My friend Josh was my polar opposite. He as a young, successful entrepreneur, and, frankly said, filthy rich. I on the other hand was a perpetual failure, who lived in a small one-room apartment, always looking to make it to the end of the month. While Josh owned a flourishing online business, I drifted from one odd job to another.
Why’s this important? Because Josh left me a strange set of rules.
About two weeks ago, he had to leave for another business trip and needed someone to sit his house and take care of his cats. Josh owned four of the little buggers, all exotic breeds. He came up to me since he knew my situation had taken a turn for the worse because of Covid. I was behind on rent, bills kept stacking up, and finding work was harder than ever. Josh offered me a fair amount of money, enough to last me an entire month, and I eventually accepted his offer.
Every single time I visited his house, I was awestruck. It was a beautiful, two-story building he’d bought a couple years back and renovated from the ground up. There was probably more modern technology in his home than the rest of the entire neighborhood. Josh didn’t just own a smart TV or smart lights. He had an entire smart living room, a smart kitchen with a smart coffee machine, and even a freaking smart toilet. I didn’t even know half the stuff he owned existed, and wondered why he’d need any of it. Josh, however, loved everything that was new, shiny, and, of course, smart.
When I arrived, he offered me a bottle of imported crafts beer and led me inside. He told me the couch was all mine, I could roam the place as I saw fit, but his office was off-limits. Josh was very particular about this stuff, and I didn’t see any reason to intrude.
After those first instructions, he introduced me to the cats; an older Bengal, an Egyptian Mau, a Cornish Rex, and a recently acquired Savannah kitten. To be honest, I only remembered the different breeds because of his list of notes. I was never a cat person. No, to be honest, I was never a pet person. Once he’d told me all their names, which I’d forgotten the moment he’d left, he handed me an envelope containing his instructions about the cats. Or as he called it, The Rules.
He gave me a little wink, and told me to only open them once he’d left. I rolled my eyes, but gave him a little laugh. Josh was not only a weirdo, but he was also a very childish and immature person. I could already tell his so-called rules were nothing but bullshit. Still, I humored him and his antics, and put the envelope away on the couch table for now.
Josh told me a few more things about the house before he handed me the money and went on his way.
Once I’d settled in, I treated myself to another one of the crafts beers and sat back down to read The Rules. I’d prepared myself to find the envelope filled with nothing but silly pictures, but to my surprise it actually contained a list of rules.
The Rules – Instructions on How to Succeed at Cat Sitting
1. Feed the cats twice a day, at 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM. DON’T be late.
2. Always measure the amount of food using a measuring cup following the instructions on page two.
3. Each cat has their own special food, and follows a strict diet plan. DON’T mix up the food, and leave their feeding bowls at their respective places.
I rolled my eyes at his peculiarities. They were freaking cats. Why was all this stuff so important?
4. If the TV turns on at 10:23 PM on a random channel, leave it on. DON’T turn it off before 10:48 PM.
When I read this one I stared at the list for a moment before I chuckled. Really, Josh? Cryptic, obscure rules? God, this was too silly, even for him.
5. The cats need to be groomed every other day. Check the instructions on page three for more information.
6. If the lights turn on in a random room of the house, DON’T turn them off until the following morning.
7. Should you take out the trash, ALWAYS use the dumpster on the far right. ALWAYS make sure to close it. NEVER open the one on the left.
Yeah, this was getting stupid. It was obvious what was going on here, and for a second I was about to crumble up his stupid list and throw it away. Then I read on. Who knows, maybe there’s still something important between all the bullshit?
8. There’s an outdoor kennel for the cats. Make sure to let them out in the afternoon.
9. If you hear strange noises after 11:00 PM, ignore them and DON’T try to figure out their origin. Just stay in the living room. Again, DON’T try to figure out where they come from.
10. There might be noises coming from the office at random times during the night. DON’T enter at any time. The noises will soon stop again.
11. Each cat has a specific nutrient mix that should be added to their water bowls. Check page two for more instructions. Try not to forget it.
12. If you hear a knock against the window, you must ignore it. DON’T let anyone in. She will leave again if you ignore her.
13. Ignore any voices you hear throughout the house. There’s no one else there. Don’t investigate. They will stop eventually.
14. The beer’s all yours, but try not to get wasted and break things.
Once done, I couldn’t help but laugh. This was so typical for Josh. I put the list aside and checked out pages two and three. They were filled to the brim with detailed information about each cat. With a sigh, I went through them, trying to understand what the hell I was supposed to do. By then, t was almost noon. I checked the feeding and water bowls, but Josh must’ve filled them up before he left. So I didn’t have to do anything except letting the cats out in the afternoon, and feeding them in the evening.
The first day at Josh’s place was amazing. After a couple of hours, I could see the appeal of all these gadgets. If I wanted to listen to a specific song on his 5.1 sound system, all I had to do was call out its name. A single wave of my hand could turn off the lights, and don’t even get me started on the toilet.
As the hours passed, I watched Netflix on his giant movie projector and enjoyed a few more of the crafts beers. Man, I could get used to this sort of life. Some of the cats joined me at random intervals, eying their new roommate curiously.
Once it was evening, I followed Josh’s instructions and refilled the cat’s feeding bowls. It was harder than I’d expected; I was quiet tipsy by then, and Josh owned a plethora of different cat foods and nutrient mixes. In the end, I got everything right, at least I think so.
I’d just sat down for yet another movie when I heard sounds coming from the second floor. It was quiet and barely audible while the movie was playing. At first, I thought it was one of the cats, but when I turned off the movie, I realized it was a woman’s voice. A shiver went down my spine. As I listened, it almost sounded like she was… counting. I made my way from the living room and to the stairs.
“…seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen…” and on it went.
Needless to say, I was damned confused, and not just a little scared about what was going on.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” I called out, but got no answer.
Instead, the numbers continued to decrease until they reached zero. At this point, the voice stopped and silence returned. I swallowed, and after another minute had passed, I carefully ascended the stairs. No one was there. All I saw was an empty hallway. I didn’t know what I expected, but I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or not. Right at that moment, I remembered Josh’s list of rules and returned to the living room. There it was, the penultimate rule on the list:
14. Ignore any voices you hear throughout the house. There’s no one else there. Don’t investigate. They will stop eventually.
All right, I told myself, this was bullshit. It was most likely a recording being played somewhere up there. With another beer as mental support, I went back upstairs. As I checked the walls though, I found no hint of a speaker or a radio. I was about to open one of the doors when I saw a light flicker on and off at the end of the hallway. Fuck this, I told myself. I didn’t know what was going on, but I sure as hell didn’t want to mess with any of it. Still, it was probably nothing. Just a malfunctioning light.
When I returned to the living room, though, I checked every corner before I settled back on the couch. For the first time since I’d arrived, I was happy to see the cats nearby. At least I didn’t have to sleep here all by myself.
When my phone woke me up at 7:00 AM the next morning, my head was slightly throbbing. I made my way to the kitchen and instructed Josh’s coffee machine to make me one of its strongest options. With the blackest coffee I’d ever seen in my life, I made my way to the feeding bowls. The cats followed me, but at a safe distance. The moment I took out their food, however, they were all over me. Oh, I knew what was going on here, you deceitful little creatures.
Nothing special happened over the course of the second day. I spent most of it either in the living room or exploring Josh’s home. In the evening, I found my way into his small, private library. It was filled with books on self-improvement and a sheer endless amount of business manuals. Eventually, I discovered a collection of the works of M. C. Escher, hidden away between an obscure work on Eastern philosophy and a biography of Jay Gould.
With the Escher books in my hand, I returned to the living room, and instructed Alexa to play some ambient music. While I busy studying Escher’s optical illusions, the room was suddenly flooded by the light of the TV. I jerked up and stared at it. It was set to a random channel, showing nothing but static. How the hell had the damned thing turned on? I checked if I’d sat on the remote, or if one of the cats had toyed with it, but I found it resting on the couch table. I reached for it, and was about to turn the TV back off when I saw the list of rules nearby. Hadn’t there been something on the TV on there? I found the one I’d been looking for right away.
4. If the TV turns on at 10:23 PM on a random channel, leave it on. DON’T turn it off before 10:48 PM.
When I checked the clock, I saw that it was 10:25 PM. Oh, you’ve got to be freaking kidding me. For a moment I was about to say fuck it, and turn it off, but then I remembered the weird voice from last night. I told myself again nothing was going on. Just another error in the settings. Yet there was that quiet voice in the back of my mind asking me ‘What if?’
Grumbling I put the remote down, and tried my best to ignore the annoying static. Once it was close to 11:00 PM, I decided it was safe enough to turn it off, and go to sleep.
Thus ended my second night at Josh’s home.
Over the next days, more strange things happened around the house. I was still telling myself it was all a malfunction or a coincidence. Hell, maybe Josh was fucking with me, but that quiet voice in the back of my mind wasn’t so quiet anymore. Every day, I found the lights on in random rooms, rooms I’d never even set foot in. At other times, I heard the strange voice again, always counting down to zero.
I tried to call Josh, but I couldn’t reach him. When I sent him a message about the weird occurrences, all I got back was a simple ‘Just follow the rules and everything’s fine.’ I cursed at that and almost threw my phone across the room. To be honest, I almost noped the fuck out of his house by day four. Real or not, this was all too weird, and it was getting to me. The problem was, Josh trusted me, and he’d paid me a fair amount of money to take care of his cats. So I stayed.
It was by day five that things took a turn for the worse, and I should come to regret my decision. I was in the living room, browsing Reddit when noises reached my ears yet again. This time it wasn’t the counting voice, though. Instead it sounded like someone was banging against the walls. Each bang made me jerked up, and eventually, I had enough of this shit. This stops now, I told myself. As I made my way to the stairs, I got another idea. What if Josh had hired another one of his friends to sneak in and fuck with me? It was a silly idea, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
More angry than afraid, I made my way up the stairs, and soon located the source of the noise: Josh’s office. I remembered his words. Hell, I remembered the freaking rule about the office, but I didn’t give a shit anymore.
“All right, whoever the fuck you are, knock it off!” I cursed “If Josh put you up to this to scare me, well done, you got me, ha ha!”
The banging continued, but soon I heard something else. It was crying, muffled crying.
“What the fuck…?” I mumbled, staring at the door.
“… help me…” I heard a quiet, muffled voice from inside the office.
My eyes grew wide and an icy shower went down my spine. It was Josh’s voice.
“… please, this guy broke in, and he locked me up here…”
The voice went quiet, and once more the crying started before labored breathing replaced it.
“Josh…? What the fuck?”
I got no answer. All I heard instead was more of the labored breathing coming from inside. I had all but forgotten about the rules. Something strange was going on here, something very fucking strange. I took a deep breath before I put my hand on the door’s handle, and ripped it open. What I found inside the office was… nothing. I saw Josh’s desk, his computer, his whiteboard, books and papers, but nothing else. The light was off, no one was inside, and nothing was in disarray. Then, as I stared at the empty room in front of me, all the lights in the house turned on in unison, only to flicker out moments later.
Needless to say, this freaked me the fuck out. I threw the door to the office shut, hurried downstairs, and ran from the house. Once outside, I could’ve sworn I saw lights turning on and off in random rooms all across the house. Almost as if someone… or something was rushing through it, searching it.
I went straight home after that. The moment I’d locked my front door, I sent Josh a message telling him what had happened, and what the fuck was going on. All I got was another short, obscure message.
‘You said you opened the door?’
‘Yes, what the fuck does it even matter?’
‘Dammit, I told you to leave it be and NOT open it. Well, nothing to do now. She won’t go after the cats, and by tomorrow things should be back to normal. You closed the front door, right?’
‘What the fuck are you even talking about? The hell’s the matter with your damn place? Please tell me this is all one of your stupid pranks and you’re fucking with me!’
This time, no reply arrived. Instead, he called me. Josh explained that his house had a history, quite a fucked one at that. Back in the day, long before he bought it and renovated it, the place used to be an orphanage. One night, half a century again, the caretaker snapped, and murdered the orphans one after another. All while counting down the number of kids still alive until she reached zero. After some research, Josh found out that his office used to be the caretaker’s old bedroom. It doesn’t happen often, he said, but sometimes, strange things happen around the house. A voice counting down or pretending to be other people, lights flickering on and off, and other, similarly weird things. That’s why he got so many smart gadgets. For some reason, those seem to confuse the spirit, as he called it. Generally, though, if you leave it alone, and follow the rules, nothing bad will happen.
“You’re fucking kidding me right?” I almost yelled into the phone.
“Afraid not, that’s why I left you the rules, but I should’ve explained things before hand,” he admitted.
“Yes, you fucking should’ve! Why the hell would you even call them something like that if it’s about a… shit, Josh, why did you even by a freaking haunted orphanage!?”
“The place was cheap, all right? Way cheaper than any other in town. How’d I know that…? Look, man, I know it’s fucked up, but please can you go back tomorrow and take care of the cats? It’s only three more days, but I’m worried about them.”
I was about to tell him to go fuck himself with his haunted home, but when he told me he’d pay me double, I closed my mouth as soon as I’d opened it. Shit, I mean, how bad could it get, right? I hadn’t been hurt so far, and Josh reassured me that nothing had ever happened to him. It was all just noises, and flickering lights.
So the next morning, I found myself at his house again. During the day time, everything looked as normal as it could be. By now, I’d calmed down, and wasn’t even sure about what had actually happened last night.
The cats rushed up to me the moment I’d entered the place. When I checked my phone, I saw that it was almost 10:00 PM. The poor little buggers seemed to be hungry, and the moment I’d refilled their feeding bowls, they churned down their food. I was about to leave again, but nothing had ever happened during the day. If anything weird were to happen, I could put down some food and water for the cats by 8:00 PM, and get the hell out of there.
That day, I made sure to take care of all the cat duties Josh had given me. I let them out in the afternoon groomed them in the early evening, and once it was 8:00 PM, I fed them again. Nothing strange happened, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much truth there was to Josh’s story.
Instead of going home then and there, I picked up my laptop, and settled down on the couch. I went to Google and started searching for proof. I was instantly greeted with various articles on orphanage related murders and other atrocities. Once I’d narrowed my search down, I noticed a specific, brief article.
The Horror of Sister Maria – Gruesome Murders at Orphanage
The article detailed the same story Josh had told me before. In March 1972, the caretaker of an orphanage, named Sister Maria, had murdered all the children she was overseeing. The name of the orphanage told me nothing, but when I saw the address, I knew it was the same building I was in at the moment.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I cursed.
For a moment, a feeling of apprehension washed over me, and I wondered if Sister Maria had murdered some of in this very room. My eyes darted around, but all I saw was one of the cats sitting near me. I petted the little buggers before I went back to the article. Then the cat suddenly jerked up, his ears rose, and his eyes darted around.
Seconds later, I heard it, too. I froze, searching for the source of the noise before I realized it was coming from outside. I’d barely gotten up when three muffled bangs from the front door, followed by ghastly wailing, reached me. Step by step, I made my way to figure out what the hell was going on. I’d made it to the hallway when I heard another bang, this one against one of the living room windows. For a moment, I noticed a shadowy figure outside before it vanished again. Then there was another bang, from a different window, followed by more of the ghastly wailing.
Then I saw the outline of a face pressed against the window staring me right into the eyes.
12. If you hear a knock against the window, you must ignore it. DON’T let anyone in. She will leave again if you ignore her.
That was the moment I lost it. Now I knew this entire thing had to be real. Her. He’d written it specifically. It had to be the spirit, the ghost of the caretaker. Before it had been noises, flickering light, something I could deal with, something I could tell myself was a mere coincidence. But this was different. Once more the figure vanished before I heard it from a different window.
She will leave again if you don’t acknowledge her.
I’d stared right at her, hadn’t I? What if this thing, this ghost was coming after me? For a moment, I thought I could hear the counting voice again from somewhere deep in the house, and at that moment I ran. I was at the front door in an instant, ripped it open and stumbled outside.
And right at that moment, I saw it. To my right, in the middle of Josh’s garden, stood the shadowy figure of a woman. When it took one step towards me, panic flooded me, and I dashed from the house towards my car, and jumped inside. When I turned it on, the headlights flooded the area, and I could’ve sworn I saw more than one figure. I noped it the fuck out of there without ever looking back.
Once I was back home, I was a mess. Fuck the house, fuck the cats, and fuck Josh. I’d never go near his damned house ever again. I only sent Josh a single message:
‘I’m done with this shit.’
Then I turned to damned thing off. I was too shaken about everything that had happened. Before I’d tried to tell myself it was all a hoax, nothing but a stupid prank, but after what I’d seen tonight, I couldn’t anymore.
I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I turned on every damn light in my small apartment, put on the dumbest movie I could find, and tried my best to distract myself. It didn’t work. Every single sound in the entire freaking building made me jerk up. I was a mess. I was only able to relax when the sun came up.
By ten in the morning, my doorbell rang. When I opened the door, I was surprised to find Josh outside. His face was as white as a sheet, almost sick looking, and he seemed to be as shaken as I was.
“Hey man, we need to talk,” he said the moment he saw me.
No greeting, no nothing, right to business. I stepped aside to let him past me. I laid into him right away, asking him what the hell was the matter with his house, and why he was back already. He was quick to raise a hand to tell me to be quiet.
“I think you better sit down. There’s a lot I’ve got to tell you. We… No, I fucked up,” he started.
With that, he told me the entire thing. All he’d done, and all that had happened.
As it turned out, Josh’s home was the definition of a smart home, much smart that I’d ever expected. Cameras and sensors were all over the place. He told me he liked to play music all over the house, so he’d installed speakers everywhere. Most of them were concealed and pretty much invisible. If you didn’t know they were there, you had no clue they existed.
I stared at him, not understanding what he was going on about, but then he dropped me a bomb. He’d been fucking with me. The entire thing was nothing but an elaborate hoax, just as I’d expected. He’d occasionally used speakers to play tricks on his guests. With me, though, he’d up the ante. At first, he only added a bunch of weird rules to his list of instructions to play a trick on me. Soon enough, he got a much more devious idea. He programed his entire fucking house to act out at specific times during the evening and the night. Lights would turn on and off, the TV would play static, and weird noises would be played from random speakers. He even recorded himself crying in his office. He even created an elaborate backstory for his house, one that was complete and utter bullshit.
“But, I read the article,” I started.
When he looked at me with a mixture of misery and embarrassment on his face, I knew the truth. He’d even planted a fake article about his house. When it all sank in, I went livid on him, and called him every name in the book while he sat there, embarrassed and guilty. Then I stopped. If this was all a joke, then what about last night? What about that ghost I’d seen? I confronted him about it right way, and told him it was beyond fucked up to hire someone to scare me like that.
That’s when Josh cast down his eyes, and I heard him inhale sharply.
“That woman… she wasn’t part of it,” he mumbled.
“What the fuck do you mean? Are you trying to tell me she was an actual fucking ghost!?”
“No,” he answered, shaking his head before he showed me an article on his phone.
Elderly Woman Killed in Attempted Break-in
I turned to Josh, not understanding.
“Last night, a man broke into the home of one of my neighbors, Miss Graham, an older woman living by herself. The police are still investigating. The man must’ve attacked her, but couldn’t restrain her. She got away, badly injured, and made her way to the house closest to hers to call for help.”
“Yours,” I whispered, my voice shaky.
Josh nodded.
“What… what happened to her?”
Josh hesitated, staying quiet for a long moment. Only after I’d repeated the question, this time much louder, did he finally answer.
“Got a call from the police in the middle of the night. My alarm had been set off, so they checked it out. They found her at the back porch of the house… beaten to death.”
I couldn’t speak. My head spun, and I almost collapsed. That figure, the ghost I thought I’d seen last night… My god, what had I done? Instead of helping that poor woman, I’d ignored her. Left her to die. I sank into my couch, staring at Josh, who seemed to shrink with every passing second, the guilt eating away at him. But it was the same for me. Exactly the same.
That poor old woman died… just because I was stupid enough to follow Josh’s list of rules.
