Don't Go In Alone

TUESDAY DECEMBER 3

I know that the shadow I'm seeing in my room is not the same one I keep seeing outside. There's no explanation for the one in my room. No object that could be casting this oddly human shaped shadow on my ceiling. The one outside makes sense. It could be a person. Someone who just so happens to like screwing with me.

The one on my ceiling sits perfectly still. Never moving. Always watching me.

I swear, I'm losing it.

I spend too much time staring back at the shadow instead of sleeping. Mom was worried about boys messing me up in school. It's this damn shadow that's doing it.

I can't focus during school. I can't focus when I'm at home. I can't focus when I'm hanging out with my friends. I don't really understand why this is happening. I don't know if it's because of the house across the street, like going in there broke something in my brain that stops the fear from flooding my body. Or if it's something else.

Even the shadows of normal things—like the trees that line the streets, people walking around me, a bird flying overhead—have me breathing too quickly and my heart racing. I'm so nervous all the time that it's gotten to the point where my friends are noticing. Casey especially. She asks me if I'm okay about seven thousand times a day.

I honestly can't answer her most of the time. I don't know what to tell her. I'm fine, just losing my mind a little I think? Doing okay, but I'm pretty sure there's someone stalking me and I think it might have to do with us going into that house?

Yeah, right. Like I'd ever say anything like that to anyone.

~~~

There's a shadow where one shouldn't be. Part of me knows this. Knows there shouldn't be a dark spot in the corner of the room like that, but another part of me is trying to rationalize it. Trying to come up with some way it would make sense for that darkness to be over there. Nobody else has said anything about it though.

I'm thinking I might make an appointment to get my eyes checked. Just in case this is a symptom of blindness. Or a brain tumor.

Zach is in the living room with me, drawing something that might be a person, but looks more like a cluster of scribbles. I could ask him if he sees the shadow too, just to make sure I'm not seeing things.

But then I think about how he saw the figure standing on the lawn that one night and how having him see it didn't make me feel any better, so I leave him to his scribbling and try to finish the math problem I've been working on for the past hour.

~~~

I don't know why I'm even surprised when I see the figure anymore. I stop mid step on my way back in from putting the garbage bin out on the street.

It's there. In the dark between my house and Carson's, by the gate to his backyard. Standing completely still.

When it stands like that, it's hard to tell if it's even a person. Zach had referred to it as a him when he saw it on the lawn, but Zach is also four years old and doesn't quite grasp the fact that not everything he sees is of the male persuasion. But right now, it's almost shapeless. Only a vague resemblance to a human.

I turn my gaze towards the house, resolve to simply ignore the figure until it goes away. If I don't look at it, it's not there. When I get to my porch, I glance back to the spot where it was.

Carson's there instead. Opening his back gate so he can drag his garbage bin out as well. When he sees me, he sets it down and waves at me.

Wiggles his fingers at me.

I give him a stilted wave back. My pulse thrums under my skin. Carson. Of course. I'd thought it before, hadn't I? That it could be Carson messing with me. He's never around when I see the figure. He only shows up right after.

My stomach hurts. I slip inside and press a hand to my mouth. Why would Carson be messing with me though?