Returning The Batteries

This story took place when I was 15 years old in 1996. One Saturday morning my little brother (lets call him John) came into my room and woke me up. He was 14 years old and on that day he was having a trip with the Boy Scouts that would last the whole day.

John NEVER gets into my room. He and my big brother are afraid because of the shadows sometimes can be seen inside. Even I used to avoid going into my room unless it was for sleeping at night. But on that special Saturday morning John wanted the batteries from my TV remote control as he wanted to take his Walkman to hear music during the trip.

I told John, "Okay, you can take the batteries, but I want you to put them back in the remote control when you come back." He agreed on doing so and he went away.

That night at 8pm my parents went to pick up John and brought him home. He got out of the car and my parents left on a date. (They used to go out every night to have a cup of coffee no matter what.)

I was home alone. All the lights in the house were out, except for the light at my parents' bedroom where I was watching TV. My parents' bedroom is on the second floor. The next thing I heard was the front door closing with a loud noise and my little brother running up the stairs and then I saw him getting into the room. I was amazed on how fast his fear to darkness made him run and when he got in I was laughing because it only took him 10 seconds to get there.

When you get to the top of the stairs you will be facing a wall, if you look to the left you can see my bedroom at the end of the hallway and one door on one side that takes you to my brother's room. If you look to the right you have my parents' bedroom. The first thing John said to me when he got to my parents' bedroom was, "Your door is open!" (My brothers have asked me kindly to never leave my bedroom door open because of the shadows). I apologized for leaving it open (I didn't see that as a problem... If all the lights were off you can't see shadows, right?) and we talked about his trip.

A few minutes later I told him I wanted to go to bed and that I needed my batteries. He thought that I would say that and he had taken the batteries out of the Walkman and placed them in the little table located at the top of the stairs. I told him that was not the deal, the deal was to put them back in my remote control. Then he started mumbling stuff (apparently angry) and then he said, "All right, but you come with me!"

We went out of my parents' bedroom and turned on the hallway light. There was nothing on the little table at the top of the stairs. I got angry because they were not there and he started swearing he had dropped them there when he climbed up the stairs, so we thought perhaps because of his hurry to reach for the only bedroom with a light on in the house he had dropped them and they had fallen behind the table or down the stairs. We looked everywhere.

In the end I told him I would never lend him anything again because he doesn't know how to take care of things. I walked into my room, turned on the light and screamed.

My little brother came in a hurry and we both stared at the batteries that were placed in the middle of my bed by the side of the remote control.

I know it had not been John who put them there, because he is truly afraid of my bedroom and also because when I heard him reaching the top of the stairs it only took him 2 seconds to get into my parents' bedroom where I was.