Chapter 1 - THE PHOTOGRAPHS
The realization that a stranger was living in my house did not come from a bump in the night.
It came from a forgotten roll of film.
I found it on a Tuesday afternoon while searching through the bottom drawer of my desk for an old receipt. The drawer was full of things I had not touched in years—expired warranties, batteries that probably no longer worked, birthday cards, spare keys, and several envelopes containing photographs from before Sarah died.
The roll was wrapped in a faded paper sleeve.
Across the front, someone had written one word in black ink.
BEDROOM.
I stared at it for several seconds.
I almost threw it away.
Instead, something made me put it in my pocket.
The next morning, I drove to the camera shop in town.
The owner told me the film was old but still usable. I gave him my number and left.
Two days later, I opened the envelope inside my truck.
The first photograph showed my bedroom.
My bed.
My curtains.
My face.
Sleeping.
I frowned.
The second photograph showed my face again.
Closer.
The third showed my hand resting on the blanket.
The fourth showed my closed eyes.
By the tenth photograph, my stomach had tightened.
All thirty-six photographs were of me sleeping.
Different nights.
Different angles.
Different positions.
Some had clearly been taken from beside the bed.
One had been taken from the doorway.
Another appeared to have been taken from directly above my pillow.
Then I reached the final photograph.
My hands began to shake.
An orange timestamp appeared in the corner.
3:00 A.M. — YESTERDAY.
Yesterday.
The photograph had been taken inside my bedroom while I was asleep.
I triple-locked that door every night.
One deadbolt.
One secondary latch.
And a brass chain Sarah had installed years ago because she hated the hallway door rattling whenever the wind came through the old windows.
I stared at the photograph until the image blurred.
Someone had stood beside my bed.
Someone had watched me sleep.
Someone had taken a photograph of my face less than twenty-four hours earlier.
And I had not heard anything.
I drove home without turning on the radio.
The house looked exactly the same.
White siding.
Blue shutters.
Sarah's rose bushes climbing the fence.
The porch light I always forgot to replace.
Nothing looked disturbed.
But now everything looked wrong.
I checked the front door.
Locked.
Back door.
Locked.
Kitchen window.
Locked.
Garage.
Locked.
I went upstairs.
My bedroom door looked normal.
Then I saw the scratch.
It was near the bottom of the frame.
A thin metallic mark.
Almost invisible.
I crouched beside it.
The scratch looked as if someone had slipped a narrow tool between the door and the frame.
My heartbeat accelerated.
I stood and examined the brass chain.
It was still attached.
The deadbolt was still locked.
The latch was still intact.
That made no sense.
Unless the person had another way inside.
My phone rang.
It was my son, Mark.
I answered immediately.
"Hey."
"Dad."
His voice sounded strange.
"What?"
"Don't use the car this year."
I frowned.
"What car?"
"The Mustang."
I looked toward the garage.
"I wasn't talking about the Mustang."
Silence.
Long enough for me to hear the refrigerator humming behind me.
Then Mark said quietly,
"I know."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"What does that mean?"
"Where are you?"
"Home."
"Are you alone?"
I looked around the kitchen.
"Yes."
"Lock the doors."
"They're already locked."
"Check again."
I walked toward the back door.
"Mark, what's going on?"
He hesitated.
"I'll come over."
"When?"
"Tonight."
"Mark."
"I'll explain everything tonight."
Then he hung up.
I stood there staring at the phone.
My son had never spoken to me like that.
Not even when Sarah died.
I went into the garage.
The Mustang sat beneath its cover.
I had owned it for twenty-two years.
Sarah had bought it for me as an anniversary present before she died.
I pulled the cover away.
Nothing seemed wrong.
I opened the driver's door.
The interior smelled exactly as it always had.
Leather.
Dust.
Old pine air freshener.
I checked the glove compartment.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something beneath the driver's seat.
A black plastic memory card.
I pulled it out.
There was no label.
I took it inside.
My hands felt cold.
I inserted it into my computer.
A folder appeared.
There were dozens of files.
Photographs.
Videos.
I opened the first photograph.
My house.
The second.
My backyard.
The third.
Mark standing outside my garage.
The fourth.
Sarah.
I stopped breathing.
It was an old photograph.
Sarah was alive.
The image showed her standing beside the house.
But there was something strange about it.
She was looking directly at the camera.
The timestamp was dated six months after the official date of her death.
I leaned closer to the screen.
Then another file opened.
This one showed Mark.
He was sitting in a car.
Someone had photographed him through the windshield.
The final file was a text document.
Only one sentence appeared.
HE KNOWS YOU FOUND THE FILM.
I stared at it.
Then I heard a sound upstairs.
A floorboard creaked.
I slowly closed the laptop.
The sound came again.
This time from my bedroom.
I reached for the nearest object I could use as a weapon.
A heavy fireplace poker.
Then I climbed the stairs.
Slowly.
One step at a time.
When I reached my bedroom, the door was open.
I knew I had closed it.
I stood in the hallway.
My hand tightened around the poker.
Then something moved inside the room.
A shadow.
I pushed the door open.
Nobody was there.
The window was closed.
The closet was empty.
The bathroom was empty.
But on my pillow lay something I had never seen before.
A single photograph.
I picked it up.
It showed me standing in the hallway.
Taken from behind.
The timestamp was five minutes earlier.
May you like
And beneath the photograph, someone had written:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE HOUSE YEARS AGO.
