The House Across the Street Hasn’t Turned Off Its Porch Light in Months

I first noticed in September. The warm glow spilling onto the empty porch night after night, cutting through the early autumn dark. I assumed someone had forgotten, or maybe they liked the security, the illusion of presence.

By October, I realized no one ever came in or out. The curtains remained drawn. The mailbox bulged, untouched. Leaves gathered in brittle piles along the walkway, undisturbed by footsteps.

In November, I asked around. The neighbors shrugged. An older couple lived there, once, someone said. Moved away? Died? No one seemed sure. I checked the property records. The name on the deed hadn’t changed in over a decade.

December brought snow, muffling the world into silence. The light remained, steady, unwavering. One night, I stood at my window and watched. The cold seeped through the glass. Across the street, the porch light flickered, just once, like a slow blink.

I turned away for a second. When I looked back, the front door was open.

A smell curled through the air — faint, familiar. Something too distant to name but thick enough to pull at the back of my mind. I should have felt fear, but instead, there was only recognition, like walking into a room I had forgotten I’d left.

I don’t remember ever stepping foot in that house. I don’t remember their names, their faces. But sometimes, in the stillness before sleep, I see glimpses. A hand pressing against wallpaper. A voice, wet and quiet, whispering my own name back at me.

The porch light flickered again. My breath caught. There was movement inside, a shadow shifting behind the doorway. And then I understood — I had left the light on for myself.

There were stains under my fingernails, deep in the cuticles, stubborn despite the scalding water. My hands ached, raw from scrubbing. The floor had taken the longest. The wood had swallowed too much, dark seams never quite lightening, no matter how many times I dragged the cloth over them.

I had carried something heavy once. That much I knew. The weight of it lingered in my shoulders, a phantom strain in my arms. The trash bags had been tied with a precision that unsettled me — tight knots, expertly cinched, as if my hands had known exactly what they were doing even while my mind refused to remember.

The porch light flickered again. The doorway yawned open. I exhaled, stepping forward. There was still something left inside, something unfinished.

Something that shouldn’t still be moving.

A noise, wet and shallow, slithered from the darkness. A breath, or the memory of one. My hands curled into fists, fingernails pressing into raw skin. I had tied the knots tightly. I had been sure.

The bags were still there, waiting where I had left them. I shouldn’t have forgotten them. I never forget things like that. The weight was the same, dense and slumping in my grip, but something about them felt different now — like they had settled, or worse, like they had shifted. The river was quiet at this hour. The water swallowed them whole, just like it had before. I watched until the ripples faded, until the surface smoothed over as if nothing had ever been disturbed.

When I got home, I made popcorn. Something light, something normal. I needed normal. I settled onto the couch and picked a movie at random. The kind with warm lighting and cheerful people who had never scrubbed blood from wooden floors. I watched until my eyelids drooped, until the static hum of the TV was the only thing left in my mind. Tomorrow, I would do it again.

I had always liked movies.

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