Checking In

“Mommy?” Jackson called his mother back into the room after she had tucked him in.

“Yes, Honey?” his mother replied, peeking back in.

“I’m scared there’s someone in the house.”

Earlier, the two of them came into the living room after eating dinner to find the front door wide open, the forceful wind of Spring blowing inside. Since then, Jackson couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was now in the house.

“Oh, that was just the wind, Honey. You know that. That door has always had problems staying shut. I guess I just didn’t press it closed hard enough when we got back from the store.”

Jackson’s face was still worried.

“Tell you what…” his mother added, “we’ll go get a new lock for the door tomorrow. How does that sound?”

Jackson simply nodded.

“How about I keep checking on you tonight? Would that help you feel better?”

Jackson nodded again.

“All right, Honey. Goodnight!” his mother said in a hushed voice as she stepped out into the dimly lit hall, leaving the door open a bit before walking away, the sound of her slippers softly making their way back into the living room. She was quietly watching a late-night TV show, as many grownups often did while their children fell asleep in their rooms.

Jackson turned over in his bed. The wind howled outside, occasionally whistling in through the cracks in the windows. Gradually, it began to rain. The gentle pitter-patter on the house’s roof, walls, and windows was soothing to hear…until the low rumbling of thunder in the distance began. Jackson normally didn’t mind thunderstorms, and sometimes even liked them…but not tonight. Not on a night where nervous tension – fear, was already in the air.

What if there really was someone in the house? Jackson began thinking again about the front door, and got even more nervous.

Jackson sleepwalked. Sometimes, if his mind had shown particular interest or concern in something during the day, then later that night, in his sleep, he would get up and go investigate. Jackson hoped that if his mind made his body do anything relating to the front door as he slept, it would only be talking, and not walking, as he often talked in his sleep as well. Sometimes, his mother would come into his room and wake him up, thinking he was calling her, when he had really just been having a bad dream – usually involving his mother.

Jackson’s father was deployed in Afghanistan, and Jackson always worried about him. He always worried about one day receiving the news that he had lost his father – whom he didn’t get to see much, but had a great relationship with nonetheless.

There was a small flash of lightning in the distance that briefly illuminated Jackson’s room with dim, blue light, followed by an even louder rumble only a second later. The storm was getting closer.

Jackson heard his mother’s slippers approaching his doorway, still ajar how she had left it, providing just a little bit of dim light from the kitchen. Jackson turned around to face it as his mother peeked around the doorway.

“You all right, Sport?” she whispered, clearly having thought about the oncoming storm most likely causing him more unease.

“Yeah,” Jackson whispered back, “I’m good.”

He couldn’t see her face, only the silhouette of her head, with the dim light passing through and illuminating her strands of soft red hair that hung down. He couldn’t see her face, but knew that his mother was giving him an encouraging smile. He smiled back, and she once again walked away down the hall in her slippers, the floorboards creaking softly.

Jackson lie on his back. There was another flash of lightning, followed by more a crack of thunder than a rumble, startling him just a bit. But it wasn’t long before his eyes closed, and he started drifting off.

He began to dream. He was sitting on the living room couch with his mother that very night, watching a game show. Then, he turned to look at her, and she was gone. Instead, sitting next to him, was a tall, dark figure that he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t see their face, but they were looking down at him.

“…Daddy?” he murmured nervously.

Ever so slowly, the person shook their head.

“…Mommy?”

A long pause, then once again, they shook their head.

Jackson jolted awake, just as a loud crack of thunder shook the house.

“Mommy!” he cried, and waited…whimpering.

Soon enough, he heard his mother’s slippers coming down the hall, before she finally peeked inside.

Jackson was panting. He swallowed hard, and decided that he was going to be brave.

“I just had a bad dream,” he mumbled, “I- I’m fine.” He could tell that his mother was giving him another encouraging smile, and he returned it, as she once again slipped away down the hall, the floorboards creaking softly.

Jackson turned back up to face his ceiling, listening to the rain and wind, which had picked up while he slept. He began to get a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. His stomach began to feel as though it were quivering, unstable. He was nervous. He wished the storm would just go away.

Suddenly, a massive flash of blue lit up his room, and the loudest crack of thunder he had heard yet, vibrated the walls and floors like a towering dinosaur stomping its foot down in a rage, right outside the house. Without even thinking, Jackson threw off his covers and leapt out of bed. He ran across his room in the dark, feeling terrifyingly vulnerable in that stretch of time before he reached the dim light of the hallway.

He was just outside his room now, and could faintly hear an audience cheering on the television in the living room. He couldn’t see it, or the couch against the opposite wall; only the coffee table in between. He began making his way down the hall, and started to feel a bit better when his mother’s legs came into view, still sitting on the couch.

But she was barefoot. Where were her slippers? She always wore them around the house at night. Jackson’s pace slowed down, as that sick feeling in his stomach grew even stronger. There was a terrible dread. He kept walking, the medium-length hallway almost seeming to stretch out in front him more and more, until finally, he reached the light of the living room, where his mother sat on the couch.

Her head was gone.

It had been cut off, and blood covered her neck stump as well as her shirt and robe.

Jackson let out a long, terrible shriek, before he saw movement in the darkened room to his right. Out of the shadows, stepped two legs in a pair of dirty black pants, and worn on the feet – were his mother’s slippers.

The audience on the game show once again roared with laughter, as if mocking Jackson. The legs had almost stepped far enough into the light of the living room to reveal the rest of the stranger before Jackson turned and ran back to his room – a foolish decision, he knew, but he was only a small child. He couldn’t defend himself, and the only door out of the house was right near the stranger.

He slammed his bedroom door behind him, locking it, gasping and crying uncontrollably. There really had been someone in the house. They had been there all along.

He stumbled through the dark to his window, which was now his only escape route. But once pulling up the blinds, unlocking and pushing the window open and letting in the wind and rain, he found that it was too high. He was not tall enough to simply jump out – he had to climb his way out.

Coming down the hall he heard his mother’s slippers, the floorboards creaking beneath them…closer and closer.

Jackson pushed on the screen until its frame broke loose from the window, and it fell down out of sight.

Just then, he heard his door beginning to unlock. The stranger apparently had something thin and narrow enough to stick into the slot on the knob out in the hallway and turn it.

He was out of time.

As the door began to open, Jackson fled to his closet just a few feet away, which was slightly ajar. He slipped inside, and dropped to a seated position, pulling his legs up under his chin and trying as hard as he possibly could to stifle his terrified, devastated sobs.

In walked the stranger, who immediately flipped on the light switch, dreadfully bringing Jackson’s room to full light. Jackson covered his mouth, his teary eyes bulging in terror.

Maybe with the window open, the stranger would think he had already climbed out. The only problem was that the stranger walked in just after Jackson had pushed the screen out of the window. He couldn’t have possibly climbed out fast enough at that point. He could only hope that this wasn’t too obvious.

He sat there in complete silence, hearing nothing. He waited. Those seconds felt like hours. The carpeted floor in his room was sturdy enough not to creak under a person’s weight, so there was no way he could’ve been prepared for what he saw next;

His mother’s blank stare, down low where he cowered, her red hair dragging softly across the carpet, as she peeked into the open gap of his closet to check on him.