Sept 27:
Feeling weird today. I can't really explain it. Just feeling off somehow. The back of my neck is randomly itchy. The feeling goes away if I scratch at if for a second, but it comes back at random times. At those times I start to feel apprehensive, like if I don't take care of the itch right now...I don't know. I just don't know. I don't want to talk to Julie about it. I don't need to worry her unnecessarily. Hailey and Riley's ballet recital is tonight. I hope I can concentrate on it.
Sept. 28:
Unable to sleep. I kept waking up every half hour or so, just determined that something was in the house. The itch was back, furiously, every time. One of those times, I woke Julie up, too, totally by accident. She thought I could hear an intruder in the house and got a little freaked. I felt bad about that, because I somehow knew that if I looked, I wouldn't find anyone. I got up and looked anyway, checked in on the girls, checked the basement, the garage. Nothing. I went back to bed, and made sure that every time I woke up after that, I wasn't disturbing Julie. The last few times I woke up, my mouth was completely dry. I went and got a drink of water, and left the light off so that the light from the bathroom wouldn't shine into the bedroom. To make a long story short, I got spooked by my own shape in the bathroom mirror. For a few moments, it looked much larger, like I had grown into a troll or that maybe there was something huge standing behind me. But when I looked again, I was normal size. It's funny how your vision can play with you like that.
Oct. 01:
No issues for a few days, and today it came back strongly. I was alone today; Julie was working and the girls both were at a friend's. About an hour after they were gone I just started to feel panicky. I was constantly looking around corners and making sure doors were open and that if I sat, I was facing them. I felt so stupid, but any time I tried to tell myself to behave normally, I couldn't hold to that. I was putting a load of laundry in down in the basement, and the entire time I was sure that something was sneaking up on me. I kept checking, and of course, nothing was. Except for one time, I thought just for a second that I could see something out of the corner of my eye. Something big. It was moving toward me slowly, with purpose. Until I looked and saw that it wasn't anything. Just the shadow of the sofa in the den. I think I'm losing it.
Oct. 01, Addendum:
Okay, did I close the doors to the kids' room and the master bedroom? I'm next to positive I left them open. As paranoid as I've been feeling today, I am almost certain that I made sure both doors were open when I went out to the garage to work on the Chevy for a little while. Then again, I had managed to get into a kind of normal mood; somehow the act of putting on my work clothes and going to tinker with the car was enough to make me feel normal. It's possible that I closed both doors without thinking. Yes, I must have closed the doors myself.
Nov. 23:
With Christmas just around the corner, it's been a busy month, and it's been nearly two since that itch on the back of my head started up. Tonight, though, I was putting the girls to bed, and Hailey asked why I get up during the night. I told her she was being silly, but she insisted that I get up and walk around, and that more than once I've looked in on them. She says it's too dark see me when I do that, but the footsteps are heavy, so she knows it isn't Mommy. She told me that I've been doing it more often lately and it's been scaring her. I told her not to worry, but to tell me if I walked around tonight. We'll see what she says in the morning.
Nov. 23, Midnight:
Alright, I'll admit, after what Hailey told me, the idea of sleep is just not happening tonight, so, here I am, back at this stupid journal, sitting in the living room with a light on. If anything is going to walk around tonight, I want to be there to see it. The itch is terrible. It's driving me to distraction.
Nov. 24:
Nothing moved around in the house last night. I stayed awake the entire night, and now I feel like I could sleep all day. I asked Hailey, and she said she didn't hear anything either. That actually doesn't make me feel any better. I was hoping she would say she heard something, so that I could tell her it was her imagination.
Feb. 4:
Goddammit. After more than a month with no incidents, Hailey tells me this morning that she heard me walking around again. I asked if she knew it was me, and she said she never saw me, but she heard my voice. She also said it scared her. Why would my voice scare her? More to the point, just who is she hearing? I have never sleepwalked in my life before, and I have no reason to believe I'm doing so now. If I were, I know I would wake Julie, and she hasn't complained of me getting up in the night at all. If I wasn't worried before, I am now.
Feb. 10: I decided to set up my digital camera in the hallway with a wireless feed to my laptop, which I have left open beside my bed. I have set the monitor to not go to sleep. The light will bother me, but maybe that's a good thing. I'll see movement on the monitor immediately then.
Feb. 11: I dropped immediately to sleep after writing that last entry. I'm having a coffee now, preparing to watch the playback. Julie's still sleeping, and so are the girls, so I'm sitting at the kitchen. I feel like I got no sleep at all even though I slept like a baby. I'll update in a moment when I've watched it.
Feb 11, Addendum:
Oh god. Oh god. I don't have a lot of time. I'm writing this in the hope that someone finds it later. What I saw on the playback, I can barely bring myself to even think about, much less write down. I just want to sit and process it, but I can't do that, because now that this thing knows that I know about it, I don't think I'll be spared. Julie's still asleep, and that thing...it's in the girls' room...oh, god, the girls...I never dreamed...I can't write anymore. I can hear it opening the girls' room door. It's headed into the master bedroom. Oh, god, Julie...
Police Report, February 11, 10 AM: Roger Philips, 37, of [REDACTED], was arrested this morning on one count of first degree murder. It is not yet clear how he murdered his wife, Julie Morris-Philips, whom he married the previous March, but he was found standing over her body, screaming in horror. He later calmed at the station, but refused to admit his guilt. The body of Mrs. Morris-Philips was in pieces. The room was covered in her blood. Strangely, very little of the blood was found on Mr. Philips. The only thing that is clear is Mr. Philips' deranged mental state. He seems to believe that he has two daughters, which, in the night, merged into a terrifying demonic creature, and that it was this creature who murdered his wife. He claimed to have video proof, but the only thing that would play on his laptop was snow. We have verified, however, that Mr. and Mrs. Philips had only been married a short time, and that neither had children from a previous relationship. The "girls' room" that Mr. Philips referred to appeared to be a nearly-empty storage room, containing only a strange, locked wooden box, carved with odd-looking glyph-like symbols. We do not know where it came from, and when asked about it, Mr. Philips seemed not to know, either. It is possible that the box contains the murder weapon. Arresting officer Carl Dunphy was unable to open it at the scene, but it is presently in evidence lock-up, and we will have forensics make another attempt later. We believe it may contain the murder weapon, as Mr. Philips was fixated on that room, despite it being in near-complete disuse.
