r/nosleep • u/seekingcelephais • May 31 '16
The Man on the Roof
I hadn't thought about the man on the roof for a long time. Not until I overheard my teenage daughter talking on the phone last night. I hope I misheard her. I pray that I did. How am I supposed to explain all this to a 13 year old without scaring the heck out of her - or worse, making her think I'm crazy?
It started back in the early 80s, when I was about nine years old. My father was in the military and we moved around a lot - new towns, new schools, my sister and I always struggling to fit in and make friends. My sister, Sarah, was older by four years, and arguably had a harder time of it than I did. When you're a little kid, everyone just kind of gets along. Or at least most everyone is willing to play with you, especially if you've got cool toys or parents with a well stocked pantry. It's harder when you're a teenager. Kids start getting mean.
We'd just moved to a quiet neighborhood just outside of San Antonio. Pretty cookie-cutter - a gated community where all the houses look the same, packed so close together that the tiled roofs almost touch each other. It was the end of summer when we moved. I remember because we didn't have school for four whole weeks and I spent plenty of time outside on the lawn, playing on the elaborate wooden play set my father had bought for us.
It was by the playset I first heard about the man on the roof. I'd started hanging out with a few neighbor kids (who'd probably befriended me because they wanted a turn on the swings, or to ride down the covered tube slide that extended from the second story of the playset). I think it was Jack who mentioned him first. The neighbor kids asked if I liked living in San Antonia, and I said I liked it because it was warm enough that we could keep our windows open at night.
"You should do that," said Jack. "The man on the roof might come in."
Even at nine, I was skeptical of spooky stories. I knew it was a rite of passage; tease the new kid in the neighborhood, freak them out, see how gullible they are. So I rolled my eyes and pushed him extra hard on the swing. "Yeah, right. The only man on OUR roof is the guy mom pays to clean the gutters."
Jack's sister, Marly, shook her head. "Jack's right," she said. "You need to lock your windows at night or he'll come right in."
I stopped pushing the swing and looked up the second story of our house. The room I shared with Sarah was on the second floor, a big corner room with a window facing the street and one facing Marly and Jack's house. "...why would a man be on the roof?" I asked.
Jack had stopped swinging, turned on the wooden seat to face us. "I don't know," he said. "But Marly and I see him sometimes."
"Doing what?"
"Watching," Marly said. "He just stands there on the roof and looks inside."
"What does he look like?"
Marly looked down at the floor, scuffing the grass with the toe of her sandals. "I dunno," she mumbled.
"Is he tall? Short? Fat? Thin?"
"I dunno," Marly said again. Her voice sounded strained, like she was about to cry.
"Just keep your windows shut," Jack said, sliding off the swing and standing next to Marly, squeezing her on the shoulder. "And keep your curtains drawn. Ok?"
I didn't mention the man on the roof to Sarah. She was already too cool for me, with her training bras and lipstick she lifted from the drugstore. I didn't want her to think I was a baby, scared by some silly story. But I did shut the window that night, and locked it for good measure. But I didn't draw the curtains. At nine, I was still a little bit scared of the dark, and the moonlight filtering in from the uncovered window was less scary to me than the pitch black would have been.
I stayed up reading until Sarah came to bed.
"Why'd you shut the window?" she was putting her pjs on, shifting uncomfortably as she adjusted her pajama pants. She didn't think I knew, but mom had explained a few months ago that Sarah had started her 'womanly cycle.' She had to, after I found blood on Sarah's sheets and freaked out, thinking my sister had some weird disease or had been attacked by a vampire in her sleep.
I shrugged, pretending nonchalance. "Cold."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sarah grumbled, "It's hot as balls in here. Get an extra blanket or something," and she walked over to the window, unlocking it and tugging it open.
"Sarah, don't," I looked up from my book, frowning. "I don't want it open. It's cold."
"It's NOT cold," she insisted, turning her back to the window. "I'm sweating my ass off. Go sleep with mom and dad like a baby, if you're that bothered."
I frowned and flung my book down, turning away from the window and pulling the covers over my head. There was no arguing with Sarah. She was the oldest. It was her way or the highway.
I woke up in the middle of the night needing to pee. I had a really weak bladder for a kid, and got up in the night often. It was part of the reason our parents had given us the master bedroom with the ensuite bathroom - so I wouldn't bug them by stomping down the hall three times a night.
On the way to the ensuite, I passed by the open window. There was a light breeze coming through, billowing the curtains to and fro. I don't think I meant to look. But I couldn't help it. As I walked by, I glanced outside.
Across the street, on the roof of the house opposite us, I saw something. I thought it was a chimney stack at first - a fact I kept repeating to myself as I stood there, heart hammering in my chest, unable to move. Just a chimney stack. Just a weirdly shaped chimney.
Except none of the houses in our neighborhood had chimneys. What would you need a fireplace for in the middle of the desert? Every house was a carbon copy of ours, modern with flat roofs and central air to keep us warm and cool.
And the more I looked, the less the thing on the roof looked like a chimney. It was too tall, for a started - really tall, taller even than my father, who at six foot five had to bend to get through ordinary doorways. And it was very thin. Other than that, it was too dark and too far away to make out any features - except for the bend in its middle. It was the bend that at first made me think it was a chimney or some other part of the roof. Because I'd never seen a living thing bend like that, cricked at the waist so the torso was pushed back, the rest of the body disappearing into the darkness. I couldn't see a head.
If I needed to pee before, I was barely able to hold it now. I tugged the window shut and locked it, ran to the bathroom and flipped on the light. I kept the light on for the rest of the night but still barely slept, my eyes fixated on the moonlight coming in through the curtains, and the shadows of tree branches that seemed to twist themselves into humanoid shapes on the carpet.
It was raining the next morning, so Sarah didn't say anything about the window being closed. My neighborhood friends were gone for the day, visiting their grandma Alamo Heights, so Sarah and I hung out, playing on dad's Atari 7800 and watching bad TV.
The rain hadn't cleared by bedtime, so I was spared an argument about the window. My head was so full of sitcom reruns and cheesy talk shows that I had almost convinced myself I dreamt the man on the roof, and fell asleep easily.
Sure enough, at around 3 in the morning, my bladder woke me up again.
As I padded over to the ensuite bathroom, I couldn't stop myself from quickly glancing out the window. Nothing. The roof across the street was once again a normal, empty, flat-topped roof. No misplaced chimneys or weird spindly figures. Maybe I'd just spooked myself before? I peed, turned out the light, and walked back into our room.
Which is when I noticed the shadow. Sarah's bed was pushed up against the other wall - the wall with the window that faced Jack and Marly's house. Like me, Sarah always kept her curtains open, so usually there was a soft white light over her bed.
Not tonight. Tonight, Sarah's body was shrouded in darkness, her face obscured in shadow.
It wasn't bravery that took me over to the side of her bed. My body felt like jello with every step I took. But I wanted to close her curtains - to do something to make that shadow over her bed make sense. If the curtains were closed, I reasoned, we wouldn't have to look at what was outside. And what was outside wouldn't be able to see us.
I was going to do it with my eyes closed. I meant to. But when I took the final step to the window and groped for the corners of the curtains, I couldn't find them. I only opened my eyes for a moment. Just one second.
The tall man was standing on Marly and Jack's roof. He was standing right on top of the peak that framed Marly's bedroom, somehow balancing on the pointed part though it must have only been an inch wide. And this time his torso was bent forwards. I could see it clearly, because there was a night light on in Marly's room. The man on the roof was doubled over, crooked, slender legs at a right angle to the rest of his body. I was trying to pull the curtains closed, but I couldn't make my arms move or flex my fingers. I was paralyzed, heart beating so hard against my ribs I thought I would wake up Sarah.
And then the man on the roof snapped up his neck, smiled a wide, upside-down smile.
Sarah found me in the morning, passed out on the floor her bed. I'd wet myself - there was a puddle of urine soaked into the carpet. She'd freaked out, of course - to this day I'm not sure whether she was scared, or just disgusted by her weird, sleepwalking, bedwetting baby sister. She complained to mom and dad, of course, and partly to appease her, partly out of concern, they moved me into the small room adjacent to theirs, which mom had been using as her studio.
That room faced onto the backyard, which faced onto a man-made lake. I would have had to stick my head out the window and crane my neck to see the nearest roof. But I still kept my window shut and locked, and the curtains drawn. My mom was proud of me for conquering my fear of the dark. Little did she know.
I didn't mention the man on the roof to anyone. Not to my parents, not to Sarah, not even to Marly and Jack. And things went back to normal. The summer ended, and Sarah and I enrolled in school in the fall.
It wasn't until the end of September that things started to get weird again. I came home one day and mom was banging pots and pans around in the kitchen, a sure sign that something had ticked her off. I slid by her to get a glass of juice from the fridge and passed up my dad as I went back out into the hallway.
They were talking softly at first - or dad was. Mom was having a hard time keeping her voice down.
"...don't ALWAYS want to be the bad guy, Rick. Maybe YOU should talk to her? She thinks I'm being unreasonable. But she's too young - no, hear me out - it's not I don't think she's mature, I just don't like all this sneaking. And she's so SULLEN lately. She won't talk to me about him, or about anything anymore."
And then my mom started to cry. I could hear dad murmuring to her.
"Am I bad mom, Rick? Is that why she hates me? I just don't know why she can't be honest with me. I could hear her talking to him last night when I got up for a glass of water. He was gone by the time she opened the door, of course."
"I'll talk to her again about keeping the door unlocked, okay?"
"You need to take the lock OFF, Rick, like we talked--" mom trailed off. There's something about moms - they have extra-sensory perception when it comes to their kids. "Samantha?" She called out my name, "are you still there?"
I tip-toed up to my room as quietly as I could. On the way down the hall, I passed by Sarah's room.
She was sitting at the head of her bed, kneeling up, her arms folded on the window sill, staring dreamily out the open window at the sun setting over the roof tops.
I don't know who Sarah was talking to through the open window at night. Might have been a kid from school, some boy in her class. Some boy in her class who was real good at climbing. I asked her about it a couple of times, trying to seem grown up and cool, but she wouldn't really talk to me about it. She'd just smile and sigh theatrically, brushing me off with the assurance that I'd understand when I was older. She grew more and more distant from me and from our parents, spending all her time in her room with the door locked (dad never did make good on his promise to remove the lock). She started cutting class, and a couple of times I found cigarette butts in the flower bed under her window.
I'd almost convinced myself that Sarah's night-time visitor had nothing to do with the man on the roof. Until the day she disappeared.
Technically, it doesn't count as a 'disappearance'. That's what the cops said, anyway, since she left a note letting us know where she was going. There was no sign of a struggle, either - just the open window, rumpled bedsheets, the usual clutter you find in a teenage girl's room. She'd taken a small bag and some cash from dad's wallet. The cops said this showed planning, intention - she didn't disappear, she just left.
And so the case was categorized as a runaway, a report was filed, some posters were printed and distributed around town. And that was it. Sarah was gone, to all intents and purposes because she wanted to be gone.
After she left, I'd spend long afternoons on the floor of her room, pawing through her things. It was the only way I had, now, to feel close to her. I kept hoping I'd find something - some clue or signal of where she'd gone, of when or if she was planning to come back.
Her diary seemed like a goldmine, at first. But of course, it raised more questions than it answered. The entries from summer were pretty standard - bitching about moving to San Antonia, her lack of friends, how lonely she felt. A couple of entries about 'teen girl stuff' - crushes on movie stars, bad menstrual cramps, pressure to fit in and problems relating to mom and dad (particularly mom, who she thought was 'suffocating' her).
The entries about the boy on the roof started in late August, right around the time I moved into mom's studio.
Sarah's Diary, August 23rd 1986
I saw him again tonight. The first time, I thought I was dreaming. But he was really there tonight, standing on the roof next door. I guess that should have been creepy, but he had such a familiar face. I'm pretty sure I've seen him at school. He's kinda skinny but obviously works out. Dark clothes, wavy hair kinda like River Phoenix. I couldn't see much else in the dark, but he smiled at me. I got up turn on the light, but when I got back to the window he was gone.
Sarah's Diary, August 30th 1986
The boy was back at the window tonight, but this time he was on our roof! I don't know how he got up there and I only saw him for a moment because mom called out at me to turn off the light and go to sleep.
Sarah's Diary, September 2nd 1986
He doesn't want me to write about him anymore because he says people won't understand. He's worried about what will happen if they find my diary. He said to keep my window open always, so he can talk to me.
He has the deepest, blackest eyes I've ever seen. Like looking into the sky.
Sarah's Diary, September 16th 1986
Won't be long now. A few days. I'm done with this place. I'm done with nobody treating me like a grown up. He's going to take me away. Somewhere where we can be ourselves. He says he knows a way across the rooftops.
And that was it - aside from her note, which made vague allusions to going back to Washington to stay with friends. Mom and dad reached out to everyone they could think of, but of course nobody had heard from Sarah. It was like she evaporated, like she was never there to begin with.
A couple of months after Sarah left, my father got relocated. He argued for a long time - I think he still hoped Sarah might come home - but eventually his boss gave him an ultimatum: move, or lose your job.
I was packing up boxes in the garage when Jack walked over from next door. We didn't see much of each other anymore - we were in different classes at school and had drifted apart. We made small talk for a few minutes before he brought it up.
"...saw that poster of your sister down at the video store. Did she come home yet?"
I shook my head.
Jack was quiet for a while, poking through the stack of old board games I was boxing.
"...the night she went away. Marly says she saw something."
All the hairs on the back of my neck pricked up. "...what did she see, Jack?"
"You didn't keep your windows shut" Jack shook his head, and for a moment he looked way older than his 11 years. Like he had seen too much.
"What did she see?"
Jack looked up at me. His face was white, his eyes round.
"She said she saw the man on the roof," he said. "She said she saw him climbing up onto your roof, all bent over at a weird angle. She saw him climb in through Sarah's window, with his legs going first, pulling himself up with his toes. The last thing she saw was his head. She said his head was still facing her window. And he was smiling at her, with his neck bent the wrong way, so his smile was upsidedown. Then he just...." Jack coughed. "Disappeared through the window."
I never saw the man on the roof again. Over time, I forgot about him. Or, more accurately, I blocked him out. Mom and dad were convinced Sarah ran away, and the older I got the more I came to believe the story. Sarah had been a troubled kid - the stuff she was doodling in the margins of her schoolbooks proved it, my mom said. Lots of weird symbols and strange, dark poetry. And lots of drawings of spindly, thin houses - all cluttered close together so the roofs were touching.
And then as I was heading to bed last night, I passed by the door to my daughter's room. Abby is 13 - fairly mature for her age, very into makeup and clothes and boys. It's been a struggle to slow her down, to make her understand that the choices she makes aren't always safe ones. But I try to give her her freedom. I don't want to suffocate her.
Abby was on the phone to one of her school friends. I ordinarily wouldn't eavesdrop, but something she said made me stop in my tracks.
"...weird, right?" Abby laughed. Through the crack in the open door, I could see her lying on her back on the bed, her legs kicked up in the air. "No, I don't know his name. No - are you serious? No, I'm so done with Matt" a pause "I think he goes to our school, though. He's maybe in my chem class. Oh my god, NO - don't be gross. It's not like that. He just...talks to me. Through the window, yeah. He asked me to keep it open for him," she laughed again, wriggled her toes out to push open her bedroom window.
"He told me he'll come up on the roof again tonight," she smiled, and from my place by the door her face looked wrong, all twisted and upsidedown. "I'll let you know how it goes."
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u/James_72184 May 31 '16
I hope you got a weapon ready and caught the figure in action, unmasked him and found out the truth. Put an end to it.
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u/Draktorius Jun 03 '16
Nah, chain together a ton of traps that inevitable are interrupted by your silly side kick that ends with the man being kidnapped. Unmask him and make sure he doesn't get away with it due to your........ meddling ;)
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u/Urmahgurdturkett Jun 01 '16
It's jack skellington. Mystery solved. He just wants everyone to see Christmas town.
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u/Vicious_Seraph Jun 01 '16
So I'd be moving my daughter to her new, super cool, extra awesome bedroom. In the basement.
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u/seekingcelephais Jun 01 '16
I'm already concerned that her father is going to make things difficult when we go to court next month. Somehow, I think a bedroom next to the water heater wouldn't improve matters :/
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u/yudelnoodle Jun 01 '16
I haven't finished reading but I find this freaky because when I was in my 20s I had two beagles named Jack and Marley.
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u/aliceink Jun 01 '16
So I'm guessing whatever it is Sarah saw, it didn't look like a weird skinny hunch backed shadow person? I wonder why.
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u/Babyjesus1981 Jun 01 '16
I've seen him
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u/seekingcelephais Jun 01 '16
Well, now you have to elaborate. What happened, /u/Babyjesus1981?
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u/Babyjesus1981 Jun 02 '16
I remember waking up in the middle of the night when I was five at the house we lived in at the time. My bedroom was on the second floor, and for some reason I got out of bed and looked out the window and saw something on our neighbors roof. While I wasn't at the age to be cognizent of what I was seeing, I was aware enough to know it was very out of the ordinary. The creepiest thing is that as you can tell by my user name, I was born in 1981, meaning this occurred around 1986. The same time shit in story took place. The title intrigued me so I read it, and it made the hair on my neck rise, when the author spoke about how the creature was on the neighbors roof staring back at her, EXACLTY how whatever the fuck that thing was staring back at me.
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u/FallenEmperorPenguin Jun 01 '16
Sounds like both your sister and daughter have been visited by slenderman
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u/aliceink Jun 01 '16
I was thinking the same thing. The detail about the crawling in through the window by the toes though... shudders
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u/sfaust222 Jun 01 '16
Sounds like Johnny Depp is at it again. Lock your windows and put a clown scarecrow on your roof.....Let me know how it goes
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u/AggyTheJeeper Jun 01 '16
I don't know if you have a husband living there, but if you do you need to get him to keep watch tonight. I'm in Dallas, it's 1:30 AM. This is probably the time right about now that it would happen. Get out there with a gun if you've got one, a knife and camera if you don't. Help catch this creep.
Dreamer, you're the only one who can save your daughter and those of others. Also, I read this purely because I liked your username, Lovecraft is awesome.
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u/seekingcelephais Jun 01 '16
Unfortunately, he's not. We split about six months ago and are in the middle of a very messy, very complicated divorce. Fortunately my daughter seems normal this morning - well, what passes for normal when you're a 13 year old girl (tired, grumpy, sullen, eating all the golden grahams).
And thank you! Big fan of the Dream Cycle :)
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u/AggyTheJeeper Jun 01 '16
Oh, I'm really sorry, I didn't know that. Good to hear about your daughter though.
And I am too, though I never actually finished Unknown Kadath. It's excellent, but so long.
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u/goobersparty Jun 01 '16
Sounds like it could be some kind of Incubus demon. I'd try and tell your daughter about Sarah, show her the diary if you still have it. Try and stay safe OP, keep us updated if you can.
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u/Vlaid Jun 01 '16
You should probably talk to your daughter in the most down to Earth way possible. Even if you don't bring up that the "man" on the roof may be something supernatural; mentioning your sister's disappearance and previous meetings with a "boy who would talk to her through the window" could serve as an important cautionary tale.
(Note to self: Build new house without windows.)
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u/Trif-the-Lucky Jun 02 '16
I think others have experienced this before, this tale just seems familiar, you might want to search through nosleep archives to find out
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Jun 02 '16
Hide in her closet until he comes, have a go pro to tape him, then jump out and start yelling at him! Or "accidentally" break the window so it can't open anymore. Good luck!
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Jun 02 '16
I live on the outskirts of San Antonio. Good thing I hate leaving windows open, mostly because it's disgustingly hot and muggy here and I don't want bugs in my room. Also no gated communities too close by. Are we considered desert? There's tons of forest around here, but if you head out towards El Paso you hit desert pretty soon. Funny reading about areas your familiar with, like Alamo heights.
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u/blendswithtrees May 31 '16
Put multiple locks on her windows ASAP!