The “Man” In The Kitchen
So about 3 years ago, me and my roommate Jake were basically homeless for like two weeks.
Not in a bad way, just stuck in that annoying gap between apartments where the new place isn’t ready yet. We ended up booking an Airbnb to ride it out. Studio apartment, middle of some complex out on San Antonio, TX . Nothing special. Just somewhere to sleep until we could move into our real place.
The layout was VERY simple. You walk in the front door and the bed and TV are right there to your left. If you keep walking straight theres a small doorway that leads into the kitchen, tiny little thing, barely enough room to move around in. Bathroom is to the right of that. Thats the whole apartment. No hallway, no real separation between anything. Just one open room and two small doors.
One thing that always stuck out to me about that place was how exposed it felt. It was dead center of the complex, right next to the dog park. Everybody walked past it. You could hear people outside at all hours, dogs barking, people talking, footsteps right outside the window. It was one of those places where the outside felt just a little too close.
Now I’m an early bird and Jake is a night owl so around 10pm I knocked out. Lights off, Jake still up next to me scrolling his phone in the dark. This was normal of him .
Then out of nowhere something grabbed my shoulder and yanked me straight out of my sleep. Not gently either. Hard. Jake was sitting up next to me, completely still, eyes aimed right at that kitchen doorway. And I could tell just by looking at him that something was wrong. This wasn’t him being restless or weird. He was locked in.
I go “Jake what?”
He whispers “I think there’s somebody in the apartment.”
I asked him what he meant, like did he hear something? He said no. He said “I was watching a video on my phone and I saw a man walk right past the bed into the kitchen.”
To get more context you gotta visualize the layout of the apartment again for a second. Front door opens and the bed is right there to the left. Whoever Jake saw came through that door and passed within arm’s reach of where we were both laying and walked into that kitchen. That’s how small this place was.
I’m a big skeptic so my first thought was maybe he caught a shadow at the corner of his eye or something. I asked him if that was possible. He looked at me like I was stupid and said “I was wide awake. I saw a man walk past me.”
Mind you , Jake is one of the most laid back people I’ve ever met in my life. The type of guy who doesn’t really rattle or scare easily . In all the years I’d known him I had never seen him wake me up like that, never seen him look like that. So when he said it that flat and that certain I felt something shift in my chest a little.
I reached into the nightstand and grabbed my knife, & I want to be honest, my heart was going. But I kept thinking this apartment is so small. There is genuinely nowhere to go in here. If someone is actually standing in that kitchen right now I’m about to find out.
I turned on the kitchen light.
Nothing. Cabinets closed. Nobody there. Checked the bathroom. Nothing. Came back and just stood there in the quiet holding a knife and the apartment was completely empty.
I told Jake I didn’t find anyone and he just kind of shrugged and said he knew what he saw. No panic, no trying to convince me further. Just settled into it like he’d already made his peace with whatever it was. That confidence is honestly what got to me more than anything else.
So I started looking around a little more carefully. Checking for anything off. Loose floorboards, a door that didn’t sit right, anything that could explain how someone gets in and out of a tiny apartment without a trace. I’d seen the movie Vacancy years ago and that was the part of my brain that was awake at 1am, thinking about hidden entry points and people who use them. I didn’t find anything obvious but I’ll be real with you, I was exhausted and not exactly doing a thorough sweep. If something was there I might’ve walked right past it.
We left the next morning.
To this day I still think about it. Was someone actually in that apartment? Did they slip out through something I missed? Or did Jake genuinely believe he saw something, was so sure of it, but maybe his mind just played a trick on him that night? I go back and forth on it.
I don’t know. Whatever it was, I didn’t find it. And I’m not sure if I wanted to either