Chapter The old man at night | The Old Man At Night by Rojina Zalzar at Inkitt

The old man at night

There is a story that people used to say often about an old man with a yellow and red eye who every once in a while, comes at exactly 7:30 P.M. to a house and knocks at either the door or the window to come in to rest for a while. As always parents tell their kids, “Stranger danger” and don’t let the old man come inside. you know, like curses or other dramatic things.

But I, a stupid dumb 18-year old, named David didn’t listen. It all started on the day of my parent’s anniversary when I had to babysit my little sister, Ashley. I used to see news alone a lot while my little sister played with her dolls until one day something caught my attention. In the news, it showed the recent death of an old butcher who was skinned alive with his eyes squished and slushing out of his mouth. His stomach was cut open with his organisms pouring out like a bag of bodies revealing itself. There was bloody writing on the wall that had said: YoU aRe NeXt.

I was so horrified by this scene that I nearly vomited. I felt that I was next. Just a day later I started chatting with someone my friend told me the other day about buying a new cheap phone. He mentioned a website about buying a ton of things. “Hey David, I recently went to this cool site on the dark web called qwertbuy.exe. You can literally buy anything. Even the phone you wanted so go check it out bud.”

I texted him: Ok.

And started to log into my account and went to the site that the person online recommended. I scrolled a few times up and down finding a lot of things until I saw a costume of some sort of a realistic body of an old man sold. At first, I thought it was just some sort of a plastic costume but the eyes were too real and the man behind holding the costume was wearing a bloody t-shirt. This was too real, I said to myself.

Then I scrolled down and pretended that I saw nothing. After a few minutes later, I saw on the right-hand corner of the tab a message popped up. It had said, “New product bidding had started. Click here to start bidding.” I clicked on the link. And there it was. My picture being projected on a wall in the live video with millions of people bidding for me. I all of the sudden felt my neck stiffen and harden like a clay about to dry. I decided to click exit a multiple times but couldn’t as if the screen had been stuck. The man standing next to my picture was smiling right on the camera in the video as if he was looking at me. Then a message popped up once again. This time it was from my email. Without me moving the mouse, the computer started clicking the email icon.
There in the email, it said: Enjoying the bidding, eh?

Then the computer went back into the bidding area, but this time it had said ” sold for 20,000 dollars.” I was frozen like ice on the chair staring at my computer’s screen. I had decided to pick the phone up from my desk and call the police. A lady picked up the phone. “hi, what your emergency?” the lady had said. I had told her what happened on the website and they immediately came. When I came to show them the video and the bidding… the website had been gone.

The polices had thought I was pranking or joking so they gave me a warning and left the house. My dad and mom came home at night from their Two-day anniversary and were confused with my actions. They advised me a little that this is the real world and the prank I had done was not cool, but when I tried to explain they just wouldn’t let me. I decided that the only way to prove it was to wait and see what would happen. One week later, at exactly 7:30 P.m. I heard a knock on the door. I was all alone on that day.

My sister Ashley had left to my grandma’s house and my parents were at work. I thought to look out from the window for a sec to see who was there, but found no one. Just as I was about to turn and leave thinking that it was the ding-dong ditchers again, a face of a man arose quickly and knocked on the window. It was an old man with a familiar wrinkled face. The old man was wearing ripped dusted clothing. He mumbled with a muffled voice, “Dear boy, it’s cold out here. can you let me in to rest for a while, please?” At first, I thought for moment. Then opened the door and let him in. As he entered, his crooked smile on me made me feel the regret of bringing him in, but I wanted to be kind and the outside is too cold for him to stay outside.

I told him to make himself feel comfortable while I go brush my teeth. As I went upstairs and brushed my teeth, I felt a heavy breathing on my neck and decided to slowly turn to see what it was. Nothing came to my sight so I sighed in relief. After finishing with brushing my teeth, I came down to check on the old man when I noticed the old man wasn’t the old man anymore, but a man in his mid-30’s who was taking off the old man costume that looked too real to even be true. I hid by the corner of the stairs gazing at him, thinking of the horrors of what he could possibly do to me. A loud buzzing came from the man’s phone.

“Everything is ready. The stupid boy let me in. how much was the bidding for him again?20,000 dollar?!Ok, I will bring him to you even if he is dead or alive.” the man said.
I gulped in fear feeling as if I swallowed a hard rock and then moved back slowly from the stairs. That is where I made my second mistake. A loud thump came from where my foot touched the stair. I could almost hear what the man said. “shh. I think he heard us. Bye!” the man whispered.
I ran as fast as possible upstairs and into my room without looking back and locked the door quickly. Loud banging came from the door. I quickly opened my phone and dialed the police. The banging stopped.

Now it was ghost-quiet. A lady on the phone asked about the emergency but I ignored and closed the phone. I then began to slowly open the door to see if the man was there or not, but there was no sign of the man so I decided to check if anything was taken or removed and then closed the door leading to the outside. I then walked upstairs to go to my room when I noticed a note pinned to the door leading to my room with a knife. In the note, it had said, “I knew what you were doing so I opened the door and hid in the house. If you thought that I was gone…You! Are! Wrong! If you call the police once more you will die. Oh and don’t look behind you.”

I felt a heavy breathing once more behind me on my neck and never forgave myself to have ever let kindness take over my life.

The End.