The Horrors of Home
When you're home alone, even your own home is terrifying.
My mom often worked late, and left me to fend for myself. I enjoyed the frozen pizza and unlimited TV time, but I couldn't bring myself to go into my room. Our house was a hundred years old, and friends at school gave me enough crap about the amount of ghosts that must lurk in the rooms that I'd actually succumbed to it. I just stayed in the living room, the door to my room open.
This particular night, I was watching some weird Japanese show, full of strange sound effects and bright colors, when something caught my eye. I turned and looked nervously towards my room -- only to see a human-shaped shadow walk out and stand in the dark hallway.
Our faces met -- I can't say if it even had eyes -- before it turned and ducked behind my door.
I was so scared that I couldn't breathe, but my brain is idiotic enough to bid my body stand and shuffle down the hall. My chest felt tight, but I managed to speak a few hesitant words.
"Hello? Mama? Anyone here?"
Nothing happened; there was no answer. The pictures on the wall shifted and grinned their evil pale smiles at me, and my lungs refused to fill properly.
I raised my voice anyway. "If anyone's here, you'd better show yourself. I'm not playing!"
Still nothing.
I turned with an exaggerated shrug. Then something clamped down on my hair clip.
I tried to squirm and face whatever it was, squealing as my clip opened and my hair fell across my face. I heard the wind of my clip's passing as it sailed past my head and clattered into the living room.
I didn't dare turn around. I dashed out of the house, screaming, snatching the phone off the hook on the way out. I didn't feel safe enough to stop and dial my mother's cell until I was a significant distance from the house.
"Mama! Mama, please, please, come home, I'm terrified!"
I was too far from the house for reception. I could barely hear her, crackling on the other end: "Hello? Taylor, is that you? Honey, calm down and tell me what's wrong."
I edged closer to the porch. "Mama, listen. There's someone in the house. They grabbed my hair."
She paused, then chuckled, too lightly. "You're imagining things."
My mind reconstructed that terrible shadow, and I shivered. My imagination wasn't that vivid.
