Icy blue eyes stared at me through the darkness. The fact that I could see these eyes so clearly in the darkness sent shockwaves up my eleven-year-old spine. I had just woken up from a rather intense nightmare, incidentally about some creep that was watching me at the foot of my bed. ‘’I can see you,’’ I whispered.

I’m not really sure why I did this. I guess I figured it would scare the creep. I heard a voice whisper back, ‘’I see you too!’’

I let out a piercing scream and leaped out of my bed and made an attempt to scramble for my bedroom door but the creep in the darkness made a grab for me and I felt him wrap his arms around my legs. My dad burst into my bedroom with his 12-gauge shotgun, and he turned the light on, and I saw the creep that was holding me. He looked to be about twenty seven and had curly brown hair and a goatee. My dad hurried over and hit the man in the temple.

The man released his grip, and I ran out into my sister’s bedroom.

We heard the shotgun blast.

And he came in after what seemed like an eternity. ‘’The cops are on the way,’’ dad said.

He sat on the edge of my bed and hugged me and my sister, who was fifteen. The three of us could not even remember the last time my sister had hugged my dad. Even if she wouldn’t have wanted one, she was going to get one on that night. Dad was ‘’protecting his babies’’ as he would go on to claim in the future.

My sister and I loved our dad. But he could be scary when he was angry and now we knew he was capable of killing someone if need be. My heart felt as though it wanted to leap out of my chest. ‘’You can stay in the guest bedroom for tonight,’’ Dad said. ‘’It’ll take me a while to clean up your room.’’

I shuddered to think what my room looked like but I shuddered even more at what might have happened had my dad not come in when he did. Apparently my sister had seen someone enter my room and told dad about it. We found out our neighbor, Mrs. Wilson had been butchered by the creep. We later came to find out that the killer’s name was John. Dad read that in the paper while at breakfast the next day and he simply said, ‘’John picked the wrong house to break into.’’

It was November 1st, that weird time between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

It was a gray and overcast day.

I walked by Mrs. Wilson’s house on the way to school. I kept my head down and tried avoiding eye contact, but a whisper enticed me to look. Mrs. Wilson stood on the front porch, staring at me. Blood streaked her white hair and she breathed through the hole in her neck. I let out a scream and tripped over my own feet. Mrs. Wilson’s spirit descended upon me, laughing at me and gurgling on her own blood. ‘’Please God,’’ I whispered. ‘’Go away.’’

Mrs. Wilson’s ghost vanished, and I stood up and hurried off to school. I must have passed Mrs. Wilson’s house about two hundred times since then and I never saw that terrifying apparition ever again.

Once was enough for this lifetime and the next one. Even as a man with white hair, I can remember the horrible gurgling sound she made and that horrid wheezing noise emanating from her throat.

In the dark

In the dark

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