Previously: “The Shift.”
The creepypasta “The Hole In The Wall” initially comes across as based on an irrational fear: That of someone else living in your home with you without your knowledge. Trouble is, it turns it’s actually… less irrational than you might think. It does happen. Not frequently, of course — but it’s not totally unheard of, either.
I wrote about the phenomenon years ago for The (late, great) Toast, examining precisely why the idea is so eerie to so many of us — and since then, it’s only gotten more so. There doesn’t even necessarily need to be someone living in the hole in your wall for that hole to be terrifying. Remember that New York renter who, in 2021, discovered the reason her bathroom was so cold all the time was that there was a hole into an entirely different apartment directly behind her mirror? It was unoccupied, and clearly not in any shape to be rented out in the first place… but still.
There’s a reason these kinds of hidey holes give so many of us a “Yiiiiiiiiiiiikes” reaction.
[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]
“The Hole In The Wall”is pretty old by creepypasta standards. Written by freelance writer and narrative designer Cameron Suey under his The Josef K Stories banner, it was — judging by its earliest version, at least — originally posted to 4chan’s paranormal /x/ board. It made its way in that form to Creepypasta.com in April of 2008; Suey published it again to his Josef K website in October of 2008; and in 2011, it made its way to the Creepypasta Wikia, minus the reference to /x/. That’s the version that’s probably passed around the most frequently, although Suey later revised the story and updated his original Josef K post to include both versions sometime around 2017, according to Wayback Machine archives of the site. The updated version is a bit more literary in style than the original creepypasta version, but they’re both fun and interesting reads, even if for different reasons.
Here, you’ll find the older version excerpted; if you want to read the newer one, though — or, better still, read them both back to back — you can find it over at The Josef K Stories.
***
I’ve moved all my stuff out, called the cops, and informed my absentee landlord. I’ve done all the proper things, so there’s nothing left to do but share my little fucked up city-living story.
About six months ago, my girlfriend and I moved into an apartment in the Benton Park neighborhood of St. Louis. About two weeks after we moved in, her grandfather, who raised her, had a fucking stroke, and she ended up going home to Twin Oaks to take care of him. She was living with him full-time until we could afford a nurse or hospice.
Anyway, I’d been living in our one bedroom apartment all alone for the last half year. It’s beautiful, newly remodeled, double pane windows, great insulation. The best a couple of hicks turned yuppies could want. It’s got a couple of weird things about it, as you’ll see. There’s only four units in the building, on the second and third floors. We’re on the top floor.
The first weird thing about the place we noticed right when we moved in. The walls and floors are paper thin.
…Or, find the revised version here.
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Follow The Ghost In My Machine on Twitter @GhostMachine13 and on Facebook @TheGhostInMyMachine. And for more games, don’t forget to check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available now from Chronicle Books!
[Photo via Lujia Zhang/Unsplash]
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