There’s a Man Standing in My Backyard, and He Hasn’t Moved in Three Days
It started on a Tuesday night, just after dusk. I was washing dishes, the kitchen window fogging up from the hot water, when I saw him. A silhouette, tall and still, right at the edge of my backyard where the grass meets the woods. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light—maybe a tree casting a weird shadow. But then I wiped the steam off the glass, and there he was. A man. Just standing there, hands at his sides, staring straight at the house. My house. My heart did that thing where it skips, then thuds too hard. Ever get that feeling, like the air itself is holding its breath?
I live alone, out in a quiet corner of town where the nearest neighbor is a half-mile down a dirt road. It’s peaceful, usually. I moved here to escape the city’s noise, to hear crickets instead of car horns. But that night, the crickets went silent. I stood at the window, gripping the edge of the sink, waiting for him to move. He didn’t. Not an inch. I thought about calling the cops, but what would I say? “There’s a guy in my yard, and he’s… not doing anything”? It sounded ridiculous even in my head. So, I locked the doors, closed the blinds, and told myself he’d be gone by morning.
He wasn’t. Wednesday came, and there he was, same spot, same posture. I cracked the blinds just enough to peek, my coffee going cold in my hand. He wore a dark coat, maybe navy, and his face was too far to make out clearly—just a pale blur under a hat. No movement, no sound. Just him, standing like a statue. I called my friend Sarah, who laughed it off at first. “Maybe he’s a scarecrow some kids propped up,” she said. But her voice tightened when I told her I’d seen him at night, too. She told me to call the sheriff. I didn’t. Not yet. I don’t know why—maybe I was scared of what they’d find. Or what they wouldn’t.
By Thursday, the fear had settled into something heavier, like a stone in my gut. I started noticing things. The way my dog, Rusty, wouldn’t go near the back door anymore. He’d just whine, tail tucked, staring at the yard. I tried to get a better look at the man through binoculars, but the angle from my window was bad, and the woods seemed to swallow the light around him. I swore I saw his head tilt once, just a fraction, like he knew I was watching. My skin crawled. Have you ever felt eyes on you, even when you’re alone? It’s worse when you know they’re real.
I started digging online, looking for answers. Old forums mentioned “standing figures” in rural areas—ghost stories, mostly, or urban legends about people who “watch” houses for days before vanishing. One post, buried in a subreddit about unexplained phenomena, described a figure like mine in upstate New York, back in 2017. The poster said it stood in their field for four days, then was gone. They found no footprints, no trace. I checked my yard after reading that. Nothing. Not a bent blade of grass. That’s when I started sleeping with a kitchen knife under my pillow.
Today’s Friday, the third day. He’s still there. I haven’t left the house—groceries are running low, and Rusty’s getting antsy. I keep thinking about my grandma, who used to tell me stories about “watchers” when I was a kid. She’d say they weren’t human, not really—just things that looked like us, waiting for something we couldn’t understand. I laughed it off back then. I’m not laughing now. I keep asking myself: why my yard? Why me? Is he waiting for me to come closer? Or is he keeping something else out?
I’m calling the sheriff tonight. I have to. But a part of me wonders if they’ll find anything at all. Maybe he’ll be gone by the time they get here, like he was never real. Or maybe he’ll still be standing there, unmoving, waiting. I don’t know what scares me more. What would you do if you looked out your window right now and saw someone staring back, still as death, for days on end?