The Tale of the Red Eyes

Just like every other night after finishing my post for the next day, I headed off to bed. I walked by Jeff, who was playing World of Warcraft at the kitchen table, and kissed him on the top of the head.

“Going to bed?” he asked.

“Yeah. Are you coming soon?” I questioned.

“Yup. Yup. Oh man, those mother ‘effers. What? Yeah, I be there soon,” he answered.

Talking to Jeff while he is mid game is always interesting. He is usually only half paying attention to me. But I am used to it. I knew his love of all things video game before I married him.

I kissed him once again on the head and said, “Please don’t stay up too late”. And I went off to bed.

Once my nightly ritual was complete I settled under the covers to doze until Jeff came in. One of the side effects of being married is that sometimes I can’t fail asleep if Jeff is not in bed with me. This happened to be one of those nights.

I let my mind wonder and hoped that sleep would come, even though Jeff was not in the bed. But then I heard it the distinctive sound of Jeff pushing his chair away from the table. “Yeah,” I thought to myself, “Sweet sleep will finally come to me.”

I felt a presence in the room and just assumed it was Jeff, emptying his pockets of his wallet, phone and keys and getting undressed.

The whole time he was doing this, I felt his stare on my back. I could just feel his eyes boring into my back. It was not his normal behavior but sometimes, Jeff can be weird.

But this time, it was creeping me out. I felt very uncomfortable and I just wanted him to hurry up and come to bed so that I could go to sleep.

But he still didn’t come. He just seemed to be standing there staring at me. I could feel his eyes on my back. He was totally giving me the chills.

This was getting ridiculous. What in the world was he doing that was taking so long? And why was he staring at me?

“Jeff! What are you doing?!” I said in a huff as I turned over onto my other side to face his side of the room.

Once I was on that side, I stopped short. For I did not see what I expected. I thought that Jeff would be right there, standing next to the bed. I felt his presence in the room. I felt his eyes on my back. But the room was dark. The door was closed and there was no one there.

“Jeff?” I said again, just in case he was hiding at the edge of the bed and at any moment going to jump up and scare the crap out of me.

“Jeff?” I said again. My heart was now starting to race. I looked at the door and saw the glow of the kitchen light still on. Jeff was not in the room with me that was for sure. But who was in the room. I could still feel someone there.

I looked around the dark room as best I could.

I was now sitting straight up in bed. My heart was beating so fast that I thought at any moment it would leap out of my throat.

I did not see anyone in the room with me but I still felt eyes boring into me. I was scared stiff. I wanted to run out of the room. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. But, nothing. I was unable to do anything.

Then as I sat there my eyes were pulled to the corner of the room by the door. And it was there that I saw two glowing red dots… eyes, staring right at me.

I could not move. It was as if those eyes held me in place. The only thing that I could do was blink and when I did, the eyes were gone.

I felt alone in the room for the first time since I got into bed.

I ripped the covers off my body and bolted out of bed like a cat with its tale on fire. I ripped the door open and I burst into the kitchen. Jeff was sitting at the table playing his game, completely unaware of what just happened to me.

He paused for a moment and gave me a confused look, questioning the commotion that I just caused as I entered the kitchen.

“What?” I said to him. “I just remember I had to check my email one more time.”

There was no way I was going to tell him what just happened. I was not even sure what just happened and I still don’t know.