Apartment 1 “Something in the Corner”
There is a series of small apartment complexes situated near the factories that run along parts of Wellington Street. These formally housed many of the factory workers, most of which migrated to the area after the factories were put up. Now the complexes serves as low income housing for a growing population of the areas poor, though this has not always been the case. For a period of time, one of the apartment complexes was temporarily shut down after a series of residents reported waking up to a figure in their room.
The first sighting was in early 1977. The encounter reportedly occurred in the person's bedroom, which had tall walls, one window at the far corner of the room, and was sparsely decorated. The resident awoke suddenly to a sound like someone wheezing, seeming to come from one area of the room and then another. They looked around the room, but saw nothing at first.
The area was darkened by the drawn shades, but as their eyes adjusted to the light filtering through the bottom of the window, they could distinctly make out a form. The figure was reported as being of medium height, but outside of that the person could not add in any definable features. They were facing the window, though with the shades drawn it couldn't have seen anything. The resident reached for their phone while its back was still turned to them. When they turned back the figure was gone, no trace of its presence to be found. A personal investigation further found all the windows and the front door still locked and undisturbed.
At first the reports were dismissed by both the local police and many of the people involved, as no real evidence of this being could be found. Many people continued to report this strange occurrences, and over the course of a couple of weeks there were no less than seven reports of this strange being in the apartments.
One of the worst of these sightings occurred approximately two weeks after the initial report. This occurred in one of the apartments on the second floor. The residence housed a father and their young daughter, who moved shortly after a recently resolved divorce. The man reported waking up to the sound of his daughter screaming. He came into the room, finding his daughter in her bed, her arms pinned, with the strange thing hunched over her. The moment he entered the darkened room, the thing turned and looked at him. Thus far his description of the thing is the most complete.
“It resembled a human, with pale skin, veins and muscle visible underneath in places. Outside of this however it had no features. Its head, if I could call it that, had the rough shape of a face, but had no other features. It had no eyes, no nose, no mouth or ears.”
The man charged the creature, trying to knock it off of her. However, the moment his body connected with it, he claims it disappeared. He looked around the room, finding it standing in the corner. Before he could react it disappeared again, seeming to vanish in a blink of the eye. Police were brought to the scene, and though it was determined that the two of them were quite rattled, no evidence of the creature could be found. The two of them moved shortly after that, and have been unable to be contacted for comment.
The only seeming pattern, which can only be appreciated in hindsight, is the gradual approach towards a small, two room apartment on the second floor. In truth, it was the discovery of a body in the room that got the police involved in earnest, and it was shortly after their investigation that the complex shut down. The last reported sighting of the creature occurred two weeks before this, and since the discovery of the body there have been no further sightings.
The following was a note that was found within the room after the discovery of the body. The note reads as follows...
“It has been sitting in the same position for the last thirteen days, and I swear it is beginning to look like me. I have tried convincing the other people in the apartment complex that it exists, but they cannot see it, even as it gnashes its new teeth at their approach. I would just leave and never come back, but it has made it clear I cannot leave until it is done. I have begun to feel so weak, and my dreams are filled with nightmares. I do not leave the apartment anymore, and it has taken up bringing food to my bed. It says its name is Jim. I try to tell it my name, but I forget.”
The note was found next to the body, which was found slumped over the side of their bed. This was discovered by local police were asked to investigate after several weeks without any word from the man to anyone. Neighbors confirmed that the man had seemed haggard in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, but deny that he at any time asked them about the thing claimed in the note. Details are sketchy as to what was found, as it was removed from the premises shortly thereafter. The majority of the officers involved in the investigations have been unwilling to speak on the issue. The one who did speak to me stated simply“I still have nightmares. After all these years I still have nightmares.”
I personally do not believe that such a creature actually exists. People who live in a confined space can often perpetuate hysteria, making what may be a small incident into something much worse. In many ways this may be indicative of Wellington Street at large, since the place itself has developed a reputation over the years. It is tragic that such a series of events would end in such violence, a sentiment made worse by the lack of knowledge of what really happened in that room during the period of the man's disappearance. The results of any autopsy that was performed has never been revealed, though it is known that the family was not brought in to identify the body, and that that the man had a closed casket funeral.
