Apparently my fragile psyche is unbalanced by cheap Halloween decorations

This is probably going to be long, and I don't know if the pay off is worth it. Apologies in advance if that's the case.

My son, Leland is 4 years old, and is currently obsessed with "spooky stuff", as he calls it. He wanted to decorate for Halloween last month, but my wife and I made him wait until September 1st to bust out the decorations. I love Halloween, but I don't want to get burnt out on it, and it was just too hot out to really get in that sort of Autumn/Halloween spirit so early.

Leland helped my wife decorate the house, but wasn't satisfied with the amount of decorations we had. He basically wanted our house to look like a haunted house, which would be cool, but shit's expensive yo. However, this past Monday he got sick and on a trip to Walgreens to grab some medicine, I decided to pick up a molded plastic skeleton for him. The thing is probably at least 3 feet high, and has moving joints that allow its limbs to dangle. Pretty great for just $10. I started calling it Mr. Skeltal, because I got some sort of goofy satisfaction out of hearing my son call it that. Doot doot, and all that.

Leland was pretty into the skeleton once his nausea went away that afternoon. However, as much as I knew he loved "spooky" stuff, I didn't expect him to take the damn thing to bed that night. My wife told me he fell asleep holding its hand, which is adorably weird.

I also nabbed another excellent item from my sister, which we previously had in our house, and my son had loved when he was around 2 years old. My dad had bought this goofy Frankenstein monster head years ago, which hangs on your door or wall, and has a button on its forehead that sings "Who Can It Be Now?" by Men at Work when you press it. I inherited it for awhile, before handing it off to my sister once my son lost interest. Because of Leland's new interest in Halloween, I asked for it back, expecting him to be delighted by it. Unfortunately, the thing's singing made him plug his ears and we had to remove the batteries for him to be okay with it in the house. Disappointing, because I love hearing that stupid thing sing, but not a big deal.

So, on to the point of this post. Last night, I was up late watching Batman Begins and the first half of The Dark Knight. At one point I heard a noise that sounded like it came from the dining room or kitchen. Nothing too weird, just sounded like a cupboard closing. I had all the lights off though, and though I had just been in the kitchen, I couldn't think of what might have made the noise. I started creeping myself out, worrying about someone sneaking in through the backdoor (this is pretty standard for anytime I hear an unknown noise come from the dining room or kitchen, sue me). I psyched myself up out of the recliner, turned on the lights, and checked out the kitchen and the door that leads to the back door and basement. Nothing out of the ordinary.

As I strolled back through the dining room, the stupid Frankenstein head suddenly turned on and sang "Who can it be now?", as in that specific line, not the entire song. It usually starts by saying "Happy Halloween!" or growling, before launching into the first verse of the song and then the chorus, but this time it was literally just "Who can it be now?" and then it cut off. Of course, at the moment I didn't give two shits about the weirdness of that little idiosyncrasy. The thing both surprised me with suddenly turning on, and then the following realization that I had removed the batteries earlier.

After regaining my composure, I chalked it up to some sort of electrical anomaly, which made the most sense. I watched a little more of The Dark Knight, then went upstairs to finally force myself to bed after brushing my teeth. As I came out of the bathroom, I heard something from my son's room, which was immediately to my right. His door was closed, but I could hear someone talking. I put my ear up to the door, and I swore I heard someone say "Who can it be now?" It wasn't Leland's little voice, and it didn't sound like the Frankenstein head either. Couldn't make out a gender.

I wanted to chalk it up to being on edge, but I figured it couldn't hurt to just check and make sure I was just hearing things. Leland is a pretty heavy sleeper in the middle of the night, so opening his door to take a peak shouldn't have been an issue. For once I was unhappy that he didn't have his little battery-powered lantern in bed with him. That thing lit up a good portion of the room, which is why I didn't like him sleeping with it on, but in this case the light would have been welcome. Instead, the room was almost completely dark, since his only other nightlight was on a timer. Currently he's basically sleeping in a pretty sweet blanket fort my wife made for him. Part of it uses a glider that I often sit in to read him stories, and I could see that the plastic skeleton sitting in it, which was creepy but not unexpected. Tonight Leland's unconventional sleeping companion was a Violator action figure of mine he found in the basement the other day.

Nothing seemed out the ordinary, and I was all set for this to be just an unmemorable, if slightly odd, case of me creeping myself out over hearing things. I started to slowly close Leland's bedroom door as not to wake him, when I head the voice say, clearer this time, "Who can it be now?" followed by a slight giggle. I stopped pulling the door shut, and looked back inside my son's room. I could just barely make out the skeleton's head turn slightly to the right, and I heard what sounded like it's plastic jaw click shut.

Part of me wanted to just close the door, and go to bed, and trust that I was just tired and imagining things, but I don't ever see or hear shit like that no matter how much I've creeped myself out. I quickly, but quietly, walked back into Leland's room, and grabbed the stupid plastic skeleton by the ribs, half expecting it to come to life and start gnawing on my arm, and yanked it out of the glider. I left my son's room, and after carefully closing his bedroom door, I chucked the skeleton down to the bottom of the stairs. The plastic clattering noise was loud, but with the bedroom doors closed I figured I probably didn't have to worry about it waking anyone up.

I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, waiting to see if the skeleton would move again, wondering if I would hear something say "Who could it be now?" or maybe the sounds of my wife or son stirring from the noise. Nothing happened. I went into my bedroom, and got into bed. My wife shifted a bit, as she usually does when I come to bed late, but she didn't say anything. I laid there for a little while, wondering if it was worse that I could be losing it, or if I wasn't losing it. I thought I would be awake all night contemplating that question, but I actually passed out fairly quickly. I had no nightmares.

This brings us to this morning. My wife usually gets up before me, but I never know if Leland will be up before me, or if I'll have to wake him up. I left the bedroom and immediately noticed Mr. Fucking Skeltal laying up against my son's bedroom door. I only freaked out for a second, before I realized my wife had almost certainly found it at the bottom of the stairs and had put the stupid skeleton outside my son's bedroom door so nobody would trip over it. Leaving the skeleton outside his room, I woke up my son, and got him ready for the day, then I took a shower.

As soon as I saw my wife, I asked her if she put the skeleton outside Leland's room just to be absolutely sure I wasn't living in a fucking Goosebumps book. Of course she said yes, and I was ready to relax and chalk up last night's events to my imagination. Then this conversation happened:

Wife: I really didn't appreciate it when I almost tripped over it going downstairs this morning.

Me: I'm sorry, I'll tell you about what happened after work. I just figured you'd see it at the bottom of the stairs on your way down.

Wife: It wasn't at the bottom of the stairs! You had it right in the middle of the stairs! I thought you were playing a stupid prank on me, because it was posed like it was crawling up the stairs.

Me: I threw it to the bottom of the stairs, and I sure as hell didn't pose it.

Wife: Obviously not.

I didn't say anything else about it, and dropped her off at work before heading to my job. And that's where I am now, not doing any work, just writing my story on Reddit. And I know, "Everything on nosleep is true!" and all that, but this actually happened last night, the only change I made was to my son's name. I can't tell anyone in real life because it'll just get chalked up to my imagination and whatever, so I'm chucking this on nosleep to make me feel a little better, even if it does sound like it was written by R.L. Stine. I'm sure this was just some weird, one off situation, but if anything else happens, and anyone cares, I'll give an update.

Reluctant update