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This Man's Horror Story He Experienced As A Kid Will Have You Checking Your Vents And Attics

October 30, 2019

In the spirit of Halloween, a guy on Twitter decided to share a real life horror story that happened to him when he was 9 years old and it will have you checking your attic and vents before going to sleep tonight.

This is what Grady Hendrix wrote:

Everyone's telling scary stories for Halloween so I'll talk about something that happened to me when I was a kid because hey, trauma never gets old.

When I turned 9 I realized I could sneak downstairs after everyone was asleep and eat anything I wanted in the fridge. No one ever noticed!

I could make a peanut butter, Cheez Whiz, & mayo sandwich, eat leftover pizza, scrape off the icing from birthday cakes - as long as I was careful I could do anything!

Creeping down was the hardest part. I had to navigate the pitch dark house all the way downstairs in total darkness like a tiny ninja.

One night in May, '81 we ordered from Fish & Shrimp House. I waited until everyone was asleep and crept downstairs to eat the leftover sweet n'sour pork.

It took forever. I finally stepped into the totally dark den & let down my guard. All of a sudden I heard a fork click on the counter. I froze. The microwave clock light showed the outline of a man sitting at our kitchen counter.

He couldn't see me, but I saw him: a skinny guy, eating our leftovers, and drinking our milk from the carton.

I can't explain how terrifying it is for someone to BE IN YOUR HOUSE. I slooooowly backed away, crept upstairs, and woke up my mom & dad.

They made way too much noise & took way too long and by the time they got downstairs the kitchen was empty.

Everyone said I read too many horror comics so they blew off what I said. But no way was I pouring milk on my cereal.

I started tracking the position of everything in the kitchen. One day the paper napkin holder was on the wrong side of the counter. Another day a mug was in the sink that was NOT there the night before.

My bedroom door didn't lock so I kept a steak knife under my pillow. I must've stabbed myself in the hand 1000 times checking to make sure it was there.

Then in August, I was in my room reading when I looked up. There's an A/C vent over my bed. Behind the vent a pair of eyes were watching me.

I freaked and raised hell until my parents searched our attic and the crawl space under our house. Nothing. I wasn't very popular for a few weeks.

The last week of August our house started to smell. One night, rice fell out of the vent over my bed. Maggots. The A/C people said something had probably crawled into our vents and died.

Turns out what had crawled into our vents & died was the guy. We lived in an old house with lots of space between the walls and big ducts. He'd been living in them since May. At least.

He'd put a foam pad beside my bedroom vent so he'd be comfortable while he watched me. The police said he'd made lots of “drawings” but when I asked they pretended they hadn't said anything.

No one ever identified him. He was buried as a John Doe. To this day I can't look inside the vents in houses.

But sometimes when I'm at someone's house I'll smell a little BO coming from their central air conditioning, and I'll wonder who's living back there in their ducts. Who's living in the dark?

Follow Grady Hendrix on Twitter.