Stories To Tell In The Dark

Eyes In The Wall

It was the old house on the hill. The one people in town avoided. The one with the peeling paint, the sagging roof, and the overgrown yard where nothing ever seemed to grow quite right. Every time someone new moved in, they left just as quickly, their faces pale, their hands trembling as they packed their things. No one ever talked about it. People just accepted it—some things were better left alone.

But when Emma and her brother, Ben, inherited the house after their grandmother passed away, they didn’t have much of a choice. They were broke, freshly out of college, and with nowhere else to go. The house had been in their family for generations, and as the last living relatives, they figured it was their responsibility to at least try to make it livable.

The first few days weren’t so bad. Sure, there were the creaks and groans of the old house settling, but they were used to that—every house made those noises. Ben had a knack for fixing things, and Emma did what she could to clean up the place, even if the dust seemed to multiply the moment she turned her back. They spent long days painting over the cracked walls and replacing broken windows. But by nightfall, something always felt off.

The house had an air of neglect. Not just from age, but something deeper—something far darker.

Ben was the first to hear it. The scratching.

It started quietly, so faint Emma thought it was just the wind. But as the days wore on, it grew louder—scratching at the walls, at the floors, at the ceiling. The sound wasn’t random. It came in a steady rhythm, like nails dragging against stone. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. They couldn’t pinpoint the source. It was as if the house itself was alive—screeching and groaning in pain.

Emma laughed it off at first, chalking it up to the house settling, to the rats and creaking beams. But Ben wasn’t so sure. He started staying up later, wandering the house, checking the attic and basement, convinced there was something behind the walls. Something that was trying to get out.

It wasn’t until the first night Ben disappeared that Anna began to understand just how wrong they were.

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It happened on the third week of their stay. The house felt colder than usual that night, and Emma could swear she heard something moving in the dark. Ben had gone upstairs to work on the plumbing, and Emma stayed downstairs, making dinner. She was lost in thought, the steady sizzle of the frying pan filling the quiet of the house, when she heard a loud *bang* from above.

Ben’s voice echoed down the stairs. “Emma, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, it sounded like something fell over,” she called back, walking toward the stairs. “You okay?”

There was a long silence before he replied. “I don’t know. Something’s not right up here.”

Emma’s heart began to pound in her chest. She didn’t like the tone in his voice. Ben was usually calm, collected, the type who didn’t scare easily. But something had unsettled him.

“Ben?” she called, her voice shaky now. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

Another beat of silence. Then, in a whisper, “I think something’s watching me.”

Emmaa felt a coldness spread through her. “What? Ben, stop messing around. Come downstairs.”

“I’m not messing around,” he whispered urgently. “I’m serious, Emma. I—”

The sound of something heavy scraping against the floor above interrupted him. It was so loud, it shook the floorboards beneath Emma’s feet. She heard the unmistakable sound of a door slamming shut, followed by a series of frantic, pounding footsteps, coming closer and closer to the stairs.

Her breath caught in her throat as the footsteps stopped abruptly. The house fell silent.

“Ben?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

No answer.

She waited, holding her breath, hoping it was all a joke. But then, from the far corner of the house, she heard something—scratching, scraping, the sound of something desperately trying to break through wood.

Emma’s legs were frozen in place. The scratching sound grew louder, closer, like it was coming from right outside the kitchen door. She reached for the phone in her pocket and dialed Ben’s number. The phone rang, and rang. No answer.

She felt her pulse quicken as the scratching stopped, replaced by a faint, guttural whisper.

“Emma…”

It was Ben’s voice, but distorted, low and stretched like it had been pulled from deep within the walls themselves. Anna took a step back, her heart hammering against her chest, her hands shaking.

The whisper came again, this time louder, more insistent: “Emma, help me…”

Without thinking, she grabbed a flashlight from a drawer and rushed to the stairs, her footsteps echoing in the silence of the house. Her mind screamed at her to stop, to turn around, but she couldn’t—she *had* to find him.

She reached the second floor and hesitated in the hallway, her heart pounding in her throat. She could hear the whispers again, coming from the room at the end of the hall. The one that used to be her grandmother’s bedroom.

“Ben?” she called, her voice trembling.

The door creaked open, though she hadn’t touched it. Her breath caught in her throat.

Inside, the room was dark, save for the dim glow of the flashlight in her hand. The air was thick, almost suffocating. It felt wrong. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to move with a life of their own.

And then she saw him.

Ben was standing in the far corner, his back to her. He wasn’t moving, just standing there, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

“Ben?” Emma whispered again, her voice barely audible.

No response. His back was unnaturally still.

She stepped closer, a chill crawling up her spine. As she reached out to touch his shoulder, Ben’s head snapped around, his face twisted in a grotesque, inhuman way. His eyes were wide and black—like two bottomless pits—and his mouth was stretched into a monstrous grin, too wide, too much.

Emma recoiled, choking on a gasp. The smile on Ben’s face was not his—she could see the malice in it, something that didn’t belong.

The figure that looked like her brother took a step toward her, and she could hear the faintest whisper: "I'm not Ben."

The room seemed to distort around her, the walls pressing inward. The shadows grew longer, shifting in unnatural ways. As if they were alive.

The thing that looked like Ben raised its arm, pointing toward the far wall. Emma followed its gaze, her breath catching in her throat.

There, etched into the wall, were dozens of eyes. Tiny, bloodshot eyes, scratched into the plaster, as though someone—or something—had been gouging at the wall for years. And in the center of them, was a face. A face that wasn’t quite human.

“Don’t look,” the creature that used to be Ben whispered. “They don’t like it when you see them.”

Emma tried to scream, but her voice was lost. She backed away, her feet stumbling over the floor as she turned to run, but the thing was faster, its claws scraping along the floor as it lunged toward her.

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Emma awoke in a cold sweat, her body trembling. The room was still, and the air was thick with the smell of old wood and dust. She was lying on the floor in the hallway, her heart pounding in her chest.

The house was silent.

It was a dream. It had to be. But something wasn’t right.

She reached out to touch the floor beneath her. The wood was warm, as if it had been disturbed, as if something had been pacing there for hours.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The door at the end of the hall creaked open, slowly, and Emma froze. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Through the c***k in the door, she saw something moving—something that should not have been there.

A thousand eyes stared back at her from the shadows beyond the door, waiting.

And in the middle of them all, something was smiling.

It was watching her.

She couldn’t move.

She couldn’t breathe.

And she knew, deep down, that she would never leave this house. Not while the eyes were still there. So she stayed there day after day slowly becoming one with the house. She now haunts the house and anyone who dares enter its doors.