How do I stop my eight-year-old neighbor from breaking into my house every night?

I didn't mean to hurt her. All of this could have been avoided if she had just listened. It was wrong, I admit that, but it's too late now and all I can think about is how do I make it stop?<br><br>My wife died three years ago, and I’ve been alone since then. We never had kids. We decided it was better not to bring lives into a world we knew would be destroyed. We had been warned of the impending doom that awaited humanity. The collision. My generation was given the gift of foresight. We knew our kids would suffer the same fate that we were going to. Max was the only child I had. I had taken him in when he was eight. It was like he was my own son. Everything was going great until Julia arrived.<br><br>Our house is near a lake surrounded by dense trees that extend for miles. The road is hidden behind thick foliage, and you wouldn't know it's even there unless you see it for yourself. It’s perfect for hiding, something I’ve had to do for the past month.<br><br>Before Julia moved into the house across from us, Max and I lived completely isolated from the rest of society. We fished for food, and I taught Max how to hunt. Max didn’t have to go to school, and I didn’t have to work, because the government promised to deliver food and supplies until the end. Most people could barely afford to survive on their own after the revelation, but my wife had saved enough to buy the house on the lake and stockpile food. When she died, her money became mine, and with it, I adopted Max.<br><br>Julia was eight years old like Max when she moved in. I’m not sure how aware she was of her situation, but the look in her eyes told me she knew. She must have been told too. We had heard the moving van come in around three in the morning. We didn’t think much of it until we saw them carrying boxes and furniture into the house across the road. Max was excited. He had been asking me to take him out so he could interact with kids his own age, and I finally let him.<br><br>I was working in the garden when Max wandered off to the new neighbors. He met Julia and her mother, and they both came to introduce themselves. Julia’s mother asked me to let Max come over and play with Julia sometimes. I said yes, but only during the day, because it wasn’t safe at night.<br><br>Julia’s mother told me she was recently divorced and she had decided to come here after receiving the news. She said she had spent her entire life savings to move and provide the best life possible for her daughter before the end. Max and Julia became fast friends, but things quickly took a turn for the worse when Julia started sneaking into my house at night.<br><br>It was about a month after they moved in that I first discovered Julia in our house. I had gone to the kitchen for a glass of water when I noticed the fridge door was open. All the lights in the house were off, and it was dark, except for the light from the fridge illuminating its interior. The clock on the fridge read 2:07 AM. I immediately turned on the kitchen lights and that was when I saw her.<br><br>She was crouched on the floor, looking scared. When she saw me, her eyes widened in horror. I didn’t know what to do. I froze, unsure of how to react. Max was behind me, and when Julia saw him, she let out a sigh of relief and scampered toward him, disappearing behind the kitchen island.<br><br>“Hey,” Max said.<br><br>“Julia, what the hell are you doing?” I asked, annoyed at her for breaking in.<br><br>“Max invited me,” she said sarcastically, coming out of hiding.<br><br>I looked at Max.<br><br>“I didn’t invite her,” Max said.<br><br>“I invited myself.” Julia said, grinning at me, and went back to sneaking food from the fridge.<br><br>I didn’t know what to do, so I stood there and let her steal food from us. After a while, she stopped and said goodbye. Before she left, she said, “You don’t even notice when I take your food. I can take as much as I want and you don’t care.” Then she left.<br><br>The next night, I heard the sound of breaking glass. I got out of bed and checked the kitchen. I heard her shuffling through the fridge, and the sound of glass breaking on the floor. I knew it was Julia again, breaking in. I decided not to intervene. She was probably hungry. I heard footsteps. It was Max. He was standing in the kitchen when I got there, and so was Julia. They were eating, and there was blood on the floor.<br><br>“What the hell did you do?” I asked.<br><br>“I broke it,” Julia said.<br><br>“Why did you let her do this?” I asked Max.<br><br>“She said she was hungry,” Max said.<br><br>We cleaned up the glass and the blood, and I told Julia that she couldn’t come back after that night. She didn’t answer. She just went back to eating. The next night, I woke to the sound of rustling in the kitchen. I got out of bed and went to the kitchen. It was Julia again, this time with a large empty sack slung over her shoulder. She was putting whatever she could fit inside the sack.<br><br>Before I could intervene, Max got in front of me. “Dad, don’t hurt her.” I tried to push him away, but he pushed back, harder. I fell back, into the island, knocking over a jar filled with knives. They fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Julia looked back, and when she saw Max, she grinned. “Let me take what I want, and I won't hurt you.”<br><br>I was furious. I tried to rush at Max, to make him move, but he didn’t. He just stood in front of me, looking at me angrily. It was then that I realized he was no longer my son. He wasn’t the boy I had taken care of his whole life. As I watched him, I felt a cold chill run down my spine. Julia finished putting food in her sack and went back out into the night.<br><br>The next night I woke to the sound of breaking glass, but it wasn’t from the kitchen. This time it was from my bedroom window. I was fast asleep when something crashed into my room. It sounded like a brick. I woke up and turned on the lights. The curtains were open, and the door was closed. I looked at the window. It was wide open. The screen was torn, and there was broken glass all over the bed.<br><br>I got out of bed. The clock read 02:42. The house was quiet. Max’s bedroom door was closed. I could hear him snoring. I closed the window, but it was too late. It was already letting in cold air. I turned off the lights and went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. It was too cold. I tossed and turned, but I eventually fell asleep, and the next morning I woke to the sound of breaking glass. This time it was from the kitchen.<br><br>I got out of bed and went to check the kitchen, even though I already knew it was her. This time I decided to intervene. I couldn’t let her destroy my house. When I got to the kitchen, I saw that the small window above the sink was open. The screen was torn, and the window had shattered. The kitchen island was covered in blood. I heard footsteps. It was Max. When I turned around to look, he was standing behind Julia, and she was eating raw meat from a jar filled with blood.<br><br>“Max, what is happening here?” I asked.<br><br>“She’s eating,” he said.<br><br>“She’s destroying my house,” I said, growing impatient. “Julia stop! Don’t eat anymore.”<br><br>She looked back at me. When our eyes met, I felt a shiver down my spine. Her eyes were not human. It was as if her pupils had dilated and expanded to fill her entire eyes, like two black voids staring into my soul. I was terrified.<br><br>“I will stop eating when I’m full,” she said sarcastically.<br><br>She didn’t finish the jar of blood. She left it half empty on the kitchen island. I didn’t sleep that night. I waited on the couch for her to come. When she did, I confronted her. “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”<br><br>She didn’t answer. She just looked at me with those black eyes of hers and told me, “You will give me whatever I want.”<br><br>I locked every window in my house, but the next night she came back. I heard the breaking of glass. It was louder than before. It sounded like she had thrown a brick at the window. I got out of bed and followed the sound. It was coming from Max’s room. I got to his room and saw that the window was open. She had torn the screen, and it hung from the frame like a ribbon. I saw her shadow on the wall, but when I turned on the lights, she was gone.<br><br>The next morning, I checked the house. She had opened each window in the house. She had torn each screen, and Max was missing. I looked everywhere for Max, but he was gone. I waited in the house, hoping he would come back, but he never did. It was close to midnight when I heard footsteps outside Julia's house. I saw Max. He walked across the road and into the house.<br><br>I decided to confront Julia's mother. I knocked on the door and waited. When the door opened, I was shocked to see it wasn’t Julia’s mother.<br><br>“Who are you?”