It always gets worse this time of year with the long dark nights when I spend too much time watching scary TV dramas. It was much better back when the house was crowded with family, pets and visitors. Now I’m too often a home-alone guy. The trouble is I’m not completely sure that I am home alone
There are too many mysterious noises in the dead of winter. (I hate that expression. It’s probably a Hitchcock movie title.) Right now I’m certain I can hear one or two people crawling around in the back bedroom. Well, maybe not people, but something is crawling around in the back bedroom.
Ever since I was a boy I’ve been able to hear and even see things no one else can. It probably has something to do with my being almost completely Irish. My few Neanderthal genes could also be involved.
I’m not bragging. I’d much rather not be able to hear and see things no one else can. As I reached manhood and eventually fatherhood, I was sometimes asked to explain strange phenomena to a nervous wife and frightened children.
“That’s just the normal settling noises of the house cooling down at night,” I’d say. But down deep I’d be wondering who or what was dragging chains across the attic floor.
Sometimes they’d beg me to go up and check “just to be sure”. I’d try to laugh it off, but they would insist. “Well, if it would make you sissies feel better,” I’d say as I nonchalantly climbed the attic steps. But during one attic investigation a trespassing squirrel leaped out at me from behind my moth-eaten jogging suit and I completely lost it. The family was not convinced my blood-curdling scream was just a joke.
The things I “see” are not as clearly defined as the things I hear. For instance, there’s no question about the crunching sounds I heard last night in the cellar. I didn’t go down there but I’m sure they were in the washer-dryer area where a dozen of my socks have mysteriously disappeared.
My spooky sightings are less easily explained, being extremely brief peripheral glimpses of swift, shadowy UFO’s (Unexplained Frightening Objects). For example, an hour ago I had a micro-second peek of “something” that raced along the living room wall and disappeared behind the couch. It was quite long and possibly purple. It might have a large head or perhaps it was wearing a derby.
I had a dog, until recently. I hoped he’d keep me company and investigate the creepy stuff, but old “Shakey” heard twice as much as I did and was always growling at dark corners. He ran away last week as we were watching “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. Maybe that’s him howling on the back porch now, but that’s not Shakey behind the couch. He’s small and mostly white and never wears a derby.
As I write this the ominous sounds increase. I hear whispering in the dark dining room, marching footsteps on the back porch and a moaning behind the couch. It has never been so……..
SECURITY NOTICE: This blog was posted one minute past midnight. The required password was not included and efforts to reach the author have been fruitless. A phone call to his official number was answered with maniacal giggling.
Imagine That 