When I was younger, I babysat my cousins a lot. It was the only source of income available to a youngin under the age of 16. They were young also at the time, between the ages of 3 and 11 I would imagine, and there were two boys and one baby girl.
Before I embark on my story of terrifying ordeals, I would like to describe their place of habitat to you all. They lived out in the suburbs, far enough from the city and down a very dark and windy typically-shit-irish-country-road. However, they were in a housing estate, one lone housing estate in the wilderness(ahem) so I considered myself to be fairly safe. As it was a housing estate out the country, they had a fairly big back garden with a massive glass patio door the length of the back wall.....with no curtains.
Well, one night I was off to babysit while their parents went off promising to be back between 1 and 1:30 am. So I played with the kids for a while and come their bedtime, off up the stairs they went. Once I knew they were soundly asleep, and those kids slept like planks of wood, I sat down and watched tv. Flicking through the channels I realised from the date and time in the corner of the screen that it was a Friday. Near midnight. And it just happened to be the 13th.
Well, I was understandably freaked out for a second, but logically calmed myself down and continued flicking through the channels. After skipping many horror movies appropriately playing on this specific date, I settled for a random comedy film and watched away.
Now reader, I am known to be a bit of a scaredy cat, jumping at random noises and checking behind the couch every so often when I'm alone in the house. The fact that it was Friday the 13th did not help this one little bit.
The time ticked on, and I was beginning to get a little impatient and dare I say, desperate for them to come back and relieve me from the misery of knowing perfectly well that my situation would make the perfect horror movie. 1am came, and went. 2am came, and alone I was still. Every flicker of movement I saw outside I assumed would be them. I convinced myself I was watching this hilarious comedy, but in reality I was listening to every flicker of noise I heard waiting for them to FECKIN COME HOME.
Well, finally, I heard the door. Although I saw no car pull up I knew it had to have been them and forgot their key, trying to see if the door would open without one. At this stage it was close to 2:30am. Overcome with relief I skipped out the front-room door into the hall to see their friendly faces outside the foggy-glassed front door.....'til I stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the hall.
No faces did I see, no car outside. No lights or movement in the street outside.
Needless to say, I shat a brick. I'm not one of these girls to walk towards the door and open it to see who's outside. Oh no, I ran the other direction, like a normal person would, toward the phone to promptly ring my mammy to come and get me before the axe murderer-rapist outside the door got to me first.
The phone just happened to be right in front of the massive glass door overlooking the massive pitch black back garden. There was no such thing as cordless phones in those days y'see. Naturally enough, I wailed and ran towards the cutlery drawer and grabbed the most cliché big sharp silver kitchen knife, you know the one they always get in the movies right before they die?
So there I was, staring at the glass, sobbing my heart out and shaking like a leaf, phone in hand. I urgently told my mother the situation and forced her to stay on the phone for the 20minutes it would take my Dad to get there.
20 feckin minutes. Sure at every moment I was convinced I was going to die, and the children would be next. I stared out the window, knife in a ready position, back to the wall, waiting to face my doom. His big hairy head and massive killer hands were just out of sight, I knew it. I couldn't believe I was in this situation. On Friday the 13th. I would die on Friday the 13th and my story would be made into a made-for-tv movie. I have no clue what my Mam was saying to me, in my head she was just there to hear the massacre.
The doorbell. Relief, followed by suspicion. I put down the phone and edged my way towards the front door, eyes ever watchful of all the windows I passed. I could see a big figure, who could have easily been my dad, but could just have easily been the crazy psycho who's about to murder me. The closer I got, the more familiar the silhouette was. However, opening the door I had the knife at the ready. Sure, he'd probably kill me, but I'll have screamed enough and injured him too much to walk up the stairs to get the children.
Well, it was my Dad, THANK GOD. I collapsed in his arms and bawled my eyes out for 20minutes until my uncle came home. I hastily told them my story, them explaining it with one of their neighbours being drunk and probably went into the wrong house. I went home, into bed and slept with the light on, vowing never to be alone on Friday the 13th again.
So, there's my story. Perhaps I was jumpy and over thought the noise, perhaps the fecker saw the fierce mothering instinct in my eyes and the massive weapon in my hand and knew not to cross this bitch.
I shall let you decide.
Aila Maritz xox
No comments:
Post a Comment