It was a regular Friday night, and I was up late chatting with my friend Bradley on a virtual chat room that we had found online.

He told me and the other people on the chat that he could stay up as late as he wanted, because his parents were away until the weekend, so he had the house to himself.

We stayed on there for a few hours having fun with these other people. Eventually, my mother began calling out for me that it was time to sleep.

As I was about to log off, I decided to ask Bradley what he was doing tomorrow. I thought he might want to stop by my house for a bit. He did not reply for a while, until:

“Bradley is typing a message.”

Then it went blank.

“Bradley is typing a message.”

Nothing again.

“Whatever man, I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I responded.

It was strange for him to just stop replying like that.

I did not hear from him again until the next day, when I logged on to the chat site. He apologized for not replying last night, saying he had just been busy. We had a brief exchange, and he said he would come over soon. He kept telling me that it was urgent.

I asked him why he did not want to wait to see his parents first, who would be home shortly. He insisted that there was no time, and he had something really important to show me. Then he logged off. I thought that was out of character for him, as he usually put his family before anything. I grew curious at what he wanted to show me so badly. I expected him to be over soon, as he only lived about twenty minutes away. 

That quickly changed when I received a phone call.

It was Bradley’s parents, who had just come home and sounded extremely worried. They asked if I knew anything on Bradley’s whereabouts, to which I told them not to worry, because he was, in fact, on his way over.

The phone fell silent. A few seconds later, I heard his mother give a deathly scream. His father took a deep breath, and bravely strung together a sentence that I will never forget.

“Get out of the house now," he muttered. "Bradley’s here… he’s dead.”

They had found Bradley’s lifeless body hung up like a coat in the wardrobe. I quickly ended the call. It was becoming apparent to me why he had asked if I would be home alone.

Suddenly, I heard the back door creak open.

I did the first thing I could think of, and quickly crawled under my bed to hide. I heard the sound of footsteps slowly coming closer. I dared not to open my eyes. However, when I dreadfully peaked through my fingers, I saw these pale, white, cold, bare feet coming towards my room, almost in slow motion. 

As they slowly approached the bed, I could hear the dampness of the footsteps peeling away from the floorboards. I felt my heart pounding, and I held my breath.

Just when I thought that I could not possibly get any more terrified, my phone let off a loud beep. I had received a text message. 

It was from Bradley’s phone.

“Where are you?” 

That was when the feet stopped abruptly, dead in their tracks…
