One hazy, brutally hot Friday evening last July, my wife and I sat quietly on the couch watching some television. I recall particularly that we had just discovered the show “Drunk History” and decided to binge-stream a number of episodes. The muggy air forced our skin to stick to our seats, and we constantly squirmed and shifted our positions in an attempt to stay comfortable.
During a commercial break, perhaps influenced by the show, I sat up and went to the refrigerator to grab myself a beer. As I made my way across the room, I noticed the curtains flutter just before I crossed the threshold into the kitchen. A cool, sweet breeze flooded into the room. I spun in place and smiled at my wife. “A storm?” She asked, her face also brightening at the thought of a cooling rain.
“I think so!” I replied. “I remember seeing it in the forecast at work.”
“Perfect.” She replied, closing her eyes and reclining into the couch. “Emily’s going to be upset, though.”
I nodded in agreement. “True.” I said. “But she’s getting older. Eventually they’re not going to scare her anymore.”
Apparently, I was right. Emily was, at that time, six years old, but even 10 minutes into the thunder storm, we didn’t hear a peep come from her room. Instead, we were able to enjoy the show in our nice, recently cooled living room. We didn’t hear anything at all from down the hall, until-
CRASH
The sound of broken glass erupted from Emily’s room. Without thinking, I sprang to my feet, spilling the beer bottle which I had mindlessly let rest in my lap.
“I got it.” My wife started, looking at the spill. “Just go see what happened.”
I ran down the hallway, skidding to a stop outside Emily’s room. I flipped on the lights to find that Emily was sitting in bed, smiling, looking toward a shattered bunny figurine in the middle of her room.
“Emily, what did you do?” I asked, my fear subsiding into a mixture of relief and mild annoyance.
“I didn’t do anything!” She shouted. “It was the shadow man!” I folded my arms and gave Emily a crooked smile. “The shadow man, huh?” I instantly thought of all the times I had blamed household accidents on a ghost as a child, and how my mother would find this story quite amusing.
“Yeah!” She said, excited. “I woke up because the thunder, but the shadow man was here to keep me from being scared. We had fun! He knew I didn’t like the bunny, so he knocked it down! He knew I thought it was funny.”
“You didn’t like the bunny?” I asked, frowning. “Well, even if you didn’t like it, you should have told us. There’s a better way to get rid of things you don’t like. You shouldn’t break them.”
Emily frowned, too. “But daddy! I told you I didn’t break anything! It was the shadow man!”
“Well what does this shadow man look like?” I asked. “Where is he?”
Emily looked around her bedroom, apparently confused. “I don’t know right now. He must be somewhere else. He’s a shadow! He needs to be a shadow for you to see him.”
I was sick of playing this game with her. I didn’t think the situation called for punishment, at least not at that time. “All right, Emily. Well whatever. I’m going to clean this up, and if you see the shadow man, tell him to come see me about breaking things, okay? I want to have a talk with him.”
“Okay, daddy.” Emily whispered, her smile returning with a yawn.
After that incident, I cleaned up the bunny, grabbed a fresh beer from the fridge, and returned to watch television with my wife.
What happened later that night still bothers me, and occasionally makes it difficult to sleep.
Long after my wife and I had gone to bed, my eyes shot open as I awoke to a noise. I remember the time exactly because the green light of the clock was the first thing I saw when I awoke. 3:12 a.m.
I remained deadly still in bed because the noise I heard wasn’t like most little creeks and bumps I hear in the night. Ever since I became a father, I routinely inspect any noise which causes me to wake up, even though I know it’s always nothing. I would casually grab the baseball bat from under the bed, go through the motions of checking each room, and then return to bed.
What made this sound so different, was that technically, it wasn’t a noise at all. It was intelligent. It was a voice.
To this day I cannot tell you if I dreamed the voice, or if it was what forced me to wake up. But in any case, the voice was inches from my ear. A man’s voice, who simply whispered: “Sorry.”
Clearly, my wife and my dog didn’t hear it. They remained asleep, their gentle breathing smoothly rocking the mattress.
I remained absolutely frozen for what felt like an eternity until I heard something else. It sounded like soft, yet deliberate footsteps heading for the door of my bedroom. I turned my head slowly to look toward the door frame. I felt a sharp, unnatural pain in my chest as I saw, very clearly, in the pale green light of our alarm clock, the shadow of a man proceeding to walk into the hallway. As he passed through the light, he disappeared.
As the shadow moved away from me, one thought entered my mind, instantly trumping the fear.
Emily.
I leapt out of bed, threw on the hallway light, and once more ran to Emily’s door. I frantically reached for the light switch, turned it on, and found-
Well. Nothing at all. Nothing besides Emily, who sat upright in her bed, smiling at me.
“Did you see the shadow man, daddy? I told him to talk to you, just like you asked.”
Submitted June 14, 2016 at 06:17AM by Smoofis http://ift.tt/1UwrJ4p nosleep
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