(Inspired by the October theme song “Monster Mash,” written 9/29/2017.)

A kindly neighbor has taken pity on me. He whistles before he approaches me in my garden. It’s safer that way. I’m less likely to psycho stab him with my pruning shears, or any other sharp gardening implement in my hands.

But some people, like to sneak up behind me, inside or out. They laugh and laugh when I jump. They think it’s funny, giving me a heart attack.

I admit it. I’m a scared-y cat. I’ve been royally afraid of the dark. Of houses that creak.

In bed at night, I have to keep my feet on top of my mattress because other-worldly limbs might just grab me from below. Like the double-jawed creature Sigourney Weaver fought in Alien? You know, the giant lizard-like fucker, its oozing, full-toothed mouth with a second, extendable, snapping mouth inside it? That creature might just be under my bed. Just one inch over the side and I’d be done for.

I blame my brother, a/k/a the sibling from hell.

You see, my five-years-older brother had a hobby—one of many, I’m sure—but one I knew intimately. He liked to scare the living crap out of me. Me, a cute, chubby grade schooler, in first, second, third grade. Sure, my goody-two shoes might have irked him, but I didn’t deserve his twisted, evil tortures.

One of his favorites? He’d stand, blocking a light switch at the end of a long, dark hallway. The only route to my bedroom. A path I wanted lit up like Christmas. I needed to turn on that switch. If I couldn’t turn on that switch, I couldn’t get to my room. I couldn’t go to bed. Not when goody-goody was supposed to.

That long, dark hallway had too many ghost-lurking doorways. Too many barely closed, monster-stuffed closets threatening to burst open. The even darker left-hand “L” turn toward my parents’ room? A dozen scary beasts could have hid in that “L.” I had to pass all this before reaching the safety of my room—which was safe only when I turned on the bedroom light too.

The hallway’s second switch might have been all of twenty-feet away, just outside my door, but it felt miles farther. I’d beg and plead for him to turn on the light as my fear grew, then sprint to the second switch. Big brother roared, chasing and pushing me, all the way to the switch. RRRAAARRRGH!

I’d run, screaming, the monster hot on my trail. I’d get to the second switch, relief in sight….and the switch wouldn’t work. You see, my brother had learned if you set the first switch in the middle, between on and off, the second switch wouldn’t work at all. He’d broken the electrical connection I so desperately needed. Still in the dark, the monster growled an evil laugh and blocked my squirming attempts to reach my bedroom light for a terrified minute more. He’d leave me panting, scared, and crying in my room. Seething resentment would come later.

But, that was just one of my brother’s many tactics. The worst, to this day, involves sudden, really loud noise. Like the other day, I popped in a DVD without realizing I’d left the TV volume too high. I stepped to the kitchen, thinking I’ll finish the dishes while the previews play. A shockingly loud introduction blared. I ran back to the remote while some kind of PTSD-nervosa seized me, hardening my shaking insides like concrete. As I turned down the volume, I did one of those involuntary shakes. If the booming noise had gone on any longer, I just might have had to scream out my fight-or-flight instant adrenaline.

Again, I blame the sibling from hell and the escalation of his tactics as a mid-teen. I was ten or eleven, playing in our huge, cluttered basement, in the corner furthest from the stairs, right next to the stereo. My Barbie dolls and many accessories lay strewn around me as I sat on the floor. Suddenly, I’m in pitch black. Not a window-well of light in sight. I stopped dead still and yelled, “Hey. I’m downstairs!”

In answer, deafening, heavy metal music blasted through giant speakers three feet from my head. The so-called singer had to be the devil himself. You know, (screams in mic).

I screamed and got to my feet. Monsters everywhere. Noise everywhere. All around me. Inside me. I stumbled my way toward the stairs, tripping on my toys, hitting the sharp corner of a ping pong table, feeling for a concrete support beam on my left, a bathroom door on my right, screaming, praying, begging that nothing reached out and grabbed me.

I ended up at the top of the stairs, clawing at the locked handle, shaking, in a petrified, stony, pre-epileptic-fit freeze until I screamed. “Lemme out!”

To this day, I don’t watch horror movies. Not even the trailers. I only made it through the suspenseful Alien movie by watching it on TV, with all the lights on, strategically pausing for breaks, and muting the scary-tension-music build-ups. But watching something demonic? Or something dead in a lake? Something saying, “Get, get, get, get, get, get…Out, out, out, out, out, out…”

No flipping way.

But, for some reason, probably because so-called friends told me it was amazingly good and all about the survivors, I decided to binge watch The Walking Dead. Do you all know The Walking Dead?

Zombies. ZOMBIES.

Why? Why would I do this to myself?

Watching it, I sometimes turn away from the gross parts, telling myself it’s fake, it’s special effects, hair and makeup crews creating Emmy-winning visuals. I’m a grown-ass woman now. I’m fine. I’m cool.

It’s wasn’t until after I’d watched a few seasons that I realized how quietly I’d been tiptoeing through my house late at night. How careful I was to not make noise, to only turn the few lights I needed, to not just close, but lock my bedroom door at night. God forbid I should blast one of my loud sneezes and attract a zombie’s attention.

Get this. I’ve always checked if my garage was closed before going to bed. But now, I catch myself at my mud-room door, listening for growly breathing outside. For dead hands scratching at the door. I glance to my right, hoping I’ve been lazy and left one of my long, sharp screwdrivers on the washing machine. Sadly, the weapon perfect for penetrating dead skulls is hanging on a pegboard where it belongs, inches away—on the wrong side of the door. I brace my feet and hands against a possible horde before a quick peek into the dark garage, slam it shut, and bam, dead bolt.

I don’t dare tell my brother. And my friends that are here better not either. Big brother would show up in full zombie attire and if I had anything that could double as a weapon in my hands…Hmmm.