Chapter 4: The Trespasser's Ledger

Chapter 4: The Trespasser's Ledger

Guilt was a physical thing. It sat cold and heavy in Brett’s stomach as he idled in his beat-up sedan, parked a block away from Jameson’s house. The image of his friend’s face—the initial shock giving way to excruciating pain and then, worst of all, to a look of utter, soul-crushing betrayal—was burned into his retinas. He had broken more than an arm back in that hallway. He had shattered a friendship, fractured his own morality, and kicked the foundations out from under his life.

He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. The frantic escape from the dorm had led him here, almost on autopilot. The guilt screamed at him to drive away, to turn himself in, to do anything to rewind the last hour. But another voice, quieter and far more insidious, whispered from the passenger seat where the cardboard box of letters sat. It was the voice of Danny, of Mrs. Everly, of the Watcher himself.

You can’t go back.

The thought was a cold, hard stone of certainty. His old life was gone, incinerated in the fire of his obsession. The only path left was forward, deeper into the woods. The only way to justify the horror he’d inflicted on Jameson was to prove that the threat was real. If he could find the truth, if he could show that he wasn’t just going insane, then his monstrous actions might be recast as a necessary evil. He needed a reason. He needed absolution.

And the first step to finding it was locked away inside that house.

He knew they’d be at the hospital. He knew the house would be empty. He also knew that Mr. Monty, Jameson’s dad, kept meticulous digital records of his clean-out jobs on his home office computer. Somewhere in that house was the address of the property on the edge of Bluff Wood, the place where Danny’s story began. The nexus.

Waiting for the streetlights to cast long, deep shadows, Brett pulled his hoodie up and slipped out of the car. The familiar walk up the driveway felt like a trespasser’s journey across enemy lines. Every house was a watchtower, every barking dog an alarm. He circled around to the back of the house, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The kitchen window. Jameson always forgot to lock the kitchen window. It was a running joke between them after Brett had snuck in to retrieve a video game he’d left behind years ago. Now, it felt like a weaponized piece of intimate knowledge, another small act of betrayal.

The window slid open with a soft groan. He hoisted himself over the sill and dropped silently onto the cool linoleum floor.

The house was unnervingly still. He stood frozen in the darkness of the kitchen, listening. The only sound was the low, electric hum of the refrigerator. This place, which had been a second home to him for years, was now an alien landscape. He could see the ghostly outline of a cereal bowl left on the counter, a testament to a morning that had started with normal, mundane concerns and had ended in a hospital emergency room because of him. The guilt gnawed at him, but the desperate need for answers was a stronger, sharper hunger.

He crept through the house, each creak of the floorboards a gunshot in the silence. He passed the living room where he and Jameson had logged thousands of hours playing video games, the hallway lined with family photos of a smiling, happy boy whose arm he had just broken. He forced the images from his mind, focusing only on the goal.

Mr. Monty’s office was at the end of the hall. The door was ajar. A sliver of pale moonlight cut across the cluttered desk, illuminating the hulking shape of the desktop computer. It was asleep, its power light pulsing like a slow, steady heartbeat.

He slipped inside, closing the door behind him with a barely audible click. He touched the mouse. The screen flickered to life, demanding a password. For a sickening moment, panic seized him. But then he remembered a conversation from a barbecue last summer, Mr. Monty complaining about his wife always forgetting the password. “It’s just our anniversary, for God’s sake! Easiest date in the world to remember!”

Brett knew their anniversary. He’d been to the party. His fingers, slick with sweat, typed the numbers. 0814.

The desktop bloomed into view. His breath hitched. He was in. He navigated through a series of folders—Finances, Family, Monty Property Solutions. He clicked the last one. A list of subfolders appeared. Invoices, Client Contacts, Job Ledgers.

He opened the ledgers. Files were organized by year and quarter. Jameson had said his dad found the box recently. Brett clicked on the most recent folder. A list of property addresses filled the screen. He scanned them, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for a clue. Jameson had mentioned it once, a passing comment: “…some old creepy house on the edge of Bluff Wood.”

There. Halfway down the list. 1414 Bluff Wood Road. The notes beside it were brief: Foreclosure. Estate of M. Gable. Attic and subfloor clean-out. Property abandoned ~15 years. Disposed of refuse. Box of old letters found under attic floorboards.

A jolt of pure, triumphant adrenaline shot through him, momentarily eclipsing the guilt. This was it. The address. The physical location where the nightmare had been born. He quickly opened a web browser, logged into a burner email account he’d created on his phone, and sent the address to himself. He triple-checked that it was sent, then dragged the email to the trash and deleted it. He cleared the browser history, his movements quick and precise.

He backed away from the desk, his mission complete. All he had to do was get out.

He retraced his steps, moving with ghost-like silence through the dark, sleeping house. He reached the kitchen, the open window a beckoning square of freedom. He was almost there. He put one leg over the sill, his body tense. He was getting away with it.

That’s when he heard it.

Scraaaaape. Drag. Scraaaaape.

The sound came from outside, on the far side of the house. It was a rhythmic, dragging noise, like someone pulling a heavy, dry branch along the vinyl siding of the house.

Brett froze, his body half in, half out of the window. His blood ran cold. There were no large trees on that side of the house; he knew it. Just a manicured lawn. The sound was slow, deliberate, and impossibly long. It started near the front corner of the house and was moving, steadily, methodically, along the wall toward the back. Toward him.

Scraaaaape. Drag. Scraaaaape.

It wasn’t a branch. The thought flashed in his mind, stark and terrifying. It sounded bigger. Sharper. It sounded like a long, spindly finger, miles long, dragging against the thin wall separating the safe, suburban world from… something else. It was the sound of something impossibly tall taking a single, leisurely step past the house.

His breath caught in his throat, a strangled knot of pure, primal fear. He didn't dare to look. He didn't dare to make a sound. He simply stayed, petrified, as the scraping noise continued its slow journey along the length of the house, passed the kitchen where he was hiding, and then faded into the silent, watchful dark of the backyard.

He tumbled the rest of the way out of the window, landing hard on the damp grass. For a long moment, he lay there, gasping for air, his mind screaming. It wasn't just in the letters anymore. It was here. It was real. And it knew he was listening.