The shaking, the scratching, and the rattling inside Natalie’s vent system was something she was thinking about getting checked out. The house might be old, but seriously, it was starting to get ridiculous. Her boyfriend just kept telling her she was paranoid, but she knows there has to be something. Her mom doesn’t believe her, either. She says she’s just delusional.

They just moved into their new house a couple of months ago. The landlord said that it was built in the nineteen-fifties, which was surprising because it had a modern layout. As soon as her mom and she stepped into it, they fell in love and felt the need to move in. The garage door might be broken, either going straight up or straight down extremely fast. The insulation was poorly installed and the walls are thin.

While this is all fine and dandy, Natalie’s worried about her dog making the adjustment. Dizzy, their dog, used to prance and run for hours back and forth in the backyard before they got to that house. Once a gentle, happy puppy, she attacks any stranger that comes close to Natalie. It drives her nuts that she can’t have friends over because she’s afraid Dizzy will knock them over and bite and nip, since she’s so huge.

Her mom is always on the verge of wanderlust, always “on the run” to escape the dreams she leaves behind her. Natalie doesn’t know what stable is and most likely never will. She dismisses the odd quietness that circles her home all around her.

When Natalie’s getting ready for bed one night in the bathroom, she realizes she can hear her mom singing to herself before she takes a shower. She bends down to the floor to see if she can distinguish it clearly. “Mom?”

“Natalie?” Her voice comes out unmistakably from the vent on the ground. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I guess we can talk through the vents.” Despite the distance between their two rooms, they could still communicate easily.

She couldn’t help the negative energy that she could feel in her bones when she was alone. The air conditioner’s turning on and off constantly and doors slamming shut because of the uneven flooring was making her question her sanity. It’s when Dizzy teeth grab hold of her wrist and clench tightly without letting go is when Natalie really loses it. She aggressively takes her outside and pushes the dog outside, locking the door behind her. Is she really that crazy or is something wrong with her house?

She’s starting to get a headache and isn’t feeling well, so she lies down in her bed with the lights off. She gets a text from her mom saying that she’s going to be working late and won’t be home for dinner. Being isolated in this creepy place was not thrilling, but she knew she’d survive. There was a loud bang from the garage, and then a door crashed shut. This was weird because Natalie didn’t hear her mom’s car roll up in the driveway. A few minutes later, she hears footsteps come up the hall and all the way to her door, and stop.

“Mom? Are you there?”

There’s silence, so Natalie just goes back to trying to relax and take a nap. Then she knows she’s not just imagining things, because there’s a sound like dragging going up the hallway until it’s right in front of her door.
She stills, frightened that if she moves a muscle whatever is outside her room will come after her. The sun sets and it’s getting darker, and Natalie’s beginning to get freaked out. She turns the light on so she feels safer. Despite this, things start to take a turn for the worse.

Bang, bang. It sounds like someone is pushing on her door with all their force, both hands spread out across it, thumping and thumping. There’s rattling like no tomorrow and whispering coming out of the air vent. The room is chilly and causes goosebumps up and down Natalie’s arms. The golden door handle slowly turns, twisting at a torturing sluggish pace.

Sweat trickles down the side of her face and she backs against the opposite wall, terrified. Eventually, the door opens and soulless eyes meet hers. An outline of a person, entirely black from head to toe stares at her. It’s scraping a body by the arms across the floor. It’s only a torso that doesn’t look human. It’s a pure nightmare.
Natalie mumbles a prayer to God that He will save her. The door smashes and the power is so strong that it knocks her down. She dares to leave through the entrance of her room and into the bathroom, locking herself in. She sits on the cold hard ground and holds her head in her hands to recover.

“Natalie…”

The noise is coming from the vent.

“Natalie…”

It’s getting more frustrated. It doesn’t like that she’s not answering. It. They. She doesn’t know.

“Natalie. Natalie. Natalie. NATALIE. NATALIE. NATALIE! NATALIE!”  They’re shouting at her, and it’s almost like they’re right next to her, kissing her neck and weaving themselves all around her.

She covers her ears with her hands, making fists and shaking. She’s trembling and her muscles are tight. Her lungs are on fire but her fingers are ice. Her mouth is frozen shut and her legs are barely beginning to thaw.
Her palms are over her eyes, like she’s only watching a horror movie and doesn’t want to see the blonde girl being murdered. She peers out between her fingers and into the metal darkness of the vent.

“Natalie?” It comes out as a question, raspy and animal-like, scratchy and deadly.

A dry, bloody hand with ripped off fingernails reaches up towards her, grasping the iron bars above it. It’s reaching, desperate to destroy and ruin her. She sprints out, delirious now. She tries leaving out the garage door, pressing the button repeatedly, hoping it will open. “Please work. Please.” She continues pressing it nonstop. Dizzy’s yelping and barking is overwhelmingly noisy.

Looking over her shoulder, the entity is right behind her, breathing into her ear. One arm is wrapped around her waist and the other holding onto the body missing half of itself. “Natalie.”

She shrieks and wrenches herself out of its grip. The garage decides to open, and she’s almost there, escaping from this hell so close. Suddenly, the monster is standing in front of her, and she’s so shocked she trips and falls headfirst onto the concrete. She’s crawling, she can see outside into the street right in front of her, almost touching her fingertips.

They said it was a freak accident. How mysterious, they said. We don’t know how it happened, they said. Impossible, they said. Natalie’s abdomen was split in two when the garage door came down and landed on her body, separate perfectly cut pieces. The landlord couldn’t get the blood stains out. The house doesn’t sell.