Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 297 - Deck The Halls With Bowels

Summary

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Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 297 - Deck The Halls With Bowels

Podcast: Scary Stories and Rain
Host: Being Scared (Dane)
Date: December 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode presents a chilling collection of true, first-person horror accounts, compellingly narrated over a backdrop of soothing rain. Featuring three stories—encounters with an ex-convict with a dark past, a tense standoff with a mountain lion in the wilderness, and a series of hauntings and sleep paralysis episodes—the episode explores the fragility of safety and certainty, whether in public, deep in nature, or in one's own home. The tone is confessional and atmospheric, each story layered with unease, introspection, and moments of genuine terror.

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Key Stories & Discussion Points

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1. The Man in Line: An Encounter with a Possible Killer

• Timestamp: 01:37 – 08:00

Summary:
A young woman recounts a disturbing encounter she and her mother had at a Walmart checkout line, where they meet a recently released convict named Donald Whelan. He claims to have been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit—the murder of his own father—but his behavior raises red flags for the narrator.

Notable Moments & Insights:

• Immediate Dread: The narrator describes an instinctual aversion:
  "I immediately got a terrible feeling about him. It wasn't really anything about his physical appearance that scared me, it was just his eyes." (01:49)

• Whelan Volunteering His Story:
  He admits to being newly out of prison for "a crime I didn't commit," and steers the conversation toward his infamy, almost "proudly" discussing his case.
  "He seemed almost proud of it, which also threw me off." (03:00)

• Diverging Parental Opinions:
  The narrator's mother is empathetic, trusting Whelan's story, while her father later confirms local rumors—casting Whelan as a guilty party.
  "I feel like he's definitely done something evil, whether it was murdering his father or not." (04:26)

• Post-Release Behavior:
  Whelan eventually returned to prison for violating his bond and being charged with domestic battery and unlawful restraint, validating the narrator's gut feeling.
  "Those charges he accrued in just a few months of being out of prison proved he's someone who probably deserves to stay there." (07:51)

Underlying Theme:
Trust your intuition—unease is often justified, and darkness can wear a disturbingly mundane face.

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2. Stalked by a Cougar in the Olympic National Forest

• Timestamp: 08:07 – 15:41

Summary:
A self-described "lanky" outdoorsman details a terrifying brush with a mountain lion while camping with friends and family in remote wilderness. Despite initial confidence in his outdoor skills, he is confronted by the blunt reality of being prey.

Key Events & Quotes:

• Preparation & Pride:
  After preparing a site and guiding friends into the woods, the narrator explores a potential path alone, only to hear "a sound that shook me to my core"—the unmistakable scream of a mountain lion.
  "You ever hear a sound bite of a mountain lion for a movie or a show? ... I'll be damned if what I heard less than 10 yards from me didn't sound exactly, exactly like that." (11:06)

• The Not-So-Top Predator:

  "I had officially been slapped with the reminder that humans aren't at the top of the food chain out here." (13:49)

• Lingering Fear:
  That night, upon seeing the cougar crossing the road by moonlight, he acknowledges the vulnerability of humans outdoors—even with weapons, companions, and experience.
  "The realization that the saying they are more afraid of you than you are of them is something only said by someone who hasn't been stalked for several miles and several hours later..." (14:33)

Underlying Theme:
Nature is beautiful but indifferent. No matter your experience, you are a visitor—and sometimes, potential prey.

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3. Mimics & The Smiling Woman: Sleep Paralysis and Hauntings

• Timestamp: 17:10 – 28:17 and 29:45 – End

Summary:
An extended, deeply personal account describes a progression from unexplained noises and voices in the night, to harrowing episodes of sleep paralysis and recurring visions of an entity known only as "she" or "the Smiling Woman." These hauntings take the form of sleep disturbances, encounters with mimics, and a persistent, nearly omnipresent specter, culminating in a nightmarish visitation.

Key Experiences:

• Childhood Hauntings:
  The narrator and their mother both hear each other’s voices when no one was speaking.
  "There have already been two different times where my mom has come to me and said that she heard me calling her name when I hadn't." (17:44)

• Escalating Night Terrors:
  The narrator is beset by sleep paralysis; strange buzzing, warping shadows, and a black hunched figure with wiry hair that giggles in their mother’s voice.
  "Kneeling beside the head of my mattress was a black figure... it giggled. If that wasn't enough to make matters worse, it sounded exactly like my mom." (18:43)

• The Intrusive Entity:
  Described as a faceless, sallow woman, she appears both in sleep and, unsettlingly, in waking moments.
  "As the sense of approaching death comes to me, a... mass of... hellish void start to materialize into a face, the face of a grotesque, soulless husk of a girl or woman..." (20:49)
  "You do not rest. You do not sleep. You do not dream." (22:15)

• Recurring Visitations:
  The entity appears day and night, taunting the narrator’s sanity and sense of safety:
  "As soon as the night comes... she will be there, waiting. Even during the day... I can still feel her in my periphery, peeking at me from the other room." (24:21)

• A Dream Turned Real?
  A man describes dreaming of seeing her at a bus stop in an orange raincoat. She later invades his home, crawling into his bed and rocking him while singing an eerie lullaby.
  "She climbs into my bed. I can't move. I can't scream... She looks into my eyes blankly. No smile, no blinking... She lies beside me, wraps her arms around me and rocks me back and forth, singing that same disturbing song." (29:45+)

Underlying Theme:
Isolation, vulnerability, and the inexplicable nature of some hauntings—made worse by the inability to find solace or validation from others. The entity’s capacity to mimic and to intrude into reality underscores profound feelings of powerlessness and dread.

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Notable Quotes

• On trusting intuition:
  "Always trust your intuition." (07:59)

• On being prey in nature:
  "Out there, you are nothing more than a visitor in someone else's home." (15:40)

• On sleep paralysis and the inescapable entity:
  "You will not wake. You will come with me." (22:25)

• On the terror of the smiling woman:
  "She continues to stare at me with her face contorted, just as still as I was as I lay, unable to move or break out of paralysis." (23:25)

• On lingering fear and helplessness:
  "As soon as the night comes... she will be there, waiting. Even during the day if I try to get some rest, I can still feel her in my periphery..." (24:21)

• On the reality-blurring experience:
  "It's as if nothing happened last night. My window is completely locked and everything is just as I left it. So what do you think this was? Sleep paralysis? It all felt so real." (End)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction & Announcements: 00:00 – 01:37
• The Man in Line / Donald Whelan Encounter: 01:37 – 08:00
• Olympic National Forest / Cougar Story: 08:07 – 15:41
• Haunted House & The Smiling Woman: 17:10 – 28:17; 29:45 – End

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Tone and Style

• Narrative Tone: Calm, confessional, vivid, with mounting anxiety and eeriness.
• Atmosphere: Rain sounds, measured delivery, escalating tension.
• Language: Direct, sensory, occasionally introspective and philosophical.

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Key Takeaways

• Trust your instincts—danger can be read in body language and “bad energy.”
• The wilderness is wild—hubris means little when confronted with a true predator.
• Hauntings and sleep paralysis can erode boundaries between dream, memory, and waking life, fostering a persistent terror that cannot be easily explained or escaped.
• Sometimes, the scariest stories are those you can’t rationalize or share—the ones that linger in the silence of night.

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For listeners seeking true horror for a restless mind, this episode delivers not through shock, but through the slow, gnawing sense of uncertainty and vulnerability that can haunt any of us—in the checkout line, the forest, or even safe in our own beds.

Transcript

[A]

Hey this is Dane and this is Scary Stories in Rain. Please join my family and follow this podcast on Spotify or Apple. And if you want the ultimate experience, you can get rid of all of the ads and be entered to win all of my giveaways every month by subscribing for just 299amonth. All of the ads gone, every single giveaway automatically entered. And starting now today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the ultimate episode. 6 to 12 hours long ultimate Scary Stories for a Rainy Night. Subscriber Exclusive and as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first movie release in theaters. Gale Yellow Brick Road A dark and terrifying reimagining of the wizard of Oz. If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in the description to this episode and if you're not following my other two podcasts, please go check them out. Scary Stories and Fire and Scary Stories After Dark. The links are in the description. Thank you so much for being here and I really hope you enjoy this episode.

[B]

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[A]

This story takes place several years ago. I'm now a 20 year old female, but at the time I must have been around 16. That being said, the dialogue may not be completely accurate, but I will recall the conversation the best I can. My mom and I were at Walmart getting groceries and while we were standing in line to check out, my mom noticed the guy behind us only had like two items in his hands and we had way more. So she asked if he wanted to go ahead of us. When I turned to look at the guy my mom was talking to, I know this sounds cliche, but I immediately got a terrible feeling about him. It wasn't really anything about his physical appearance that scared me, it was just his eyes. He was just a middle aged white guy wearing a hoodie and a beanie. I didn't even want to make eye contact with him because something about the look in his eyes scared me. So I just turned back around. The guy replied to my mom, no thanks. I'm not impatient about anything. I just got out of prison after 27 years. My heart dropped as he said this. But then he added, for a crime I didn't commit. That last statement helped slightly with my racing heart, but I still just knew something was off about this man, and I considered that he could have been lying. My mom just said something like, wow, that's a long time. And he responded, yep. Have you heard about the Donald Whelan case? My mom said she hadn't, and the guy said something like, that's kind of surprising because it's pretty well known in central Illinois. He then went on to tell us that his name is Donald Whelan, and his father had been murdered almost 30 years ago, and he had been charged with it, which is why he was in prison for 27 years. He seemed almost proud of it, which also threw me off. My mom continued talking to him about it, but I still didn't engage with him. I was thankful I was still a teenager and he was an adult, because it made me feel like I wasn't obligated to talk to him. So I just let my mom handle it. My mom is a very friendly person who likes to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. She talked to him longer than I would have. He said something like, yeah, if you look up Donald Whelan, Bloomington, Illinois, you can learn more about it. There's a video on YouTube of them releasing me from prison. My mom continued talking to him about how crazy it is that he was incarcerated unjustly for so long until it was our turn to check out, and we left the store after that. As soon as we got to the car, we Googled his name and found out it was really recent that he was released from prison. Apparently, from my understanding, he was granted a new trial and was released on bond after there was new DNA discovered on the pool cue that was found near his father's body. The murder took place in downtown Bloomington, Illinois, in 1991 in a bar that was owned by William Whelan, Donald's father. In the car, I asked my mom if she really believed he was innocent, and she said yes. I didn't argue much about it with her. I just said, something's really off about him, though. I feel like he's definitely done something evil, whether it was murdering his father or not. My mom said something about how some people who have been in prison for a long time may just give off bad energy just from being in that environment for so long. I said, yeah, that's true. But I still know in my gut that it was more than that with this guy. By the way, for Anyone listening to this who may want to look up more information about this guy case? His name is spelled like the animal whale but with the letter N after it. I kept researching more about it and I also asked my dad if he knew anything about Turns out that sometime after the murder, probably years later, my dad had worked in the same bar that the murder took place. My dad said that from what he heard from co workers and others who frequented the bar back when Donald Whelan had been a drug addict and he had murdered his father to rob him at the bar he owned, my dad was fully convinced that this was true. So that further convinced me that my suspicions were justified. I continued looking into the case in the following months and I found out that he was sent back to prison to complete his 30 year sentence along with an additional three years. During his few months that he was out of prison, he had violated the terms of traveling to places outside of where he was supposed to be while out on bond. But the other charge he received was a domestic battery charge and he had unlawfully restrained a woman. About a year ago, I went back to the YouTube video of him being released from prison and read the comments. Multiple people in the comments were saying that they had met this guy in various posts. Public places just like my mom and I had. Apparently he was all too eager to talk about his father's murder and his time in prison. That seems like a weird thing to brag about and bring up to everyone you just met. But I digress. As far as I know, he is still in prison, even though it's still not clear whether he was the one who murdered his father. It is good to know that my original suspicions suspicion that something was off about him was correct. Those charges he accrued in just a few months of being out of prison proved he's someone who probably deserves to stay there. For all I know, we could have met him the same day that he restrained that woman. Always trust your intuition. I'm starting to think that the Olympic National Forest isn't the best place for me to get my outdoor fix. For some context, I'm not a big guy. I am average height with a lanky build. Maybe that has something to do with this part, or maybe it's something else that has ingrained that habit into me. But if I'm in the woods, dead or alive, you won't catch me without a sidearm. Several years ago, a friend of mine admitted what her parents called camping was equivalent to going to a hotel. Coming from a long line of outdoorsmen, I jumped at the opportunity to get someone out in nature properly. We started off slow pitched tents in the backyard, then moved onto a glamping style campground, then to a less fancy area and eventually into the bonafide untamed wilderness. All was well. I headed up early and cleared the spot, a flat area on top of a mountain. I got the dog situated, started a campfire and did my best to make the space as welcoming as I could in hopes to comfort my friend's nerves. My wife, my friend and my friend's husband husband drove up and we all remarked about the view and the location. All went well that first night. Some deer and a couple of early morning dirt bikers came through but nothing off putting. It was in the peak of summer and while this spot was beautiful, it lacked a nearby water source. Their two dogs, ours and all the humans piled into my truck as we went in search of a creek. This might be a good time to explain how I find camping and fishing spots. Since I prefer to be far away from people, I hop on google maps and pick a general area. I zoom in and follow logging roads around to see if I can get where I want to go. Plunk down in a location pin to get the coordinates and boom. Off we go. Finding this creek was was no different. One of the downsides of that method for finding locations is the satellite images may not be good representation of how that area presently looks. Though sure enough, the path to the creek was not ideal. Instead of everyone getting out to see if there was a viable spot, I volunteered to go see if the path was worthwhile for us, especially with four excited dogs to unload and walk down. Therefore, after some ways down it was apparent that too many trees had fallen and blocked the path for this to be an easy trek for someone already being pushed to their limit with the outdoors. I head back enjoying the clean air and welcomed breeze on the hot day. I round the bend, grass nearly 6ft tall to both sides of me, but a few feet wide of a deep decent path up to the road where we parked just up the hill. I don't remember what I was thinking about in that moment, but what I will never forget is that sound. A sound that shook me to my core. You ever hear a sound bite of a mountain lion for a movie or a show? Well, I'll be damned if what I heard less than 10 yards from me didn't sound exactly, exactly like that. There was no mistaking was only me out there while the rest were inside the truck. That cougar sounded off because of me, I was being warned and neither of us were happy about it. Immediately I spun a 180 to face what I didn't want to see, only to see nothing. You know, I think that that was weird. Worse than if I had seen it on the path when I spun around like some old western cowboy moves, I reached for my holster, unclipped it and had the weapon pulled out. By the time I was done with my terrified ballerina moves, it was somewhere in that tall grass. And while I couldn't see it, I have no doubt that it could certainly see me. Lovely. I walk back backwards up the hill, praying I didn't trip over a rock or something and fall just so this big cat can show me. Its vocals weren't the only thing that would be piercing my heart that day all the way up to the road. I'm sure that was quite the sight for the group, seeing me emerge onto the road, walking backwards with a weapon in my hand. Come to find out I had been gone for long enough. They even discussed how would I confess communicate with them if I got into trouble instead of having a laugh about it. I opened the truck door, got in, shut the door and then holstered my 9 millimeter when typically I would have done so before opening the door. I don't remember who asked, but someone asked what happened or something to that effect. All I remember saying was we aren't going down there before turning the truck around and driving off. I wish I could tell you that is where the story ends, but unfortunately it's not. We head back to camp. It's about a seven mile drive and it's about three miles as the crow flies from that creek, up and down a few mountain sides and windy roads. We move on from the experience. After one word answers any question they had. Cougar. We make dinner and forget about it. For the most part I try to, but fail. Night arrives and we are hanging out by the campfire. I'm doing my best to not draw attention to the fact that I'm incessantly scanning our surroundings. After a while I think I'm just paranoid. Sure it wasn't happy with me, but I'm not prey, right? And we are a handful of loud fear folks with a roaring fire and four decent sized dogs. It's all in my head I thought. The gait of an animal, the way they walk. It's easy to confuse some animals for others, but big cats, nothing moves like a big cat. And sure as hell why do I see crossing the only road to go to and from our camp about 100 yards away, lit up only by the moon, moonlight and the confirmation to my fears that wasn't a bear, not a coyote. Nothing slinks through the night like that. Except for one thing. My dear old friend, the mountain lion. I had officially been slapped with the reminder that humans aren't at the top of the food chain out here. The realization that the saying they are more afraid of you than you are of them is something only said by someone who hasn't been stalked for several miles and several hours later, after driving a vehicle and leaving virtually no trail behind, the reminder that I was the outsider and I was the one trespassing. We slept in our vehicles that night. While I'll eventually make my way out to the woods woods again, I think it's safe to say my friend decided the wilderness maybe was a little too wild sometimes for anyone, no matter your experience level, that is. Planning to head into nature soon, enjoy the peace it brings, but never forget, out there, you are nothing more than a visitor in someone else's home.

[C]

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[D]

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[A]

Did I burn down the joy?

[B]

I don't think so.

[D]

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[A]

We're all in for a very big Christmas treat.

[D]

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[E]

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[A]

Style Every Home Lately there has been strange occurrences that have been brushed aside by my family and I but when thought about are very disturbing. Before I describe what happened to me a couple nights ago, I'll tell about what I have seen before this incident and things that my mom has experienced as well. I think between the fight or flight senses I am a weird mixture of freeze and a very slow flight. One night I was walking to the living room to get my phone charger which I had left in there. It was dark and and the only light that was on was the stove light. When I entered into the living room for some reason I stared behind the couch at the coat rack. That thing has always creeped me out. It looks like someone standing there in the dark, motionless and waiting to jump out at me, but I chose to ignore it most of the time. Before I could walk any further I saw a head duck behind the couch. Now this figure had probably been there the entire time but I just didn't notice it until it moved. In that moment I just stood there in absolute terror and then slowly backed away and returned to my room. I ended up cautiously returning later on to get my charger though if anyone was wondering to switch stories, there have already been two different times where my my mom has come to me and said that she heard me calling her name when I hadn't. The first time she was in the bathroom during the day and heard me say mom. When she got out of the bathroom I wasn't there and I told her that it wasn't me who called her name. The other time I was in my brother's room watching a TV show pretty late at night with him when my mom walked into the room and said said I just heard you calling me and I woke up. You sounded distressed or something. We brushed it off as weird like we usually do and went on doing what we were doing. However, this latest experience of mine had us all thinking that something is going on in this house. The night this happened it was around 2am, unable to go to sleep due to my mind racing at a million miles per hour hour. I felt more uncomfortable than usual both mentally and physically. But finally at around 3am I fell asleep. I would wake up at random points in the night half asleep and exhausted and began to have strange sleep paralysis episodes. They were bothersome, irritating and anxiety inducing. One involved a buzzing sound that a large whirl wasp would produce echoing around my room now, buzzing sounds have always bothered me, especially since I have a slight phobia of any buzzing insect. After that, my room started warping like I had just finished staring at an optical illusion. My fake plants began looking scarier as the leaves seemed to resemble sharp stretched out arms. I felt a strong out apprehension that this would all get worse. And I was right. After these short but distressing episodes, I fell back asleep only minutes later. Surprise, surprise. I woke up again. This time nothing was in my room. Or so I thought. I felt a presence on my right, the side of my bed that wasn't pressed against the wall. At that moment, the paralysis I was experiencing was strange. I could move my head, but it was a major burden to do so. It seemed terribly heavy, and all my eyes wanted to do was close again. With a strong effort, I turned slowly to my right. Kneeling beside the head of my mattress was a black figure. Its shoulders were hunched over disturbingly me, and all I could make out was its wiry short hair. For some reason I am not aware of, I thought this thing was my mom. I gasped. Mom, I said. Don't. Don't do that. It was harder to speak than I expected. The thing giggled. If that wasn't enough to make matters worse, it sounded exactly like my mom. After that, it disappeared. I don't know what exactly is happening or why. We have been experiencing something in this house that likes to mimic the people who live here. All I could do is hope that I never see that thing again. I haven't been able to sleep for some time now. It comes and goes in chunks of time, like stagnant river of still water weighing me down with an endlessly relentless restlessness that keeps me mired in a mud pit of worries and impossible intrusive anxieties that, like the coming of day, will never come to pass. I think I'm on day three and I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind. Every time I think I have gotten at least a fleeting chance of catching some rest, something will inevitably come to mind that plucks me out of that liminal state between wakefulness and my dreams and back into the boggy dread of the dead of night that by now I know better than my own mother. I know better than to utter a single word of this to anybody. But perhaps in my writing I can get this off my chest. And maybe if I'm not getting my hopes up, I can put my mind at rest and finally lay down to at least one night of decent sleep. I can only wish for such A mercy at this point I have always had difficulties when it comes to getting to sleep. Like I said, this tends to come and go, but as of late late I haven't been able for what has to have been about a year of hellish hay fever, of night sweats and a near nightly sense of dread and doom coming, followed by hours upon hours of harrowing what ifs, whose faults and why isn'ts until like a switch, the dark of the early morning is broken by the first chimes of the dawn choir of finches living in the maple trees that line the avenue my house lies on and where I live, if you want to call it living. By the time the day begins to break, when the sky lightens and the soft sound of early morning commuters sleepily driving by begins to hasten, I can set my mind at ease to a certain degree, and the ceaseless worries of the night before go silent as I drift into a light city stillness that substitutes a proper night's sleep. But it doesn't come. No drugs, no drink, no medication or meditative effort seems to be helping lately, and I feel like I'm going mad and there's nothing for it because eventually the light come low and scatter the shadows of the houses and trees of my subdivision into the low lying rivers of darkness. And she or it will be back. Yes, she. Whenever I give into exhaustion and try to tuck into my bed, I close my eyes and I try to get comfortable until some time goes by and it becomes apparent that I'm not alone. It starts as a flow of ink in my mind's eye as I lay with my eyes closed and swirls into a multitude of muddy colors in formations I have never seen elsewhere or been able to describe. As I struggle in vain to open my eyes, I increasingly feel an outside presence somewhere in the room with me, lurking as the atmosphere begins to gain weight around me and I can't open my eyes to see physically, as the unyield yielding heaviness of the air begins to increase, my ears pop and a low and building hum comes into my mind that gets louder and louder and the underlying sense of doom in my surroundings becomes so unbearable that I forget myself. Where I am, what I'm doing and who I am leave my mind. As the sense of approaching death comes to me, a bizarre sense of burning pain starts to overtake my entire body from my feet slowly up to my head and the swirling mass of indescribable forms and hellish void start to materialize into a face, the face of a grotesque, soulless husk of a girl or woman or something that takes up every bit of my vision. I'm having a nightmare, I used to say in my mind, and the girl, sallow and revolting, would start to grin an unnaturally wide and jagged smile as her hollow and empty eye sockets still seemed to suggest a cruel and evil gaze, and an echoing whisper in a warm putrid breath slithered into my ears. You do not rest. You do not sleep. You do not dream. Paralyzed and hopeless, I lay in my bed, unable to escape her gaze, desperately trying to pry my eyes open, only to come to the horrifying revelation that they are already open, my eyes only widening to an unnatural extent as the figure above me stands outstretched and hungry with its slender skeletal body hunched hungrily over me, her gaunt face twisted and rigid, less than an inch away from mine. The smell in my nostrils was rank, like an overwhelming sweetness mixed with the smell of warm decay and hot, moist breath. She continues to stare at me with her face contorted, just as still as I was as I lay, unable to move or break out of paralysis. My heart is pounding so hard it feels as though it will explode at any moment, all as the shrill and yet somehow sing song sound of her whisper echoes over and over in my mind. You will not wake. You will come with me.

[B]

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[A]

And breathe.

[B]

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[A]

1-800-Contacts.

[F]

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[B]

This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers.

[A]

We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he was he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kathy and Andrew.

[B]

I got to sit in the driver's seat.

[A]

I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.

[B]

That's Andrew, a real United pilot.

[A]

These small interactions can shape a kid's future.

[B]

It felt like I was the captain.

[A]

Allowing my son to see the flight.

[D]

Deck will stick with us forever.

[A]

That's how Good leads the way. Like a skipping needle on an ungodly record player, she torments me. All I can do is resist and fight to keep my sense of self, which seems to be slipping away into her decaying and spindly fingers as she continues to smile and a twisted and gleeful sense of malice as I try desperately to regain control of my body in a last ditch effort to make the sign of the cross with my tongue, hoping that will save me. And she howls a screeching cackle that sinks into a deep and guttural laughter. I suddenly gained control of my eyes and shut them tightly as quickly as they came to mind. All I could hear was the sound of my heart pounding and the blood coursing through my veins. And after what feels like a lifetime, I am able to regain control of my breath and start slowly to calm myself down. I am able to regain control of my breath and slowly start to calm myself down as the sound of my heartbeat starts to dissipate. I realize I am alone. As the soft and familiar chirping of the neighborhood birds come to my mind, I breathe a sigh of relief and the soft glow of daybreak tells me the long night has finally come to an end. I wish I could say this is a one time experience for me, just an awful case of sleep deprivation or a terrifying recurring nightmare. But my reality is far worse. As peaceful as my house is in the daytime and as silent as my mind at daybreak can be, I know that as soon as the night comes, as soon as I lay down again, she will be there, waiting. Even during the day if I try to get some rest, I can still feel her in my periphery, peeking at me from the other room or lurking around the corners, smiling and whispering all the time. Whispering and laughing and gazing at me with hollow and hungry eyes. Help me. Me. I'm lying here in my bed, an uneasy feeling churning in my gut. For weeks now, she won't stop smiling at me. It's not a friendly smile, it's unsettling. I see her everywhere. On the bus to and from work, at the grocery store, the library, even at the deserted gas station that only has three, three regular Customers. I don't have anyone to reach out to because I live in a small town where the police take nothing seriously. I dread having to take the bus tomorrow. I know she'll be there, waiting and smiling. Morning. 5:42am I have just woken up from a dream about her. In it, she wore a long orange raincoat. I looked out my window and saw her standing at the bus stop, her orange raincoat in the dingy brown leather backpack she always carries. I don't understand why she carries always seems empty. In the dream, she wasn't smiling. I woke up immediately after spotting her. I jumped in the shower, hoping the first feeling would wash away. After dressing in my suit and slipping on my shoes, I headed out the door. To my relief, she wasn't at the bus stop this morning. I got on the bus and stood as we drove through the neighborhood. About four minutes later, we arrived at my workplace. I took the elevator to my office. I used to get coffee in the lobby, but now I avoid social interaction. My co workers might notice. The other day, a work buddy asked how I was doing. I told him I was fine, but I don't think anyone would believe me if I told them what was going on. Besides, I'm a man. I shouldn't be intimidated by a woman who smiles at me. So why AM I that evening, 6:12pm I just got home. Still no sign of her. But why does that worry me even more? I don't have time to dwell on this. My boss gave me papers to fill out, claiming they needed to be done by Monday. It's Friday and there's a stack of papers in my bag. Later, 8:31pm I've completed about a third of the papers. I want nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep. I undress and take a hot shower, the most relaxed that I can get. Afterward, I put on my sleep clothes and microwave a cup of noodles. I kick back in my recliner and watch a random TV show while I eat. 9:47pm I turn out the lights and double check that my doors are locked. I hop into bed and pull the covers over me. 2:56am I wake up for no apparent reason. My throat is dry and I need to use the bathroom. My small apartment has only one bathroom all the way on the other side of the apartment. I go anyway, not turning on any lights to stay sleepy. After finishing up, I grab a glass of water and head back to my bedroom. On the way, I notice my window is wide open. I can't believe I forgot to shut It. I guess my memory isn't the best, even though I'm only 32. I shut the window and go back to bed. 3:09am there's someone in here. I can feel it. I am being stared at. 3:11am I see her. She's sitting in the corner of my room, her back turned to me. Her wet brown hair hangs over the back of the chair. She's rocking slightly, singing a lullaby in a language I have never heard. I'm staring at her while wide eyed. I strain to move, to scream, to do anything, to get away. But I can't. It's like I'm not in control of my own body. She stills and stops humming. I feel a tear roll down my cheek. Am I crying? Her head slowly turns all the way around to look at me. She's not smiling. Her face is unreal. Pale blue eyes, hollowed, a skeletal nose, thin flaky lips. Her body is disturbingly skinny. Every bone visible. Beneath her raincoat is a floral lace nightgown, also drenched. Her breathing is a sickly rattle. She lowers herself from the chair to the floor. The floor. Her bones cracking with each movement. She crawls toward the foot of my bed, her limbs moving unnaturally. She climbs into my bed. I can't move. I can't scream. Tears are falling. She looks into my eyes blankly. No smile, no blinking. She lies beside me, wraps her arms around me and rocks me back and forth, singing that same disturbing song. I still cannot move, but something inside me doesn't want to. It's as if I can feel her heartache and pity. Her hours go by as she rocks me, singing the song. I start to feel sick. She quiets and crawls out of my bed, her bones cracking as she leaves. She crawls out my window. 9:21am it's as if nothing happened last night. My window is completely locked and everything is just as I left it. So what do you think this was? Sleep paralysis? It's been months and I haven't seen her again. It all felt so real. I don't know what to do. It's.