I'm a Sane Babysitter

Alright. Lets start this out by saying that I'm currently an aethiest. I've always been an open minded, rather imaginative person, but the whole 'god' thing just... It doesn't sit well with me. Mind you that I do enjoy the occasional Sunday night mass with my parents, considering that I'm not the clichéd, rebellious adolescent. In fact I have a rather close relationship with my mom. I always have. Which is why this experience really scares me. And just to add a bit of back story, I've had an average childhood. Or at least I'd like to think so. I'm a tad strange when it comes to reading preferences so I can see where my mom comes from when she says that I've read to many horror stories and stupid god damn creepypastas. I have average grades and I live in a yes, you guessed it, average two bedroom apartment with a goldfish named Fred and a yappy little ass dog named Oreo. So, one could say that I'm a boring person. Which isn't entirely true. I'm perfectly normal... I'm sorry if I get carried away with that word.. I'd like to reassure myself that I'm... Sane.

Before I leap into this strange, terribly out of the ordinary experience, I'd like to explain that I happen to be a babysitter. I can practically feel you rolling your eyes. And I said this wasn't going to be clichéd right? Yea, I know how you feel. Any who, I apologize if I get a bit side tracked. My constant paranoia has gotten me rambling lately. Back to the topic at hand! I happen to watch one little girl in particular quite often, I'm not going to attempt to write her real name here because hey, if I can't pronounce it, I'm not even going to try and fathom how its spelt. A lot of the times she came unannounced, and so I don't have enough time to go and pull that heavy ass bucket of toys out of the back of my feces smelling, musty old garage. So I do what I do best, I improvise. We play this.. Well this game... She turns off all of the lights and has me crawl under the blanket. Allow me to inform you that this is a three year old child who still wears diapers. So how she is able to come up with such a routine, almost ritualistic game is out of my area of comprehension. But she does. And I don't protest. Because if I did I'd probably be stuck with the lecture of unintelligible speech and spilled applesauce. Just what I need every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Or any other day her spastic parents decide that I'll be available to watch her for. The game is quite simple. As I said, she turns off all of the lights. The easiest way too explain it is to call it... A game of cat and mouse. She pushes down the puffs and large ripples of the thick, intoxicatingly hot blanket in attempt to hit me. Yea, I wonder if she's some kind of sadist in the making sometimes. But I've always thought of it as the works of a three year old's vivid imagination and shrug it off.

It happened to be a Thursday night. I was watching some cheesy eighties sitcom. I think it was Saved By the Bell or Full House. I was to occupied by my struggling goldfish to care. He had lost a fin the previous day after a five year old decided it would be fun to stick one of my god damn tampons into the fish tank and poke at him for a good ten minutes as I made him dinner. Though I shouldn't blame him. He was only five after all. I had been talking to the fish, laughing at his attempts to swim backwards... Or maybe he was dying and he was so off balance that he couldn't float upside down. Either way, I was enjoying its last moments. The door bell rang. Both of my parents had gone on their usual Thursday shopping trip and probably wouldn't be home for another two hours. So I opened the door. And to my surprise they had simply left Boo there. She was sitting down at my door step, a cookie in her hand. I could see their old red Chevy pulling out of the drive way. I sighed irritably. Out of all the days they could've picked they picked the only day that week that wasn't completely reserved by snot nosed whiny brats.

I stared down at the little girl. I was pissed. No, I was fuming. I finally had a day off and they had to go and spoil my plans... Not that I had any of course... I led her inside and put on some stupid kid show on Disney Channel. Surprisingly... She wasn't being talkative. I looked at the clock. It was six. It was the time at which she'd usually be screaming for juice or a bath. But no. Nothing. My parents called. They had stopped by Denise's for dinner and would bring me something back. They also didn't forget to nag me on the note they left on the counter. I sighed. I wasn't about to start complaining. I mean, hey, would you be complaining if the little girl you deemed the noisest of all children had suddenly gone quiet? Exactly. Though I was a bit caught off guard when Boo tugged my sleeve and said what sounded like a muffled version of blanket game. I face palmed. I suppose she did deserve some kind of reward... She had been quiet all day.

And so I hesitantly nodded. By now it was nearly nightfall. I almost never agreed to play this game at this time. I've never been afraid of ghosts, let alone believed in them. However, if Boo were to trip and fall in the dead of night, it would be on my head. And I'd either get grounded, or if the injuries were serious, have to pay for her hospital bill. So I kept the kitchen light on, making sure to grab that dumb note my parents had nagged me too read and watched as Boo made her way around the small residence, flicking off the lights.

I retreated under the blanket, having taken a flashlight with me. I made myself comfortable, being prepared for any sort of physical abuse this little girl had planned for me. I sat there and waited, not even flinching when the light thuds began to hit me in my back and chest area. It continued on for some time. In which time i really got to thinking. There were three main reasons why I found Boo being here extremely out of the ordinary. One, her parents would never leave her at my doorstep like one of the FedEx men with a large package under your doormat to make it look inconspicuous. No, like I said, these particular people were spastic. They'd probably flip out if I had forgotten to put baby powder in her diaper. Two, they never brought her by on Thursday. Thursday is a week day and she goes to daycare on the week days, they would've definitely come and get her by now anyways. But those two weren't the ones that bothered me the most. The one thing that bothered me the was the fact that the note on the refrigerator that I had picked up, told me that Boo's parents had called earlier and said that they were going on vacation and were wondering if I'd watch their dog.

It was at the point that I had noticed when the hits became a bit more violent. So malevolent that it actually began to hurt a little. I was completely frozen. Boo should not have even been there. Boo wasn't there. This wasn't Boo. Who the hell was this? And since when do three year olds have enough strength to punch me in the back that harshly? I was about to flip. Scream, run, cry. Needless to say it was terrifying. A rush of relief ran over me when the front door opened and both of my arguing parents walked into the door, the sound of ruffling trash bags accompanying them.

That thing.. It disappeared. But I didn't just share my story for fun. It watches. Whatever it is. Always watching. I can feel its eyes boring into the back of my skull when I sleep. I never know what's real anymore. If it could force me to imagine, or conjure up a little girl so very familiar to me... I can't even begin to think about what it could do if it tried to hurt me. I'm scared.