Jeff

You’re sure you’re just going mad, that’s what it must be. Madness.

Now; stood face to face with your bathroom door, a glowing light coming through the cracks in the edges. You’re not so sure.

If you were the sort of person to believe in ghosts, (which you’re obviously not), you might think that’s what it is. A friendly ghost who just likes to move things around your house. Eat things out of the fridge and enjoy making things go bump in the night. There’s been a buzzing for days but you’ve always just assumed it was a fly or some other bug that would be caught, sooner or later, by the spider living in the garage.

To be fair the spider is getting out of hand. It’s big, bigger than ever but you’ve never really been scared of them and it helps keep your house clean. As long as it doesn’t give birth to a million babies you haven’t minded it.

There are a million things that can explain what’s happening in the house. Books being left open for example; maybe you forgot you’d started reading it, maybe it fell like that. The food gone out of the fridge; maybe you’ve taken to sleep walking, sleep eating. Maybe that’s where that pillow went.

The dips in electricity, dimming then brightening of lights is all surely just a fault on a power line somewhere. Surely it’s a power line, nothing in your house could be doing that. 

You’ve tried to tell yourself it’s nothing. You’ve tried to rationalise everything but now, now stood in front of the bathroom door, with it’s strange glow. Now you’re not so sure. What if it is a ghost and not a friendly one? What if it’s an alien being who wants to feast on human flesh? An electricity monster as seen on Scooby Doo once upon a time.

You stand there, shrugging your shoulders like a prize fighter trying to ready yourself to open the door. Every time your fingers almost touch it you pull back. Apprehension, and anxiety makes your heartbeat step up a notch. Makes you start to sweat, your stomach churn. Your hands become clammy and your muscles tense. Are you ready to run? 

And then…

The toilet flushes. The toilet flushes and a part of you that isn’t terrified feels some form of humour. You reach for the handle because now you have to see what’s going on. As your fingers touch the handle, you get a shock, an electric one and the door is pulled open from the other side.

”All right. I’m Jeff, nice to finally meet you.”

The voice is gruff, rough and belongs to a 6 foot glowing spider wearing reading glasses and holding a book. ”Good stuff this. Fancy a brew.”