Scaredy Cat

Not him, me.

When I was younger I had bigtime issues with being alone and afraid. Even when my whole family was home, if they went to sleep and I was still awake I’d quickly become completely terrified of whatever I thought might be lurking anywhere that I wasn’t looking. At some point, I guess around the time I moved to Scotland, which is really just the time that I left home and started living like an adult, I grew out of it. I even lived in Sara’s windowless basement for a few months, sleeping alone in complete, can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face darkness without really worrying what was lurking in the corners.

But sometimes I just turn into a giant sissy again.

Right now it’s dark, and quiet, and Allan’s at Jeremey’s place watching the hockey game. I usually don’t mind having an evening to myself to quietly go about my business. But while I was sitting going through all websites and blogs I like to read, I stumbled across an entry where people started posting ghost stories in the comments thread. This one in particular pretty much ruined my evening:

A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed. The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye. What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to. This disinclination saved his life. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red.

At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, “Did you look through the keyhole?” The man told her that he had and she said, “Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red.”

I can’t even explain why, but that story made me sick to my stomach with fear. So now I’m home, alone, at night, with my friggin’ pets making all kinds of horror movie noises to keep me on my toes. Hero keeps finding little things – screws, bottlecaps – to chase around on the hard laminate floor to make scratching, rattling noises. Lady scratches at the bottom of her cage trying to burrow, and once in a while thumps loudly just to be a jerk. These animals are killing me.

Honey, please come home!