My Neighbor Heard Screams in My Empty House — So I Pretended to Leave… and Hid Under the Bed to Discover Who Was Really Inside.
When I walked into my driveway that afternoon, my neighbor, Mrs. Collins, was waiting by the fence. Her face was tense with irritation. “Your house is very noisy during the day,” she snapped. “It’s annoying.”

At first I took it as a joke. “That’s impossible. There shouldn’t be anyone home. I work from eight to six.” She crossed her arms. “Then explain the screaming. I heard screaming. A woman’s voice.”

The smile vanished from my face. I lived alone. My husband, Mark, had died two years earlier, and my job as an insurance analyst kept me out of the house most of the day. I assumed Mrs. Collins had mistaken my house for someone else’s, but the way she looked at me—confident, almost frightened—stayed with me long after I walked in.

I barely slept that night. Every creak in the floorboards made my heart race. I checked every door, every window, even the attic. Nothing seemed disturbed. No signs of forced entry. No explanation.

The next morning, I made a decision that felt both ridiculous and terrifying. I left the house at my usual time, greeted Mrs. Collins as if nothing was amiss, and then returned an hour later. I parked down the street and went inside quietly.

I went straight to the bedroom and slid under the bed, clutching my phone and holding my breath. Dust tickled my nose. Minutes stretched into hours. I could hear the refrigerator whirring, the pipes gurgling, the distant traffic outside. Part of me hoped nothing would happen, that I could crawl out, ashamed of my own paranoia.

Then, just after noon, I heard the front door open.

Footsteps moved through the house with a familiar air: unhurried, confident. Someone opened kitchen cabinets and poured water into a glass. My pulse was pounding so hard I was sure it would give me away.

The footsteps drew nearer. They stopped right outside my bedroom door. The door opened.

And then I heard a woman’s voice say softly, “I know you’re not supposed to be here yet.”

Under the bed, I froze in terror, watching the shadow of his feet as he fully entered my room.

The shadow shifted closer to the bed.

Then a second voice answered—male, low, unmistakably familiar.

“She always leaves by eight-thirty. We have time.”

My blood turned to ice.

I knew that voice.

Mark.

My husband.

The man I had buried two years ago.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop the scream that tried to tear out of me. My heart hammered so violently I thought the mattress would shake. The woman laughed softly, the sound intimate, cruel.

“You really did a perfect job,” she said. “Everyone believed the accident.”

I watched as his shoes stepped closer to the bed. Shoes I had bought him. Shoes I’d cried over while sorting through his things.

“Insurance paid out fast,” Mark said calmly. “Widow story helped. She was always so trusting.”

The room spun.

Dead husbands don’t collect insurance.

Dead husbands don’t drink water in your kitchen.

Dead husbands don’t stand three feet away while you’re hiding under the bed, realizing your entire life was a lie.

The woman sat on the edge of the mattress. Her heel dangled inches from my face.

“She’s been acting strange lately,” she said. “What if she knows?”

Mark scoffed. “She’s paranoid. Always was. I’ll be gone before she ever figures it out.”

Gone.

I finally understood.

The screaming Mrs. Collins heard wasn’t mine.

It was hers.

A woman trapped here. A woman who came before me.

My phone buzzed in my hand—an incoming call. Mrs. Collins.

I didn’t answer.

But the vibration was enough.

Mark froze. “Did you hear that?”

Silence swallowed the room.

Slowly, impossibly, he bent down and looked under the bed.

Our eyes met.

His went wide.

Mine burned with rage and terror.

“Hi, Mark,” I whispered. “You forgot one thing.”

The woman screamed this time.

I rolled out from under the bed and ran—straight past them, out the door, barefoot, shouting for help as loud as my lungs would allow. Neighbors poured out of their houses. Someone called the police.

They tried to run.

They didn’t make it.

THREE DAYS LATER

The truth unraveled fast.

Mark had faked his death with help from the woman—his mistress—and a corrupt paramedic who altered records. They’d been using my house as a daytime hideout while planning to disappear for good.

The screams Mrs. Collins heard?

The previous homeowner’s niece.

She hadn’t survived.

Mark was sentenced to life.

The woman to forty years.

I sold the house.

But every time someone asks how I knew something was wrong, I tell them the same thing:

“Because sometimes, the people we bury aren’t dead.”

“And sometimes… listening to an angry neighbor saves your life.”