Bump in the Night: The Vampire Bat

Authors Note
This essay of a memoir has been submitted on April 7, 2013

Oh my god! This did not just happen to me. I find myself locked outside of my apartment with just my underoos on. I'm around eleven or years old at this time in my life. My mom and I have been in our apartment for about a year or two at this point so know my neighbors petty well by now. I had just moved to Maryland from Savannah, GA a few years ago. I'm slowly adjusting to being a latch key kid because my mother was a corrections officer and worked odd shifts sometime early morning or the midnight shift. I have two older brothers Mike who is the oldest at 7 years older than me and Toby who is 6 years older than me. They are not living with us at this time. My mom has been working these odd shifts for a year or so at this time so I was used to being home alone. There were rules I had to follow to keep myself safe. I'm pretty sure all latch key kids parents made them live by these rules as well. Never open the door from anyone but my mom or my brothers unless given direct instructions from either one of them. Don't give the impression that I might be home alone. Sometimes I would leave the television on or radio in the living room to give the illusion that there is some activity going on inside our apartment. This being home alone at night had become standard operating procedure at this point. There were just a few things that really bothered me when she would leave for work or get ready to leave. When there would be storm such as thunder and lightning storms, they always seem to formulate or start moving through my area just as my mom was getting ready for work. So this mean I literally had to weather the storm. My brothers were out on their own having their own places. They would come by from time to time to check on me or is they were on our side of town they would just come stay at our house. I would storm pretty badly sometimes and I would tell my brother to come by and keep me company on certain occasions. This was always a good thing for my mom because she always knew they would check in on me from time to time and she would feel a little less worried about me. I was a pretty self sufficient kid. I knew how to take care of myself pretty well at this point. I never cried wolf or raised false alarms about anything so if I had to call my mom at work it was something pretty important. I'm either injured or there is something serious going on where I have to reach out to her. Here is where it becomes interesting. One night my mom is getting ready for work and it's a stormy night as usual. I'm always a little uneasy but not too rattled. I'm in bed and I get a call from my brother Toby. By this time it's about midnight or just past. He tells me the he was on his way to the house and he didn't have his key so he wanted me to open the door for him. I'm thinking nothing of it; I get up and head toward the front door to take the lock off. As I'm walking toward the door I hear this strange sound like air being moved but I'm assuming it's just the wind and didn't worry too much about it. I see a shadow moving out of the corner of my eye. Now I've seen when a mouth or something flies past the lamp or something it give the illusion that there is a moving shadow. When I turned to look I saw nothing so I proceeded to unlock the door. Our door had to be opened to remove the auto lock. I opened the door clicked the switch and thought I was headed back to my room. I turned around and was immediately confronted by a bat. I was flying toward me and all around my living room. I was scared to death! My first reaction was to get away from it and the only way to go was out the front door. Not only did I not unlock the door but I locked myself of it and now I'm standing in the hallway of my building with just my underoos on. I'm so embarrassed having to knock on my neighbor door at this time of night in my underoos. She felt so bad for me. I was like a scared dog with his tail between his legs. I'm called my mom at work and she was pretty upset because she thought I was making this all up because I was scared to be in the house alone. About a half hour later my mother arrives and she is angry. She swears that there is no bat in the house. My mom goes in to get me some pants to put on while she investigates the scene. My brother arrives looking pretty confused as to why my mom is home upon his arrival and she proceeds to tell him that I was scared to be home by myself and that I made up this whole bat thing to get her to come home. How wrong she was, she went into her room and turned on the light. I never heard my mom scream so loud and move so fast. That bat made a believer out of her yet. She pushes my brother in the house in closed him in with the bat. She told him he couldn't come out unless he had that bat with him. I've never felt so right or so pleasured to prove my mom wrong. Looks like I'm not the only one scared to be home at this point. So, the next time your child or sibling tells you they hear a bump in the night. Don't write them off as just being spooky or scared. They say believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. With that being said, seeing in believing. That shadow you see out the corner of your eye could really be something and you just don't know it yet. We still to this day try to figure out how the bat got into the apartment. There are many versions to who or how but no one will take the blame. This vampire bat remains a mystery. Today I have a whole new respect for bats. Even thought the bat was the only one harmed I never want to encounter one of them ever again. In conclusion to this story I would like to add that pajama bottoms are a requirement these days because you never know when you might have to make a speedy exit.