Once, long ago, my parents planned for us to stay at my grandma's house because she had taken a turn for the worse. We wanted to be close to her if something happened. You know, the passage of time has its certainties.

Unfortunately, her old heart couldn't keep ticking, and she succumbed to the sweet slumber of eternity before we could visit.

If I'm being honest, I didn't know my grandma all that well because she was reclusive in her age. My dad always said that she preferred solitude, and he respected her wishes.

But due to that nonexistent bond (we didn't share), you better believe I was bewildered when I found out I was in her will. And I'm not talking about "I bequeath unto you my rusty broach." No, she left me her entire house.

However, there was *one* stipulation. Demolition on the house was imminent unless we made renovations within thirty days. But why would I care about that if it was my house anyway? Well, the problem was that I wasn't old enough to own a home, so it was up to my parents whether they'd stay in the house with me.

Luckily, they said yes, though I think they believed the house would be theirs. However, it was *my* name in the will.

Anyway, we packed for a few days and headed over to the house.

It smelled like a sewing section at the hobby lobby immediately upon entering the door, and the carpet needed a deep clean because heavy dark stains speckled the floor throughout the house.

In fact, I figured it was much better if we replaced the carpet altogether because some of the stains reminded me of blood, and that possibility sent a hair-raising shiver from the top of my head down to the ends of my toes.

My parents requisitioned my grandmother's bedroom, and I was left holding up in my father's old room, stacked high with years and years of hoarded junk. I ended up forging a circuitous path from the door to the bed.

Precarious? Yes, but also quite cozy unless one of the stacks toppled over and crushed me in my sleep. I had faith that wouldn't happen, so I was content with not doing anything about the mountainous piles of many useless things.

The house was built in the late 60s and was only updated enough to maintain modern plumbing. No amount of modernity could save the state of the bathroom, though. The toilet was filthy, the sink had residue crawling from the faucet to the medicine cabinet, and the shower was scabbed entirely with mold.

Nobody must have come to check on her while she was alive. I imagined they would have done something about the mess if they had. Well, I would have, at least. So, that counts, right?

Now, if the deluge of disgusting sights in the bathroom wasn't enough, the kitchen was a veritable downpour. Whether it was weeks, months, or years, my grandmother hadn't washed a single plate, cup, or utensil for an exceedingly long time. If I ever planned on living there, a lot of work needed to be done.

And because there was nothing to eat, my parents and I went to a restaurant nearby. It was one of those local "mom-and-pop" places where everything tasted fresh and delicious. But while we were there, an elderly man approached our table and asked, "You're Helen's son, aren't you?"

My dad choked down a piece of chicken and said, "Sure am. Were you a friend of hers?"

"Most of us in town were friends with your mother. It's a pity that she left us so soon."

"None of us live forever, ya know?" said my dad, wiping his face.

"If you would have visited more often, perhaps her heart wouldn't have quit on her." said the man with a hint of anger.

"Excuse me?" asked my dad.

"You heard me! It's *your* fault she's dead! You, your whore wife, and that suckling cur you call a son!"

My dad stood up and said, "Don't talk about my family like that! What's your fucking problem?!"

Then another man rushed over from the other side of the restaurant. "Whoa, whoa! Calm down, fellas! We don't need to spill blood in Helen's good name!" he said, getting between my father and the older man.

"What do you mean, Sheriff? It's *his* fucking fault that Helen's dead to begin with!"

My dad began to react, but the sheriff held his hand up to silence him before turning toward the older man. "Hank, leave now. I'll handle everything. I don't want to bring you out of here in handcuffs."

The man (now known as Hank) spat on the ground and stomped it into the short carpet. "Fine, but you fucking get this asshole out of this town right now before I do it myself."

"Out. Now," said the sheriff, pointing his finger towards the door. Hank huffed and stormed out.

"Pay him no mind, please. The town has been pretty melancholy since your mother's passing. Seeing your face must have just set the poor fool off."

"Keep him away from my family, Sheriff. I don't want any trouble," said my dad.

"You planning a long stay?"

"No, a few days at the most."

"Good, that'll make things easier. I'll do my best to keep Hank at bay, but unless he breaks the law, there’s not much I can do. Just keep an eye out."

"Fine," said my dad, turning to face us. "Let's get out of here."

All eyes focused in our direction as we left. You may think that what had just happened wasn't "scary," but let me inform you that *nobody* knew of my grandmother's death. My aunt Lauren was the one who found her, and her passing was kept hush-hush per her wishes.

So how did anyone other than us know?

After arriving back at the house, my father didn't mention anything about the encounter in the restaurant.

That was the first day down, but that night was far stranger.

I turned in early. It was a rather exhausting day dealing with stacks of junk in my temporary room and the distraught elderly of the town. But it appeared that even *more* junk had amassed in the room, especially near the bed.

None of it was significant. Mostly newspapers, Christmas ornaments, and other odds and ends. And yet, I couldn't help but wonder where any of it came from. At first, I thought that one of the many stacks had somehow *amalgamated* with the others to create a hybrid super stack.

But that just didn't make any sense.

I disregarded the dilemma and moved more heaps of junk to new haphazard stacks further away from the bed. Then I realized the linens weren't exactly… *fresh*. The blanket was riddled with mold, and the pillows felt damp as if the room had once been flooded.

It looked like I wouldn't be sleeping in there that night. Actually, that was a lie. I wouldn't be sleeping *soundly*.

You see, there weren't any other rooms available. They either weren’t bedrooms, or they had even *more* junk inside them. I dug through the piles and found a *mostly* unsullied blanket and a pillow just big enough for me to find relative comfort.

But damn, did it smell. The room, I mean. It smelled horrendous, like mothballs placed inside a half-baked raccoon carcass. Oddly specific, I know.

Despite that, I managed to power through and fall asleep. I dreamt that one of the stacks fell and crushed me, but I didn't surface from the dream. Instead, I writhed in pain for hours.

When I did finally wake up, I wasn’t in the bedroom. I woke up in the bed, but it was in the hallway.

As a preface, this bed was quite large. Large enough that it would be near impossible to move it out of the room with not only the stacks of junk but with me sleeping on it. Someone would have to turn it sideways without me falling to the floor to shimmy it through the doorway.

So how in the hell did I end up in the hallway?

It seemed that my parents hadn't woken up yet because they surely would have noticed their son in a place that didn't make any sense. But then a new problem arose. How would I get the damn bed back into the bedroom? And how would I explain what happened to my parents in a way that they'd believe me?

As luck would have it, I didn't need to explain because upon entering the living room, there slept my parents, but quite clearly *not* in my grandmother’s bedroom.

So I waited. A bit ominously, I might say, but I did, nonetheless. My mother was the first to wake up and nearly flew to the ceiling. Whether it was because I was staring at them from a rotted armchair or she realized where she *wasn't* was a mystery.

However, she promptly settled herself and asked, "What the hell?! How did we get out here?" Her eyes stared into my soul.

"Yeah, you tell me. I woke up in the hallway. It’s the strangest thing."

"The hallway? Did you move us out here?" she asked.

"How would I have done that, Mother?" I often had to act a tad cynical with her because she had a hard time believing anything that wasn't a part of her narrative.

"Well, I don't know! How else could we be out here?”

Then my father woke up and groggily asked, "Why are you two arguing?"

Mom shook him gently, saying, "Notice anything different?"

"Wait…” he began, “Where are we?... Why are we in the living room?!" He was on the verge of jumping out of bed.

"Ask your son," said my mother.

"What? No! I didn't do this! Look in the hallway, and you'll see! Moreover, how could I move my cumbersome bed *and* yours while you were both sleeping on it? I'm just one man!"

"Relax. Let me collect my head before we start yelling at each other," said my dad, ever the mediator.

"I think it's obvious who the culprit is. Our son is trying to play us for fools!" said my mother, tugging at the bed.

"You aren't going to move that by yourself. And if you're not moving it, then neither is our son. Maybe we… sleep-moved, or something like that."

"That's impossible. I've never heard of such a thing!" spat my mother.

"Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't make it not real," argued my father.

"Fine, you know what? I'm not dealing with this."

"Mom, I didn't move the beds… Why would I do that anyway?" I asked.

She looked up at the ceiling before casting a befuddled stare at me. "I… I don't know. I'm confused. Ignore me. I'm not thinking straight," she said, retreating to the bathroom. I heard a strained grunt echo down the hall as she climbed over my bed.

"Whew,” began my dad. “Do you need help moving your bed back into the room?" he asked.

"Yeah, I don't know how it got out of there to begin with."

"Alright, let's go move it, and then you can help me move ours," he said as we shuffled down the hall.

It took some serious maneuvering, a lot of shouting, several pinched fingers, and one crushed foot before we got the bed back through the doorway. But that wasn't the worst part.

The entire room had been filled from near corner to corner with more stacks of junk and garbage. I could peer between them enough to see that the spot where the bed once lay had been filled high to the ceiling.

Needless to say, it was a long day of cleaning.

But then things got… weirder.

Around 9 p.m., I asked my mom what we'd be having for dinner. She didn't respond, focusing instead on a pile of yarn. I went to the kitchen and saw that the progress I had made earlier that day was gone. All the dishes I had cleaned and left to dry were dirty and stacked in precarious piles overflowing from the sink.

"Mom, did you put all this here?" I asked aloud, but it was my father who responded.

"Put what where?" he asked from behind me.

"Oh! I was asking about all these dishes. I cleaned a ton today, but it doesn't look like I've done anything!"

"That's because you haven't. You're useless and messy," he said harshly.

"Wh-what?"

"I said, that's because I found more dishes in the garage and decided to have those cleaned too. You did a good job with the first batch. You scrubbed them well!"

"Oh… if you say so. What's going on with mom? She won't talk to me."

"None of your business," he said. Gloom was about him.

"Why are you talking like that?"

"Like what?" he asked, sounding puzzled. "I said she was dealing with some business?"

"Really? Sorry, I thought you said something else."

"No, now I'm going to go to sleep. I've been cleaning the garage all day!"

"Okay, goodnight, dad. I might wash more dishes tonight, but after, I'll be heading to bed too."

"Good boy," he said as that terrifying expression of hatred washed over his face.

I heard him speaking to my mother, though I couldn't make out most of the words. The only ones that came through were "boy," "stuff," "fill," "get," and "Helen." I had no idea what any of that meant.

When their door closed, I peeked inside the garage to see my father's progress.

Nothing. No progress. There was more than when we arrived. *What is going on?* I wondered.

And in my absence, a brand new stack of dishes had appeared in the kitchen, but I was exhausted, so I ignored it. The carpet squelched beneath my feet as I walked toward my room, and when I flipped the light switch, it didn't work.

"Great," I said aloud, using my phone as a flashlight.

What a sight. Or should I say, no sight at all as the stacks were numerous once again. By now, I had realized that something unnatural was happening, but all of it was still a mystery. And crawling through stacks of junk didn't bring me the answers I needed.

My sleep was passable, however. No dreams of being crushed, though I did have one of being watched from deep in the piles. Something was angry about me being in the home, organizing its stuff. Whenever I'd move a stack in my dream, the thing would shriek like a banshee and rush over to correct the order. Then it would bring more shit in to refill the room.

But when I woke up, I couldn’t breathe. There was a heaviness on my chest, and it didn't take long to realize the unusual weight came from a well-placed burlap sack sitting on me. It contained tumbled rocks and was quite weighty; I would have suffocated hadn't I woken up.

The question was, *how* did the sack get there without me waking up?

I rolled it to my side and let my windpipe recover. Light streamed through the thin blinds covering the only window in the room. Many stacks had manifested overnight, some in places I had already cleaned twice over.

One of them had an odd, red hue projecting onto it. I trailed the ray of sunlight to an old bicycle reflector hanging from a frayed string off a different stack. The light shined on my feet as well, making them appear stained.

I moved the reflector. The problem was that my feet still looked stained. I searched for a new source for the red light, but nothing in the sun's path was creating it.

So I took a closer look.

Something was on my feet; it wasn't the light at all. It was dried and covered the bottoms of both soles. My socks were on the floor, and they, too, had a red color soaked into them.

I got off the bed and stood in a small spot between the bedframe and a pile of newspapers. The bottom layer of the newspaper was also red but not dry. I rubbed the substance between my fingers; it was viscous.

Then it came to me. How could I have been so stupid? The color, the feel, even the smell.

It was blood. The entire carpet was soaked with blood.

I almost sprinted to the bathroom when I suddenly turned my head and caught something staring at me between two different stacks. Big, yellow eyes with thick-red veins were watching me, but they disappeared the second I saw them. Skittering came from beyond the stacks, and then, silence.

There was too much junk to chase after it, and some aspect of me wondered if I was still dreaming. A quick pinch proved that wrong, but wading through the stacks was like trudging through a century of garbage—there was no way I'd get anywhere fast.

By the time I cleared the bulk of junk, there was no trace of whatever had been watching me. I tip-toed to the bathroom and attempted to clean the bottoms of my feet, but you know how blood is. It stains like wine and is no easy feat to wash away. And then I thought, *Why am I doing this if the carpet is soaked with it?* But life throws all sorts of wrenches at you, and it’s what you do with them that matters.

So I yelled for my dad. That's right, what else did you expect me to do?

"Dad?! Have you seen this?"

No response.

"*Dad!* Can you come to the bathroom, please?!"

No response, just my voice roaring back to me.

"Mom!"

Nothing from her, either.

I pulled the moldy shower curtain back and gasped when my eyes fell on the mirror. In red were the words, "I look forward to adding you to my collection."

"Mom, dad, where are you?!" I cried out, praying I wasn't alone. But no one answered.

I peered around the side of the shower at the bathroom door. As I did, the top of a head disappeared beyond the frame.

Something had been watching me again.

"Who's there?!" I yelled, yet only a few settling creaks of the home responded.

Now it was time I mustered my courage and looked for my parents. *They have to be sleeping*, I thought. Maybe they couldn't hear me with all the garbage in the home.

So I stepped out of the tub and walked down the hall, the carpet squelching along the way. I checked my grandmother's room but found no bed, only stacks. The living room was vacant too, of flesh, that is, though not of junk.

Then a noise came from down the hall. I faced it—a dark figure stood outside my temporary room. "D-dad? Is that you?" I asked, creeping into the corridor.

"Is who, me?" asked my dad from behind me.

I spun around, my heart beating like a stampede of elephants. "Dad! Where have you been? I’ve been shouting for you and mom for forever!" I glanced over my shoulder, but nothing was in the hall.

"Your mom's outside, and I've been in the garage. I tell ya, there sure is a lot of stuff in there. I can't seem to make any headway!"

"Haven't you noticed all the strange things going on? I mean, just look at my feet–" I stared down at unstained skin, no blood, or even a remnant of it.

"What's wrong with your feet?" he asked.

"N… nothing. Must have been a dream."

"I see. Well, to answer your question, it's quite the opposite. Things have been coming up missing since I've been out there cleaning. I've lost a broom, a dustpan, a hand vacuum, and your mom lost a trowel. She's been out there doing a bit of weeding. You know, tending the nonexistent garden."

"But look at all this stuff in here… It wasn't like this yesterday, and there were bloody words on the mirror in the bathroom. They said, ‘I can't wait to add you to my collection.’ Isn't that weird? Or am I crazy?"

"You are crazy. Batshit, fucking crazy. No son of mine would ever lose his head like this," said my dad, his face twisting into another malignant smile.

"Why would you say that to me?..." I felt tears forming.

"Say what to you? That you weren't crazy, and I'd check the bathroom to clear your head?"

"Th… that's not what I heard you say."

"Well, that's what I said. Anyway, let's go look."

Now I felt unhinged. Was it the house? My grandma? Or was I always destined to go insane? It only got worse when nothing was written on the mirror, and aside from those dark stains, the carpets were ordinary.

More things went missing over the course of the day, but my parents disregarded it every time as if it was normal. My mom wasn't saying much, though, and my dad kept relaying information to her, only for her to have him relay information back to me.

It was all very strange.

There was no food that night either, or rather, nobody made anything. No one even asked or talked about it. I found a can of soup that was still good and cooked it hobo-style in the can on the stove. It was filling but tasteless.

And reluctant doesn't begin to describe how I felt about going to sleep. I worried about suffocating, waking up crushed or under the gaze of whatever was watching me through the stacks. Then again, was it even real?

Around midnight, my parents just disappeared. One minute they were in the living room, doing nothing, and the next, they were gone. I was in the kitchen, pointlessly cleaning, so they could have gone to the bedroom, but I didn't hear a single sound.

But when I checked the bedroom, the door was closed, so I accepted that they simply didn't say goodnight to me.

I may have been sixteen, but man, I was feeling neglected, sad even.

More things went missing during my short time in the kitchen. Cups, bowls, plates, you name it. Where was it going? No idea. What was taking it? I had even less of an idea.

Five minutes later, I turned around to grab another bowl from a stack on the table behind me. As expected, the stack amassed even higher. I'm still not sure what possessed me to keep going.

When I returned to the sink, the water poured a dark red. I decided against cleaning after that. Then I went back to my room, crawled through stacks of unexplainable things that reeked of death, and under the moldy bed covers—wallowing in a pit of despair.

After falling asleep, I dreamt of horrible, fear-inducing things. My parents were empty of their internal organs and blood, slumped in a heap of flesh. I was mutilated and fed my own skin. Each time I closed my mouth, it would be pried open, and my teeth struck with a hammer. All the while, a dark figure watched through stacks upon stacks of viscera-covered junk.

Then I woke up. It was the middle of the night, but I was not alone. Something was caressing the side of my cheek. "M-mom?" I asked.

"Shh…"

Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room. It didn't last long, but it was enough for me to see that the thing above me was not my mother.

But it was holding her arm. The dreamcatcher tattooed on her forearm was well-apparent.

I yelled for my father, but the stack-dwelling entity covered my mouth with another hand.

Lightning flashed again.

The second hand belonged to my father. His handcrafted ring was still on his finger.

"I can't wait to add you to my collection…" began the entity. "You'll make for fine mortar."

"N-no! Get off me!" I shouted before springing into action. The entity swiped at me, clawing my calf and leaving a deep gash. I cried out, falling into a wall of stacks. The entity pounced on me and yanked at my right arm; its force nearly tore it off at the shoulder.

I punched it in the jaw with a left swing, hearing a crack-like sound upon contact. The entity wailed and yanked harder. But I kept swinging until it reeled back and let me go.

With my arm numb, and my calf on fire, I limped into the hallway and tried desperately to shuffle to the living room. All the while, I weaved around numerous stacks that touched the ceiling.

As I came into the living room, the sound of toppling junk shot down the hallway. I limped faster, trying to reach the front door. "You will be a part of my collection!" yelled the entity as if a drowning person could screech. And then it said, "Your grandmother promised you all to me!"

I didn't know what to think. I just wanted to get out of that house. I knew it was gaining on me. I knew it would kill me if I stopped. I couldn't stop.

I didn't stop.

The front door fell off its hinges when I burst through it into strange darkness. The fog had rolled in, and only the dim streetlight could guide me. I pushed through the pain and quickened my step. The sounds emanating from the entity diminished, but I still felt it on my tail.

After hobbling halfway down the sidewalk toward the end of the street, I glanced behind me only to see a shadowy figure stumbling down my grandmother's short driveway. I almost tripped, but I couldn't keep my eyes off my pursuer.

It circled in place until suddenly racing after me, barely able to keep its footing. Terrified, my adrenaline amped up again, and I increased my pace to a skip, vying to get somewhere safe.

Despite my best efforts, I still felt like I was running in a dream, fighting a sea of molasses while my foe swiftly closed in on me.

But then, the fog began to clear, and the gas station at the end of the street became apparent: its neon salvation cutting through the wayward mist. And when I reached it, a young worker was inside, sweeping the floor.

I pounded on the door until they let me in. While I stared out at the street, they asked, "Hey, man, are you alright?"

Without facing them, I said, "Something was chasing me, but I don't see it now. Is it okay if I stay here for a little while?"

"Uhh… Yeah, that's fine. But you'll have to move out of the way so I can sweep. Closing time is coming up."

"Okay… okay," I said, diligently surveying the sidewalks.

It appeared I was free.

"You said something was chasing you?" asked the attendant.

"Yeah, it chased me from my grandma's house."

"Oh! You're the dude staying there?"

"That's me, well, not anymore."

"What do you mean by that? Hey! Your leg! Are you hurt?"

"My leg? Oh… yeah, it stings a bit, burns even, but I'll be fine. Hey, can I use your phone?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure. It's right over there, next to the counter. I can get the first aid kit if you need it. That looks like a nasty gash!"

"Thanks, but I think I’ll be alright. I appreciate the help."

"Yeah, no problem," said the attendant as they resumed sweeping.

I used the phone to call my aunt Lauren. I told her I had woken up, and my parents were gone. She freaked out, obviously, and had police at the house within the hour. There was no sign of the entity, and I overheard a deputy say, "It's a mess in there. Keep the kid out."

My leg got fixed up, and my arm regained feeling shortly after the paramedics arrived.

But it was not over.

That was ten years ago, and I've been running for all ten of those years.

Why?

Because if I stay in one spot for too long, I start noticing strange things.

Stacks. Many, many stacks.

It doesn't matter where I go; it always finds me. Sometimes I see it. Other times, I get away before things escalate. I've found notes and other writings stating that I'll be a part of its collection someday and running only prolongs the inevitable.

About a week ago, I drove across the country to get away. My writing funds my nomadic habits. I stopped at a motel last Tuesday and have been inside the room ever since.

But, after waking up from a short afternoon nap, I caught a glimpse of something I now constantly fear.

Styrofoam cups sat stacked on the table next to a shorter stack of magazines. "What's odd about that?" You might ask. Well, my father's handcrafted ring was sitting on top of the magazines.

I don't think I have long until I, too, am a part of a stack.

Part of a collection.