March of the Shadow People
"Dad," I said through the blanket I'd pulled over my head. "Da-aad."
I listened. Nothing. He wasn't coming.
I pulled the blanket slowly back down my eight-year-old face. Another shadow of a man walked through my bedroom, paused by my closet door, then walked into the hallway.
"Daaaadddddd!"
I heard Dad's feet hit the floor and I listened as he walked down the hallway where the shadow man had just gone.
Would Dad see him in the hallway? I wondered. Would it eat him? Would it ...
The bedroom light came on, flooding my eyes with a yellow-Tungsten glow. I pulled the blanket back over my head.
"What is it?" Dad asked in the kind of way that demanded a good answer since I'd dragged him out of bed at 1 a.m.
I poked my head out of the blanket, my eyes adjusted to the brightness.
"Shadow people."
Dad frowned.
"Again?"
For the past few months, I'd seen shadow people walk through my room. They never spoke. They never made noise, they never came close to me. But they were there, walking from a black corner of my room and out my door into the hallway.
"It's just shadows caused by the trees outside your window," Dad said. That's what he always said.
I looked out the big window directly in front of the foot of my bed. The half moon and a blanket of stars showed a clear sky. I could see the trees - they weren't moving.
"There's no wind," I told him.
"A cloud probably passed in front of the moon."
"There aren't any clouds," I said.
"Then," Dad said, his voice getting loud enough to wake my sisters down the hall, "it's your imagination. Go back to bed."
He flicked the light switch to off a little harder than he needed to and left the room.
I sat in bed, still. The room was black, except for the light that poured in from the moon. Slowly my eyes adjusted back to the dark. Nothing moved.
The shadow people were gone.
Living in the country, a mile from the nearest neighbor and six miles from the nearest town had its advantages. But when you were alone in the dark, knowing no one could hear you scream if you were open to monsters worldly, or otherworldly, wasn't one of them.
I never knew what the shadow people were, or if they were just my imagination, but they were in my house.
The next night the shadow people were back. Three of them walked through my room and into the hallway. The moon showed through my window. There were still no clouds. There was still no wind.
"Dad," I called.
"Go to sleep," he yelled from his bedroom. "Or you'll wish you were one of them."
I didn't call for him any more, even if I saw the silhouettes of people who weren't there walk through my room ... because Dad didn't believe me.
I don't know what the shadows were, or if they were even real, but I do know why I wet the bed until I was 10.
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