The Basement Door

My parents lived beside a small house that seemed strangely empty. Cars were often parked outside, but I never saw anyone enter or leave. From our yard, two large windows were visible, and once I noticed shadows moving behind one of them.

When I moved into a converted basement room, I had a door leading to an outdoor stairwell. The door contained a small window covered by a thin curtain. From my bed and couch, I faced that window directly.

After I moved in, I sometimes heard leaves crunching in the stairwell at night. I assumed it was my cat wandering outside. A few weeks later, while my parents were away, my boyfriend and I were sitting on the couch when he suddenly stared at the window. He said he had seen a camera flash.

I tried to dismiss it, but I became increasingly uneasy. The stairwell had no light, so anyone standing there would have been hidden in darkness.

Later that night, I heard heavy footsteps and leaves crunching in the stairwell. I opened the door and saw no one, then ran up the steps into the yard. A man stood there holding an old digital camera. He looked surprised to see me.

I demanded to know what he was doing. He turned and ran through the yard toward the neighboring house and disappeared into the darkness.

After that, the flashes and footsteps stopped. I still think about how many nights he might have stood outside the basement window watching me. The most frightening part was realizing that the sounds I had blamed on my cat may have been made by someone deliberately entering the stairwell and photographing the people inside.