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I turned over in bed and pulled the pillow tight against my ears. Whoever was playing in the hallways at—I glanced at my clock—two in the morning needed a serious tongue-lashing. But it wasn't going to be me doling out the lashings. I was going to fall asleep, hopefully. It had been a long-ass day. The night kept stretching on like rubber about to snap. I desperately wanted sleep, but it just wouldn't come.
“One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door.”
I sat up, glaring at my door. The voices were getting closer. They were creepy and waifish, like a child's voice coming through the fog. I hugged my knees, waiting for the next stanza of the rhyme.
“Five, six, pick up sticks.”
The children (if that's what they were?) were definitely getting closer. If I was an angry, old woman I would have gone out and told them to quit it with the ruckus. Instead, I was a paranoid girl curled up in her bed reliving the past.
“Seven, eight, lay them straight.”
When I was a little girl I used to see things. Hallucinations are what the doctors called them. To a little girl, though, it was hard to give them any other name than ghosts or demons. I would wake up in the middle of the night and different people would be leaning over me, leering. One night, it was a man who was wearing construction clothes: coveralls, hard hat, boots, leather gloves. He was as solid as you or me. He just stared at me.
He was a nice ghost.
/> My parents could only handle me running into their room in the middle of the night so many times. At first, they had me sleep in their bed. That devolved into me sleeping on the floor next to their bed. Have you ever slept on the floor after a terrifying ghost visits you? It sucks. The jokes of “don’t look under the bed” or “there are monsters under the bed” never seemed less funny.
So, my parents room soon become off limits. Instead, I got into the habit of lying awake on the family room couch, watching the Disney Channel until I fell asleep out of pure exhaustion. (The Disney Channel was the only station I’d watch because it didn’t air scary commercials.)
The ghosts came even when I was awake. One night, I was watching TV and a woman appeared in front of me. She had long, ink-black hair and was wearing a tattered, white dress. I didn't scream. I didn't do anything but mold myself into the couch, waiting for my fate. Eventually she disappeared, but I didn't sleep that night. I remember that night like it was yesterday; the dread that had filled me was paralyzing.
Interesting side story, The White Lady is a type of female ghost and is a pervasive cultural phenomenon. She has been seen by thousands of people. She represents foreboding and even death in some cases. I read that on the Wikipedia. So, I guess I'm not the only one who's seen her. Now I'm wondering who is crazy: The people seeing the ghosts, or the doctors ignoring them?
Not long after seeing The White Lady, I was doing homework on a Saturday afternoon. I heard an inhuman noise: it sounded like a cat being boiled alive mixed with a baby's first cry after childbirth. This time, terror didn’t paralyze me. I ran screaming out of my house like it was on fire.
I wasn't safe at night and now I wasn't safe during the day.
I tried to tell my parents I was being haunted. They attributed it to my overactive imagination. But demons were in the house! I couldn't escape them and they lived in the mirrors and in the closets! They bought me a nightlight, but it created more shadows to taunt me. I smashed it. I slept with all my lights on, because I couldn't have any goddamn shadows.
Soon my ramblings and ravings became too much for my parents. Or maybe they became seriously worried about me. They made an appointment for me to see a child psychiatrist. I don't remember my exact diagnosis; I've had so many over my lifetime. I just remember him telling me what I was seeing wasn't real. Ghosts aren't real. Demons aren't real. He prescribed some medication and the demons stopped finding me. I still take that medication.
“Nine, ten, kill them again.”
My eyes shot open wide. Had I heard that correctly? Had the creepy Stephen King children on the other side of my door really said, “kill them again”?
“This isn't happening.” I whispered this statement to myself, over and over again, until it became my mantra.
When I was younger, before the medication, I had had a song I would sing to myself until everything bad had gone away. Yet, here I was doing essentially the same thing with my mantra.
I was older now; I was supposed to be over this shit. I'm a semi-functioning member of society, dammit.
I gathered every bit of courage I had inside me and got out of bed. I was going to go investigate. The way to deal with these ghosts is to be rational. What's the worst that could happen?
Death. Destruction. The words popped into my head unbidden.
But I'm not afraid of death or destruction. It’s the terror that gets me; the ghosts in my head prey on fear. Fear is all they have.
Get some backbone, Moore!
I cracked open my door.
Hee-hee-hee.
I jumped backward, opening the door on accident, the knob still clutched in my hand.
“One, two, buckle my shoe.”
What the hell? I stuck my head out into the hallway, looking around for whoever was speaking. No one. I stepped further into the hall, and my foot hit something hard: a tape recorder. I lifted it up to examine it.
