The Serial Killer Next Door

The house next door had been empty for almost three years before Alice moved in. Nobody knew who had sold it to her, and nobody seemed to know where she had come from. The house stood at number seventeen, at the far end of our quiet street, with its faded gray walls, overgrown garden, and windows that always seemed darker than the rest of the neighborhood. People said the previous owners had left suddenly, but nobody could agree on why. Busi, who had lived across the street for more than twenty years and knew everybody's business, claimed the house had always been bad luck.

I didn't believe her.

"Everything is bad luck to you," I told her one afternoon as we sat outside my house.

Busi gave me a look. "I'm serious this time."

I laughed. "It's a house, Busi."

"No," she said, pointing across the street. "That house is different."

Alice was standing outside number seventeen. She had only moved in a few days earlier, but she already seemed to know when people were watching her. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps in her early thirties, with dark hair and a pale face that rarely showed any emotion. She wasn't rude exactly. She simply didn't seem interested in people. She never came to neighborhood gatherings, never stopped to chat, and usually walked straight into her house whenever she saw someone approaching.

That afternoon, however, she stopped in the middle of her driveway and looked directly at us.

Busi lowered her voice. "See?"

"She's probably just looking at us."

"Exactly."

I smiled. "You make no sense."

Alice continued staring for another few seconds before turning around and walking into her house. I remember feeling a strange chill even though the afternoon was warm. There was something about the way she had looked at us. It wasn't the normal curiosity of a new neighbor trying to recognize faces. It felt as though she had been studying us.

Still, I forgot about it.

At least, I tried to.

A few weeks later, a man started visiting Alice.

His name was Leon. He was tall, friendly, and seemed completely different from her. The first time I saw him, he was standing at her front door holding a bouquet of flowers. Alice opened the door, and for once, I saw her smile. It was a small smile, but it was genuine enough.

Busi noticed him too.

"Boyfriend," she said from her window.

"You don't know that."

"I know."

"You don't even know his name."

"I don't need to."

I laughed and went back to what I was doing.

Leon stayed at Alice's house for several hours that evening. His car was gone the next morning, so I assumed he had left early. Four days later, however, his photograph appeared on the evening news.

Leon had been reported missing.

His sister said he had gone out after work and never returned home. His phone had been switched off, and his car had been found near the train station. The police had no idea where he was.

I remember staring at the television and feeling my stomach tighten.

I had seen him enter Alice's house.

The police came to our street a few days later. Detective Leon Maseko was the officer in charge of the investigation. He was a quiet man in his forties who looked like he hadn't slept properly in years. He spoke to everyone who had seen Leon before he disappeared, including Busi and me.

When he questioned Alice, he stayed inside her house for nearly forty minutes.

When he finally came outside, Busi stopped him.

"Detective," she called.

He turned toward her.

"Did she know the missing man?"

The detective looked back at Alice's house before answering. "She says she didn't."

Busi frowned. "But he came here."

"We know that."

"So where did he go?"

The detective didn't answer.

That was the beginning of the investigation.

At first, nobody thought much of it. People disappeared sometimes. There were arguments, breakups, accidents, robberies, and people who simply decided they wanted to start new lives somewhere else. But then another man disappeared.

His name was Marcus.

Then another.

Then another.

Every man had one thing in common. They had all been seen with Alice shortly before they vanished.

Some had gone to restaurants with her. Some had been seen entering her house. Others had been seen leaving work with her. But whenever the police questioned Alice, she calmly denied knowing them.

"I barely knew him."

"I don't remember him."

"I think you're mistaken."

She never became angry. She never panicked. She never tried to run.

That was what bothered Detective Maseko most.

She was too calm.

By the time the sixth man disappeared, Maseko had stopped treating the cases as separate incidents. He created a file on Alice and began digging into her past.

There wasn't much to find.

Too little, in fact.

Alice had no social media history, very few photographs, and almost no family records. Her employment history was incomplete. Her previous address belonged to an abandoned property that had been empty for years.

Then Maseko found an old missing-person report.

The name on it was Peter Collins.

Peter had disappeared twelve years earlier after being seen entering an apartment belonging to a woman named Alice Moore.

Maseko stared at the photograph attached to the report.

The image was old and slightly damaged, but the woman in it was unmistakable.

It was Alice.

She had the same dark hair, the same pale face, and the same cold gray eyes.

Maseko checked the date again.

Twelve years.

She looked exactly the same.

He searched further and found another report from years before that. Then another. Each one involved a missing person connected to a woman named Alice Voss.

Each photograph looked like her.

The oldest report was more than fifty years old.

That was when Detective Maseko realized he wasn't dealing with an ordinary missing-person investigation.

He brought Busi in for questioning again.

"You told me you watched Alice closely after she moved here," he said.

"I did."

"Did you ever see anything strange?"

Busi hesitated.

"She digs."

Maseko looked up. "Where?"

"In her backyard."

"When?"

"Usually at night."

"How often?"

"I don't know. A few times."

"Did you ever see what she was digging?"

Busi looked down at her hands.

"Once."

Maseko leaned forward.

"What did you see?"

"A black plastic sheet."

"Did you see what was inside?"

"No."

"Are you certain?"

Busi nodded.

"I wish I wasn't."

The police eventually obtained a search warrant and searched Alice's house. They found nothing. No bodies, no weapons, no blood, and nothing belonging to the missing men.

The basement was completely empty.

Alice stood quietly in the hallway while the officers searched her home. When Detective Maseko walked past her, she looked at him.

"You won't find anything," she said.

He stopped.

"Why?"

"Because you're looking for the wrong thing."

He turned toward her.

"What should I be looking for?"

Alice gave him a faint smile.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret."

The investigation stalled after that.

Then the sixteenth man disappeared.

His name was Mark Dlamini, a twenty-eight-year-old accountant. Security footage showed him meeting Alice at a restaurant. They left together at around nine that evening. Alice returned home shortly afterward.

Mark never did.

This time, Detective Maseko refused to wait.

He placed Alice's house under surveillance.

For eleven nights, nothing happened.

On the twelfth night, a man arrived.

He was carrying flowers.

Maseko watched through binoculars as Alice opened the door and invited him inside. The man kissed her before entering. The door closed behind them.

Maseko checked his watch.

8:13 p.m.

Midnight came.

Nothing.

One in the morning.

Nothing.

Two.

Still nothing.

Then, at 2:47 a.m., the back door opened.

Alice stepped outside.

She was carrying a shovel.

Maseko immediately alerted the officers.

They followed her into the woods behind the house.

Rain had started falling by the time they found her.

Alice was standing beneath an old tree, digging a hole in the wet earth. When Maseko switched on his flashlight, she stopped.

"Alice!"

She slowly turned around.

For the first time since the investigation began, she looked frightened.

Maseko raised his weapon.

"Step away from the hole."

Alice dropped the shovel.

"Where is Mark?" Maseko asked.

She looked down at the grave.

"He isn't Mark."

Maseko frowned.

"What?"

"The man in the house."

"What man?"

Alice looked directly at him.

"The one you saw me bring inside."

Maseko's expression hardened. "You mean your boyfriend?"

Alice shook her head.

"No."

The officers exchanged confused looks.

"Then who is he?" Maseko asked.

Alice's voice dropped to a whisper.

"I don't know."

They returned to the house.

The seventeenth man was lying dead in Alice's bedroom.

His throat had been cut.

There was blood on the sheets.

Alice was arrested immediately.

This time, she admitted that she had known the victim. She admitted that the other missing men had been her boyfriends. She admitted that she knew they were dead.

But she continued to insist that she had not killed them.

Nobody believed her.

Not until the police searched the basement a second time.

Behind one of the walls, they discovered a hidden door.

Beyond it was a narrow room covered with photographs.

Sixteen missing men stared back at them from the walls.

Their names were written underneath their photographs, along with the dates they disappeared.

Under every photograph was the same word.

GIVEN.

Detective Maseko stared at the wall.

"What does this mean?"

Alice stood behind him.

"Those are the ones I gave him."

"Who?"

Alice pointed toward the floor.

"Him."

Maseko looked down.

The concrete was covered with thousands of scratches.

Some were shallow.

Others were deep enough to expose the material underneath.

It looked as though something had been trying to claw its way through the floor.

"You expect me to believe there's something living underneath this house?" Maseko asked.

Alice's expression changed.

"I don't expect you to believe me."

She looked toward the floor.

"I expect you to survive."

The interrogation lasted six hours.

Eventually, Alice told Maseko about her family.

The house had belonged to her mother before her. Before that, it had belonged to her grandmother. For generations, the women in her family had lived there.

And for generations, something had lived beneath it.

Something that became hungry.

"That's why you brought those men here?" Maseko asked.

Alice nodded.

"You killed them?"

"No."

"You expect me to believe that?"

Alice looked exhausted.

"I brought them to the house. That's all."

"And then?"

"It took them."

Maseko stared at her.

"What took them?"

Alice looked at him.

"I don't know what to call it."

"Then what do you call it?"

She whispered, "The thing below."

Maseko laughed bitterly.

"You killed seventeen men and now you're blaming a monster."

Alice didn't respond.

Instead, she looked toward the observation window.

"Did you ever hear scratching?"

Maseko's smile disappeared.

He remembered the basement.

He remembered the marks in the concrete.

He remembered the sound he had heard beneath the floor.

Alice leaned closer.

"If you stop feeding it, it comes for you."

Maseko didn't believe her.

At least, he told himself he didn't.

Alice was charged with the murders.

The house was sealed.

The woods were searched.

No monster was found.

No supernatural creature.

No explanation.

Only graves.

Bodies.

Photographs.

Evidence.

Enough to make Alice one of the most notorious killers in the country's history.

Three weeks later, Maseko visited her in prison.

He wanted one final answer.

"Why were you digging that grave?"

Alice stared at him through the glass.

"I wasn't digging it for him."

"Then who?"

Alice looked toward the small window in her cell.

"The thing that killed him."

Maseko shook his head.

"You know there's nothing there."

Alice's eyes filled with tears.

"Did you demolish the house?"

"Yes."

"Did you fill the basement?"

"With concrete."

Alice closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she looked genuinely terrified.

"Then it's too late."

Maseko felt a chill run through him.

"What do you mean?"

"You buried it."

That night, Maseko received a call from the police station.

Something had happened at number seventeen.

The house had already been condemned and partially demolished, but an officer had reported hearing noises coming from beneath the property.

Maseko drove there immediately.

The house was empty.

Dust covered everything.

The basement had been filled with concrete.

But as he stood inside the ruins, he heard something beneath his feet.

A knock.

He froze.

Another knock followed.

Then a third.

Three slow knocks from underneath the concrete.

Maseko stepped backward.

A crack appeared in the floor.

Then another.

Something black pushed through.

He didn't understand what he was seeing.

It looked like a hand, but it had too many fingers.

Maseko reached for his gun.

Then he heard a voice behind him.

"Detective."

He turned.

Alice was standing at the top of the basement stairs.

She was barefoot.

She was wearing the same black dress she had worn the night she was arrested.

Maseko stared at her.

"Alice?"

She looked terrified.

"Run."

"What are you doing here?"

"Run!"

The concrete beneath them split apart.

Something screamed below.

Alice turned toward the sound.

Then she looked at Maseko.

"I'm sorry."

The lights went out.

Maseko ran.

He never looked back.

Alice disappeared that night.

The police found no broken doors at the prison. No dead guards. No security footage of her leaving.

She was simply gone.

The house at number seventeen was completely demolished.

This time, the entire foundation was removed.

The hole was filled.

The land was sold.

Years passed.

People forgot about Alice.

They forgot about the missing men.

They forgot about the house.

But Busi never forgot.

She remained in the neighborhood long after everyone else had moved away.

One night, years later, she woke to a strange sound.

At first, she thought it was the wind.

Then she heard it again.

A shovel striking the earth.

Thud.

A pause.

Thud.

Another pause.

Thud.

Busi slowly walked to her bedroom window.

Across the street stood the new house built on the old property.

A woman was standing outside.

Busi's heart stopped.

Dark hair.

Pale face.

Black dress.

Alice.

She looked exactly as she had the day she moved in.

Alice slowly raised her head.

Their eyes met through the darkness.

Then Alice smiled.

Behind her, the front door of the house opened.

A young man stepped outside carrying a bouquet of flowers.

He walked toward Alice.

She took his hand.

Together, they went inside.

The door closed.

The lights went out.

Busi stood frozen at the window.

Then she heard something beneath her own house.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

She backed away from the glass.

The sound stopped.

For a few seconds, everything was silent.

Then someone knocked on her front door.

Three times.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Busi didn't move.

Another knock came.

Then a woman's voice spoke from the other side.

"I think you already know me."

Busi covered her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

The voice continued.

"Open the door."

Busi slowly backed away.

The handle began to turn.

And somewhere beneath the floorboards, something hungry began to wake.