached the abandoned house and stopped directly in front of it. It looked exactly as it had the past Friday and in her dream, minus the bright yellow light and the dancing shadows. She peered into the black windows, looking for any trace of the “thing” that Meghan had claimed to see when she was just a few years old. But there was nothing. She looked around to make sure that none of the neighbors were watching, tightened her grip on her backpack, and walked forward. A short set of stone steps lead up to a set of double doors. She peered into the glass windows on the double doors and could make out a stairway directly in front of the doors and a dusty-looking living room with a few old chairs and a sofa in it to the right. Slowly, she reached for the doorknob and turned it. The door easily gave way and swung inward on it hinges. How long has this old house been sitting here, unlocked and open to any intruders? she thought.

                She looked into the open doorway and surveyed the old living room to the right. Everything seemed incredibly still, as if time had forgotten about this place and left it behind. No, it was more like the inside of this house was a space separate from the outside world, locked and still and impervious to all outside influences. A tall lamp with no bulb stood next to an old, dirty-looking sofa. Two battered leather chairs were situated at the far end of the room. An empty table covered in dust served as a bland centerpiece. There was a stairway directly across from the front doors and through a doorway to the left, she could make out a dining room with a long round table surrounded by antique-looking chairs. Julie stepped into the house and the loudness of her footstep on the old floorboards startled her. She moved completely into the house and, making sure to maintain a level of stealth in her investigation, partially closed the right double door behind her, being careful to leave it slightly ajar in case she needed to make a speedy escape.

                She fiddled around in her backpack for a moment and removed a small flashlight she managed to find buried in a drawer the previous night. She clicked it on and began her exploration of the house, moving slowly and quietly. The house was eerily still, but the ample light coming in from the many windows and the sounds of birds outside put her at ease. The first floor was quite unremarkable, just the living room, the dining room, a tiny kitchen complete with an empty fridge and counters covered in layers of dust. There was a bathroom in one corner and in the back was a study of sorts full of empty shelves and an old desk. She did notice a closed door behind the stairwell that she guessed led to a basement, but she decided she wasn’t quite brave enough for that. She headed back to the front of the house and began walking up the stairs to the second floor, and that’s when she saw it.

                She had not been prepared because after moving around the well-lit and completely uninteresting first floor, her mind had been relatively at ease and she was even starting to get a little bored with what was clearly just an old, empty house that had been left in a state of decay for years. She was walking up the stairs and although it was only for second, there was no mistaking that she saw it. She had been looking down at the living room on her right and after looking back in front of her, up to the top of the stairwell, she briefly saw some kind of shadowy shape move just out of sight into the unknown of the second floor. She froze. She hadn’t heard anything; no footsteps, no creaking of old floorboards, nothing. Just a soundless moving form of some kind. She felt shuddering terror all of the sudden and decided that this had been a really bad idea. She turned around at once and ran for the front door, slamming it shut behind her and only stopping when she’d reached the edge of the street. After catching her breath, she reluctantly looked back at the house, and even though she really didn’t want to, her eyes moved slowly towards the cluster of large windows on the second floor.

                It was just as Meghan had described. There was something there, in the rightmost window, but it was hard to describe. She instantly knew that it wasn’t a human and that it wasn’t an animal, but it was definitely alive somehow. She could feel it watching her. Feel it inside her somehow. Just like Meghan had said, it was like the deep darkness beyond the window had taken shape. But it wasn’t like the dancing shadow beings in her dream. For one thing, it was alone, and secondly, it was far more shapeless. It didn’t seem to have any shape at all; in fact it didn’t even seem to really be anything at all, but Julie could feel it and she knew that it was there all the same. She stood there staring at it and it didn’t move an inch, just idled there, sizing her up. Suddenly her fear was overcome by intense curiosity. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t look away because she was afraid it would disappear and she would never see it again and never find out what it was. The memory of it and the mystery of it would haunt her for her whole life. It was still light out, birds were still chirping, she could hear cars passing by on the main road. She swallowed and clenched her fists and looked up at the thing directly.

                Suddenly the thing swayed, almost like it was startled, and slowly retreated back into the darkness of the house. Oh no you don’t, you’re not getting away that easily, she thought. Clutching her flashlight, she darted back into the house and in one swoop ran up the stairs. She stopped at the top and shined her flashlight down the short hallway that ended in a closed doorway that logically would lead to the room where the thing was, the room with the big windows overlooking the street. There’s no way it can escape now; I have it cornered.

                She ran for the door and swung it open fiercely, its thick wooden frame thudding against the wall. The first thing she saw was the large windows and the street beyond on the wall across from her. To her left was an old bed neatly made up with white sheets and an ancient pillow and to her right was a single chair, but other than that the small room was empty. There was nothing there, except…

                A door in the center of the left wall, slightly ajar, a line of pure darkness between it and its frame. She could feel the thing there, watching her. She took a single step toward the door, and suddenly she understood. She turned the flashlight off (she could see perfectly well enough because of the windows anyway) and put down her backpack. She took a few more steps towards the door and stopped.

                “It’s ok…I’m not going to hurt you. My friend saw you when she was really little and she told me about you. I wanted to see you too. I wanted to see what was living in this old house. It’s ok, don’t be scared. Come out, we can be friends!”

                She stood there silently for a moment. She could still feel it watching her, but there was no response.

                A bird flew by the windows outside and she jumped and glanced to her right for a moment. While she was distracted, she suddenly heard the door slam shut. She darted towards it and swung it open. To her surprise, the door bizarrely opened onto a dark, narrow stairway that went downward to some unknown place. Logically, it should have lead down into the living room below, but she didn’t remember there being an out-of-place stairway in the middle of the living room…

                But the thing was somewhere down there, and she couldn’t turn back now. She went back and shouldered her backpack and turning her flashlight back on, began to walk down the stairway, taking only one glance back up to the room from which she had come.

                The stairs went down for what seemed like forever, far too long to lead to just the basement. She must have been underground at this point. What had she gotten herself into? No one knew she was here. Her mother thought she was at a friend’s house and Meghan…she knew about this house but had no idea that Julie was there. But any fear she felt was overcome by curiosity and she moved on, further and further downward.

                Abruptly, the stairway finally came to an end before a closed door that looked identical to the one that she had come from far above at the top of the stairs. She reached for the knob and stopped when she touched it. What could possibly be beyond this door? Some deep underground cavern? An old, creepy basement miles under the ground? A sewer? Only one way to find out. She opened the door.

                To her astonishment, the door opened on what seemed to be the exact same room that she had just come from. The old bed was to her right and the lone chair was in the corner on the other side. The doorway to the second floor hallway was there as well, and it was even open just like she had left it. But there was one key difference. Instead of the bright light of early afternoon, the whole room was aglow with the brilliant yellow light of sunset spilling from the large windows to her left. The stairs had seemed to go down forever, but in reality she knew she had only been walking down them for several minutes. It couldn’t possibly be sundown already…

                She moved over to the windows to look outside and was startled to see a jarringly different sight, yet also an oddly familiar one. Everything seemed to be in its proper place, but the houses were made out of stone and wood and the street was paved with cobblestone. Instead of streetlights, the street was lined with black lampposts that didn’t seem to be lit at the moment. All the trees were in the same places, but were different types of trees. The street was empty except for a single lone figure standing on the cobblestone sidewalk directly in front of the house she was in.

                She knew at once that it was the thing she was chasing, except it wasn’t a thing anymore. Before it had been some kind of shadowy illusion, darkness made manifest. But now it was, put quite simply, a mirror image of herself. Well actually, there were two differences in their appearance: the other Julie was wearing different clothes for one thing (a plain tan dress compared to Julie’s long-sleeved yellow shirt and jeans), and much more notably the girl down on the sidewalk’s eyes were a brilliant yellow color, but not in a scary or monstrous kind of way. Julie could see that it was only the whites of the eyes that were bright yellow, the iris was the same color as hers, deep brown, and the pupil was black. Other than this one outstanding feature, the girl had Julie’s exact face and long black hair. This copy of herself did not look menacing, only a bit curious and maybe even frightened. A little scared but mostly excited, Julie wasted no time in dashing out of the small bedroom to the second floor hallway, which also looked identical to the old house she had come from, down the stairs and out the front door. She stopped at the foot of the house’s stone steps, only a few feet away from her double. But strangely, the other Julie appeared to take no notice of her. She was still looking at the second floor windows, and now had a puzzled look on her face, almost as if she was looking for something. Julie looked back up at the windows and then back to the other Julie.

                “But I’m right here!” she said. “Don’t you see me?”

                The other Julie paid no attention and continued gazing at the second floor windows. Suddenly, a tall woman came walking briskly toward the other Julie from the right and Julie recognized her at once as her own mother, except with the same yellow eyes as the other Julie.

                This copy of Julie’s mother began speaking in what sounded to Julie like some strange foreign language, except even more alien to her than any real foreign language she had ever heard. It was uncomfortably garbled and incomprehensible, unearthly somehow. The other Julie spoke in the same language and pointed towards the windows on the second floor. Both the mother and her daughter stared up at the windows. The mother said something else and the other Julie replied in a pleading tone of voice. This went back and forth for a little bit until soon the two of them were walking down the sidewalk together, away from the house and Julie. As she was walking away, the other Julie took a momentary glance back in Julie’s direction and Julie thought she locked eyes with her for a second, but she knew that her double couldn’t see her.

                Julie looked at her hands to check if she was invisible. She wasn’t, at least not to her own eyes. She looked up at the brilliantly lit sky. She realized now that it was not sundown, like she’d thought, but that the sky itself was a brilliant golden color instead of blue, populated by beautiful white, puffy clouds. She looked around and saw a golden sun shining in one corner of the sky. It wasn’t dusk but probably early afternoon. She looked back at where she’d come from. The old house looked similar in shape on the outside, and the windows were basically the same, but just like the other houses, it was also different; it was not covered in chipped tan paint, but made from splintered wood and cracked stone. Julie longed to explore this new world but knew that she didn’t belong here. She decided to go back to her own world by using the stairway in the second floor bedroom. She was just a shadow here in this golden-skied place; the other Julie could probably make out her dim form in the darkness of the old house, but not in the light. She was a shade in this world, nothing more than...

…a ghost.