She showed up maybe at 6 pm? Perhaps a little later, but it wasn’t more than an hour after my parents had left that she came.
Before you ask, no, I’ve never seen this woman before. If I had, her face would be the star of each and every one of my nightmares. There’s no reason for her to be here.
“Let me in,” she keeps calling. “Let me in.”
Her voice is like the creak of tree limbs through the autumn wind. Quiet, yet pervasive. I keep calling my mom, but she’s not answering. I’m seriously starting to think about dialing 911. Consequences be damned.
That old lady. I don’t want to look out the peephole again, but I don’t need to do that to describe her. Her face is burned into my memory. She has leathery skin that looks more cracked than wrinkled under the yellow light of the porch lamp. Her hair is long and matted with every shade of grey intermingled randomly. The old lady is so thin that her joints all stick out in an unpleasant, skeletal way. Her sallow cheeks and hollow face look much like a skull.
Maybe, if it weren’t for her eyes… maybe I could tell myself there wasn’t anything sinister about her. Maybe I could believe she’s just some old lady, off her rocker from dementia or whatever, and out bothering people.
I mean, that happens, right? It feels like I’ve seen article titles about that sort of thing, at least.
But nope. I can’t even give myself a pretty lie because I saw her eyes. They’re wide and pure black. No pupil. No iris. Just a dark void of twitching nothingness. A substance too thick and too dark to be tears runs down her cheeks in thin streams of sludge. There’s something wrong with her.
“Let me in,” she keeps saying. “Let me in.”
And I’m really panicking.
You know, if I weren’t so stupid, I would just call the cops, but I can’t do that.
Do you know why? When mom and dad left, I thought it’d be cool to engage in a little teenage rebellion for, like… the third time ever. I went through Jake’s room since he won’t be home until Thanksgiving break. I was just looking for some cash to get a pizza, but guess what I found?
Little shoe box with a baggie of weed inside.
And do you know what I did?
I tried to smoke it.
Notice how I said tried. I’ve never done it before and had to watch a YouTube video to figure out how to roll—
Well.
That’s irrelevant.
I didn’t come here to embarrass myself. As I was saying. Cops. Mom still isn’t answering her phone. Dad’s must be dead because it keeps going to voicemail.
I can’t call the cops. The house smells like a stupid skunk, but that old lady isn’t leaving. She keeps running those too-long fingernails against the screen door. The metal scratches beneath them, and I can hardly think straight.
“Let me in.”
If I call the cops, they’ll take me to jail, right?
But if I don’t, what happens then?
What if she gets in?
Where will I end up? Instead of jail, hell?
I can hear the crunch of her bare feet as she moves off the porch and over to the window. I’m hiding behind the couch, but I can hear her so clearly.
“Let me in.”
It’s too cold for the window to be open, but did Dad lock it? I don’t know. I’m too scared to check. She doesn’t pause in her mantra, and I hear her nails scratching against the glass. That tell-tale sliding of the window never comes. The window must be locked, after all.
“Let me in,” she keeps calling.
My phone is seriously trembling in my hands. Like. I’m considering texting my address to the GroupMe for my science class in the hopes that one of my classmates will show up. I wish I’d been more social, but it’s not like I ever knew that not having friends meant not having someone to chase away this… bogeywoman.
I don’t even care if it’s freaking Sarah. If she showed up, that scared the old lady away. I'd forgive her for everything. Even putting gum in my hair on the first day of high school.
I hear the hedge on the side of the house rustling.
“Let me in.”
She’s moving around the house and.
The back door.
It’s not locked.
Okay. I got to it before she did, but what the fuck was that sound?
That awful squeaking scream.
Did she…
Did she get the little chipmunk that lives in our yard?
Dad always complains about him.
“It’ll mess up the foundation.”
But he never actually does anything about it. I think he likes the little guy. He’s always out in the morning time. I like to think he’s watching me get on the bus safely. But-
Against the door’s glass, a visceral red with splotches of fleshy pink paints the view to the outside.
“Let me in.”
And I hope what I’m seeing isn’t that cute little chipmunk.
I can’t see outside. I don’t know what she’s doing now, but I hear her mantra and fingers as she moves along the house siding.
“Let me in. Let me in.”
And I don’t know what to do. I keep dialing 9-1-1 and then erasing it because I can’t go to jail. I’d do horrible. I can’t even shower in gym class; how am I supposed to make it in prison? Do they even have TVs? I bet not. Overwatch 2 just came out. I’ve barely gotten to play it at all. I can’t go to jail.
I actually did send my address with a ‘help, there’s a monster outside my house,’ but all that garnered was a hear reaction from Brad and a ‘what a loser’ from Sarah.
Mom. She still won’t answer the phone. She’s got to hear it, right? Like even if it’s on vibrate, I keep calling repeatedly. She’d feel it, wouldn’t she?
“Let me in,” she keeps calling.
And finally, it’s just too much. I can’t keep listening to her. And hiding. And being scared that I’m going to see her stupid sewer-spewing eyes through the widow. I can’t keep on cowering.
I don’t know if I dropped my phone after this decision or threw it on purpose. Either way, with my hands free, I pounded against the wall I thought she stood behind.
“Go away!” I shrieked at her. “Go away! Go away! Go away!”
And I kept repeating it as she did. Over and over. Forever. I screamed until I couldn't hear her creepy whispers, wandering fingers, and crunching feet.
“Go away!”
I am unsure how long I was beating on the wall, screaming at the old lady, but I didn’t hear the car's engine as my parents pulled in. Nor did I hear as they unlocked and entered the front door.
“Go away! Go away!” I was still screaming when my dad grabbed my shoulders.
I turned and my mom’s nostrils were flared, breathing in the stink of that shoebox I’d found under Jake’s bed.
“The old woman!” I tried to explain. “Her skin was cracked, and her arms! They were too long! Her nails were like knives.”
“Laura,” my mom said in a far too steady voice. “You have no idea how much trouble you are in.”
I’ll spare you the details of what came next. Threats and punishments. Lots of disappointment and anger were directed at me. Some harsh words were exchanged. And, of course, the complete denial of that old woman, ‘that crazy drug hallucination’ I had.
My phone was so cracked that I guess they didn’t even think of taking it away. Like they did everything else.
But I’m glad I have it. Because outside my window is a crooked shadow. I hear the crunching of crisp leaves, nails too black and too long to be entirely human dragging themselves along the brick outside my room, and that horrible voice calling out.
“Let me in. Let me in.”
Mom locked my door from the outside for the first time in years. She’s worried that I, the girl who has to be begged to leave the house, might try to sneak out.
I have no way of leaving.
I can’t just lay here all night, listening to her fumbling with my locked window, can I? I tried screaming. I tried calling for mom and dad. I tried begging for help. I got told to shut up the first couple of times, then ignored.
There are tears in my eyes. Big, angry water droplets. Are they just leaving me here, serving me on a platter to that monster outside?
I tried screaming go away again, but it didn’t work. She’s still there, but I have an idea. Maybe there’s a way to get her focus off me. Dad usually smokes before bed with the window open, after all.
All I have to do is…
“Try my parents’ room. Three windows to the left.”
And the old lady doesn’t pause her mantra, but it grows distant as the crunch of leaves fades to silence.
For
just a moment, I can close my eyes. It’s so quiet that I can almost
believe that that old lady was just some sort of awful hallucination.
That I didn’t redirect her to my parents. The thought of sleep crosses
my tired mind. Melting into the safety of my dreams. Wouldn’t that be
nice?
Then the screaming started from my parents’ bedroom. It never seemed to stop.
I tried getting out of my room, regretting what I’d said to the monster, but the lock. I could never break through it before, either. Eventually, it was just my dad left. Just his deep screams that cracked as if he were just a boy my age. What was she doing to them? When would it end? I buried my head in my pillow, and at some point, sleep found me.
Now, it’s morning. Well. Barely morning. I’m still locked in my room, but that’s probably best because I can hear her voice on the other side of the door.
“Let me in.”
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