My mother, Daddy, and Grammie were all sound asleep in another room. 

Then I noticed an unfamiliar shadow down the road. Is it a post with a cat or owl on it, or is it just a dark area? It might be the figure of a man, but it’s so indistinct that I can’t make it out. Now I hear dogs barking far away.

There were ghostly long shadows lying across the street and moving up the road toward the house. From that point on every sound and movement seemed to follow in perfect sequence. What was that noise? Is it a branch scraping, or a prowler trying to pry in? In the garage, a gas can expands with a dent. Mommy and Daddy are asleep and can’t hear. But if it were a prowler, how could he get in? The doors are locked, and the dog would bark.

I felt relieved for a minute. That’s right; he would bark. But what if he’s asleep in the other room or even worse maybe the prowler knocked the dog out?

A sudden fear gripped me. I stood there tensely watching the door almost waiting for the first turning of the doorknob.

Then I climbed in bed and got under the covers. Suddenly there’s the sound of someone bumping into things or footsteps down the hall outside of my door. An overcoat creaks on the chair. The sink keeps dripping in the bathroom. I stare with eyes open and breathing hard. There’s that low, muffled cry again. Did it enter through the closed window, or was it right at the foot of my bed?

There was the sound of a man hanging over me and swallowing. A shadow of a thing like a man with upraised arms by the window at the foot of the bed. There’s a shadow on the bathroom wall. Is that you, Daddy? Daddy? But there was no answer.

I was surrounded by shadows and sounds. That dying chicken sound is nearer. Maybe it’s some kind of an animal out there, a freak moose-like thing like a skinned horses head formed from a bloody headless chicken.

Or is it a weird, mean old man? A horrible fear runs through me like a spider crawling on the wall. Please don’t look…