For the first few months after Thom Mann and his family moved into our street, everyone thought they were just normal people.
They looked normal. Acted normal. Said the normal sorts of things everyone says.
Thom and I were in the same class, and because we were next-door neighbours we walked to school together and became friends. His mom worked at home and looked after his little sister, and his dad drove to an office in the industrial site out of town every day. I cannot remember, looking back, one unusual thing Thom said in those first few months that might have given away who they actually were.
I guess I mean, what they actually were.
I suppose, if I thought hard about it, it might have been the day we were kicking a ball around idly after school, with a few other kids. I think it was Kurt who kicked it harder than he should, and it went flying over, straight towards the Manns’ living room window. I could just see the fair head of his sister, bobbing around behind the window.
I thought at the time the sun must have got into my eye. I saw Thom -not exactly jump or leap like a normal boy- but kind of flutter upwards, his shoulders twitching back and forth in a motion I’ve never seen in a human. He went high above the ground, stretched out his arms, and caught the ball.
Then he landed lightly on his feet.
There was silence.
Kurt said “what are you- a ninja NBA player or something?”
Thom shrugged “Whatcha talking about man, it wasn’t that high. Here!” and he drop-kicked the ball straight at Kurt. The game resumed, and no one said anything else.
But I had seen his face shimmer in the afternoon sun as he fluttered upwards to get the ball. It wasn’t a normal human face.
Kurt had seen it too. We looked at each other and shrugged.
We started dropping off home one by one for our suppers. After Thom left, Kurt said “You know they drive out of town most nights?”
“So?”
“That’s not weird? My bedroom window faces their garage. They leave almost every evening around ten. I’ve been up at midnight and they haven’t been back.”
I didn’t know what Kurt wanted to hear. Sophia said “He gives me creep vibes.”
We rolled our eyes at her. Everyone gave her creep vibes.
The strike at the industrial site must have happened a few weeks after that. I had been hearing about it, some boring adult thing. But then one morning Thom mentioned his dad was staying home these days “It’s so fucking hard”.
I looked at him. He looked grey, fatigued. His skin and eyes looked off. I thought it was the dad being at home.
Then he said “We can’t get to the site at nights. It’s not lit anymore because of the strike. We need the lights.”
I remembered what Kurt had said. “Do you go- I mean- visit the site at nights?” I asked.
He shrugged. “There’s no-one there. Bright lights”.
“What?”
I felt like I was stepping into another reality. His face was shimmering again, it looked like when he fluttered off the ground to get the ball. Not human. His eyes bulged, his mouth and nose elongating.
I cried out.
The sound seemed to bring Thom back to human-ness. He shook his head. “Forget it man. It’s cool.” He began walking faster than me.
That night, I was awakened by a huge cry. I jerked out of bed, grabbing my phone. It was only half ten.
I heard my parents going down the stairs. And without knowing why, I got out of bed to follow them out.
All the block was pouring into the street. We gathered round, staring at Thom Mann and his family, fluttering fifteen feet above the ground, their faces close to the burning bright lamps of the street light. The harsh light picked out their dark butterfly-shaped wings, stretched out behind them, and at first I didn’t even notice their faces, their mesmerized bulging eyes staring into the light.
Then I did, almost the same time as everyone else. I heard Sophia’s scream “They’re monsters!”
An angry ripple went through the crowd watching them. “Call the police!” “We’ll get ‘em when they come down” “Shoot ‘em now!”
Kurt and the other boys who played ball together pushed forward, I joined them. We circled the lamp pole. I stared at the angry darkly-lit confused faces.
“Leave them be!” shouted Kurt.
The crowd jostled up. Angry twisted faces of our neighbours pushed into my face, I felt myself shoved, and I remembered every youtube video I’d seen about people being killed in and by crowds. A punch landed on my cheek, and my head snapped back. I didn’t feel anything, but I lashed out and blood splattered on my knuckles. I felt it then.
A louder cry went up. The crowd pulled back. The Manns were fluttering down.
They circled us, and then, their wings flapping madly, drifted into their house. Silence fell.
Slowly, as if in a dream, the neighbours dispersed. I followed my mom and dad back home.
In the morning, the Manns were gone. We never saw or heard of them again.
First off, let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm a 22-year-old female who enjoys playing obscure and forgotten MMO games. I love being online, chatting with random people I encounter, but I never realized that I might encounter something like this. Due to recent events, I'll refer to myself as "Ellen" throughout the story because I don't want to make it worse. I also had to edit out the email addresses because the people who started sending to them started to DM me, telling me that they responded "very weird" stuff back.
It started on a site where people are able to discuss and talk about a game called "Meridian 59". I was in one of the chats when a person called "YowlFoulIO" joined in on a conversation.
It started nice and friendly; he stated that we had played together in "Project Gorgon" once and that he was pleasantly surprised to see me in the chat. Even though I couldn't recall his name, maybe because I played with so many people, I enjoyed the conversation we had, and after a while, I gave him my Discord tag. We parted ways after that, and he said to add me soon so we could play together in the future.
The next morning, I saw a friend request in my Discord and saw that his Discord name was the same as the one in the chat yesterday. I added him, and after waving, he immediately came online. "Heyyyyy," his first message read. I responded with a "Hellllooooo" back, and we started chatting again. After 15 minutes of polite conversation, I curiously asked him where his name came from.
He didn't respond for a minute, but eventually, he told me that it was an anagram for something "fun" (he added the quotes himself). A bit weirded out, I didn't question him further and told him I was going to go and do something else, not specifying what that was or informing him further. He wasn't really happy about it but reluctantly said "fine."
I started to find his behavior a bit weird but shrugged my shoulders and started to boot up a new MMO I discovered some time ago.
After 3 hours of playing, it happened. I became a bit nervous, and my hair on my neck started to rise. As I was reading the in-game chat, a player called "YowlFoulIO" joined the game. With such an obscure tag, I knew it could only be him again.
I tried to calm myself down; it could be that this was just a coincidence and it was just a meaningless thing. But soon enough, he typed "hey Ellen" in the chat, and I just knew I was dealing with a stalker. Not responding to him, I blocked him on Discord and Steam and also made my socials private so if he went snooping around he couldn't find me. I had heard enough creepy stories to know what stalkers are like.
A bit relieved I was "safe" again, I let out a sigh of relief. I was glad it was a minimal encounter, and I dealt with it before it went out of hand, or so I thought. Not even 5 minutes after blocking him, I got an email from a person called (redacted); it contained only 5 words but it was enough to make me really, really scared. "You made a big mistake."
My blood went cold as I read it. I had no idea how he could've gotten my email as I use "fake mail" for most of my accounts. I didn't know how to deal with it or what to do anymore. None of the stories I had heard prepared me for this, and I felt a creeping fear that this guy was going to do something very bad.
I emailed him back, saying that I blocked him for a reason and that he was seriously creeping me out, stating I would go to the police if he continued like this. I then proceeded to create a new main email account and deleting the old one. It was going to take me some time to change my email everywhere, but I wanted to get rid of this guy as quickly as I could.
For a few days, nothing new happened. It seemed that he had lost his trail on me, and I prayed that he also wouldn't bother anyone else. After college, I went home and booted up my computer to be welcomed by a new mail. A mail to my new main mail account. I was nauseous immediately and felt sick to my stomach as my hands began to tremble. (redacted) had sent me a mail. It read like this:
"In shadows I dwell, an eternal dance with your fears. No escape, no sanctuary; my obsession, a relentless specter haunting your every step.
I love you so much, my ever love, my dove that only wants me, dying. You'll regret it though, you making me crying.
I love you, IFollowYou."
I, now in full panic mode, went to the nearest police station. Showing them all the evidence asking them for help.
They stated there wasn't much I could do besides putting down a complaint against an unknown. They told me to change my accounts again and to make sure I remained as safe as I could. When I got home again, I started crying. I never asked for this, and I was so, so scared someone was going to hurt me. Still in tears, I decided to call my dad who was on a business trip at that time. I wanted to hear his voice and wanted him to make me feel safe again.
He didn't pick up at first, but after the third call, he eventually picked up, and I started blurting out everything. After not hearing him saying anything back or making any noise, I went quiet. The other part of the line was quiet too, only for a faint heavy breathing on the other side. I started crying again and whispered "dad?," but my question was answered by the other side of the line ending the call.
I stood there for a couple of minutes, staring at the phone, not knowing what to do. I wanted to head back to the police again and have them check whether my dad was safe, but I was unable to move. I was so afraid and shocked, and that made me just stand there like a statue glued to the ground.
I only could move again when the power of my house went out. My heart dropped, and frantically I started swiping on my phone to put on my flashlight. Had he found me? Did he cut off the electricity, and was he going to kill me? Never in my life had I been so scared. I quietly went up the stairs, heading to my room, listening to any sound that could indicate he was entering my house. Reaching my room, I started to think that maybe something else had happened, trying to rationalize the power cutting out. Maybe it was just a malfunction and the whole street was out? How could a crazy stalker have found out a way to cut off my power, let alone finding my house when I never told my location to anyone online?
It was as I entered my room I heard the sound of shattering glass downstairs. I now was fearing for my life and even peed myself a little. I quickly opened my closet and removed the grate that was at the bottom of the wall in the back. It used to be the entrance to the crawlspace that led to the attic, but because of renovations, it was now a small space cut off from the entirety of the house.
I was putting the grate back in when I heard footsteps running around my house. Doors were being opened with force, and things were breaking and thrown everywhere. It went quiet for a second when all of a sudden, the footsteps rushed upstairs, and the door to my room was thrown open. Through the grate, I saw a small beam of light shining through the door of my closet. The beam became brighter, and the footsteps louder as it came closer to the door. The latter was slammed open, and the light ran through the closet. Only a bit of clothing was hiding the grate leading to me now. My heart was racing, and cold sweat was running down my spine. I slowly placed my hand in front of my mouth to mask my breathing. Tears were running down my face, but I managed to stay completely silent.
He went deeper into the closet, shining his flashlight everywhere. I could hear his heavy breathing and smell the stench that came off him. I could only see a little bit of him through the mix of grate and clothing, but I did manage to see something. He was large, very large. Wearing stained clothing with some stains looking like blood. In his left hand, he held a flashlight, and in his trembling right hand was a big, dull-looking, kitchen knife.
He was now standing practically beside the grate, only the clothes on the clothes hanger were masking the top half of it. I was counting down the seconds before he found me when he made a blood-curling scream and ran out of my closet, closing the doors behind him. He started frantically running around my house screaming my name and "I love you," "let me take care of you," "my dove."
It took 4 hours for him to calm down and give up. I heard him opening my front door and leaving. I started crying heavily from the trauma I just had lived through.
It took some time for me to calm down a little and call the police. Comforting me, the responder told me a unit was on the way and told me to remain where I was. He stayed on the line till I could hear the sirens and then told me to remain strong before finishing the call.
Hearing the sirens coming closer, I started opening the grate and started to climb out of my safe space. I couldn't believe that I was still alive and was thanking God when my closet doors were thrown open, and a man rushed at me.
He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall. I could feel my blood being cut off to my head because of the grip, and in the darkness, I could see his big dark eyes looking at me, flashing his yellow rotten teeth in a wicked smile. "I've caught my dove," was what I heard when a knife was thrust into my stomach. My vision got blurry, and I started drifting away, losing consciousness. "I'll always be with you" was the last thing I heard before I passed out.
I saw a big light when I opened my eyes. I thought I was in heaven, but when I opened them fully, I realized it was a hospital. I was hooked up to various life supports, and a bag with an unknown fluid went into my vein. A nurse came into my room and surprisingly said, "you're awake?"
Soon after, a doctor and a police officer came into the room. The doctor told me I had been out for three days and was recovering from a stab wound to my stomach and the infection that followed it. He then nodded at the officer, and the officer started speaking.
He stated that after I lost consciousness, the police arrived at my house and found me laying on the ground, bathing in my own blood. They called the ambulance, and because of a "wonder," as he said, I survived. He told me that the person who had entered my home didn't leave any DNA behind, and even my throat was wiped clean by him to make sure nothing was left behind. The only thing they found was a note stating "the 9th dove for my pen."
I'm still in the hospital recovering. I don't know what to do next, but I wanted to write this to make everyone aware of this. Don't trust the people you meet online. He might be one of them.