by Josiah Vallone
ATTIC
A room or space below the roof that is used to store unneeded objects. When my family moved from the rural area of California and into the city, this was my new bedroom. But it didn’t feel like home. I was just the alien that existed in it.
BIBLE
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadows of death, I’ll fear no evil, for you are with me,” I repeated this psalm in a low whisper throughout my first night in the new house. I had no reason not to wander into sleep. Still, it felt too grim for me to close my eyes. My anxiety had been aroused by something I couldn’t pinpoint.
CABLES
When my parents ventured out of the home, and us kids were unaccompanied, the internet, television, and phone would become inoperative. We had the cable man inspect the home multiple times. The first time, he said it appeared someone had snipped the wires in the basement under the house. The second, third, and fourth time, there was no indication of why the fused wires had cut off internally.
The cellar was always full of a few feet of sulfurous water. In the corner, there was a metal bed frame. Above the bed, there was a rusted can labeled “leak repair.”
DECEASED
Before the new carpet was installed, there was a visible stain on the padding of the master bedroom. The landlord pointed her crooked finger at the tarnished area before exclaiming “that’s where my baby was born.” When I asked how old her kid was now, she responded with “he died at birth.” I realized she characterized the home just as grim and barren as I had.
ECLIPSE
When one body encompasses the other: walking into my house, it “felt” like I was being dimmed by an eclipsing shadow.
FEAR
The thing that invaded the back of my neck with downward prickles:
- My nightmares. I believed they would become more malicious if I ever told a soul about them.
- The abandoned building at the top of the hill, rumored to be a place where teenagers would perform witchcraft.
GALAXY
Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Peggy, believed she was an “alien sent to earth to make peace.” I found out this knowledge by googling her name. With few clicks, I found a blog she made in distress, asking for help from other “children.” In the post, she detailed an event where she “opened a portal to another world.” When her “guide” came through, it sucked out her energy “like a vampire,” which was then “released into our world.” Mrs. Peggy was asking for help on how she could heal from the attack. It made sense, considering that she was severely sick when we knocked on her door to introduce ourselves at the time of moving in. When my mother discovered this, she told me to stay away from Mrs. Peggy. That was nearly impossible, since her home was the disconnected garage just a few feet from our house.
HALLUCINATIONS
I wake up. My heart feels like an exploding grenade with every beat. I’m drenched in the liquid of my own sweat. Only it’s not a feverish perspiration, the coldness in the room is solemn and brisk. I’m not alone. I “know” someone is looming over me– a feeling I’ve never felt before. My eyes scan the dancing shadows of my room. There he is. I see it. Not in physical form, but like a heat wave off the summer pavement. He is not a shadow, just a black hole that consumes all the light around it. He’s watching me. I’m watching him watch me. His head reaches the ceiling even while sitting down. I close my eyes, cover my vision with a blanket. I pray to God but can’t think of the words I need. They’ve been consumed by prowling darkness. I can’t create a happy thought to fight the presence that drains me.
INSANITY
The state of being seriously mentally ill; madness. I question my sanity at every waking hour. I wonder if these things around me are a product of my escalating anxiety and depression. Or is my anxiety and depression a product of the house?
JOLT
Moving with a sudden or jerking motion. Before the door found safety in its latch, it slammed in rebellion as I jolted. Upon inspection, nobody was behind the frame.
KITCHEN
I’m grabbing a glass of water in the late of night. A maternal voice drifts from the living area. Stepping closer to the noise, I clinch the corner of the wall while the whispers of my parents’ envelope my ears.
“I saw it, Kenny, running across the floor on all fours.”
“On all fours?”
“I ‘know’ I saw it,” she insists.
LAZINESS
What my mother accused me of when I started sleeping during the day and staying awake at night. I’d become nocturnal.
MARTIAN
Extraterrestrials. Little green men. Men from outer space. Merlin. Mrs. Peggy would talk with “Merlin” while she watered the garden or do her laundry in our house. She was always alone.
NAPE
The back of the neck. While lying in bed, I’d occasionally “feel” a warm exhale on the nape, as if someone was in my bed, right behind me.
OPPRESSION
When my friend visited to sleep over, she never came back, saying she “felt oppression” in the house. I didn’t need her to explain more.
PRAYER
My religious mother was convinced that Mrs. Peggy was “demon possessed.” In response, she decided to pray over Mrs. Peggy’s house and anoint the front door with oil. Us kids watched out the window when Peggy came home. She “tried” to get in her house, but “something” wasn’t letting her. In frustration, she left the house and didn’t return for three days – the three most peaceful days we had in that house. This convinced my mother of her suspicions.
QUODDAMODOTATIVE
Existing in a certain manner. Example:
- An alien.
- A demon.
- A house.
- A mind.
RUG
My father once met a woman who claimed to be the housekeeper for Hitler. In her story, she walked into Hitler’s office and found him convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and biting the rug. One night, while looking through my attic window and into the house of Mrs. Peggy, that is precisely what I saw.
SLEEPLESS
I stared at the ceiling until the sun rose up every morning. The lamp stayed on. I was too afraid to close my eyes at nighttime – too fearful of being trapped in another nightmare being tormented in hell.
TAPPING
It became routine to hear “tapping” on the windows or doors. Like a heartbeat of the home’s walls. In my attic bedroom, there was a small door that led to the crawl space of the attic. It began with a tapping, knocking, banging, and then I covered the little door with my dresser, in fear that it would open.
UNDERNEATH
I took the frame of my bed away and stuck the mattress on the floor. Is this what insanity looks like?
VALIDATE
Other members of my family began sharing similar experiences to mine. My parents agreed to move away when the one-year lease was over.
WHEREABOUTS
At the top of the hill behind my house, teenagers would practice witchcraft in an abandoned building. When the facility was built, it was an orphanage for children. After being shut down by the state for mistreating children, the facility reopened as a juvenile hall. When it was closed down a second time for the same reason, the facility transformed into a mental institute for adults. Unfortunately, the build caught fire and all the patients burnt to a crisp. It’s laid dormant for years until recently, when I found my former neighbor Mrs. Peggy in the local news. She is excited to move into the building when they transform it into an affordable housing complex for those who receive mental health services.
XENODOCHIUM
A building for the reception of strangers.
“For you are aliens and temporary residents with Me.” – Leviticus 25:23
YEDE
To go. I never looked back. I ran into Mrs. Peggy once, while sitting on the bench at the bus stop. My smile was overlooked as she whispered words under her breath that I couldn’t decipher.
“That was creepy,” my cousin commented once Mrs. Peggy was gone.
“I think that was my old neighbor,” I replied. It was difficult to recognize Mrs. Peggy, who had more wrinkles, a large trench coat, and hair that was completely tangled. In the fleeting moment she passed, I “felt” a looming presence over me, as if I was back in that house.
Still, now that the experiences are in the past, I question how much of what I saw was in my head or a reality.
ZYGOSIS
The formation or existence of a connection between things that are peculiar.
Josiah Vallone is a Hendrix College graduate with a BA in Creative Writing and a graduate of Northwest Arkansas Community College with an honors AFA in Creative Writing. He has two publications in Hive Avenue and one publication in Vortex Magazine. In 2021, his nonfiction essay titled Reputation won Best Nonfiction Essay 2021 by the ACMA.