Windows

Monsters. Fucking monsters. Yeah, I know, they aren’t real. It’s always a dude in a suit or someone playing joke. Well, that is all bullshit. I saw one and I know it was real… cause it saw me too. Might as well start from the beginning.
My older brother was a dick. Always getting what he wanted and blaming me for the stuff he did wrong. Our dad, only parent we lived with, would believe him instantly. I’m not bitter about it, but it is still a sore spot. I was rather skilled with technology and computers, my brother was more inclined to manual labor and punching people. Though we look almost alike enough to be twins, he is a year older.
My father would spend a lot of time out, hitting on women and drinking. Every night he was out, my brother would go to his friend’s house a mile or two away from our place. Since we lived in a small town, just out of range for most cellphones and a good hour from any police station or civilization other than the post office/general store, we were one of 5 houses in a 4 mile radius down in a valley.
If you cannot tell, this is gonna be something no one can corroborate. Anyway, one of those nights when my father was drinking and my brother was off doing something with his friends I was sleeping on the couch in the living room. I had a hard time sleeping in my room in the basement when home alone. Just some personal issues with small spaces and no windows. This night helped get me over that.
The TV was going, something stupid on Adult Swim playing, and I woke up to a weird sound from the door. My brother would get drunk or high and wander home around 3-4am most times he went out but it was only midnight when I looked over at the clock. Thinking he had a fight with his friends or something, I hop up from the couch and tug my pants into place since they were a a little too big for me.
So I walked, no shirt or socks or anything to the door and looked through the peep hole. Nothing out there. With a shrug, I think it was a dog and walk back to the couch. The moment I sit down, looking at the TV a moment before something catches my eye. Outside the window was a rather small shadow. Probably the dog that has been pawing at my door.
I give a sigh, thinking about how that mutt could take a crap on the porch and I would have to clean it. I walk back to the door, glancing at the window the moment my fingers touched the knob. Every cell in my body locked up, freezing me in place. My skin started shivering, goosebumps formed on every inch of me as I tried in vein to move my body on will alone. I could not process this… thing for a full minute.
Long, thin and slinky, it was not a fucking dog. Scales instead of fur covered it, black with some grayed ones here and there. It’s tail made up so much of it’s body that it looked as if it had begun right behind the only two limbs it had. Hands… not paws were at the ends of its arms. But the arms.. Those fucking arms were wrong in so many ways. They had what looked like 3 elbows. The arms curved in a few different ways, making it look broken and bent. I could only see those hands because they pressed to the glass of the window… along with its face. Yes, a face. Human almost, but the thing had no lips. just a slit across the spot above its jaw. They eyes were solid black and the nose was just a bump with one hole toward the bottom. It looked like someone had taken a blank doll and cared a : | face into it…
It was just as still as I was, looking right at me while I held the door knob. I thought it was some kind of joke. Some kind of trick of the light, but the longer I stared at it, the less I could deny it was alive. I could see the fog forming from its nose. The way its body inflated ever so slightly with each breath. My eyes drifted over it, looking at each feature in horror and memorizing it. Burning that fucking thing into me. Black nails, chipped and broken as if it had been using them to crawl around on. The slightest gap between the top and bottom of that slit across its face. Then I looked at its eyes. Those horrid, black beads. Perfectly round and sticking barely off of its face, I could not tell if it were moving them at all. Then it did the creepiest thing it could have. It smiled. The pale, smooth cheeks creased as its mouth arched and gave me a hint of the teeth behind it. Not full rows of razors like I had someone how expected, but broken human teeth.
My lungs were not working now. Time slowed around me as my brain got flooded with energy, bot begging me to decide on fight or flight. I hardened my gaze, eyebrows furrowed in anger at this fucking thing and it just kept smiling. I let the knob go and slowly gained the ability to stand right. As soon as I squared my shoulders with that monster, the smile slowly faded from its face. Passing all the way to a deep frown. It tapped the window one time with a broken black nail. A shudder ran through me before I could stop it. The beast gave another tap with its finger as that thick, black snake tail coiled around its self. I didn’t move this time, instead trying to think. Dad’s gun would be in the closet, but the shells were in his dresser. I would have to get to them both in seconds if I moved. That thing could come through that window easily. I knew it from the loud sounds of just one finger tapping.
Like it could see the wheels in my head turning, it spread those long fingers, raking the black nails inward. Trails of scratches formed with a high pitched sound till it made a fist against the glass. Shit. I mirrored it’s actions, not sure why, but it seemed to confuse the thing. It spread its hand open again, turning it side to side. I copied that too. It raised it’s hand up. Mine followed. The it touched its face. I cupped my cheek the same way. Then it twisted its arm into an O shape. Double shit.
When I could not copy that movement, it went back to smiling at me. Now curling and uncurling its arm as if it were mocking me for my lack of joints. This fucking thing. Not only had it caused a fear in me I had never known, but now it was teasing me? This, fucking monster freak was acting like it was better than me? Without meaning to or any form of planning, I looked it right in the eye and said, “At least I have legs.” It stopped moving its arms and looked right into my eyes. Face gone into a blank slate again. Then in the worst, deepest and most evil voice I could ever imagine, it spoke.
“And I have you.”
Diving backward into my dad’s room, I slammed the door shut and ran for the gun. The closet door slid hard to the side, slamming loudly while blood rushed through my body. My fingers gripped the barrel and I all but leaped to the dresser, fishing into it with one hand and pulling three shells out. I turned to the door, stuffing them into the twelve gauge and pointing right at the center of the door. It took me maybe a minute in total once I was in the door, but I was ready. I was going to blow that thing to pieces.
I stayed there, holding the gun and waiting for five minutes. No broken glass sounds. Nothing but silence. Then I whipped around, checking both windows. Nothing again. 4 hours I stood there, ready to unload all three shells into anything that moved. 4 hours I waited to see those twisted hands reaching for me. Then the front door opened. I turned around, still pointing at the door when I heard my brother call out, “HEY! You up?”I shakily opened the door, still holding the gun. Nothing in the window and my older brother popping open a can of soda. He was not drunk or high tonight, just kinda sleepy looking when he said “Why do you have that?”
I explained what I saw, I explained what happened and I begged him to believe me. He said I was just fucking with him and went to bed, me begging him to stay up with me till morning. No dice. So I sat on the couch, shotgun in hand, looking at that same window till my dad got home the next day. He didn’t believe me either. I slept in my room, no windows and only one door all day, and the next night I stayed down there. I couldn’t go into that living room again for weeks. My brother actually stayed with me all night one night, showing me there wasn’t a damn thing to be afraid of.
I don’t know what people have told you or even what you believe. But there are things out there. There are things that want you hurt. There are things that can and will toy with you just for the fun of it. My advice, get a gun and a bunker cause that is as close to safe as I feel most nights.