Shower Intruder

**Names have been changed to protect the innocent.**

Someone was hiding in the shower. Not something, someONE. I could feel it, I could sense it. Without a shadow of a doubt I knew it, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood. My worst childhood nightmare was coming true.

Did you have any childhood fears? Maybe walking in the dark, going into the basement, spiders or snakes, getting lost, perhaps a neighbourhood bully? Although I had my share of fears, some more substantial or founded than others, the fear that was on my childish mind the most was that someone was hiding behind the shower curtain. I’m not certain where this fear came from. Perhaps my brother jumped out one time and scared me forever? Honestly I don’t remember. But every time I had to use the restroom, that fear came to haunt me. Sitting on the toilet and imagining a strange and scary person standing behind the shower curtain literally right next to me was a horrifying thought for my childish self, for my adult self too I suppose. So as a child, I made a habit of ripping back the shower curtain with no forewarning for a quick check before every toilet sit down. I don’t know if I fully ever processed what I would do if I happened to actually find someone behind the shower curtain, but not checking and being horribly surprised while ‘trapped’ on the toilet was definitely the worse option.

Well one day I did find out what I would do if someone was hiding in the shower.
Fortunately for my younger self it did not happen in childhood. Pretty sure it would have taken some therapy to undo that trauma.

The dreaded event took place several years ago while I was living and working at a Christian boarding high school.

My three floor house was the dwelling place of the young and single staff. On a separate basement level lived a guy named Tommy. We didn’t see much of him, but he was kind and helpful. Two girls lived on the middle floor, Greta and Yvonne. And myself and another girl, Haley, lived on the top floor. The only entry way to our third floor living quarters was via an open staircase from the middle floor. The stairs led into an upstairs hallway that stretched the length of the house, ending in a kitchen/living room area. Off the hallway were rooms. The closest to the living room was the toilet and sink room, and then next to it a separate room for the shower.

One autumn evening, as is occasionally apt to happen in rural Canada, the power went out. It was already dark out. Not one to let advantageous opportunities pass for cozy candlelight evening activities, Greta, Yvonne, and I invited over Nelly and Colette, two other friends who lived elsewhere on campus. Haley, our third housemate who lived with me on top floor, was out for the evening. 

The five of us girls planned to spend a cozy evening together in the living room playing board games by candlelight. The candles were already lit, casting a warm but dim glow around the small room, and I’d just pulled out the board game selection when the power came back on. I was almost disappointed. Now our whole reason for the evening’s get together was essentially gone. The internet would come back on, the ambiance ruined. 

Greta, who was never one to stay up late, announced she was going to go shower and get ready for bed. As the rest of us discussed if we should still start a game or not, I heard a creaking in the hallway, the pitch black hallway. The lights in the whole house were still all off, since the power had been out when we’d returned from work. Only one overhead light now lit our living room abode. 

Now our flooring is old laminate, worn hard over the years, impossible not to traverse the entire hallway without some creaking. I brushed off the sound almost mindlessly, “Oh that must be Tiger.” Our huge cat, Tiger, seriously always sounded like a large person trying to sneak down the hallway when he walked. Creeped me out more than once. But then I noticed Tiger deep in dreamland sprawled at my feet on the carpet. “That’s odd,” I thought. Greta was in the shower downstairs; Haley was gone. All the rest of us were there in the living room. Who or what could be in the house? I’d never heard the front door. Tommy never came around unannounced. 

And then I heard another barely audible squeak. I still thought nothing of. It was surely just the old house creaking in the wind or something. But I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to get a bit of a rise out of my companions. Grasping the arm of the girl sitting closest to me, I whispered urgently in my best fake ‘freaked-out’ voice, “Did you hear that sound?!... No, seriously, I swear I heard something! Did you not hear that creaking??” 

“Guys, do you not see those flickers of light in the hallway?” Colette all but terrifiedly shrieked. “It’s like someone has a flashlight downstairs and is shining it up through the banisters.” I almost laughed, what lights? Maybe my scary teasing really was getting to her. 

But then we all heard it, loud and clear, an unmistakable creak in our hallway and then an odd and distant thump sounded from below. I peered down the dark hallway. Unfortunately the shower door was open at a straight 90 degree angle, so I could not see the end of the hallway where the stairs opened up. Was someone or something there? It was impossible to tell with the door blocking an unfortunately large portion of the hallway. Technically, someone could creep up the stairs and down the hall keeping behind the blocking presence of the shower door, and we would never see. 

Now I was concerned. “Guys, maybe should we go investigate?” I quavered. But no one wanted to do that. Unfortunately my attempt to fake freak out my friends had managed to actually freak them out now that something was really happening. We huddled on the couches together nervously listening, peering down the dark hallway, and surmising about what it could be. Then we heard a garbled shriek of distant laughter. Collette screamed. Then all was silent again. “Someone is seriously in the house,” Yvonne stated worriedly. 

“Maybe we should get out the big kitchen knives,” someone suggested, “You know, for self defence!” 

“I think someone was trying to sneak upstairs,” I said shakily. “There was way too much creaking in the hallway for that to be nothing. Seriously won’t someone come investigate with me? Please?” But the girls were all too frightened to budge from the safety of their couches. 

I knew something had to be done! We couldn’t sequester ourselves in the living room forever! But I was too scared to go alone. I needed backup. But I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing! And if no one would volunteer to go with me, well.... 

I leaped from my spot on the couch and headed towards the living room exit into the hallway. Yvonne was sitting closest to the door. “Yvonne, you come with me!” I commanded. 

“Nooooo,” she squealed and whined. I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards me. In an effort to escape my firm grasp she sank to the floor. No problem, the laminate floor was slippery and with my hand locked on her arm I began to drag her, laying on the floor, whimpering behind me, down the dark hallway. With my “backup” now secured, I advanced bravely, although slowly, with my “burden” sliding behind me, towards the open shower door. 

Why I didn’t think to turn on any lights in the hallway is still a mystery to me. But it would become my undoing.

The shower door was open at a 90 degree angle with the entry into the shower room on the other side of the open door. So I could not see in. As I reached the door, my instincts took over, and with my strongest and bravest "Kung Fu move," I kicked the door shut. Nothing. The hallway was dark, quiet, and empty. 

And then, the creepiest sensation started up my back. My intuition just knew. Without a second thought I grabbed the shower room door handle and yanked it open, peering in. It was completely and utterly pitch black in the room. There were no windows to cast a glow of outside street lights. And then in the lightning moment it took me to assess the room, I saw two teeny tiny barely shining lights IN THE SHOWER! Now I couldn’t see the shower, but having used it hundreds of times I knew what the room looked like without needing lighting. The curtain must be pulled back, and the eensy lights were situated about chest level on a person. They looked like maybe electronic lights on some sort of electronic device. And in that instant, I knew that SOMEONE was standing literally right there in front of me in the shower, motionless, silent, unidentified, creepy as all hell, and impossible to see. My childhood nightmares were being realized in the worst possible way. I completely lost it. 

I don’t think I screamed, but the next thing I knew, I was huddling shaking literally right on top of Nelly (not something I would normally do), who was still sitting on the living room couch. I had zero recollection of how I seemed to have flown from the shower doorway, over Yvonne who had been lying on the floor right behind me, and end up back in the living room. Yvonne was also somehow back on the couch as well. 

I was completely and seriously freaked out now. “Girls, there is LITERALLY someone hiding in the shower! I swear there is someone in there.” I anxiously announced.

 “Yeah, but did you actually seen anyone?” someone asked, as I tried to explain the little electronic-looking lights. 

In my haste to retreat to the living room, I had ironically managed to leave the shower door exactly as it had been before: open at a 90 degree angle, blocking the hallway. Now whoever was in there could leave, sneak back down the stairs and out without us ever seeing, and under the cover of darkness as well. Stupid, stupid, I berated myself. But nothing would make me venture the mere 2 meters (7 ft) back down the hall. I tried to calm myself down with rational thought and discussed with the girls what to do. 

Some minutes later a freshly showered Greta appeared in the living room door way. “Wait!” I cried, “Please step back and look into our shower room!” 

“Why?” She questioned suspiciously. 

“Someone’s in there!” Colette quickly updated her on what she’d missed. 

“I’m not going back there!” Greta shivered. 

“Come on!” I wheedled. 

“No! I was hearing some strange noises and bumping around while I was in the shower. I thought it was you guys, but I guess not.” Now Greta looked concerned too. 

Suddenly from below we heard the bang of a door. And then silence. We waited with bated breath, but complete silence continued to reign. Finally we began to speak again, trying to surmise who the intruder or intruders could be. Our best guess was that it was some of the high school dorm students trying to pull a prank on us. 

But if this were some prank or practical joke, surely any decent person would pop out of the closet or wherever, announcing merrily that they’d ‘gotten us.’ But no one appeared and the quietness of the house lagged on. “We’ve really got to check out the house,” Nelly countered. But we were all still a bit too scared to leave the sanctuary of the living room. 

Finally I had the bright idea to call Tommy in the basement. Picking up the living room cordless phone I dialed his extension. He picked up right away. “Tommy, can you come upstairs please?” I begged. It was late, he was probably already in bed, knowing him. He didn’t sound super keen on coming up, especially as I offered no explanation. And how could I? The whole situation would just sound ridiculous. “Please!” I pleaded, “We reallllly need you!  Hurry!” 

Tommy was one to always help whenever there was a need, and within seconds his tall and lanky frame filled our living room door, asking what was up. Joining in all together we breathlessly filled him in on what had happened. He looked a little dubious at our claims that someone had actually been in the shower. But he did corroborate our story in that he’d heard sounds of people moving around in the middle floor, around outside the house, and some giggling. He’d thought it was us girls.  

Our knight in shining armour left us ensconced on the living room couches to inspect the house. Disappearing down the stairs, he returned a few minutes later reporting that he’d discovered the middle floor porch sliding glass door had been left ajar. But that was it. “Now please look in the shower there,” I motioned towards the still open door. Tommy stepped back and glanced inside, looking at me with an expression that seemed to wonder what I was on about. 

With as many lights as absolutely possible now turned on, us girls finally advanced out of the security of the living room. First, I went into the shower room. “Look!” I crowed exultantly, exonerated. There on the floor of the shower were fresh blades of grass smudged with a little dirt, clearly remnants from someone’s outdoor shoes that had been standing right where I’d suspected in the shower. Creep. 

So how did the story end? Well turns out a few of the guy high school dorm students had heard about some of us getting together at my house and mistakenly thought that some of their guys’ deans (like an RA) were going to be over hanging out too. So a group of the guys had come over to pull a prank on all of us. But when they arrived, and one of them snuck up the stairs, heard all us girls panicking and then talking about kitchen knives, they freaked out a bit too, one hid in the shower, one tripped down the stairs, and then they booked it out of there. Or something like that. The exact details were never clearly obtained. Basically it all blew up a bit bigger than they had anticipated. Actually, being teenage boys, there was likely little foresight going on at all. Whatever the case, about 30 minutes later, a group of shame-faced boys and their dean were jammed in our narrow living room doorway, where they apologized for “breaking and entering” and scaring us all so much, as we tried to hold straight faces so they would see “how serious this was.” But by that time we’d definitely recovered from our fright and could see the humour in the situation. 

And while it’s an experience that won’t soon be forgotten, I am happy to report that I suffer no remnants of post-traumatic stress disorder from having my childhood nightmare realized, nor have I reverted to checking behind the shower curtain each time I enter a bathroom.