Shadow in the dark

The shadow in the dark
It was still dark when I awoke, I tossed on my robe and slippers and headed out the bedroom door. As soon as I was in the hallway I could sense something wasn’t right. But shrugged it off as morning sleep induced grogginess. I headed across the hall and down the stairs, I felt I was being watched, I knew I was being watched, the hair stood up on my arms and a tingle went down my back. I squinted through my foggy contacts at the stairs behind me and saw nothing, I blinked to get the sleep out of my eyes and looked again to be sure, there was nothing moving or unusual in the shadows of the morning light.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs I saw my niece who spent the night with us; sleeping on the couch. I couldn’t turn on the light for fear of waking her. I headed toward the kitchen to make coffee and could sense the watcher close by, I turned on the small light above the stove hoping to see my fear and not wake up my niece. I looked around the kitchen and still saw nothing, I looked into the pantry door, I checked the back door to make sure it was locked, then looked down the hall from where I had just left, and saw that everything was as it should be.
Why did I have such a strange feeling? I heard my horses moving about out in the barn and made myself feel better by blaming them for the eeriness. I brewed a pot of coffee, and waited for it to finish. I heard a creaking noise in the living room, fear overwhelmed me, my heart pounded so loud I feared what ever it was, would hear it and know I was afraid. I took a minute to slow my breathing and crept around the corner to investigate the noise. Again nothing was out of place, nothing moved, there was no sound, until suddenly I heard a gurgling coming from behind me, I froze in fear afraid to turn around, afraid to move. My legs felt like rubber, my head was spinning with so many scenarios of what I should do. Run out the door leaving my niece to face this thing alone? Yell for my husband and anger whatever was stalking me? My husband would never hear me through his own snoring anyway. Think, think, think and as I slowed my brain down to focus, I realized the gurgling noise was only the coffee pot ending its’ brew time. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly to bring my adrenaline back down to its normal state.
I felt like an idiot standing at the edge of the kitchen in nothing but my underwear and robe in sheer panic over a stupid coffee pot. I poured myself a cup and headed back up the stairs to get ready for the day, just as I had my foot on the first stair I heard the unmistakable sound of the beaded curtain to the laundry room moving. I looked toward the noise and saw two flashes of light shining in the dark, just as I started to run, with a large thump, a shadow of something landed at my feet. I jumped, spilled hot coffee down my front which made me scream, the shadow screamed! I slipped off the stair and landed hard on my butt, the coffee cup flew into the air and shattered as it landed on the hard tile floor an inch from my head. I heard the footsteps running down the hall as I tried to pick myself up off the floor. In my haste I pushed up with my foot, slipping on the coffee which was now everywhere and fell back down. I could not get up no matter how hard I tried. I kept hoping someone heard all the noise and would come and save me from the shadow I now knew was there, but no one came. As I thrashed there in the wet and now very cold puddle of coffee, drenched from head to toe, shivering in fear, and now feeling the pain in my butt, I looked down the hall to see if the shadow was coming at me, and I saw it…slinking slowly down the hall, towards me with the two bright lights shining. Through my fear and embarrassment, I realized that it was Crumb, my damn cat!