Night Visitor

I think it’s safe to say that most everybody is afraid of something to some degree, and it really doesn’t have to be a genuinely threatening thing or situation. It bothers us and that’s really all that matters.
Though darkness in itself may hold no demons, those other things that make us shiver and run can become many times more intense in the dead of night.
One particular night I was suddenly awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of a Weed eater passing near my head. At first I thought I might have been dreaming, but there it was again. As if tethered on a string and rotating around the room, something was making low passes above the bed. I pulled the sheet over my head and froze. Then a thud and a couple of bounces brought silence.
I hesitated briefly then threw back the covers and jumped to the center of the room. I pulled the string on the ceiling light and began scanning the room to find the invader. Searching the area of the suspected crash site, I found nothing. I flipped the sheets back from the bed to make sure that I would be sleeping alone, then pulled the light and got back into bed. Whatever it was, it was still there.
It was a warm summer night and a slight breeze came through the screened windows. But I felt the chill of fright as my hair stood on end and I tried to convince myself that nothing dangerous could have gotten in through the screens or closed door. By the time I had eliminated every entry but the chimney over the grate, the visitor was roaring around the room again. I knew at that point that it was not a bat, it was not a bird, and that I was not going to stay in that room with it.
Again, the phantom crashed, a little closer this time I thought, as it tumbled across the floor. I rolled from the bed and pulled the light back on. After a brief search, I knelt down and looked under the wrought iron bed.
There, against the back wall I saw movement. Thinking that I may have a bird after all, I pulled the foot end of the bed back from the wall and flopped across the bed to take a look.
My skin began to crawl as I watched this two and a half inch near-mechanical black army tank of a creature elbowing it’s way through the usual under-bed-debris. It stopped for a moment flipping up two panels on it’s back exposing wings big enough for FAA markings. I held my breath and thought “uh-oh.”
I became airborne about the same time as the bug. He continued zooming the room as I flew off the front porch.
A short time later when it crashed again, I crept back into the house and covered it with a coffee can but couldn’t bring myself to attempt to scoop it up. I tried to sleep but kept hearing the can being pushed across the floor. Eventually, I set my shoe on the can and tried to get some sleep.
I don’t recall what became of the night visitor in the morning though I am certain that he was somehow evicted.
It had been a long night for both of us. He had been trapped in a small round room reeking of coffee, living the nightmare that he might never get out, while I lay awake listening, desperately afraid that he would.