When Fear Makes Noise

I was five, maybe six, in our little house in Nacogdoches, when the nights began to sound alive.

The monster lived above the hallway. At least, that’s what I believed.

It crouched behind the enormous square grate of the attic fan, right outside the bathroom door. At night, when the house went still, the thumping would begin, irregular, heavy, like boots dragging across wooden beams. It never kept a rhythm. It stomped. It lurched. Then it stopped. Waiting.

My brothers laughed, said it was just the fan blades, loose in their frame. But in my chest, the sound was a warning: something was up there.

I’d lie frozen, eyes locked on the dark ceiling, until the thump came again, closer. My heart would pound so loud I was sure the monster could hear it. Finally, I’d fling the covers back and sprint barefoot into my sister Ann’s room. She never asked, never teased. She just pulled back the blanket and let me crawl into her bed.

Her hand would stroke my tangled hair in that steady way only she knew, and soon the thumping faded into a distant drum. Snuggled against her, I felt safe enough to sleep. But even then, I knew, safety only lasted until the next night.

Years later, in a trailer deep in the woods outside Huntsville, the sounds followed me.

The nights there belonged to the animals. Coyotes cried from the tree line, cats scuffled under the porch, owls split the dark with their calls. But sometimes, after midnight, another sound came, slow, deliberate, heavy.

It started outside, like dragging footsteps, then rose above me. On the roof.

Scrape. Scootch. Pause.

Something was crawling overhead, shifting its weight, listening. Not a cat. Too heavy. Not the wind. Too real.

I lay stiff under my blanket, staring at the thin metal ceiling, sure claws would punch through. In daylight I searched for proof, tracks, scratches, anything. There was nothing. Still, I slid a kitchen knife under my mattress. Just in case.

Some nights, I could almost feel it waiting for me to fall asleep.

Then came the moan.

Long and guttural, it started deep in the ground, then swelled until it split the night air, like the blast of an angel’s trumpet announcing the second coming of Jesus. It rolled across the fields and through the walls, shaking the night with a sound too big, too holy, too haunting to belong to anything I could see.

Every hair on my arms stood straight. My chest tightened. Night after night, the moan rose and fell, twisted into a screech that felt alive.

I asked my siblings, nothing. They hadn’t heard a thing. Maybe I was cursed to hear what others couldn’t.

It wasn’t until I overheard a cashier at the grocery store that the truth fell out like a stone: oil rigs. Machines moaning in the distance.

And just like that, the terror dissolved.

I realized then: once you name the sound, the power shifts. Fear shrinks when you drag it into the light.

So I promised myself I’d be brave the next time. I’d face it.

And the cabinets tested me.

It was late, the kind of tired that presses down on you after a long day of school. I had just closed my eyes when it started, one cabinet door slamming shut. Then another.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

I sat up, pulse quickening. Maybe the cats, I thought. Maybe the wind.

Then…

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

I crept into the kitchen, the air thick and still. Every cabinet door gaped wide open, drawers pulled as if invisible hands had ransacked them. My skin crawled. I shoved them closed, one by one, and backed away.

I had almost drifted off again when it started up, faster this time, louder. The walls shook with the slamming.

I was done being afraid. I got up, every nerve buzzing, and crept back to the kitchen. I stepped through the doorway, braced for whatever waited.

And then…

I woke up.

Some sounds never explain themselves. Some vanish with the light of day. And some are born in our own restless minds, echoing until we can’t tell what’s real.

But every sound taught me something. That safety is a gift. That fear is louder in the dark. And that even when the cabinets slam, the roof scrapes, or the monster stomps above the hallway, courage is still possible.

And here’s what I know now: unhealthy urges work the same way. They show up suddenly, noisy and relentless. They stomp, they scrape, they moan, they slam, and we imagine they have more power than they really do. But once we pause long enough to name them, the fear shrinks. We can face them. We can choose differently.

Because like those sounds, the urge is just that, noise. And courage isn’t never hearing it again. Courage is getting up, walking toward it, and realizing it doesn’t control you.

That’s how you finish stronger than you started!