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Living in a nightmare world
My husband often says I come off as a "tough old broad," but the fact is I'm a real scaredy-cat.
Ever since I was six and my sister, Linda, walked me past an abandoned house in Cambridge and told me the story of the young woman who had been murdered and beheaded in that very house, I've been afraid of my own shadow.
Linda had a great imagination for a child of nine. She told me how the young woman would sit in her lounge chair waiting for the return of her lover who had scorned and then murdered her. She would embellish her tale with stories of how she and her friend had looked into the windows one dark evening on the way home from some school event and saw the woman, sitting there, head in hands (literally), crying for release from her tortured existence.
By the time she was finished with me, I was walking six blocks out of my way to get around the headless woman's house and to the safety of my own .
My nightmares as a child were horrible adventures into the unimaginable. One such nightmare kept me awake for hours each night for a week hoping against hope that I would be able to close my eyes without my mind wondering back to that ghostly illusion.
"What was this horrible dream," you might ask ... I told my mother and older brother to shut up. It had to have been one of the most horrifying experiences of my life. As I grew older, my dread of the fearful continued to show itself. I remember when my parents watched Star Trek I used to hide behind the couch and peak around only when I was sure that one of those horrible aliens was not attacking Captain Kirk or one of his crew.
One night, my parents took us to the drive-in for a family outing. I'm sure the first movie of the double feature was some family oriented flick with cute puppies and cuddly kids. By the time the second movie came on all of the younger generation was probably supposed to be sleeping quietly in the back seat of the car.
It was a dark and stormy night. No, wait -- it was a bright summer night. The setting of the movie took place on a dark and stormy night. Unfortunately the name of the movie escapes me, but the skeletal hand scratching its way out of a coffin at the end of the movie still haunts my memories.
Throughout our youth my sister Linda continued to torment me with her scary antics.
One night, I had arrived home late from a school activity. The rest of the family was sleeping soundly while I was busily preparing for bed in the only bathroom in the house. After I finished my nightly routine, I opened the door and there, standing in the doorway, was an apparition in white. A scream escaped my lips at about the same time I realized the ghostly form was nothing more than my sister in her white flannel nightgown, laughing .
I slammed the door. I opened the door again, screamed and slammed it shut. The third time I reached down and opened the door another scream escaped my lips, but mingled with it was the sound of a giggle. The scenario repeated itself a couple of more times, but each time I opened the door, the volume of the scream diminished and my heart began to lose more and more of its resolve to burst out of my chest.
By the time it was over, we had both collapsed into a pile of giggling teenagers on the bathroom floor.
Recently I watched a movie two female demons escaping into our world. The movie left nothing to the imagination as it depicted the chaos these demons left in their wake and the condition of their victims after they completed their evil deeds. I don't know if it was the movie or the spicy food I had eaten for dinner that night, but falling asleep proved rather difficult. When I finally did fall asleep, I was in the middle of one of those frustrating dreams -- the kind where you know what the outcome of the dream should be, but you're never able to make it work out right.
As I searched for the right answer in my dream, I heard a voice. But this voice didn't come from inside my dream world, it seemed to reverberate through my bedroom.
"Gl-o-o-o-r-i-a," came the raspy, loud whisper.
I awoke, startled. I lay there several minutes, hoping whoever was in my room wouldn't realize they had woke me. (Although, why I thought that would matter now escapes me.)
Finally my sleep-filled mind began to clear and I realized the dogs had made no sound when the voice called to me. "Okay," I thought, "the dogs didn't bark, so no one came into the house."
After about 15 minutes, I'd finally convinced myself that if I opened my eyes and looked around, I would see no specter hovering over my bed. I finally worked up enough courage to climb to my knees and pull the cord to turn on the light over my bed.
I woke up my Pekingese and my Sheltie and bravely went to the bedroom door a opened it in order for them to investigate the family room to see if they could find a body to attach to the voice.
The brave little souls showed no sign of finding the intruder as they wandered around the basement wondering, I'm sure, why I had jumped back on top of the bed.
Two hours after "the voice" woke me from my dream state I was able to lay down and go back to sleep. I told Brad about my encounter with the disembodied voice the next morning. He has banned me from watching any movie that comes with a parental warning and is allowing only bland food after 6 p.m.
Here's hoping the nightmares in your world don't come true this Halloween night. Have a safe and happy one.