Have you ever felt that someone in the darkness is watching you? Parents tell their children that there isn’t anything in the darkness – that isn’t there in the light of day. Well, I’m here to tell you that they are dead wrong. Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean that they aren’t watching you … right now!
I too, once believed that there was no such thing as ghosts, ghouls and evil spirits – that is until I heard the words of a mysterious old man. Considering that they were his last words on this earth, he had nothing to gain by lying to me. And this is what he told me just before he passed into the eternal darkness.
It was a dark and cold Halloween night when my mother took me to visit her crazy old aunt, Lenora, who lived in a decrepit old folks home. I never liked that place; it smelled funny and the old people there gave me the creeps. I told my Mom that I was going to the washroom downstairs – just so I could get out of that dank room.
I wondered the long dark hallways looking at old pictures on the walls and poking my nose into the dimly lit rooms. Finally I turned around to go back, when I realized I’d gotten lost. In a panic I ran down one dark hallway after another calling out for help … but no one came to my rescue.
I finally came to a dead end that was as dark as the center of a man’s eye. I once again whimpered, “can anyone hear me?” Suddenly from out of the darkness an old man’s voice crackled: “If you help me, I’ll help you.”
“I just want to go back to my Mommy,” I stuttered. The old man muttered weakly, “there is something I need to tell you, come closer little boy.” I took three short steps into the darkness. “Okay, I’m here. Now tell me how to get back upstairs.” After what seemed like forever he finally spoke, “I can’t hear you through this door, come closer little one. I can’t hurt you.” I slowly took two more steps into the darkness.
My eyes began to tear up and I felt like I was about to cry when the old man told me: “Fear. Fear has you in it’s grip my son and you can’t even move your feet – can you?” He was right I was frozen. “Boy”, he commanded, “if you promise to tell people that I’m not alone down here – I’ll tell you how to get back into the light.”
“Who else is here,” I asked? “I don’t know who they are”, he snarled, “they just watch and listen to people like you. Then they whisper your secrets into the ears of others as they sleep. How else would other people know what you’re up to? For instance, I know all about you and your single mother and that crazy old woman, Lenora. I also know that you’re afraid of the dark and that you think that old people are creepy. You even breath hold your breath when you pass by them, don’t you? That’s what you think, isn’t it? You little turd!”
How did he know all that, I asked myself? How did he know about my mom and my auntie? My legs began to shake and I was about to fall down, when suddenly out of the darkness a large hand reached out and grabbed me. “What are you doing down here in the morgue?” Then a very large black man in a white coat clicked on the lights. And again he barked at me, “well, speak up boy, what are you doing here all alone?” But I couldn’t speak, I was still frozen and even more afraid than ever. But not by him – I was scared stiff by what I was seeing … there was absolutely no one else in that room. There were only small metal doors hanging on the cold stone walls.
The man took me back upstairs to my aunt’s room. “Where have you been, mister?” my mother scolded me. Then auntie Lenora looked me square in the eyes and she laughingly cackled, “I know what he was doing. He was talking to those crazy old people downstairs … weren’t you boy?”
THE END
