My friend Adam and I have been the closest of friends for well over 20 years. When we were young we would take turns spending the night at each other’s houses during the summer. We often would rent a handful of video games and play them long into the night till we both were consumed by exhaustion and would fall asleep. It was nice having Adam live less than a block away as we did everything together all summer long.

The summer of my 6th grade year Adam moved about four miles out of town on top of a hill where his dad and a group of construction workers built a new house. I was devastated as it meant we would be unable to ride bikes and do the typical pastimes young boys do. However, the late night summer video game sleepovers didn’t subside. The first time I spent the night in his new house I was amazed at the views from on top of the hill, his bedroom with a large television, and lastly his new Blue Healer dog we will call Jake.

The sleepover was no different then any other with the exception Adam’s parents drove us into town to rent are video games. I remember we played well past midnight with are bags of chips and are heavily caffeinated sodas. We finally stopped playing at about 2 in the morning and went to sleep. For whatever reason I could not fall asleep. The moon was full and Adam’s bed sat right next to the only window in his room which was on the second floor of his new house. When you looked out the window you could see the large yard below a good distance away from the bright moonlight that night. However, beyond the yard was a dense wooded area that was pitch black. The night was cool so we decided to leave the window open which flooded the room with the sound of cicadas and crickets.

It was about 3 in the morning when I noticed the night cicadas and bugs suddenly went silent. It was a bit strange but I decided to try and close my eyes and fall asleep. It was then I began to hear the sound of footsteps as if someone were wearing heavy boots walking across the grass and dirt in the yard below. The walk sounded a bit brisk as if someone was moving toward the house with a quick purpose. It was then I heard a loud metal like sound followed by a series of clanking noises as if someone was using one of those industrial extension ladders. This series of sounds got the attention of Jake as I started hearing a deep and vicious growl followed by a series of barks. Thump! A sound pierced the darkness as if someone placed a ladder against the house. The thump noise literally sounded like it was a few feet outside of Adam’s bedroom window. Frozen in fear I was able to muster enough courage to lift my head and look out the window. Adam at this point was fast asleep and snoring softly. Slowly I looked out the window and there was nothing there even though I could still hear a low pitched growl from Jake. I tried desperately to look on both sides of the window outside as far as I could to see if there was a ladder in view and I saw nothing but the light gray siding reflecting the bright moonlight off the house.
It was at this point I began thinking to myself that perhaps Adam’s dad had gotten up to maybe put away a ladder and that I was just being a chicken.

It was then I decided to just lay back and try to get some shut eye when I heard the sound of heavy boots again accompanied by a series of wheezing deep breaths as if someone or something was struggling to breath! Jake remained oddly quiet even though I continued to hear the low pitched growl intermittently. Then it was plain as day the sound of boots climbing up a ladder. I was so scared I couldn’t move to wake up my friend who was just a few feet away. I was thinking an intruder was going to break into the house from the second floor.

Oddly though the boots climbing the ladder continued but now this time I began hearing them above me. Then I heard footsteps on top of the roof. The walking was so heavy I felt a little dirt or something gently hit me in the face as if Adam’s ceiling in his bedroom was knocking dust off from the vibration of this man or thing walking now on top of the roof. Then the sound of a saw could be heard as if it were hacking and sawing into a piece of wood.

I continued to hear this hacking saw sound followed by heavy labored breathing off and on until about 630 am. I tried on a few occasions to wake Adam but he must have been super tired because he didn’t wake up. Then suddenly the hacking stopped. I heard boots walk from the roof, onto the ladder, and down into the yard below. At this point I was able to see much better as the sun was beginning to rise. I remember looking out the window and there was absolutely nothing there.
That morning I got up and I asked Adam’s dad if he had been working on the roof during the night and he looked at me like I was crazy. I even went outside trying to find footprints and there was nothing.

I kept silent about the whole ordeal until one night a few years after the incident Adam began telling me he too was hearing these strange sounds outside his bedroom window at night as if someone was sawing something on top of the roof only to get up the next morning to find that nothing we there.

When we were in high school Adam told me that he had gotten to know an elderly lady that lived in a small house at the bottom of the hill where his house stood. She told him that her husband had always wanted to build a house on top of that hill but he never got the chance as he had died a few years earlier from the time the house was built of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.