I received a call from my grandma late one night, she told me that someone was trying to break into her home. She told me she had already called the police and that they were on their way over, but she didn’t think they were coming. She had called the police one too many times. I could understand that.

I was always embarrassed when my mom would make me go to the store with her because she would almost always make a scene about a coupon not working, or about how the price of an item was not labeled properly and she demanded a discount.

Her neighbors never really liked her either.

But the police did show up, and they actually caught a glimpse of someone running away from her back porch. When they inspected it, they saw that it was indeed an attempted forced entry.

I got there just as my grandmother was finishing up making her report with the police officers. She looked up toward me and smiled. When I got close to her, I noticed that she seemed very proud of herself, almost as if she was happy that she finally called the police for something that was actually worth it.

She doesn’t know much about technology, but I recommended that she gets one of those security doorbell cameras, and that her cell phone would alert her when someone showed up at the door. She barely carries her cell phone around, but she agreed to it. The next day, I went over and installed the camera I picked up at the hardware store, I also reinforced all of her doors and windows.

I decided to link up the doorbell camera with my phone too, so that I would receive alerts as well.

At home, I tested the connection and yes, it worked. I could see passing cars, and pairs of bright eyes from the cats that would hang out around the front yard.

It was around midnight when I received an alert.

“Someone’s at your door”

I opened up the app and looked at the snapshot. It was an old woman, smiling at the door. She had long, dark tangled hair. I clicked to view the live camera.

There she was. I was trying to get a good look.

Suddenly, I got a phone call. It was grandma.

She had gotten an alert too, but there was nobody at the door, she said. She said to wait a minute, and put me on hold. My grandma still uses her home phone, which she keeps connected in her kitchen. She must have accidentally hung up, because the call ended suddenly and my cell phone went back to the live stream of the security camera.

The woman was looking right at me, with a creepy smile. She wasn’t blinking.

Then, the porch light turned on. The woman turned around and ducked by the porch steps. I could see the back of my grandma’s head stick out the front door as she stepped out to the porch.

I could see the stranger’s eyes looking right at the camera. She was grinning now.

My grandma turned around just as the other woman stood up and walked behind her. I pressed the microphone button and shouted for the stranger to leave the property. My grandma became startled and ran toward the door and quickly shut it. The other woman froze. With the lights on now, I could see her face better.

She was wearing a long black dress, and her nose was small. Her evil smile never left her. I must have taken a hundred screenshots by this point so that I could show the police, even though the footage was already being recorded.

My phone rang again. It was my grandma. She told me that she heard me and that there was no one else by the front door. I asked her if she had seen the live video on her cell phone and she said yes, she had, but there was nobody there.

I told her that someone HAD indeed been there, and for her to double check her doors. I thought about sharing the screenshots with her, but aside from her not being able to open them, I really didn’t want to scare her. I made plans to drive to her house the next morning.

I fell asleep around 4am, waiting for another alert from her house, but nothing ever showed up. Before work the next morning, I went to her house. She was up at 5am sharp every morning anyway.

She saw me from her kitchen window and came up to me asking if I wanted to eat breakfast, but it was way too early for me, and without any small talk, I asked her again if she hadn’t seen anybody in the camera just to double check. I asked her what she tapped on her cell phone to be sure that she was doing it right. She was able to open up the app and view the live feed right there in front of me. Some glitch, maybe?

I told her I had seen someone there, and tried to play back the footage on her cell phone, but the camera hadn’t caught any motion except for her turning on the light and stepping out into the porch the night before.

That’s when I showed her the screenshots. Then the footage. There was an old woman smiling at her front door.

My grandma’s face froze.

That woman, she explained, was her old roommate from when after grandpa died. She was even wearing the same black dress.

The same dress she was buried in.