Don't Sleep with the Lights Off

Quote of the Day: "The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible" ~Bela Lugosi


For your Halloween entertainment, I will now share the three times I've been really scared. (And I mean Halloweeny scared, not so much "my kid just got run over by a car and might die" scared, which I've also been.)

One time, when my husband was out of town (it always happens when he's out of town), I was watching the movie "What Lies Beneath." With all the kids tucked into bed, the house was quiet and dark. When I started getting that creepy feeling that something might be sneaking up behind me, I couldn't take it any more. I went and got my 4 month old baby out of bed so I wouldn't be alone watching the rest of the movie. Pathetic? Maybe a little.

I use to watch all the X-Files shows. But the "Mothmen" episode really creeped me out. It's set in the ancient forests of Virginia, and everyone who went into the woods disappeared. These freaky, red-eyed, immortal beings were snatching them out of thin air. And always the camera cut to their glowing red eyes, because that's all you could see of them. They could make their skin match their surroundings to become invisible.

In the final shot--spoiler alert--Scully is leaving her hotel room after she thinks they've solved the case. Of course Mulder knows better. Mulder comes and drags Scully from the hotel. The camera pans to under her bed, where a pair of red-eyes is hiding, staring out. I couldn't step out of bed after dark for months knowing that thing might be under it, waiting. And if you're wondering, yes, I do suffer from a bit of nyctophobia!

This last is the most scary because it's based on a true story. One time, when my husband was out of town!, my sister-in-law told me about an incident that happened in her neighborhood. A neighborhood not too far from mine.

A girl (maybe 12 or 13) woke in the night when she felt something touching her. She saw a man standing in her room stroking her arm. She screamed, and the man fled. The police came and searched the house. Finding no signs of forced entry, they concluded that the man had entered the house sometime during the day and hid--either in the basement or attic--until the whole house was asleep. Then he came out and approached the sleeping girl.

Scary. And of course after she told me that, I looked at that little square of ceiling tile that opens into the attic and, naturally, it was askew. Panic.

However, that's not the end of this story. A year or so later, the night before Halloween, I was with a group of girls about that same age, and we were telling them ghost stories. I told them about this incident, and they were deliciously freaked out. I even demonstrated the man rubbing his hand up and down the girl's arm. Shudder.

Well, that was all fine. I was scared, but I walked home in the dark alone anyway. I climbed into bed and was just falling asleep when I felt something touch my arm. I tried not to panic, it was probably just a breeze through my open window. I felt it again.

I rolled over and there was someone standing beside my bed, touching my arm. I screamed so loud that my husband bolted out of bed, his heart racing, and my little daughter burst into tears. Of course, she was the one by my bed, touching me, trying to get my attention because she couldn't sleep.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Any times you have been heart-pounding scared?