Ominous Stories

Your Eyes Are Glowing Red

I have never been a sucker for ghost stories. I've never believed in ghosts, and I don't think—honestly, I do hope I'm right—I ever will. I also don't believe in demons or angels. It's all just a bit too far out of my imagination for me to think it is all true. Therefore stories of demon possession or seeing some angelic creature—it's all bull to me. However, I have heard some that were unexplainable. Some stories that might leave you wondering. I know that some of the people that experienced these will spend the rest of their life searching for the answers to their questions, but all the same they'll never find them. In fact, I'm one of them. Now, let's get one thing straight. I don't think it's a matter of demon possession. I just can't think of any logical explanation.

My brother has always been different. All those years ago when we were young children, there were quite a few tales to tell. Creepy tales. Tales that would send a chill down your spine. Now, things are a lot quieter. Every now and then, of course, you'll get a call from his wife, saying that he thought he saw a man standing in the front yard with a pitchfork in his hand, staring into the windows, or that he woke up the family in the middle of the night whispering in languages he never even knew. The most recent was after she had seen something one day. Something really weird. She had gone into the kitchen to wash dishes, but right before she went through the door, she saw, or she thought she saw, out of the very corner of her eye, two slightly red, dull but sharp bumps in his hair. Then she looked back, and there was nothing. Just her husband sitting on the couch, watching the Dodgers game. Nevertheless, these strange occasions were very rare. Sometimes I would go more than a year without getting a call from them. My relationship with them wasn't so great; I lived in California, and he lived in Nebraska, just about as far away as I wanted to be from him. All the calls from my sister-in-law were no more than panicky attempts to find out why these things were happening.

All I could tell her is that he was like this as a child, except it was worse. Then I would sense her feeling of relief and worry at the same time through the miles and miles of telephone wire.

* * *

We thought he was a normal baby, that nothing was wrong with him. There was only one morning, an average Sunday morning, when we noticed he had a very intent gaze, as if he saw something we didn't. He would stare at it, full attention and concentration on whatever it was. Then he would come to, and we were left wondering what was running through his less-than-a-year-old mind.

And that was it, until he was three.

One night while we were sleeping, he started screaming and crying, waking us all up instantly. Our mother dashed into the room, followed by our father, flipping on all the lights. Don was screaming like a maniac, his eyes wide with terror. Our mother picked him up, trying to calm him down, nearly crying herself. A few minutes later, he was starting to settle down, though he was still sobbing uncontrollably. In between wild tears and gasps of breathe, he was saying something about claws. We could barely understand it. Though he was very smart for his age, he was only three years old; he didn't know much English. He spoke more gibberish than anything. Yet we were able to decipher words we didn't think he had ever heard before.

Half an hour later he was calm. My mother heated up a bowl of soup and we sat down at the dinner table to ask him again. He was still sniffling, but he could get what he was trying to say through to us. He had seen claws, dried up, grey and discolored, wrinkly claws snatching at him through the wooden bars of his crib. He said hoarsely that some of them were touching him, some of the yellow, cracked, inch-long nails were grazing over his skin and pajamas. Worst of all he couldn't see where they were coming from. They seemed to be coming from under the bed, but he wasn't sure. His eyes were wide open as he was telling us the story. Mother ran her fingers through his hair and told him it was just a bad dream. And then he whispered, in a low hushed voice that was barely audible, that it wasn't a dream.