Finally, the instructions are done, the warnings are over. My brother and I wave one last time as my parents pull away from the house heading for their anniversary dinner. We are teenagers, but this is the first time we've been left home alone.
We start scheming about what we can do that mom and dad won't normally let us do. I tell my brother, who is three years younger than I am, a scary story. He scoffs and brushes it off. Truth be told, I think I scared myself more than I did him.
We root through the refrigerator and cupboards to see what snacks we can eat while mom isn't home to tell us we've had enough. It isn't as much fun when we're allowed to do it, so the snack food gets put away.
It's getting dark outside. He suggests a game of hide and seek. He's good at it. I can't ever find him, but I agree. My one stipulation is that we have to play the game in the dark. There is some light coming in from outside from the street lights that are just beginning to wink on.
He agrees. I'm hoping he will be too scared to find a really good place to hide. We play some silly version of eeny-meeny-miney-mo to decide who gets to hide first. My brother wins and I hide my eyes.
I count to the one hundred skipping a few as I become impatient to start the search. I hope he hears me cheat. If he scolds me about it, I'll get a clue to his location, but he stays silent. The house is quiet. I've been listening intently trying to hear him, but he's very good at stealth.
I look in his room, in his closet, under his bed. He isn't there. He's not in the garage or in the storage closet out there. I've been switching on lights as I go because in reality, I'm the one that's afraid of the dark. I would never admit it because he'd tease me unmercifully.
I'm afraid he's moving as I search the house because I haven't seen or heard him at all. His favorite part of this game is moving around so I never find him. He usually sneaks to places I've already checked. Since the lights must be alerting him to those places, I stop turning them on and swallow my fear.
I move back to his bedroom since that would have been easy for him to move to while I was out in the garage. I have to wait a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I can see well enough to make out shapes. He isn't any where in his room.
I sneak down the hallway towards the dining room, thinking he maybe under the table. I peer through the doorway, again waiting a second for my eyes to adjust to the level of light in this room. I see a patch of darkness in front of me, darker and more solid than the rest of the room. The dark moves.
"I found you," I yell.
He says nothing.
"I found you. Don't pretend you're not standing right there."
I can now make out a pattern in the shirt of the person standing in front of me. As I reach out to grab my brother, I remember my brother wasn't wearing a dark shirt with a pattern on it, he was wearing a white tee shirt. I step back away from the figure.
I reach out, fumbling behind me trying to find the door jamb, so I can feel for the light switch on the wall. I touch cloth on a body. I let out a blood curdling scream and then light suddenly floods the room.
"What is wrong with you?" my brother asks. "Who are you talking to? You didn't find me."
There is no one in the room, but my brother and me. I tell him what I saw and he laughs at me.
"There was someone here," I say, "He was tall, like you, but he was wearing a dark print shirt and I could see him reaching out to touch me just before you came in."
"I think you're scary story scared you. There isn't anyone here," he says.
We walk back into the living room turning on every light as we go. I sit down on the couch still shaken and then I notice the garage door.
"Look," I say, "The door into the garage is open."
"Yeah it is. So? You must have left it open when you were looking for me. I heard you go out there."
"No I didn't leave the door open. I know I didn't. I didn't want you to sneak out there after I checked and thought I'd hear you better if you had to open the door."
"You left it open."
"Nope, I know I didn't," I insist.
Suddenly we both hear a soft creaking sound. When we look again at the garage door, it is closing all by itself. Neither of us move as the door moves and then snaps shut.
"Who's crazy now?" I whisper. "I told you there was someone in the dining room."
"Someone or something. No real person could have gotten past us to get to the garage. I didn't see anyone when I turned on the light." He whispers back.
I move as quickly as I can to lock the garage door and then I rush back to my brother.
"I'm not going out there to see if anyone is there or not. If they are, they'll still be there when mom and dad get home."
"Fine with me," he says.
We sit quietly, listening for any sounds coming from the garage. All is quiet. Mom and dad finally arrive home and don't mention anyone running out of the garage when they parked the car so we decide to keep the story to ourselves.
"I don't know about you," he whispers to me later, "but, I'm not anxious for mom and dad to leave us home alone any time soon."
"Me either."
