I grew up in the small town of Mechanic Falls Maine. Everything important to me was a ten minute walk away. Elm street-- the elementary school, Bethany’s ice cream stand, a little nestle of shops. My house was like all the others on the block, old. 100 years my dad told me, it would creak and pop as old houses do. It was beautiful,and the noises never made me nervous.
When we first moved there he used to make up scary stories about the basement to scare my little sister and I. While the basement was pretty creepy looking, it never concerned me. Not as much as the window in my bedroom anyway. My room was a good size and I shared it with my sister.
We were pretty normal kids, loved to read and play outside. We could stay outside until well after dark and not feel afraid; often we did just that. The only thing I was ever scared of was that damn window. It faced the road. We lived across from the fire station, town hall and a small church. A lamp post rested just outside, always casting an unwelcome orange glow in my room.
For a while I thought I had dreamed the next part up. I remember I would lay there in bed, covers tucked tightly around me. The orange glow taunting me, telling me to look. But I never would.
One day I told my dad about how the window scared me.
“What, why are you scared of a window?” He asked.
“I’m not, i’m scared of what's outside the window” I replied in a hushed tone.
“We live in the safest part of town and you are on the second floor, nothing is outside your window.” I never brought it up again. I began dreading bedtime and would do anything to prolong it. But no matter what, I always wound up laying there in terror, not daring to turn my head, not daring to close my eyes. I thought if I turned my head to look directly at the window, it would be there. But what if I closed my eyes and it was there? I hated that thought just as much. So I would keep the window in my peripheral vision, fists and jaw clenched tightly; not even knowing what “it” was.
One night after watching a movie I temporarily forgot about my fear. I happily crawled into bed, curling up in the blankets, and rolled over. I froze, it seemed every cell of my body stopped moving. From the upper right corner of the window, a face stared back at me. It seemed to be looking in at an angle, an impossible one, some of the features concealed by the window frame and shadows. Its face was pale, not pale white though. A pale yellow, but almost translucent. It eyes were black shadows, somehow darker than the moonless sky outside. The lamp post casted light onto the floor, I dared not look away to see if the face casted a shadow. Tears silently rolled down my face, and I stayed paralyzed this way for hours until fading into a troubled sleep.
I told no one. I asked to have my bed moved, and my parent obliged. We got curtains, and slowly I began to realize it all must have been a nightmare. A year or two later, I walked into the room later than usual, coming back from a friends house. My little sister laid there in bed, clenching blankets and staring at the ceiling.
“Hey are you okay?” I began walking to my bed.
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?” I scoffed.
“The window.” I froze, slowly turning so I could see both it and her.
“What, exactly are you scared of?”
“I don’t know, something staring back at me.”
My breath caught in my throat and I launched myself on my bed, heart pounding.
“Me too.” I whispered.
“Hey,” My sister called out.
“What?” I answered.
“The curtains are open.” I was staring at the floor, at the orange glow. The rest of that night was spent in a horrifying silence. But nothing ever happened. We moved from that house after living there for ten years. I had forgot about the window until recently, after overhearing a conversation. A little girl behind me in line at the supermarket was arguing with her dad. At first I didn’t pay any mind, until I heard her say “Dad, It was looking at me, through my window.”
Now this caught my attention.
“Shush Brooke, there are no such things as monsters.”
“I didn’t SAY it was a monster! But it looked right at--” The dad cut her off.
“It was just a nightmare, and you need to let it go.”
“Nightmares don’t have shadows.”
I thought about that a lot the next couple of weeks. Now to bring you to why I’m telling you this story. Two weeks ago my boyfriend and I were getting ready for bed. He had re-organized his dorm room, and I laid down on the newly positioned bed, staring at my phone screen.
“Hey babe?” He asked
“What’s up?” I turned to him.
“Why do you do that?”
I stared at him. “Do..do what?”
“Whenever you sleep anywhere, you lay in a way so that the window is never directly facing you..like ever. Why?”
I stared down at the floor, at the light casted from the crappy old lamp post in the dorm parking lot. I pointed to where he was standing on the floor. A shadow the shape of a face rested at his feet. I dared not look at the window. “Because nightmares don’t have shadows” I whispered. The curtains have stayed tightly closed ever since.
So when you are laying there in bed, thinking about your day and you have the urge to look out your window, check your floor first.-Author: Whisper Waite
