I'm at a loss, let me explain:
I’ve had someone peeking at me for most of my life, he kind of reminds me of that poem by William Hughes Mearns. It goes:
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!
That’s only the first of three verses, but it’s a short poem.
The first time I saw Mr. Peeks, I was a child and that’s when I named him. You can’t really hold it against a 9-year-old when he’s being unoriginal. The name stuck, and his name is Mr. Peeks.
I call him Mr. Peeks because he’s never told me his name. Mr. Peeks doesn’t speak, he only looks at me. That shouldn’t be a surprise.
I’ve never seen the bottom half of Mr. Peeks’s head, only the top of his nose, his brow, and his eyes. I don’t like his eyes.
I want to say that Mr. Peeks is a man, but I don’t know if he is or not. I refer to him as a he, because he seems like a man, but his skin is the wrong color, and so are his eyes. If he is a man, he must be a very old man, because his forehead is creased with deep wrinkles. When I look at his head, I’m always reminded of a potato which has been left out for too long and is starting to sprout and rot.
I’m intentionally avoiding describing his eyes because I don’t like them. But I want to tell you about Mr. Peeks, and that’s the most important part. Mr. Peeks is just a pair of eyes, with a head like an afterthought.
His eyes are dry like chalky marbles rimmed with. Most people take it for granted that eyes are wet and shiny, but when you see dry eyes, the difference is immediately noticeable. You’d think that because his eyes are dry, they would seem dead and flat. They don’t. His eyes are incredibly alive and intelligent… and hateful.
Mr. Peeks hates me, and he’s always hated me. I can see it in his stare. His stare is wide and glaring with deep, sagging wrinkles. His eyes make him look sick or like he’s suffering because they’re so jaundiced, run through with purplish capillaries, and rimmed with irritated pink skin.
I think the skin around his eyes is probably pink like that because his eyes hurt. That probably explains why his eyes are so dry, too, because he never blinks. I’ve known Mr. Peeks for twenty-eight years, and he hasn’t blinked once.
I don’t think that Mr. Peek is here with me, at least not all the way, because he peeks from behind things that are too small for him to hide behind. The first time that I saw him I was in the shower, and he was peeking at me over the curtain. I remember feeling cold, despite being sprayed by water so hot that my skin was turning lobster-red. When I looked up, there he was. He was peeking over the shower curtain. He was just the desiccated top of a head, and wide yellow eyes like terrible saucers.
I was too scared to scream for help, and the sheer weirdness of him piqued a morbid curiosity. He was peeking over the top of the curtain rod, which was maybe an inch wide, and I could see the bottom of the curtain rod because our shower rings were big. I couldn’t see the bottom half of his face at all. At nine, I reasoned that the bottom half of his face must have been somewhere else, along with the rest of his body.
I was glad that the bottom half was somewhere else because I could tell by his eyes that Mr. Peeks would really like to hurt me. His stare was so wide and intense that his eyelids were trembling. It gave his stare and unpleasant vibrating quality that made his eyes look like they were buzzing at me.
If you keep staring at Mr. Peeks he’ll stare right back, and he won’t ever go away unless you look away or run and hide. I ran out of the shower, and when I looked behind me there was nothing on the outside of the shower curtain.
After that, I would see Mr. Peeks every now and then. Sometimes he peeked from outside, but mostly Mr. Peeks likes to be inside with me. I also know that Mr. Peeks doesn’t like the sunlight, because if he comes out in the daylight, he’s careful to never let it fall directly on him. I’ll bet that the sun hurts him, that would make sense to me.
I won’t catalogue every time that I saw Mr. Peeks because that wouldn’t be worth reading (he showed up hundreds of times) and because most of the time it wasn’t any different. I would be doing something then I’d feel cold and numb. Whenever I got that feeling, I knew he’d be somewhere in the room with me… well, as in as he could seem to get. I’d look around frantically for him, because I didn’t like it when he was too close to me. Sometimes he’ll show up inches from my face, and I really don’t like that. When he’s that close I can smell him, and he smells like old dust and cobwebs; The way a tool shed might if left abandoned for years.
Most of time, though, he’s a couple feet away or across the room. I think he likes to peek from impossible places to show off. I think he wants me to know that he’s something impossible and strange. He likes to scare me. I’ll see him peeking from behind a milk carton on the counter, or out of the sink; One time I saw him peeking from inside my crockpot. Sometimes I’ve caught him peeking out of cabinets or through small holes, but not usually. He doesn’t like me to miss him; It makes him angry.
He’s been with me for years, he’ll show up with his silent glare and then disappear after I blink him away. I’ll confirm where he is and then go back to what I’m doing and ignore him. I think this makes him angrier, but after so many months and years I’ve started to get used to him. I got complacent with him.
Once I grew up and hit my teenage years, I was even less affected by it. I toyed with the idea that I might be insane for a while, but then I flicked a rock at Mr. Peeks and it bounced off his forehead. He didn’t move at all, but his irises faded from deep ultramarine to a blue so pale that they were almost white. I could feel his rage boiling out of him from his hiding place and I decided to never push my luck like that again.
I graduated high school, then college, then I joined the military. None of that is important, so I won’t go into it, but Mr. Peeks was there the entire time. By the time I was in my mid-thirties Mr. Peeks had become my quiet companion. I never liked Mr. Peeks, in fact I hate him. I just got used to him. Hell, he was there on my wedding day peeking from behind the coleslaw.
Now I’m in my mid-thirties and I’ve had a son, and now things are starting to change.
Mr. Peeks was peeking over Atticus’s bassinet on the night he was born, and that was the first time that it was different. His hateful eyes ignored me completely, he was looking at my son. His eyes were wide and feverish, and his pale pupils were dilated like an addict’s. I looked away, and looked back, and he was still there. This time, he was looking at me again, the same hateful gaze I’d come to know so well. When I was finally able to blink, he was gone.
It didn’t get better when we took Atticus home. Mr. Peeks, who I would normally see about once a month, started to show up more frequently, and only when I was with Atticus. One time, he hung around for almost an hour and no matter how often I blinked or looked away he would be there. I’ve taken to leaving all the lights on in my house all the time, prompting my wife to ask what the Hell is wrong with me, because the lights make it harder for the baby to sleep. I don’t want to let her know that I’m trying to do it to protect him.
Mr. Peeks is even outside now. I’ve started taking Atticus outside as often as possible so that we can both stay safe in the sun. It’s not working. I see Mr. Peeks behind stone walls and in tree branches. After decades of Mr. Peeks, I had convinced myself that he was benign. Now, I know that’s not the case.
I found Mr. Peeks behind Atticus’s crib, and although I could still only see the top of his head, his cheeks and his eyes were upturned; I knew that Mr. Peeks was smiling. It wasn’t a kind smile. Nothing about Mr. Peeks is kind or warm.
Over the months, Atticus has been growing more and more aware. He looks around and coos and laughs. He’s a happy baby! When he cries, he’s quick and to the point; He lets me know he needs something and once he gets it he settles right down. One time, though, I heard him absolutely screaming. He was wailing like he was in pain, and I tore into his bedroom, sure that I would find him tangled up in his blankets or choking on his milk, but it was Mr. Peeks. Atticus was staring, wild-eyed into Mr. Peeks’ dusty eyes with a look of horror cracking his soft features. I cursed and swore; I told Mr. Peeks to go away. He did, but not before I saw his cheeks pull up again into a hyena’s grin.
If I ever had doubts as to whether Mr. Peeks is real, those are gone. I’ve lost any hope that he might be a brain tumor or the manifestation of childhood trauma or some other nonsense. Mr. Peeks is real, and he’s trying to come through. Every day he’s pushing at the membrane between his world and ours… I don’t know where Mr. Peeks comes from, but I bet it’s somewhere cold and dark. I bet he wanders there, looking for windows to peer in at my family. I bet he’s looking for a door.
Or maybe he’s already found one. I can see him now, on the other side, squeezing himself through like an octopus one tentacle at a time.
My wife has started to complain that the house always feels cold, and she’s asked me to locate the source of the odd odor that she’s always smelling. She says it smells like musty old books in our house, and she’s right. I tell her that it’s probably a dead rat in our wall, or some old piece of trash we neglected through the years. One night, she even talked to me about a nightmare where she saw a man with ‘wild, staring eyes looking at Atticus from behind the dresser.”
Last night was the worst.
I was dozing in my bed, not sleeping. I never really sleep anymore. I can’t when there’s something sniffing around my house, poking, and prodding, trying to get in. I’m supposed to keep my house safe, and I’m failing utterly. Atticus started to wail in a pitch I’d only heard once before. I tore into the nursery to find Atticus alone and the room so frigid that frost was creeping over the window.
I sprinted to my son’s side, and he wasn’t alone.
We keep Atticus in a little pillow that hugs him on all sides and keeps him from rolling over. It was a good idea, and it makes him feel safe. Mr. Peeks was leering from underneath, inches from my son’s face. His yellowed eyes were pulled open so wide that they were round and bugging like the eyes of a deep-sea fish. His irises trembled in their sockets, and I could see tears streaming down Mr. Peeks’ face.
Then, slowly, horribly… a long finger reached from under Atticus’s pillow and slowly caressed his face. The resulting scream pierced me like a needle, and I had Atticus in my arms in less than a second. He had a terrible, dark scratch on his face.
When I looked back, Mr. Peeks was gone again.
How much more of him will I see? What does he want with my son? It seems like only a matter of time before Mr. Peeks can come through completely. I’m lost. I’m completely hopeless. I just want to protect my son, and I have no idea what to do.
Mr. Peeks is here again today.
Oh, how I wish he’d go away.
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