The Intruder Comes at Night

DW McKinney

CW: Violence, assault

1.

The night after my husband flies to Sacramento for business, a man creeps upstairs to our bedroom where I’m sleeping with our daughters. He tears my pajamas and slaps my face, my legs. I don’t fight back. The least I can do is meet his coal-black eyes. I suppose that he entered from the garage. He must’ve rolled under the door as it rattled close when I returned from picking the girls up from daycare. The man had to have stayed in the garage all afternoon, in the broiling heat and dark, discomfort fueling his malice.

The man rakes his fingers across my skin and I wonder, What kind of mother am I? How could I let this happen! Why can’t I save myself? I don’t scream. I don’t fight. It’s when he forces my legs open and I turn to see my children’s bodies — Are they dead-dead or dead-asleep? — that I shake myself from the nightmarish intrusive thought. I gather up the worn-thin comforter and wipe my tears, then stuff the fabric into my mouth to stifle the sobs. Comfort tastes like cotton and salt. 

2.

The night after my husband flies to Phoenix for business, another man creeps into my bedroom. Maybe he’s the same man as before. It doesn’t matter. This man strangles my oldest daughter, four, in her bed. She believes the nightlight keeps away the monsters she imagines. It’s too bad she’s not imagining this one.

I don’t hear her thrashing, don’t know what happens until I sense a presence looming by my bedroom door. This man is made of shadows. I cling to my infant sleeping on my chest. Should I smother her to rob him of the pleasure? 

Terror lifts me upright from the bed. There is no man. I sit quietly trying to suppress the nausea and the scream surging deep in my throat. But I fall asleep, and the man creeps upstairs into my daughter’s room again, then returns for me. I wake up, again, afraid to move, aware that he isn’t there, but his invisible presence pins me to the bed. I’m afraid to shift my weight and rustle the veil between slumber and awake, allowing the man to slip through once more. Kill us once more.

He isn’t real. 

He isn’t real. 

He isn’t real, I mutter.

3.

The night after my husband flies to Seattle, I leave my bedroom door open. I tell myself that there’s nothing to fear. I’m secure. But I can’t stop staring at the strip of darkness in the hallway where the stairs begin their descent. I watch for a hand emerging from the dark, eager to choke me. I soften my whimpering to listen for creaking stairs, footsteps, the hungered panting of an attacker. 

He’s not there. 

He’s not there. 

He’s not there.

I wrestle exhaustion to keep from falling asleep and back into the rumpled covers with a strange man on top of me. I force myself to think about tomorrow. I plan dinner. I imagine myself watering my orchids. I make a chore list that rolls away from me when I drift off. 

Violence ripples across the hours as I’m entranced in a type of waking nightmare. Me and the man. The man and me. We struggle until my lungs fill with death and I flail toward awakening’s surface.

4.

The night after my husband flies to Seattle, the fluorescent bulb in the garage buzzes as I turn the light on and off and on and off and on again. I peer behind the garbage and recycling cans. I look inside and under my Trailblazer. I touch the garage door and chant. 

Closed.

Closed.

Closed. 

Then I flick the light switch, exit, and lock the interior door.

At the front door, I walk out and in and out and in, then I lock it. I mentally mark the door safe and done. I check the bathroom and hallway closet before closing those doors. The downstairs floor plan makes it easy for me to circle around before the man, this intruder, can slip past me. I ignore a nagging thought that the intruder is not here. That the intruder is not who I think it is.

5.

The night after I lose track of time, I research intrusive thoughts and how to stop them. I read and bookmark and download and print countless articles. Quite a few people in the obsessive-compulsive disorder groups I follow on social media are undergoing exposure therapy. They say it helps. I make a note to contact a few therapists. (One will ghost me. Another will tell me that my bad dreams are the result of drinking too much coffee.) Then I convince myself that I must break the stranglehold around my neck. I have to expose myself to the possibility of death if I want to be free. 

And I have to do it soon. 

6.

The night after my husband flies to San Diego for business and to eat dinner with my mother and sister in a lighthouse, I begin my own version of exposure therapy. Pulling on a sweater, I kiss my daughters on their foreheads. I say, I’ll be back soon, turn off the porch light, and leave. 

I inhale the chilly air and shake myself from a rush of frightening images. The intruder, the real one, whispers that the house will catch fire, my children will die, and I will be arrested. 

But I lift my head to the crisp navy blue evening. I give it my full neck and, for a moment, close my eyes. It is silent outside except for a dog’s yipping that echoes faintly in the cul-de-sac. I take a deep breath and step forward. A street lamp shines on the community mailboxes four houses away. I don’t turn around as I slip into the darkness and wade toward the welcoming light.