Case #24-90666

EXCERPT FROM WRITTEN STATEMENT

Declarant: Francine Hoyt

Date: October 29th, 2025

Location: Recovered from wall cavity, 666 Blackwood Lane

If you are reading this, DO NOT call an electrician. The wiring isn’t faulty, and the bulbs aren’t bad. I thought the same thing when I bought this place for next to nothing. I told myself the flickers were just old infrastructure and the scratching behind the bedroom wall was just squirrels.

It isn’t squirrels.

It waits in the walls. It feeds on what you try to say, but more than that, it feeds on what you keep hidden. The moment you realize what it is, the moment you try to warn someone, it takes your… voice away. I tried to tell the sheriff yesterday, but when I opened my mouth, my tongue felt like lead.

If you hear three slow knocks on the walls, no matter where you are or what you do, lock your doors and keep your mouth shut. Do NOT make a sound.

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The house on Blackwood Lane smelled of old pine and paint when Maya moved in early that October. The price had been absurdly low– cheap enough that a 26-year-old freelance writer could afford it without a co-signer. The real estate agent didn’t mention why, but Maya didn’t press. In this economy, a small two-story Victorian house was worth a little dark history.

The strange occurrences started her second week of living there. It began with the lights. The overhead fixture in the hallway would pulse– a slow, rhythmic dimming that synchronized with her heartbeat. She replaced the bulbs three separate times. She even paid $300 for an electrician to come take a look at the wiring. All for him to tell her there was nothing wrong with it. Yet, as soon as his truck pulled out of the driveway, the lights started flickering again.

Then came the sounds.

At first, it was subtle. A dragging noise inside the living room— like a heavy something across the floor. Within days, that turned into scratching on the walls and knocking on the doors. Late at night, as Maya lay awake in the master bedroom, she could track the movement through the drywall behind her bed: three inches to the right, a long pause, then three sharp, hollow knocks.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

On a rainy Thursday night, Maya noticed a wobbly floorboard in the hall closet. She took a hammer and, with three hard tugs, she got the floorboard loose. Tucked beneath it was a yellow legal pad with Francine’s written statement.

Maya read it three times under the erratic hum of her desk lamp. Fear, cold and prickling, settled into her chest. Her heart sank into her stomach. The original owner didn’t just abandon the home– she had gone missing, preceded by a couple who had died in the living room under circumstances the coroner had classified as “undetermined respiratory failure.”

Hands trembling, Maya picked up her cell phone. She had to call her sister and tell her everything.

“Maya? It's almost midnight. Is everything okay?” Julie answered by the 2nd ring.

Maya takes a deep breath, preparing to tell her everything that she has experienced. The knocking, the scratching, everything.

“Julie. This place… it’s getting the best of me. I don’t know if I’m losing my mind, or if this is truly happening…” Maya starts, but Julie interrupts.

“Maya, slow down. You’re not making any sense. What are you trying to say right now?

“Julie,” Maya begins again, her eyes darting to the hallway wall where the drywall had begun to hum. “There’s something wrong with this house. The people before me– they didn’t just leave. There’s something inside the–”

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The knocking erupted right behind Maya’s ears, so loud it rattled the picture frames on her desk.

“Maya? What was that?!” Julie’s voice was faint through the receiver. “Are you there?”

Maya opened her mouth to reply, but her lower jaw felt stiff, heavy, as if set in hardening concrete. She tried to push air through her vocal cords: “Help.”

Nothing came out. Only a muffled, wet gurgle. A burning heat flared across her lips, sharp and agonizing, like boiling water poured over raw flesh. Panicked, Maya dropped her phone on the rug and staggered to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

She flipped on the light. The bulb overhead flickered violently. Rapid, strobe-like flashes. In the mirror, the pink contour of her lips was dissolving. The seam between her upper and lower mouth was fusing– skin stretching, merging, and smoothing over into a seamless layer of pale flesh.

She gripped the edges of the porcelain sink. Her breath hitched in her throat, but there was nowhere for the air to escape. Maya clawed at her face with her fingernails, tearing her own skin, but there was no mouth left to open. The seam was gone. Her lower face was completely smooth, sealed shut like a scar.

Maya ran to the bathroom door, twisting the knob. It didn’t budge. She threw her weight against the bathroom door, trying to open it. As she did, the lock turned on its own with a metallic click. 

From inside the bathroom wall, right behind the mirror glass, came three sharp, hard knocks and two light taps. Then a quiet, raspy whisper came through the plaster, directly into her mind:

“My lips are sealed.”

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OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT

Transcript of 911 Emergency Call

Date: October 31st, 2025

Case File: #24-90666-B

DISPATCH: 911, what is your emergency?

(silence)

DISPATCH: Hello? 911, can you hear me?

CALLER(Julie Reed): Please, you need to send an officer to 666 Blackwood Lane! My sister Maya just called me. She sounded terrified, and then she stopped responding!

DISPATCH: Ma’am, please try to stay calm. Did she say what was happening?

CALLER: She said something about strange noises, like scratching and knocking. It sounded like something was in the house with her! Then I heard three loud bangs before she dropped her phone and made a weird muffled sound. She didn’t respond after that!

DISPATCH: Units are being dispatched to 666 Blackwood Lane as we are speaking. I’m going to ask a few more questions…

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Medical Notes

Dr. Hayley Stone - Chief Medical Examiner

Date: November 1st, 2025

I took the internal organs out during the preliminary autopsy; mechanically, everything appears entirely normal. Of course, when Deputy Hoyt kicked in the bathroom door at 12:00 am October 25th at 12:00 am, the victim was unconscious on the floor. Paramedics initially thought there was a foreign object obstructing the airway, but I checked during intake.

There was nothing there.

The victim had no oral opening— it was completely smooth skin. Nothing to even suggest there was a mouth ever. Anatomically, her upper and lower vermilion borders were absent. There was no visible trauma, no surgical scarring, and no chemical burns. Her mouth was simply… gone.

There is no medical explanation for such a phenomenon to occur within just a couple of minutes. There was no sign of an intruder or forced entry, according to the detectives… So what happened?