It's Alive!

There is something living in our bedroom walls.

It only comes out at night.

And it is coming for me.

5 AM. I'm awakened by this sound, this ominous crackling, popping, gnawing ruckus. Harlow is next to me, Caleb across the hall in sweet, solitary queen bed slumber. My bleary brain tries to process what the hell is going on. My first thought - the house is on fire! I had lit candles that afternoon, did I forget to blow them out? No, no smoke, no fire. Ok. Is someone pushing the trashcan out to the curb, rocks and leaves crunching under the wheels? No, this is much louder, because it is coming from right behind my head.

There is something in the wall. Something big. Behind my bed!

Did the rains lodge a person in our wall? Is this some Poe-esque tale come to life? Because I could swear there is a grown ass man stomping around inside the wall right behind my bed. Like the intrepid heroine I am, I jump up and run to Caleb.

Me: Caleb, there's something in the wall. It sounds really big.

Caleb: --- (this silence is actually translated as "right, remember when I took the bed apart the other night when I heard something scratching on it? It's a probably a mouse.)

Me: --- (??? a mouse!!!! wtf???) well?

Finally...

Caleb: There's nothing I can do about it right now. I'll go crawl around there in the morning.

I ran back to the room. What if it had been a trap? Some terrible noise to send me running so that an evil minion, or perhaps David Bowie in spandex and Tina Turner hair come to take my daughter into the Labyrinth. But no such evil awaited. Just a very paranoid mama who got very little sleep.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't watched 28 Weeks Later right before bed. (For the record, I totally ruled out zombies in the wall) Or that I had spent two years of my life researching and writing a screenplay about the Bell Witch who just happened to come up in conversation the day before. You know, that legendary poltergeist who first appeared to her victims by gnawing and scratching on the bedposts?

Ooh - Caleb is going into the attic as I type this. I'm gonna go provide backup. You know, just in case it's David Bowie.