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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/IcarusSawyer on 2023-08-10 12:30:35.
About a year ago I finally moved out of my parents house. My childhood best friend and I started renting the bottom floor of a duplex from our old pastor who gave us a really great deal. Basically he keeps our rent lower if we take care of the yard, a small price to pay for cheaper rent.
I don’t mind the yard work, I don’t even mind the travel nurses that rent upstairs. My problem is whatever has been camping outside my bedroom window at night.
Now I don’t live in the greatest neighborhood, it’s not some run down part of the city but it’s definitely not the suburbs, we get sketchy people. Sometimes I get to play the fun game of ‘Is it a firework or a gunshot?’. For that reason I like to keep my curtains closed most of the time, especially at night.
Usually I try to ignore any sounds that come from outside, I don’t want to stick my nose in the business of whatever tweeker is dancing down the street, it’s just safer to ignore it.
However a few weeks ago it started getting worse. It started off small, I heard someone walking down the alley, I remember it because they were really dragging their feet and it was just loud against the gravel. But I didn’t think anything of it, until the next night it happened again, but this time my light was on. I could hear them walking down the alley, stop for a moment, and start walking again, but their dragging footsteps were getting louder. They weren’t in the alley anymore, they were on the side of my house. They had to walk past my roommates window, which for whatever reason she always leaves the blinds open on.
When I realized they were on the side of my house I quickly turned my light off and sat completely still in the center of my bed, I didn’t dare make a sound.
They stopped outside my window, and it was quiet for a few minutes. I knew they were still there but I didn’t know what they were doing, were they just staring at my window? I had no idea. But I was frozen with fear. I didn’t even move when it started tapping.
It was so soft at first a very faint tap tap tap like they used the pad of their finger instead of the nail, I thought about texting 912, but what do you tell them? “Hello, I live in an area populated with drug addicts and homeless and now one of them is tapping on my window.” It sounds ridiculous.
So I just sat there, in terrified silence for a few minutes until it finally stopped tapping and dragged its feet away. I swear I sat there for an hour until I finally moved again.
The next morning I told my roommate and she was freaked out just as much as I was, I mean you have to walk past her window to get to mine, and you can see clear into her room.
She said she would keep her blinds closed for a few days, just in case whoever had come that night came again, and sure enough they did.
I made sure my light was off once the sun started to go down, I didn’t want to draw any attention to my window, but eventually I heard the dragging footsteps and sat in silence just hoping they would continue down the alleyway. But they didn’t, of course they didn’t. They didn’t even pause this time, they just continued past my roommates window, and stopped outside of mine.
This time they used their nail, a sharp tap tap tap a few second of silence and then more tap tap taps this time I texted 911. I told them my name, my address, and that there was someone harassing me, that this was the second time they had come to tap on my window.
The dispatcher told me someone would be there soon to move them along, but by the time the cops arrived the person was gone.
This continued for another week before I sent a message to my landlord and told him I was going to buy a camera for the side of the house. He was understanding and suggested getting another camera for the front door, like a Ring doorbell or something.
My roommate and I did just that, but we got an off brand camera because it was cheaper but worked basically just as good.
Two more weeks, the tapping turned to knocking and the knocking to to whispering, the whispering turned to talking. But it was always incoherent.
Every time I would text 911, and every time he would be gone when the cops showed up. I would always show the cops the footage just so they knew I wasn’t making it up.
Now comes today, weeks after all this started. One of the officers agreed to stay and wait, to see if this person would come back. And you know what? He did. He did come back, his feet dragged along the gravel of the alley, and concrete path that leads to the side of my house. And you know what I heard?
I heard the officer tell the man to stop, he told the man to lower his weapon, he told the man to back away. And then I heard muffled screams.
I looked at the camera footage and nearly screamed, the man’s face was directly in front of the camera, as if he was watching me through the camera, he had wide erratic eyes and a painfully large smile stretched across his face.
He continued to stare into the camera, and then he started whispering, then he was talking, and then he started screaming.
Eventually he left the camera, and stood outside my window again, just screaming, he didn’t even stop to take breaths, it just kept going.
Until finally more cops showed up, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it as they confronted him, I mean he killed a cop, of course they ended up putting him down. Six shots, six shots they put into his chest.
They took me to the station after that, they asked me some questions, asked for my camera footage and went over previous conversations I had with 911. It all added up, finally they told me to go home and try to get some rest.
That was a few hours ago. I’m home now, it’s about 7:00am, the sun is up, I’m in my room with my bedroom door locked, it’s a force of habit. Any hope I might have had of getting any rest is gone now. I think my roommate is outside my door. I’ve tried calling her name but she didn’t answer. She’s just tapping, a soft tap tap tap like she’s using the pad of her finger instead of her nail.