SCARY THINGS
The flashlight clicked on and off, throwing crazy shadows on the closet wall. On--shadows forming strange faces and unidentifiable objects. Off--total darkness. The darkness was dangerous, but if she only allowed it to envelope her for a few seconds at a time, she knew she would be safe. The light was good; the light was safety. Ugly things, hungry things lived in the darkness, but they couldn’t stand the light; they feared it. That’s why she held onto the flashlight extra tight, gripping it for dear life, fearful that a hand (or something not quite a hand) would burst forth from the shadows to knock the light from her hands.
There was a noise outside the closet door, and she held her breath, waiting for something to happen, for a bang on the door as some unspeakable entity hurled its invisible form against it, or for the knob to begin turning slowly, so slowly. Instead there was a light rap on the door.
“Who’s there?” she asked, her body tense, her eyes wide and bright in the near-darkness.
“Connie, it’s me,” came a whispered voice from the other side of the door. “Open up.”
She let out her breath in a shuddery sigh of relief. She reached up and untied the end of the scarf that was tied around the knob; the other end was tied around the bar on which her mother’s clothes were hung. She turned the knob and pushed the door gently open.
“Come on Oscar. Hurry up!”
Her brother came rushing into the closet, and he closed the door after him, but left the makeshift lock off. In one hand he carried his own flashlight, his shield against the dark.
“The coast looks clear,” Oscar said. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah; I’ve been ready,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
Oscar either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the eye-roll. He waited with one hand on the knob and the other holding his flashlight up, took one quick glance back to be sure his sister was really ready to go, and then opened the door. They hurried out of the enclosed space and across the darkened bedroom. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and Oscar swung it open wide enough so that he could lean out, taking a peek out into the hallway. Finding the hallway deserted, he slid through the opening; Connie followed after him.
They crept down the hall, staying close to the wall, their flashlights stabbing out into the gloom. A board creaked beneath Oscar’s feet, causing his sister to let out a surprised yelp; they both froze in place then, and stared at each other for a moment before moving on, Oscar taking extra care to tread softly. Connie stepped over the spot that had creaked, and continued on after her big brother.
As they came to the head of the stairs Oscar stood on the top step, shining his light down the carpeted length of the stairs. He started down, but Connie hesitated at the top of the stairs. When Oscar realized that his sister wasn’t right behind him, he looked back up the stairs and motioned wordlessly for her to follow. Still, she hesitated.
“Come on” he said; it was barely a whisper.
Slowly Connie started climbing down after him. Satisfied, Oscar tuned and continued down. When he got to the bottom of the stairs he waited for his sister to catch up. As Connie stepped off of the last stair there was a noise from somewhere in the house. Both Oscar and Connie swiveled round, their flashlights held before them, throwing twin beams of light into the darkness.
“What was that?” Connie asked.
“I don’t know,” Oscar replied with a shake of his head.
They looked at each other, each wanting the other to lead the way; eventually Oscar, as the older of the two, relented, and slowly made his way across the living room. As they neared the door to kitchen they could see a harsh, white-blue light seeping out from under the door. They stopped in front of the door, both taking quick, shallow breaths, a chill coursing through their bodies as their minds imagined what unspeakable things they might find on the other side of the door, their only defense two flashlights whose beams seemed somehow paltry now, too weak to be any real defense.
There was a clinking noise, a rattling of dishes in the kitchen. Oscar reached out and pressed one hand flat against the door, then paused. He realized then that he was holding his breath, and he tried to let it out, but found it to be an impossible task. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears He pushed on the door, and it swung slowly open on its well-oiled hinges. The blue-white light grew brighter, harsher. A sharp laugh pieced the silence of the dark house, and the door swung fully open.
“Hey, what are you kids still doing up?” Dad asked.
Mom and Dad were both at the sink, Mom washing the dishes and Dad drying them with a dish towel.
“We found the ghosts! We found the ghosts!” Connie called out brightly.
“Boo!” Mom said. “Now get up to bed and go to sleep. Both of you.”
“Come on,” Dad said. “It’s late. Up, up, up.”
Oscar laughed.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “We’re going.”
He let the door swing shut, and he and Connie made their way back upstairs, moving swiftly this time.
“Good night, Oscar,” Connie said as she ducked into her bedroom.
“Good night.”
Oscar went into his own bedroom, shut off the flashlight and set it on top of his dresser. He climbed into bed then, digging under the covers to keep out the chill of the long night. He looked over toward his window, at the soft moonlight shimmering in through the sheer curtains. The world outside was bathed into that milky moonlight, mixed with inky pools of shadow, and dark recesses in which any horrible thing could take cover. But in the morning the brighter light of day would return to banish the darkness, to give warmth, to give life.
And as he thought about the night and its darkness, and the day and its light, Oscar fell into a deep, contented sleep.