Tap, Tap, Tap

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. At first it was curious as my eyes noticed the darkness that peered at me from across the room. Was I dreaming? I could be dreaming. The air was cold though, and I could smell the scent of apples coming from my bathroom as the air-freshener just let out a puff. I never could feel or smell anything in my dreams. As my brain processed this and my eyes adjusted, focusing on the image, my heart started to speed up and my body became stuck in place with prickled skin. What was standing in front of me?

The trailer had only been in our possession a month and was meant to be a home between homes. We sold our little house and bought our property, deciding to build quickly without wanting to rent. A trailer could be bought and then sold, giving us more money to build our house as well as time. This was a good idea in my mind, as well as my husbands. Our two small children could share the bedroom in the back while we had the master bedroom.

Landing on a trailer to call our own, forty feet, full bathroom, kitchen, and overall taken care of, we felt good about this. The first few nights were fine. Typical. I only started to notice things out of place a week in. I began to feel uneasy.

Tap, Tap, Tap. It was distinct, like acrylic nails on glass. I peeked my head up the three stairs that led to my bedroom. Tap, Tap, Tap. What was making that noise? Mice? I hoped it wasn't mice. I had told my husband about the tapping, and he investigated. No rodents. No explanation. Just a random tapping I would hear every now and again.

Then there were the smells. Random smells that I could only attribute to dead mice up under the trailer. Small, rotting carcasses. Growing up on the farm, I knew the smell, and again I told my husband. We searched the entire trailer. Every square inch. No mice. Nothing was dead, at least not anything we could find. I even thought maybe one of the children had an accident somewhere, but again I couldn't find anything. Hating the smell, I went out and bought a bunch of automatic air-fresheners to fill the trailer with the aromatic scent of apples. It helped. I was content.

My children, who are normally good sleepers, started to wake up like clockwork in the early morning. Two-twelve. Every single morning. They cried out and wanted me. I would hurry to them and flip on the lights, wondering what was wrong. Did they see something? Did they feel something? Maybe they just weren't used to the trailer yet, this would take some time. After a couple weeks of this, the urgency became less and I would slip out of my bed and make my way to them to tuck them back in, give them kisses, and they would fall asleep.

"I had a visit from my sleep paralysis demon last night," I joked with my husband just the day before.

"We did have pizza."

Yes, pizza. It was notorious for giving me vivid dreams, often nightmarish. It was nothing I couldn't handle. Really, I liked things that scared me, just a little. So, when I lay in my bed, suddenly looking at a shadow figure approach me in the night, it wasn't a big deal. Feeling the weight on the bed as it slowly positioned itself above me would be chalked up to a dream by daylight. Not being able to move with a pounding heart and twisted stomach was part of life, at least for me.

But now, as I look in the mirror, I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel like I was dreaming. This was real. Some creature was really staring at me from my mirror. It was a large, split, sliding mirror that covered my closet mere inches from my bed. Mere inches from where I slept.

Suddenly the nights I felt something tugging at the covers didn't seem so made up. Those nights I tucked my feet up close to me, laughing because there was no monster under the bed. I didn't even have an "under the bed." Those feelings of being watched. That I wasn't alone when I snuck away to watch my shows by myself while my husband took the kids away for a couple hours. Now, they didn't seem so made up. Now, they seemed real, and a new fear overcame me.

I couldn't move. Frozen in place, I just stared at the mirror and silently wished my husband would wake up and show me I was seeing things not really there. That didn't happen. The shadow figure, tall, skinny, and jagged, started to move. A dark arm curled up towards the mirror, and a finger housing a sharp nail started to hit the glass.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

It was real. The noise was real. I could see the source.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

I started to sweat. My body trembling.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

My husband was sleeping soundly.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

Red eyes glowed within the shadow as the body grew in size, engulfing the entire mirror in darkness. I felt trapped and knew in my dreams, when things got really bad, I could close my eyes and force myself to wake up. That's all I could think of. That's all I knew. So I did. I slammed my eyes shut and felt something wrap around me. Pulling on me.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up," I told myself, feeling like I was going to suffocate. "Wake up!"

My eyes flew open, and it was still dark, but the figure was gone. I was now looking at myself. The moonlight coming in through the skylight in the bathroom gave a perfect view. It was me, standing in the bathroom doorway, ready to go back to bed. Fantastic.

Letting out a chuckle, I took a step forward to find my place on my bed, but I was stopped dead in my tracks. An invisible wall. Shocked, I put a hand up and pushed out, just to see my hand flatten against glass. yet I wasn't anywhere near glass.

Confused, I looked back at myself and realized my reflection wasn't mirroring my movements. Again, my heart sped up and I pounded against the glass. My reflection slowly shook its head as a sickening smile came across its face. Then, it looked towards my husband, who was still sleeping soundly, its eyes glowing red.