Videotape of happiness

 This story began when video recorders were still in fashion. Then fashion gradually faded away, and videos, especially writing ones, became a necessary household item for many. Interesting programs, soap opera episodes, and TV movies were usually overlooked on videotapes. You could also see homemade films shot on a video camera on these cassettes. Some indulged in amateur fucking in the style of "do you know what my girlfriend and I did in bed this summer?". It doesn't really matter. All this was recorded and re-recorded until the tape started to malfunction.

One day, I got my hands on such a tape. They promised homemade porn, but when I turned on the tape recorder, I was disappointed to see another compote of half-erased programs, TV series, and movies. The tape was in terrible condition. The image was constantly twitching, interrupted by interference – snow or colored jagged stripes. I honestly watched this "compote" to the end, rewinding. It's a good thing that the tape was an hour and a half long, while I was watching, I lost it all. Of course, there was no porn there. But there was an episode, probably from some show, that caught my attention.

It was a static picture in the midst of a general mess. They showed an ordinary room in the "Soviet" style. A sofa, carpets in the background, some old furniture. Nothing strange. Except for the one who was sitting on the couch. An unusual creature. He was white-skinned, asexual, and had no clothes on. The creature also had its mouth wide open, as if it was screaming. This picture froze on the screen for only a few seconds, then other frames crawled onto it, from an already familiar movie.

I tried to rewind the moment to get a better look, but I couldn't grasp it, even on frame-by-frame viewing, everything slipped away. When I pressed pause, the picture was already disappearing, and the freeze frame showed an episode of a movie or just a black screen – the void between recordings.

Exhausted by curiosity, I called a friend and said that there was no porn on the tape, but there was something strange. So, let him get his ass off the chair and run to me.

But where one failed, two failed. When a classmate came to me, we were still trying to capture the frame, but still couldn't.

I don't want to tell her about the unsuccessful viewing of "strawberries", do I? And my friend honestly said that we accidentally found some terrible footage on the tape, and now we're trying to catch it. At first, the girl was scared and wanted to leave, but curiosity turned out to be stronger. And the three of us have already started "catching the alien." We had a lot of fun, I remember. Unexpectedly, I managed to capture a clear shot of the creature. We all stared at him.

Almost white, with a barely gray tinge, the creature stared at us from the screen. Without a doubt, she was alive.: She breathed and blinked occasionally. Her toothless mouth, which, in general, attracted attention, was open. Long fingers convulsively clutched the blanket on the sofa.

The image flickered and flickered, making it seem as if the creature was moving and trying to tell us something.

"Maybe it's some kind of sex doll?" – my friend suggested uncertainly.

"Would you have fun with that?"  I retorted.

My friend shrugged his shoulders. And we were staring at the screen again, trying to figure out what the hell it was. The scariest thing was that an unusual creature was sitting on a sofa with a blanket in a completely ordinary apartment with carpets. The creature contrasted so strongly with the general stop that this contrast made us even more nervous.

"Oh, my God!  A classmate shouted. "It's looking at us!"

The creature was actually staring at us with dark, cloudy eyes. Her mouth twisted as if she wanted to tell us something, but she couldn't because she had no tongue and no teeth either. A dark hole in the mouth, like the entrance to hell.

- Turn it off!  The classmate screamed again, broke off and ran away, leaving us alone with the silently screaming creature.

With shaking hands, I reached for the remote and turned off the tape recorder.

"Who gave you this?" – I almost threw my fists at my friend. – Strawberry, damn it! Some kind of perverts!

He shrugged his shoulders.

- It was a long time ago. At the Dali kiosk. I was picking up the latest episode of Alien, and this one happened to be in the package. There's a sticker there, you saw it– "amateur video." I decided that porn had been shoved at me, I wanted to watch it, got distracted, forgot, and didn't take it back to the kiosk. I gave it to you later. Listen, I was sure it was a strawberry! Just throw it away!

We broke the tape, even tore the film, threw everything in the trash and forgot about this case for a while.

Writing video recorders have been replaced by writing DVD players. Bulky cassettes were no longer needed, because you can record more on discs. The disc could be played on a computer at all, and the TV was not needed.

As time changed, so did we. A friend became addicted to drugs and died of an overdose. A huge inheritance suddenly fell on a former classmate, literally out of nowhere, from an uncle whom she had never known and had never heard of before. She didn't care about the deceased, she took what was due and left the country. My life after university gradually turned into a boring swamp: work-home, home-work. No real friends and love, no big money, no great achievements. In general, a lot of people live like this now, and I wasn't particularly worried. He lived and lived.

CDs were also a thing of the past. So I decided to throw away the accumulated collection. For some reason, I started sorting through the disks. I came across one – Verbatim, on which there was a half–erased inscription in black marker - "amateur video". I didn't remember that. I put the disc in the drive and started playing. And he was stunned.

First there were pieces of old TV shows and TV series that had gone into the past, and then a pale creature with an open mouth stared at me from the screen. Sitting on a blanket. In an apartment with carpets. The image was twitching and covered with static, as if I was watching an old videotape.

In a panic, I pulled out the disc and threw it off the balcony.

I watched the shiny surface sparkle in the sun. The disk rested peacefully on the green grass. Everything seemed so peaceful and calm. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the children are laughing, but the creature has remained immured in the disk, and that's where it belongs. Although it was at least plus thirty outside, I could feel the bitter cold. My hands were shaking, I was covered in cold sweat, and I had to drink hot coffee.

At that time, I still thought that I was wrong – the disk should have been broken and thrown away, in case someone picked it up... But I honestly didn't have the courage. And we destroyed the tape that time, but for some reason the recording is intact.

A week later, I received a message in My World on mail.ru . You know, sometimes you get spam from friends on these social networks. And spam is often called a "Letter of Happiness." Distant virtual friends want to share their happiness with you at least like that. They say they care about you, so read and send the letter, maybe it will help. Alla Pugacheva read this letter and now she has Maxim Galkin. Or maybe Boris Moiseev.

I didn't remember the "friend." Just for the sake of playing in the "World", I made friends with those who knock. This is a social network for gamers.

The letter consisted of one word "thank you" and a link below. I still can't figure out why I clicked on it. Maybe I was curious – what am I being thanked for? I have not sent such letters to anyone.

The link opened a website with a video clip. They wrote a warning above the video.

Attention!

We consider it necessary to warn you. Before you watch the video below, you should remember that after watching it, your life will change forever. The changes will be gradual, but you will feel them. Perhaps you will have incredible luck. And maybe your life will turn into hell. None of those who watched this video died, disappeared, or lost their sight, but the lives of ninety-nine out of a hundred people have not changed for the better. And only one of them had a big stroke of luck.

No one knows which group of people you belong to. Maybe you're one of the ninety-nine unlucky ones, or maybe you are the lucky one.

I've never considered myself lucky, but then my hand seemed to reach out by itself to the huge play button frozen on the monitor.

Familiar snatches of old shows and TV shows flashed by, and a white-skinned screaming creature appeared on the screen on a sofa with a plaid. The video stopped. An inscription appeared: "Continue? Yes/No".

I jerked my hand away in fear.

I remembered a friend who died of an overdose, and a happy, rich classmate. I didn't know which group I was in.

I didn't risk my dreary life.

Would you take the risk?

Midnight conversation

 On a summer evening, at about eleven o'clock, I was in a hurry to get home to talk to an old friend. She was a strange but interesting girl from another city, with whom I sometimes spent the evening hours. I've never seen her photo, and today was the first time we were supposed to talk on Skype. It should be noted that I could not communicate with her like with the others: I seemed to lose control of myself and spoke to her sincerely, being a closed person.

When I returned home, my cat ran into me. She meowed loudly, froze for a moment, and immediately ran with a wild scream to the other corner of the room. My attempts to pick her up were unsuccessful: she struggled, bit... It wasn't like her. But, preoccupied with thoughts of the upcoming conversation, I did not attach any importance to this.

I sat down at my laptop, turned on Skype and started calling her, but the connection was cut off. I waited a few minutes and called again. She took the call. Her webcam was not connected. The first thing that made me worried was the sound problems. White noise, through it — her choppy voice, which changed timbre and broke. I tried to ask her something, but I couldn't hear anything because of the background noise.

Finally, she connected the webcam. I saw a background of wallpaper and wall paintings. And then her head appeared in the frame. It is dark gray, the eye sockets are black, and the mouth fluctuates in its position. I screamed automatically and hit the "Print Screen" key. Her voice became clearer, and I could hear her say it was just a communication problem. I calmed down a bit, but my hands were shaking and I was nervous. I decided to save the screenshot. "Paint" didn't open the first time, and I furiously clicked on the shortcut until a window opened, then a second, a third... This opened six copies of the program, in one of which I saved a screenshot.

During my time clicking on the image editor, Skype began to show a picture that was less frightening, but also unpleasant. Now her face was just black, but the background remained the same.

She talked to me in a pleasant voice for a while, and I relaxed, but then it started again: the background began to float, change color, and her face turned gray again, with black eye sockets, hair, and a slightly open mouth. I poked at the "Print Screen" again, scared. Her voice was distorted beyond recognition again, and the white noise increased. I copied a screenshot into one of the open "Paint" windows...

And it happened two more times. The fourth time, the image became unbearable to my eyes, and the sound hurt my ears. Her voice sounded like a scream, and her head was jumping from one place on the screen to another. Soon the connection disappeared completely.

The call lasted 38 minutes and ended at 00:01. I logged out of Skype. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and her strange head was in front of her eyes. Only later, when I calmed down, did I decide that the problems were caused by poor connectivity and faulty RAM.

But during the next conversation, my friend told me that that evening she had gone to another city for a relative's funeral, but she could not warn me in time. The house remained empty...

Night music

 The story actually happened 2 years ago with a friend of mine, whose name I don't want to mention. It will seem unreal to you, I also thought at first that it was fiction — but I saw the door that was ruined by a night visitor, and the girl's eyes full of fear.

She woke up at night. My husband was not at home, he went on a business trip, the children were sleeping in another room. She was lying on the bed and couldn't figure out why she woke up. It was one o'clock in the morning. She got up and went into the kitchen. Pouring herself a glass of water, she sat down on an armchair, opened the window and lit a cigarette. She felt cold and sad for no reason. Because of this sadness, at first she did not hear the melody coming from the street. But the melody was getting closer and was very close — it seemed that its source was about to fly through the open window. The girl understood that this melody should not exist in principle: it's night outside, everyone is asleep, no one can enter the courtyard, since the house is protected by a large fence, and the gates are closed at night. But this music was so soothing, it was like a child's lullaby, and I really wanted to lose myself in it. And despite the anxiety of his mind, his soul yearned for this melody; it seemed that once he went outside, all the problems and adversities would go away forever.

The girl got up, went into the children's room to check if everything was all right with the children, and went to the exit, mesmerized by the melody. She threw a blanket over herself and was about to open the door of the house, but then decided to look out the window anyway. Going to the window, she screamed in horror. Her three-year-old son was standing on the street, he was all in white clothes, but they were dirty and stained with bloodstains. The child stood and looked out the window, in his hands he held a music box, which emitted this melody. The girl understood that this was not her son, because just a minute ago she had seen him sleeping peacefully in his crib. Fear gripped her. She checked to make sure the door was closed, then slid to the floor. She was afraid to move, she could not go into her room or into the children's bedroom, because she was afraid that "it" would see her in the window. The music was getting closer, and the girl could already hear it near the front door. There was a knock on the door. The girl's heart was pounding wildly, fear paralyzed her entire body, she couldn't even move... There was a second, third, and fourth knock on the door, then the creature began to break down furiously and shout: "Mommy, open up, I'm cold, let me in! MOMMY!!!". The voice, at first childish, turned into a rough male voice. It was banging, screaming, and the music was playing non-stop. The girl, realizing at some point that she was going to go crazy, jumped up and ran to the children's room. After making sure that the children were still sleeping peacefully, she sat down on the floor next to her son's crib, wrapped herself in a blanket and waited, not knowing what, just waiting...

The banging and cursing continued for a while, and then everything went quiet. The girl understood that if she had not looked out of the window and gone out into the courtyard, something irreparable could have happened. She could not sleep, and the next morning, still in fear, she opened the front door and realized that the night's events were not a terrible dream, as the entire door was mutilated from the outside by strong blows...

Skinny

 One day during the summer holidays, when I was sitting at home for days and bored, my friend Masha called me and invited me to stay at her grandmother's house. Masha was a silly girl — sometimes when we were together in a big company, I literally covered my face with my hands. But spending time with her was fun and carefree. Her grandmother's house stood in a remote forest — dilapidated, old, but cozy. I've already been to this house a couple of times at Masha's invitation.

The road was long — we drove for almost five hours. The place where Masha's grandmother lived could not be called a village or a cottage — just a couple of houses a few dozen meters from each other.

I was placed on the second floor in a separate room, although I would prefer to share a room with a friend. The room was a little dark and not very cozy. When I was sorting things out, my friend stood next to me and grumbled:

— No, well, what kind of business is this? Am I going to watch horror stories all night by myself?

—Come on, it's okay,— I replied. "When Grandma falls asleep, I'll come running to you." Agreed?

—Okay,— Masha said with relief.

At half past ten, I went to my friend's room, although I would have preferred to sleep — I was too tired on the road. She quietly opened the door and went out into the hallway. The stairs were very steep and creaked loudly, but Masha's grandmother was already asleep and would hardly have woken up before morning.

When I entered my friend's room, I was horrified: she was lying on the floor, her eyes were open and completely black. It seemed that there was no fat left in her body: Masha was plump, but now she looked as if she had died of anorexia. She was white, thin, and had swollen veins... The window in the room was broken and everything was stained with some kind of yellow liquid. I stood motionless for about ten seconds, not even able to scream, and then I noticed some kind of black muzzle flashed behind the broken window. I screamed so hard that I almost tore all my vocal cords.

Literally immediately, I was almost blinded by the bright light. It turned out that Masha had entered the room and turned on the light.

"What are you yelling about?" "What is it?" she asked, startled. "I've been looking for you everywhere."..

"How so?" — I was shocked. "But you are."..

I pointed to the place where she had been lying, but there was only an empty carpet.

"Why did you break the window?"  Masha continued to wonder.

Then her grandmother came into the room, awakened by my scream. We went downstairs to the kitchen together, and I told them everything I'd seen. They were both scared. Then my grandmother told me that this was the fifth time a window had been broken in this room for no reason.

We sat in the kitchen until morning. Masha moved into my room this morning. We spent a couple of weeks at her grandmother's house, but neither I nor anyone else had such terrible visions.

A month later, Masha was admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and liver problems. She was discharged only six months later, pale and very thin, just skin and bones. Thank God she survived.

The horror in the apartment

Two years ago, an incredible story happened to me. To this day, the memories cause a real panic. I'll tell you in order. In the morning, when I was just starting to wake up, I suddenly saw myself as if from the outside. That is, I see the position in which I am lying, the surroundings of the apartment. I accidentally turned my head and was stunned. A white figure is approaching my body. Unnaturally long arms, a creepy dark face. And suddenly she reaches for my body. I became very scared, I tried to say something, the creature heard and came at me...

That's when the fear turned into a real panic. I feel like I'm back in my body. My condition was terrible-my heart was pounding, my legs felt like cotton wool, and my throat was dry. Prayer helped, and I began to read "Our Father" to myself. The fear gradually began to recede, but I felt that the creature was still in the room. And she began to recite the prayer again. As soon as I could get out of bed, I jumped up and ran out of the apartment. I didn't realize that the worst was yet to come. The creature did not go anywhere, I felt its presence constantly, even once I saw it in the mirror. After this story, I began to study this phenomenon. She learned to see with astral and etheric vision, and meditated. One day I had a dream. It's like all the walls in the room are made of black cloth, and creatures want to get into the apartment through it. And I can see it all, but I'm not scared. Something unpleasant, sticky to the touch envelops me. And suddenly the floor becomes a funnel, with flames and the same vile creatures below. After that dream, I didn't live in my apartment for a whole week. I had to leave my hometown and leave my apartment. It was all just unbearable. Nothing bothers me in my new place. I am engaged in self-development, even practicing seances. A couple of days ago, I had to return to my hometown on business, and naturally decided to spend the night in my apartment. And it all happened again! More distinct footsteps, someone else's presence in the room. The creature comes to the window, looks at me and leaves. On shaky legs, I try to get out of bed, but suddenly there was such a weight that I fell back and lost consciousness. Everything felt so real that it was impossible to believe that it was just a bad dream.

The red-faced

 I won't delay, I live with my parents. And somehow at that moment, they went to another city for the wedding of our relatives. And I was left at home alone, because I had a fever, I honestly didn't want to go there.

Well, I felt better tonight. I sat down at the computer. And I spent 2 hours on social media. The time was about 23.00, then the dog started barking, I thought maybe a friend had come to see me. I ran downstairs (we have a large 2-storey house). I came out and there was no one, I thought maybe someone had passed and our stupid dog started barking. I decided to run it home, it was about -38 outside. Although he was cold, he still wandered around the fence guarding our house.

Well, I started it, closed the door, felt sleepy, I went upstairs, the dog started barking again, I scolded him. I want to sleep and he's bothering me. I went into the room, turned off the light, the door to the room was open, I lay down on the bed, it seemed to me that I was dizzy. I opened my eyes and the door to the room slammed shut. I jumped up abruptly and ran to the light switch, my heart began to pound, my breath caught in my throat. I opened the door and went to the stairs. There was something vaguely resembling a human standing there, and suddenly it turned and I saw a red face, but in the darkness I couldn't see the features.

I ran into the room and it ran after me, suddenly I saw my dog running behind this something, I heard a knock and my dog knocked down this monster. I turned on the light and saw this face, it was all cracked, it was just indescribable! I was so scared, he just lay there and looked at me. I ran to the stairs and heard him talking to me. He said he was going to kill me. His voice was so grave, it seemed to me that it was the devil.

I ran downstairs, put on my sneakers on the move and ran out of the house to the road, it was incredibly scary and cold. I was looking back when I saw my friend's familiar house, and I calmed down. I woke her up and she gave me a jacket and some boots. I explained everything to her, she didn't believe me and dragged me to the house, even though I didn't want to go there, we went in: I stood on the threshold and flatly refused to go any further, and Katya went through the whole house and found nothing.

Of course, she said it was a dream, took the keys, locked the house and dragged her to spend the night with her. In the morning we went to my house. My parents have already arrived. I told them everything, Mom said it was the temperature, the glitches.

The dog was nowhere to be found, my parents said that she ran away when I opened the gate, but that's not true, she died for me.

Open windows

 I've had a friend since high school. We went through the fire and water of secondary education together, so to speak. We don't see each other very often, but communication is extremely trusting every time. So last summer, she suddenly came and surprised me with the news — she broke up with her boyfriend, who, I must say, was a rather short-tempered and suspicious man, so I didn't feel any grief about it.

The reason for the breakup was also somewhat prosaic, the old feelings were gone, and he did not show himself at his best in everyday life. And since they had been living in a friend's apartment for the past few years, this friend decided to act like a "real gentleman" and not expose her now ex-boyfriend to the street at dead of night. Instead, she took a vacation and went to her relatives for two weeks so that her boyfriend could calmly pack his things and find a new place to live, without scandals and mutual tantrums.

My friend returned to her family's house, found the keys in the mailbox and expected to find an empty apartment. In a sense, it was, except that she was met with a terrible debacle. All the mirrors were smashed, things were knocked out of cupboards and scattered on the floor, numerous plush dust collectors had their heads torn off or cut off, and in the kitchen all knives and forks were forcefully stuck into the countertop. Moreover, the windows are wide open, and obviously not for one day, because a lot of dust and leaves flew into the rooms.

When my friend showed us photos of this mess, we were shocked and horrified. And, of course, they immediately thought that the ex-boyfriend had just gotten drunk one fine evening and caused all this mayhem, because he started with a half-turn and in more peaceful circumstances.

At first, my friend wanted to report him to the police, presenting a photo, but after the anger cooled down, it became clear that no one would mess with such nonsense, the usual household stuff. Moreover, my friend's conscience woke up, saying that I was the initiator of the breakup, so he had every right to freak out, although, of course, not to that extent.

In general, the hope of a peaceful separation suffered a crushing fiasco, but life went on. The pieces were removed, things were put back in place, and everything seemed to flow as usual. It wasn't until a few days later that a friend showed up on my doorstep and asked to spend the night. And she looked like hell.

After a few hours, I managed to get her to talk and ask her why she suddenly couldn't stay at home. It turns out that after everything that happened, very strange things began to happen in the apartment. The light bulbs either burned out or began to flicker strangely, the electricity went out every now and then, the TV showed continuous interference, and if the Internet appeared, it was only in the morning and literally for a couple of hours. The support services just threw up their hands and assured me that everything was fine on their part. And if all this could be attributed with a stretch to problems with the wiring, then the rest did not fit into any gate.

Looking around every minute like a hunted animal, the friend said that she began to see some dark silhouettes out of the corner of her eye, and every day more and more often, and the nights turned into one continuous torture - as soon as the lights were turned off, darkness literally fell on the apartment, there was no glare from passing cars, no light. the lantern outside the window. Nothing at all. And silence. This darkness seemed to absorb all the sounds that could and should have penetrated from the street.

The darkness surrounded from all sides and seemed to be watching. And she was whispering, in dozens of different voices, muttering something unintelligible right in her ear. Sometimes she even felt someone else's icy breath on her cheek. It gave me the creeps.

It didn't look like her friend was lying or being overly suspicious. Although this debacle could well provoke a nervous breakdown... But for some reason I believed her. And about the living, dense darkness, and about the creaks and rustles that had never been there before, and about the night light bulb that instantly burns out with any attempts to sleep in the light...

In the end, I calmed my friend down as best I could, we had a few drinks and somehow fell asleep. But her phone woke us up in the middle of the night. No, they weren't mysterious ghosts, but just her downstairs neighbors, who, without further ado, gave her a terrible dressing down for a noisy party with furniture throwing and promised to call the police if it didn't stop. Naturally, they didn't believe that there was no one in the apartment right now. We sat on pins and needles for the rest of the night and took the first bus to the ill-fated apartment, expecting to see the police called by the neighbors at the entrance.

Fortunately, there were no police. But the apartment was a mess again — all the chairs were lying upside down, and one stool was even broken, as if it had been thrown violently on the floor, things were thrown out of the cupboards again. My friend grabbed the phone and started calling her ex, because the first thought that came to both of us was as simple as a grunt — he ordered a duplicate key and, to make his revenge even more colorful, waited until she left and repeated the feat.

However, the former swore and swore that he had not done anything — moreover, he was in another city with friends. And he didn't cause any damage; rather, he wanted to throw out a couple of his girlfriend's things, even opened the windows for this purpose, but then he just spat and left. So all he's guilty of is having the windows open.

We didn't know whether to believe him or not, so we started cleaning up the apartment. When I was putting things in the closet, I noticed one oddity — the top hinge on the door was broken and dangled on the word of honor. Or rather, it didn't seem strange to me at first, but the same breakdown was found in the next cabinet. And one more thing... In the end, I started checking everything, even the pantry door. And it's the same everywhere. Because of these broken hinges, the doors did not close tightly, and there were small gaps between them, literally half a centimeter.

When we eliminated all the consequences of the debacle and sat down to drink tea, I literally felt with my skin how someone was looking at me from these cracks, from narrow strips of pitch darkness. My friend caught my eye and paled, but said nothing.

And then I got a terrible headache. Actually, it felt like I had at least single-handedly dug up an entire potato field. I wanted to fall down and sleep. But I didn't want to sleep in this place at all, so I hurried home, assuring my friend that if anything happened, she could always come to sleep with me. Which, by the way, she did just a day later. But they didn't let us sleep again, the same neighbors complained about the noisy party. For some reason, when my friend stayed at home for the night, nothing happened. Well, it's like nothing — she just lay there, neither alive nor dead from fear until the morning.

All this went on until her aunt came to visit her friend. After spending the night visiting her niece, she silently packed up and left, and returned the next day accompanied by some strange old lady. I don't know what this grandmother did or said, my friend refuses to talk about it at all, but after her visit, all the oddities in the apartment stopped.

My friend and I continue to see each other, but we try not to remember this story, especially since everything went without consequences. Except that now she very rarely ventilates the apartment and vigilantly makes sure that all windows are tightly closed after dark.

And you know, now I understand that the ex had nothing to do with it at all — it's just that at some point, not only the leaves blew into the windows that were open for several nights in a row. Something evil had seeped in with the wind. Something that might have been wandering around for a long time in search of shelter. Shelter and food.

That's why I also no longer ventilate before going to bed. Just in case.

The cursed summer house.

 My parents bought this cottage for a pretty decent sum. We lived in it for two seasons, landscaped it as much as possible, laid out a garden and even dug a small pool under the apple trees. But then my mother died, and the cottage was abandoned for several years. Over time, my father recovered and returned to the country again. However, he died four years later. They found him in a cottage with a stopped heart. A heart attack, that's what the doctors said.

I wasn't particularly interested in the cottage, but sometimes I went there, keeping it from falling into disrepair as much as possible, and several times I spent the night there either alone or with friends. I've never noticed anything like this behind this cottage and the surrounding area.

One day, after a hard week at work, I decided to spend the weekend in nature and went to the country. I spent Saturday lying on the grass under the apple trees and reading books, and in the evening I had a modest dinner and watched three and a half channels of an old TV. By the time the nightmare described below began, it was a windless but already cool August night. I turned off the TV and was debating whether to go to bed or read some more.

And then, in the midst of the universal silence, which you will never hear in the city, someone knocked on the door of my house. You will understand my horror, which twisted my stomach and made me feel colder than I have ever felt in my life, when I explain the following. The door of the cottage did not open into the alley, but into the garden. To get to the porch, it was necessary to enter the site through a gate, follow a path surrounded by plum trees and rose hips, and at the same time bypass the house almost around the entire perimeter. There was no other way to get to the door. The site was surrounded by a high grid, which was impossible to climb over, except to fly over.

I would have assumed that the neighbors were knocking. But it was hardly them, because, firstly, the nearest neighbors were sleeping two houses away from me, secondly, normal neighbors would still knock on the lighted window facing the alley or shout from the street, and thirdly, I personally closed the gate at night on an impressive hanging the lock is on the inside.

So, when I heard the knock on the door, I experienced inexpressible sensations, and, probably, I almost fainted from the overwhelming feeling of fear. While I was thinking about all this, the knock was persistently repeated. I crossed the room where I was watching TV, went into the room that served as an entrance hall, and froze at the door. There was silence on the porch, not a word, not a rustle.

I gathered all my willpower and asked in a trembling voice, "who is there?"

In response, I heard a faint unintelligible murmur and some kind of giggling. It was unbearably scary. I thought I was dreaming and having a nightmare, my head was blurred with fear, my eyes were foggy, and my ears were ringing. After about ten seconds, the mumbling stopped, and I heard a smacking sound, the kind of sound usually produced when voicing kisses in cartoons or cartoon movies.

I realized that something was wrong and I had to defend myself somehow. I don't know by what hitherto unnoticed forces I pulled the bedside table away from the wall and put it against the door. There was a commotion on the porch and continuous knocking on the door, mixed with louder muttering and smacking.

I jumped out of the room and realized that, in general, it was incredibly easy to get into the house through two wide windows - all you had to do was break the glass. The only solution for me turned out to be to climb into the attic and drag the ladder behind me, which was also not easy, and which I also unexpectedly lifted up in a couple of moments. I closed the hatch to the second floor and deftly pinned it down with a ladder and some bags of junk.

Once in the attic, I took a deep breath and looked around, desperately wondering what to do next. The knocking on the door did not stop. The rest of the sounds were also perfectly audible – the summer house was built from lightweight materials for the purpose of leisure, but not defense.

I saw a pale light in the attic window overlooking the garden and realized that the porch light was still on. The temptation was unbearable. I jumped up to this window, leaned my face against the dusty glass and tried to see what was happening at the threshold.

I couldn't see the door itself, but what I saw was enough for me to last a lifetime. I was on my knees, but my legs gave out so much that I fell to the floor and started crying. On the part of the porch that I could see, I saw a shapeless dark mass, shining black blue in the light of the lantern. It seemed to be swirling and bubbling, with some appendages constantly extending out of it and disappearing inside again. She was pulsating and agitated, and it seemed that these waves did not end at the volume, but went further through the air, poisoning everything with horror.

But that's not all. Next to the porch, in the shadows, I saw two frozen figures. Non-human figures. Long, thin, without arms, like giant matchsticks, they swayed slightly as if in the wind. I couldn't see their eyes, but I knew they were looking at me.

I jumped away from the window, fell on the boards and started crying. I heard the knocking stop and the door creak violently. I heard something crack–the door lock must have broken–and the bedside table rattled on the floor when it was moved. The muttering came from right below me. Through the cracks in the loosely fitted floorboards, I saw that the lights in the house had gone out. There was nowhere else to go.

And then a doomed determination appeared in me. In two jumps, I reached the window opposite, which overlooked the alley. Fortunately, it was opening. I barely remember getting out of it, jumping to the ground into the jasmine bushes and probably scratching myself badly. I don't remember very well how I climbed over the gate – I probably jumped over it. I remember running down the alley to the neighbors' house, where the lights were on, and shouting something, banging on the gate and afraid to turn around.

A neighbor came out to my screams, silently without words, dragged me over the fence, and then there was a gap in my memory. Apparently, I fell into a state of shock, and fragments of memories are quite difficult to put into a normal narrative. I woke up, or rather, I woke up on my neighbor's porch. The neighbor stood and looked at me attentively. I remembered the whole nightmare, and I started shaking.

The neighbor ordered me to get up and go with him. Together we went to my cottage. The gate was wide open, the door to the house was broken down, the gutted bedside table was floating in the pool in the garden. All the light bulbs and electrical devices in the rooms were smashed. The trapdoor to the attic was closed, but it was stained with what looked like dried slime.

The neighbor again said nothing, but took out a coil of copper wire. We began to stretch this wire at a level of three centimeters above the ground along the perimeter of the area along the fence. Under the gate, a neighbor ordered me to dig a hole about one and a half meters deep. He went to his house and brought something in a bag. He buried the contents of the bag under the gate, but I couldn't make out what exactly. I was slowly coming to my senses and tried to get an explanation from my neighbor. He cut me off: - It's better for you not to know. It won't happen again. But he asked me not to go outside the precinct on a full moon.… You'd think I'd even want to spend a day here, not just a night.

By the way, when I passed by my neighbor's cottage later, I saw a tarnished wire running along his fence. I didn't notice anything unusual under the gate.…

Since then, I have not spent the night at that cottage and unsuccessfully tried to sell it. My cousin came from another city several times, and with my reluctant permission, he spent the night at the cottage with his friends. He just laughed at the warnings about devilry and said that I was overworked at work. My brother didn't mention anything strange during these carousals. And I'm starting to think that my father's heart attack wasn't caused by natural causes.

Who these creatures were, what they wanted– the more I think about it, the worse I sleep at night.

However, after three years, I'm already starting to doubt that this happened to me. It seems to me that I made it all up – this is how my body tries to protect itself from shocking memories. The wire in the fence is torn in several places, and it would be necessary to replace it. But it seems like some kind of ridiculous joke to me, and I leave it as it is. I really want to believe that none of this happened.…

You're dead!

 A lot of mystical things happened in my life, but despite regular contact with supernatural forces, none of them did anything wrong to me. Trouble came, as they say, from where they did not expect.

My grandfather was a very domineering man during his lifetime, and by the end of his life, only my mother and I were left with him. He died long and painfully, lay for a long time, his whole body cramped. They fed him hard, and he was practically silent all the time. On the last evening of his life, I sat in the room with him, trying to feed him porridge, but he turned away and stared at the wall. Suddenly he arched up sharply, exhaled: "He's here!" — and began to turn pale sharply.

The doctors arrived surprisingly quickly. After examining the body, they said a strange thing: "Why did you call just now? He looks like he's been dead for days." They eventually attributed it to the fact that he had been practically motionless for a year and a half.

Three days later, strange rustling and creaking began in the house. Out of habit, I "cycled" at the brownie to keep it quiet, but the behavior of the cats was alarming, which began to crawl under the covers, as if they were hiding from something.

Four days later, the "memorial" vodka, supplied by someone from the family, was covered with mold. "Wow, they didn't even accept Nav!" the mother noted with some malice.

A serious problem happened about a month later. I slept alone. My husband was on shift, and my mother went to a friend's house for the weekend. I woke up because the cats started howling softly. I looked around the room, dazed, and caught a glimpse of a silhouette in the door. I wasn't even scared at first, not realizing who it was. And then he quite abruptly approached me. I recognized my grandfather in the contorted face of anger. I remember saying or thinking (I can't remember exactly), "Go away, you're dead!" In response, the grandfather clearly croaked: "I'm going to kill you."

I couldn't take my eyes off him. His eyes seemed too big and full of hate. I could feel his cold fingers squeezing my throat, but I couldn't even lift my arms myself. The last thing I remember before I lost consciousness was the loud howling of cats, some kind of gray shadow and the light turning on by itself in the pantry...

When I woke up in the morning, I found some oddities in the room: the door to the pantry was ajar, the chairs were lying on the floor, and when I examined the cats, it turned out that one of them was missing a fang. On top of that, there were spots of bruises on my neck and chest.

I called my mom. In the afternoon, we performed all the rituals recommended in such cases together. The dead grandfather never came to us again. I hope he won't show up again.

Laughter from the mirror

 There was a period of "horror movies" in my life for a while - I watched horror films and thrillers every day. Since I was living alone at home that month, no one was distracting me from it. Well, I went to bed around 3 a.m.

And then one day I went to bed as usual, turning off the light in the apartment. And suddenly, in the middle of the night, I was woken up by some strange sound - as if someone was scratching on a smooth surface. At first I thought they were cats, but they were both lying at my feet. I listened, and the sounds seemed to have stopped...

The next day, I refrained from watching horror movies. But at night, when I went to bed, I still felt uncomfortable. At about the same time as the previous night, I was woken up again by a strange sound from the hallway - I was afraid to get up, but I was sure it was coming from the mirror. It was as if someone's fingernails were slowly tracing paths on the glass. After a while, everything stopped again.

I didn't go to work in the morning, I said I didn't feel well. During the day, I noticed the strange behavior of one of the cats - he was sitting on the mirror bedside table and did not take his eyes off the reflection. It lasted about two hours.

There was a mirror in the bathroom too. Honestly, I've never been afraid to live alone before, but it's clear that horror movies began to affect my psyche - even in the shower I constantly looked out from behind the curtain at the mirror. Still, I had the nagging feeling that someone was watching me.

When I went to bed, I was very scared and it took me a while to fall asleep. And I woke up in the middle of the night, but this time from a different sound - as if from some monotonous voice. At first I thought it was the neighbors - after all, the audibility is good, but after a while I realized that the sound was coming from the hallway. I tried to listen, but everything stopped. I was very scared, I lay with my eyes closed and tried to fall asleep. In the end, I had to turn on the light to calm down a little. And around four o'clock, almost in my sleep, I thought I heard a soft chuckle.

The next morning, I decided that I would invite a friend over for a sleepover. But when I went to the bathroom, I noticed again that the cat was sitting in front of the mirror. He did not respond to either the call or the touch, as if he was mesmerized by something in the reflection.

After closing the shower curtain, I stood under the spray and closed my eyes for a second. And at the same moment, I saw-I don't know how to put it, in my head or something... - a picture: the mirror seems to reflect an empty bathroom, the curtain behind which I am standing, and then someone's face begins to loom next to the bathroom - and abruptly I saw how the lines formed into a rough, terrible grimace on the green face of some creature. I could feel it grinning, and I pulled back the curtain with a scream.

There was no one there. But I was trembling-I couldn't have imagined it, I felt like there was something in the mirror. I don't remember getting dressed and running out of there, but I do remember the eerie feeling of being watched, waiting for something...

Before my mother's arrival, I tried not to stay at home alone.

But even now, as I walk past the mirror, I can swear that I sometimes hear light chuckles.

And the cat still sits on the bedside table for hours, thoughtfully examining something in the mirrored depths...