I don’t like looking outside. My room when I was growing up had those irritating horizontal white blinds on my windows. You know the type, the ones that come up easily but take some special maneuvering to come back down. My room faced the west side of the house, so I got to see the sunsets. The beautiful ones, as well as the sinister ones that cast long shadows all over the tree-covered area of the empty lot next door.
It was occupied at one point, or so the kids at my school had told me. But the trees were so dense and the grass was so overgrown, that you couldn’t see anything inside. Every once in a while, though, I could see a dim light from inside of the mini forest turn on and off. The area itself had a short fence all around it, but as far as I could see from my window, there weren’t any gates or ways to get in aside from jumping over the cheap metal fencing.
One evening, while I was getting ready for bed, a small candle, a flickering light type of thing caught my attention just as I turned off the lights of my room. I tugged on the string to lift up my blinds, but the string wouldn’t work, so I stuck my finger in between the blinds and pried open a small gap between them to have a look. Yes, there they were. Two flickering orange lights in the darkness. I will always remember that night, I remember how cold it was, and exactly what I was wearing. That’s when everything started.
I woke up around 2am to the sound of tapping at my window. There were no branches or anything, like in the movies. My room was on the second floor and there was no balcony and no roof area by the window. If you were to drop something, it would fall straight down to the dirt next to the living room window and miss the area where my dad kept the trash cans. I tried ignoring the sound and going back to sleep, but I heard it again a little later. The green numbers of the radio alarm clock said 3:20am, with the two flashing dots between the number 3 and the twenty. I had fallen asleep to the tapping.. or the tapping had come back. I turned on my lamp only to notice that there was a space between two blinds, like someone was holding them open to look outside. Perhaps I had left them like that when I looked out toward the lights, but then I noticed something. The gap between the blinds was slowly closing, and then they became fully closed. I don’t know if I was still half asleep and had imagined the whole thing, but I tried to forget about it.
I woke up at 5:10am once again, the tapping had come back. I grabbed my blankets and pulled them over my head, but the tapping grew louder. Frustrated, I kicked my blankets away, ready to turn on my light again when suddenly the tapping stopped. Something was outside. Since the window was right across from my bed, I had a clear view of the two dimly lit lights between dried trees next door, even through the little gaps between my blinds. I’m not sure how I managed to walk over the window, but with every creaking step I thought twice about what I was about to do. It was growing colder as I got closer, and when I was finally by the window, I put my finger between two of the blinds to have a closer look, when I felt a cold hand grab my finger, and then another ice cold hand grab my wrist. I tried to yell, I tried to scream as loud as I could, but no sound would come out. I punched the blinds with my other hand and managed to see a broad smile with many teeth, a pair of dark eyes and a pale face.
The thing whispered in many voices, but to this day I don’t know how to describe it.
And just like that, it let me go and I fell straight to my knees trying to catch my breath. I stood back up to run to my door. I had knocked down some of the blinds and I had a clear view to the outside. I didn’t want to look, but as I backed away toward the door, I saw the creature, the thing, a pale.. abnormally tall creature, moving toward the pair of lights from the lot next door.
I never told my family about it, and even though I don’t live in the same place, I still hear tapping at my windows every once in a while. I use curtains now. I make sure to shut my windows at night.
You never know what may be looking in through the darkness outside your window.
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