In the tar dark of a late night, it’s not the crickets that tell you that it’s way past your bedtime. And it’s not the winking of city stars you usually never see. And it’s not even the heaviness that sits on your eyelids like a fat, lazy dog by a fire.

It’s the sense that there is something out there watching you between the cracks of your blinds. Something you don’t want to catch even a glimpse of. Something hungry.

But you know better. Or so you tell yourself. You convince the primal part of your brain, the part that is screaming at you to run or freeze, that your imagination is running away with your sense again. Logic hammers your head and pushes away the sound of nails on stucco and guttural growls against cold glass.

But not even the strength of Atlas could make you reach for the remote and flick the TV off to go to bed…so you watch another infomercial in the dark and hope you can handle that 10 hour shift in the morning.