The Protector Outside

Being young! So close to being a teenager and having the rights that teenagers do that you could taste it. Those were the times. I had waited my whole life for this, I was finally over the fire from several years back and I was ready. Ready to be home alone. Watch what I wanted to. Sing as loud as I wanted to. Eat what I wanted to and when. I was excited. My parents had plans for the night until the early morning and my sister was out living her life. I had convinced my parents that I could be home alone, we had lights in the house this evening, and the weather was clear. There was nothing to be afraid of as long as I stayed away from the back rooms.

My parents left and I waved to them out the window. Before I knew it I was alone. The beginning of the night was normal. All I did was watch TV and look out the window every now and then watching as the sun vanished behind cotton candy clouds. And then it was dark... Outside that is. Every light in the front of the house was on. I had made sure to get everything I needed from my room before my parents left. Blankets and pillows, stuffed animals, movies, and music player. I was set and no one was getting me tonight. Since the church had come to visit everything had been worse but we all started to get used to the sounds.

When I heard the conversations in the back rooms I turned up the television. When I heard the shuffling of the floor I looked at the door and told them they weren't allowed up here and to go away. My mother stopped helping me with these things, she never told me what to do when I was scared. I had to learn on my own, and when I was lost with an answer I would be forced to learn the hard way. My mother and I still talked just not about this. Not anymore. My mother got an exorcism to rid herself of the curse when she was sixteen years old. By this time I had been given two, and it did nothing to save me from my fears.

I believe my mother had given up, not because she didn't love me, but because she no longer knew how to handle it. After all I had her blood and my fathers racing through my veins. What was done to her may not have been able to be done to me. Yelling at them seemed to work though, scolding the things that tried to scare them. Before they scared me. The shuffling started to get louder and I felt my heart begin to race a little more. "GO AWAY!" I yelled in the most angry voice I could muster and it stopped. I stood slowly and walked small steps to the thresh hold of the room.

It seemed like hours before I gained the courage to stick my head out of the living room and look down the deep hallway. No one was there. I Smiled, feeling proud of myself. And turned the corner to the kitchen. It had been some time since I had anything to eat and it was time to make something. I may have only been twelve but I knew how to take care of myself, it was the plus side of my mother being a professional cook. As I began to prepare something for me to eat movement caught my eye.

My house was built with the kitchen window facing the back yard, it was gated off by quite a large fence that no one would be able to climb, no matter how skilled. My family enjoyed their privacy especially since the neighbors behind us were so ill tempered. They took their aggressions out on whoever they decided to target that day, in fact it was them who nearly caught our house on fire years ago, but it was never proved. They did slip once though and say they had no idea I was inside... My mother doesn't believe that to this day. The gate hid the house, and a street light that was placed in our yard kept it lit nicely so the dogs would have light through the night.

What it was the my eyes caught was a shadow blocking the light from the window. However, every time I looked the figure would be gone. I walked slowly to the window and stared outside. The dogs growled at the window as if they weren't looking back at me at all. Then I saw him, he appeared out of thin air standing at the base of the light a cigarette hanging from his lips and his eyes piercing my body. I knew exactly what he was, he thinned to nothing ness from the knee's down and seemed to just hover. He didn't scare me. It was almost as if I knew him. He was pale and he wore all black. But his eyes were kind and gentle.

I heard a noise behind me and it made me jump. I had feared that while the man outside had stole my attention that it allowed the others to make the trip down the hallway after me. But when I turned there he stood. One hand in his pocket and smiling at me. The cigarette now gone. I took a step closer and felt my heart racing in the best way. David. I knew his name and he didn't have to say a word. He turned back at the hallway and shook his head, it was almost as if he was laughing at the evil.

He turned back and gave me a reassuring smile. For the first time since the woman in my closet, one of them spoke to me and it didn't strike fear through my body. "You will be fine" his voice was gentle, soft and it made me quiver. I believed him. And just like that he was gone, and I didn't have to yell at any more spirits for the rest of the night. When my mother came home it was late, and I was half asleep. I decided to sleep and worry about other things later.

The next morning I sat quietly thinking about his face and voice as my cereal grew soggy and uneatable in my bowl. My mother looked at me strangely. She must have said my name several times, because when she finally received my attention she seemed a little frustrated. "I said are you ok?" she asked me again.

I didn't answer with an answer, instead I had answered with the question that had been dwelling in my thoughts all night. Who was the man who visited me, why did I know him, why couldn't I get his voice out of my head. "who is David?" I asked her.

"David? I don't know I don't know a David" she said and began to cook for herself once more. That didn't satisfy me.

"You have to. How can I know someone you don't unless they are from school or something, he was defiantly not from school mom" I told her placing my spoon in the bowl. I made a face at it, lost cause there was no way that was going in my mouth. I sighed and began to describe him. It was when I got to his clothes and facial structure that my mother began to slow her cooking down.

She turned in my direction and walked over to the table. "David." she repeated. It was unlikely my mother would forget David. But over time things slip your mind until they are brought up again. David. After all my mother went through and hour of giving birth to me stealing glances at him. Though David was covered up at the time of my birth my mother had seen him when they brought him in earlier that day. My grandfathers worker was supposed to come in and begin work on him while my grandfather was gone, that is until my mother went into labor of course. "That's impossible" she said.

It was. My grandfather had records of every funeral he helped prepare for. When we went over he let me look through the pictures. Not the names, just the pictures. Without hesitation I picked David out right away. He was twenty four years old and got in a car accident the day I was born. He was a beautiful man. Suddenly it was as if he was mine. He would be there to protect me when things got too bad to handle. He would show me what my mother couldn't. And I would hear his voice every night in my dreams. See you next time on my Ghost Stories.