HOUSE ON CROCKETT

“Screw it, I'll tell it. Anonymous pls.

It was my old house on Crockett.

For context, my parents divorced in 2008. It wasn't a good split and my mom had some severe mental issues that only got worse.

My dad left her the house. It’s a beautiful home, cozy and on the corner. There’s a big bay window and natural light. It always felt like home until the divorce.

It became dark and stale, you couldn't wait to leave. Her health declined and she eventually ended up in hospice care.

After I had cleaned up the house, it felt better. So I moved in.

The first week I moved in, I was in the middle room unpacking and decorating. There's a closet in that middle room.

I had a pair of unique leopard print flats that I loved. I took them off and put them right next to the closet door then went about my business.

When I went to put my shoes back on a few hours later,...no shoes.

I looked all over the place for those shoes. I was only halfway moved in so there wasn't very much of my things. I even combed the backyard and garage. No shoes.

We had dogs, but they weren't at the house and wouldn't be for another three months. My then-boyfriend was not living there yet either. Where did my shoes go?

The closet door was slightly ajar and I remembered having closed it. At the time it didn't seem too strange.

I thought about those shoes every time I closed that same closet door. See, the door never stayed shut. It was one of those sturdy solid brass doorknobs, you lean on the door a bit and hear/feel the click of the mechanism settling into the latch. It was not faulty and could not be opened without turning the doorknob with your hand.

Yet nearly every time I would come into the middle room, the door would be slightly ajar. It never opened while I was in the room, but i would hear the click of the knob turning from another room and go in there to see it open.

There was also a crawl space in that closet. It wasn't a full crawl space, it was simply to access some parts of the house. It's shallow and certainly can't hide a full grown man. There is nothing down there but cobwebs and dirt.

But the cover to that crawl space was an extra bit of the carpet over the opening, like a false panel of sorts. And that would always be ajar as well.

Any time I closed the closet door, I would peek at the crawlspace opening and sure enough...it would be slightly ajar.

I spent the next 2.5 years in the house. When I moved out. I went to the house one last time to walk through.

While in the kitchen I heard the click of that closet door and went into the middle room. The closet door was ajar, as usual. I also saw the closet light was on so I opened the door to pull the chain to turn the light off when I saw it.

It was half of my leopard print shoe.

It was my right shoe and it looked like it had been torn in half. It was the toe box, the outside fabric and sole and that was it.

The crawlspace cover was halfway off. Not slightly ajar like usual.

I shut the closet door and went to leave.

The fucked up part is that as I halfway out through the back door, I heard the click of the damn closet door opening again. “