"Bang Bang, Fingernails tapping, beyond scared"

As a child, I had a built-in babysitter. This babysitter happened to be my teenage sister, who spent most of the time on the phone with her boyfriend or chatting on the computer. Of all the times I was left alone with her and my two year old brother, one night sticks out in my mind.  I was eight years old and our cousin Crystal came over to keep Ashley, my sister, company. As we were sitting at the dinning room table, finishing dinner, my sister let out a large scream and bolted from the table down to her bedroom. Crystal ran after her.  I sat there clueless, as I tried to decipher the chaos.

I picked my brother up and headed towards the hallway. As I was walking into Ashley's room, banging came from the back door. I was frozen. The door was shaking, as if someone was on the other side trying to get in. I ran into Ashley's room in a panic. She was shaking. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she saw the long fingernails of a woman tapping on the front window in the kitchen. As you can imagine, I was a pretty terrified little girl. The banging then stopped and we waited in the room with door locked. We called our parents and they immediately came rushing home. My mother was sick with the idea of anything happening to us, and my father searched the fallen snow for footprints or tire tracks. He found nothing.

To this day, I am still unsure of the events that unfolded that night. I sometimes wonder if I had let my imagination get the best of me, or if I was feeding into the fear that my sister had expressed. After that night, we were never left in Ashley's care again.  My father was convinced this was a case of our imaginations getting the best of us, but I can still picture the image of the backdoor in my head. 

Best,

Brie