I installed the camera because of package theft.
That’s the boring answer. The real one is that I’d started jumping at noises after my divorce—every creak in the house sounding like someone deciding whether I was worth the effort. The doorbell camera was supposed to give me peace of mind. Proof that nothing was happening.
For the first few months, it worked exactly as advertised.
Then winter came, the days shortened, and the alerts started arriving right at sunset.
Not motion alerts. Person detected.
The first time, I was standing in the kitchen. I remember because I was chopping onions and my hands were wet when my phone buzzed.
I checked the screen.
It was me.
Or something wearing me.
I stood on the porch, inches from the camera, one hand raised toward the door handle. My face was turned slightly up, eyes fixed directly into the lens.
I don’t look at myself like that. No one does unless they’re checking their reflection.
I frowned at the screen, confused, then laughed it off. Must’ve been a delay. A cached image glitching when night mode kicked in.
When I opened the door, the porch was empty.
It happened again the next night.
Same time. Same notification. Same image.
Me, frozen mid-entry.
Only this time, the image lingered longer than it should have. The app stuttered, buffering, then resumed playback—but I hadn’t moved. The version of me on-screen stayed locked in place, staring.
I watched for nearly a full minute before the feed reset.
When I checked the porch, there was nothing. No footprints. No sign anyone had been there.
I started locking my phone face-down at night.
That didn’t help. The vibration still came through the wood of my nightstand.
By the fourth night, details had changed.
The eyes were wrong.
Too dark. Not just shadowed—flat. Reflecting nothing. Like the camera couldn’t find pupils to focus on.
And the mouth—
God, the mouth.
It wasn’t smiling, exactly. Just held, tight at the corners, as if whatever was wearing my face was concentrating very hard not to grin.
I sent a support request to the company. They replied with a polite explanation about infrared misreads and recommended a firmware update.
I installed it.
That was the night the knocking started.
The sound didn’t come from the door.
It came from inside the walls.
A deep, concussive thud that rattled the picture frames. Three strikes. A pause. Then three more.
I froze in bed, heart hammering, phone lighting up with notifications I didn’t want to see.
When I opened the app, the live feed showed only darkness.
Not night darkness. Not shadow.
Absence.
The porch light should have illuminated something—steps, railing, siding—but the image was swallowed whole, like the camera was staring into a hole punched out of the world.
The door on-screen stood open.
Wide.
I checked the real door.
It was locked. Deadbolt engaged. Chain hanging loose but untouched.
The knocking stopped.
I didn’t sleep.
The next morning, the footage was gone.
Not corrupted. Not erased.
Missing.
The timeline jumped from sunset straight to sunrise.
I emailed support again. No response.
That evening, I stayed awake, sitting in the living room with the lights on and a chair pressed against the door. I told myself I was being ridiculous. I told myself exhaustion could explain anything.
At sunset, my phone buzzed.
Person detected.
The image loaded instantly this time.
I was closer now. Face filling the frame. The blackness of the eyes had spread, bleeding into the whites. Veins stood out against my skin like cracks in drying paint.
The mouth twitched.
The knocking started immediately after—violent now, shaking the hinges, booming through the house in waves.
I screamed without realizing it.
The figure on-screen reacted.
It smiled.
I don’t remember deciding to open the door.
I remember standing in front of it, hand hovering inches from the knob, mirroring the image on my phone. My reflection in the peephole warped and unfamiliar.
The knocking stopped.
My phone chimed softly.
The live feed shifted.
I was no longer on the porch.
I was in the hallway.
Standing behind myself.
The camera angle was wrong—it shouldn’t have been able to see that far inside—but there I was on-screen, inches from my own back, mouth stretched impossibly wide.
I dropped the phone.
The door handle turned easily.
The house felt heavier afterward.
Not haunted. Occupied.
Things began to move when I wasn’t looking—chairs angled differently, doors left ajar. The mirror in the bathroom fogged no matter how cold the room was.
I stopped seeing the thing on the camera.
That was worse.
Because sometimes, late at night, I’d catch movement in the reflection of the dark TV screen. A smile where mine shouldn’t be. Eyes that swallowed light.
And when I stood very still, holding my breath, I could hear something breathing with me.
Practicing.
The final alert came three weeks later.
I was sitting in my car at work, phone in hand, when the notification appeared.
Door opened.
The live feed showed my front door standing wide open, the porch empty, night yawning beyond.
Then the camera turned.
Slowly.
As if guided by a hand.
It faced inward.
Down the hallway.
Toward the living room.
Where I was no longer sitting.
I drove home at speeds I don’t remember.
The house was unlocked when I arrived.
Lights on.
Empty.
The phone buzzed one last time in my pocket.
Motion detected.
I didn’t check it.
I didn’t need to.
Because when I reached the bedroom, I saw the indentation on the mattress. Still warm. Still breathing.
And I understood.
The camera never malfunctioned.
It had just been doing its job.
Showing me who was already home.
And who hadn’t noticed they’d been replaced.
