3:18 AM

I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of my phone going off. It wasn’t that of a phone call or a text, or even an alarm, rather, it was the familiar chime of the notification that I would get when my front doors’ doorbell camera was activated. That was strange, I thought. Who would be at the front door at this hour? I looked at the time in the upper righthand corner of my phone’s display; 3:18 AM, it read. Figuring there was no need in delaying any longer, I opened the app and prepared myself to watch the latest video from the doorbell camera, expecting to see that it had maybe been activated by that of an animal, or possibly a car going by that was now long gone. Instead, I was greeted by a sight that I definitely wasn’t expecting to see. There was a man standing there. He was a fairly average looking man in what looked to be his mid-40s, who I’d guess to be around 5’10” or so. He was clad in blue jeans, a light jacket and a baseball cap, with a decidedly confused look on his face. He just stood there, motionless, staring directly at the camera. Then, after 15 seconds, the clip ended. Confused, but figuring it shouldn’t wait, I got up out of bed as calmly and as quietly as possible, as not to wake my wife, and made my way downstairs.

I slowly made my way through the living room to the front door. I squinted as I looked out the door only to see that no one was there. I was now even more confused than I was a minute ago. Where had that guy gone? I figured maybe the guy had just realized he was at the wrong house and left. Being very tired, I just yawned and went back upstairs and back to bed.

The following day was a Saturday, which meant that I didn’t have work. I spent the bulk of the early part of the day doing work around the house. It was hard not to think about the previous night’s event. Several times throughout the day I would rewatch the video to see if I could recognize the man, but alas, I couldn’t. At 2:33 PM I heard the doorbell camera notification on my phone go off again, although this time it was a much more welcome sight, as it was my wife coming home from the grocery store. I helped her bring in the groceries and put the food away. As we were putting the groceries away I half-jokingly asked my wife if she had been expecting a visitor at quarter after 3:00 the night prior. She returned a confused look before saying that she most certainly wasn’t. I then showed her the video from the night before and asked her if she knew who the man was. With a raised eyebrow, she said that she didn’t, before suggesting that it could have been one of our neighbors. It was possible, I thought, seeing as how we lived in a subdivision of several hundred homes and even though we had lived there for years, we certainly didn’t know everybody who lived around us.

“Okay, but if it was one of our neighbors, what did they want? And why would they come over at that time of night?” I asked.

“I don’t know, maybe they wanted to tell us something, or ask us something.” She suggested.

“Maybe, but if it was that important why didn’t he so much as knock on the door?” I replied.

“Maybe he figured that 3:00 in the morning may not have been the best time and just decided not to bother.” She answered.

I suppose that was as solid of a possibility as any. I then told her about how when I went downstairs nearly immediately after watching the video, the man was no longer there. She said that was pretty weird before asking if anything on our property appeared to have been stolen. A fair question, and actually not something I had considered as of yet.

I then went outside and looked around the front yard to see if anything had been stolen, but nothing appeared to have been taken. It was then that I had an idea to ask my next-door neighbor, Bill, if he had seen anything. I went over to Bill’s house and knocked on his front door. Before too long Bill appeared at the front door and asked me what he could help me with. I told him the story of the night before, before pulling out my phone to show him the video. He looked intently at my phone as the video played. When the video ended, I asked him if it was one of our neighbors. He said that if it was, it wasn’t someone he was familiar with. He said that he thought it was pretty weird and that he would keep an eye out for any similarly strange activity. I thanked him before we moved on to small talk about the weather and other such things. After a little while longer of chatting with Bill, we parted ways and I returned to my house.

The following week was just an average, boring work week and I managed to not think too much about the man on the doorbell camera. Then, Friday came around and I was ready for the weekend. I had designs on building a shelf in the garage, mowing the lawn and watching some football. My wife and I settled into a nice, calm evening that Friday. We had some delicious tacos for dinner, then, after dinner was done, we went to the living room and watched a movie. The movie, which was a decent action flick, finished up around 10:00 PM and not long thereafter we made our way to bed.

I drifted off to sleep fairly easily that night until my phone went off again. Groggily I rolled over and picked up my phone and saw that I had a new notification from my doorbell camera, again, at 3:18 AM. I watched the video and saw the same man from the week prior staring at the camera again with the same befuddled look on his face. What did this guy want?

Just like last time, I got out of bed and went downstairs to potentially confront this mysterious interloper, but again, there was no one there. Where did this guy keep getting off to so fast?

This continued for weeks. Every Friday at 3:18 AM, I would get a notification on my phone from the doorbell camera, and it would always be the same guy just standing there, always donning the same attire and just staring. I didn’t tell my wife about these continued occurrences as not to alarm her. Then, one Friday I devised a plan; I would wait up for him. So, that is precisely what I did, aided by little more than an energy drink that I got on my way home from work and drank around 10:00 PM. I went to bed at 11:00 PM that night, and after maybe 45 minutes or so, I got up, again carefully, so as not to wake my wife, and headed downstairs. I sat on the couch for several hours playing games on my phone, and watching highlights from the day’s goings on in sports until 3:00 AM rolled around. I made my way over to the front door and just waited for the guy. The night was still, and after only a few minutes of standing there just staring out the front door I really started to wonder if the guy was even going to show up at all. Then, right at 3:18 AM, my phone went off. I looked down to see that it was for the doorbell camera.

Confused more than ever and with a furrowed brow, I checked the notification. There, stood on the walkway, was that man again. How was this even possible? The video showed a man standing there when there clearly wasn’t anybody there. I looked back down at my phone expecting to see the man standing there the same as always, except this time something was different. Instead of just standing there staring blankly, the man had now tilted his head slightly, as if he was trying to see into my house. Then the video ended. I had never been more confused in my life.

After that, I just headed back to bed where I laid awake until I eventually got to sleep around 6:00 AM.

The following week was a blur. I put in a meager effort at work due to being so distracted. Several of my coworkers even took notice and commented on it, asking if I was doing okay. I told them I was fine and just went about my day’s tasks until it was time to clock out. My wife also noticed that I had become more distant and muddled in demeanor. If she ever asked about it, I would just tell her that work had been particularly stressful or something like that.

Then, Friday rolled around and I knew what to expect. Despite that, though, I did manage to get to sleep easily enough that night. Then, like clockwork, my phone went off at 3:18 AM. I checked my phone and lo and behold the same guy from each of last so many Fridays was standing there, eyes fixed on my house. I just sighed no longer having any idea what to make of any of it. Then, just like the previous week, he tilted his head and began intently staring, almost as if he was attempting to peer into my house.

“What’re ya lookin’ for, buddy?” I said to myself.

The man’s eyes then grew wide, and he did something that I definitely wasn’t expecting. The man suddenly bolted towards the house. This sent a wave of panic rushing through me, and I leapt up out of bed, waking my wife in the process, and headed downstairs as fast as I could. When I arrived at the front door there was no one there, everything was still, and calm. This time, however, I decided to go outside. Undeterred by the cold, I went outside in just the pair of plaid pajama pants and gray t-shirt that I had worn to bed that night. I calmly and quietly made my way over to where the man had been standing. I looked around for a few seconds, seeing nothing, I decided to just head back inside. When I turned back to face my house, however, I saw something that gave me pause. I stood there staring for a bit as I gazed upon what looked to be a figure standing just inside the front door. I tilted my head slightly to get a better look at the figure that was in my house. Eventually, I was able to make out that the figure was that of the man I had seen on the doorbell camera the last so many weeks.

He just stood there staring out at me. His eyes then began to glow orange and they narrowed sharply. He then smiled an inhumanly wide smile. I then felt my eyes grow wide and I took off running straight towards my house.

___________

I awoke that Friday night to the sound of my phone going off. I grabbed my phone off of the bedside table to see what it was. To my surprise, it was a notification from my doorbell camera. I opened the video to see a man wearing plaid pajama pants and a gray t-shirt standing there with a confused expression on his face. Who was this guy? I wondered to myself. I checked to see what time it was and saw that it was 3:19 AM.

Credit: Steven Allen

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