You’re lying in bed, the house dead quiet, but you can’t shake the feeling you’re not alone. Something’s there, just out of sight, watching. You tell yourself it’s nothing—just the house settling, just your imagination. But then you hear it: a scratch, slow and deliberate, from inside the walls. That’s what Sarah Cole heard every night in her new home on Willow Lane. She thought it was rats. She was wrong. By the time she realised what was in her house, it was too late. Far too late.
Welcome, my brave listeners, to Eerie Tales with Cosette. As Halloween’s shadow creeps closer, we dive into a tale not of ancient legends or spectral folklore, but of a horror born in the quiet of a suburban home—a horror that clings to the walls and waits for the dark. This is the story of Sarah Cole and the Watcher in the Walls.
Sarah was 27, a graphic designer who’d just landed her dream job in the small town of Ashwick. She’d bought a fixer-upper on Willow Lane, a charming old house with creaky floors and peeling wallpaper. The price was a steal, and Sarah chalked it up to the housing market crash. The neighbours were friendly but odd, always asking if she was 'settling in okay' with nervous glances at her house. She ignored them. She had work to do, walls to paint, a life to build.
The first night, she heard it: a faint scratching, like nails dragging across wood, coming from the wall behind her bed. It was rhythmic and deliberate, stopping and starting as if testing her reaction. Sarah figured it was mice or squirrels—old houses had pests. She set traps and called an exterminator. The traps stayed empty, and the scratching grew louder.
Episode 8 - The watcher in the walls
By the third night, the sound had spread. It came from the living room walls, the kitchen, and even the ceiling above her. Always at night, always when she was alone. She’d lie awake, heart pounding, staring at the walls as the scratches formed patterns—long, short, long, like a code she couldn’t crack. She started sleeping with the lights on, but it didn’t help. The air in the house felt wrong, heavy, like it was watching her.
One night, desperate for answers, Sarah tore down a section of wallpaper in her bedroom. Beneath it, she found scratches etched into the plaster—not random, but words. 'I SEE YOU', carved in jagged, uneven letters. Her stomach dropped. She called the police, but they found nothing—no signs of a break-in, no explanation. They suggested she was stressed, maybe imagining things. But Sarah knew better. She wasn’t alone in that house.
She started researching the house’s history. The library had old records, and a hesitant librarian told her about the previous owner, Elias Marrow. He’d lived there alone in the 1950s, a recluse who’d boarded up the windows and stopped speaking to anyone. One day, he vanished. The official report said he’d left town, but rumours swirled that he’d never left—that he’d died in the house, sealed away in its walls. Sarah laughed it off. Ghost stories didn’t scare her. But the scratching wasn’t a story.
The next night, she set up her phone to record the sounds. She sat in the dark, listening as the scratches grew frantic, louder, closer. Then, a new sound: a whisper, clear as day, from the wall by her bed. "Sarah… I’m here." Her blood ran cold. She grabbed a hammer, driven by fear and fury, and smashed a hole in the wall. Dust and plaster rained down, revealing a narrow space between the studs. And there, in the dark, something moved.
It wasn’t a rat. It wasn’t a ghost. It was a figure—tall, emaciated, its skin grey and stretched tight over bones that shouldn’t bend the way they did. Its eyes were sunken, glowing faintly, like dying coals, and it was looking at her. Its mouth opened, revealing jagged teeth, and it whispered her name again, its voice like dry leaves. Sarah screamed, stumbling back, but the thing didn’t follow. It retreated into the wall, its limbs folding unnaturally as it slipped into the shadows.
She didn’t sleep that night. She boarded up the hole, packed a bag, and planned to leave at dawn. But the house had other plans. The scratching became a pounding, shaking the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. The lights flickered, then died. In the dark, she heard it—footsteps, heavy and deliberate, circling her from within the walls. She ran for the door, but it wouldn’t open. The windows wouldn’t budge. The house was holding her.
Sarah’s phone, still recording, captured what happened next. The audio is hard to listen to—her screams, the relentless scratching, and that voice, over and over, saying, 'You’re mine now.' When the police broke in the next morning, responding to a neighbour's call, Sarah was gone. Her phone was on the floor, the recording still running. The hole in the wall was empty, but the scratches had spread, covering every wall in the house. And in the plaster, new words: "SHE SEES ME NOW".
No one’s lived in that house since. It’s still there, boarded up, untouched. Kids dare each other to get close, but even they don’t stay long. They say if you stand outside at night, you can hear it—scratching, whispering, waiting. Some claim they’ve seen eyes in the windows, glowing faintly, watching. And if you listen closely, you might hear your name calling you to come inside.
And so, dear listeners, we leave the shadows of Willow Lane behind, but the chill of the Watcher in the Walls lingers, doesn’t it? If this tale stirred something in you, share it with those brave enough to listen. Subscribe to Eerie Tales with Cosette for more stories that creep into your dreams, and drop your own eerie encounters in the comments—I’m dying to hear them. Until next time… keep one eye on the dark, because it’s always watching back.
