Exodus was a just a child when she encountered her first ghostly spirit. Seven years old, her mother thought was much too young to be seeing things that did not exist. It was only just past dark when Exodus went to bed, but she was thinking of the ghosts and goblins that would be out tomorrow night- Halloween. The hours crept by and still she was lying there in the black room bitten with the cold. Suddenly, just outside the window at the head of her bed, she heard a thumping against the wall. Thump...thump...thump...-such a dull, but sure, sound. Exodus could feel her heart pounding; it began to beat faster. She wanted to call out to her mother but she was afraid to make a sound. Thump...thump...thump...the sound persisted with even timing. The October wind churled and whistled, almost moaning around the corner of the house, and the thumping did not change. Curiosity had Exodus in its grasp as she raised up slowly in the bed, and turned over on to her knees. Cautiously she raised her head to the bottom of the window sill, then only one inch at a time, raised up until she could see into the glass pane. There it was! it was horrible!-distorted, and nearly fifteen feet tall, because it was that far from the ground to her window! Exodus fell back with a curdling scream, she could not feel her heart beating! She could not think! She could barely speak when her mother entered the room. As soon as Exodus told her mother of the horrific monster outside her window, her mother went out to investigate. Exodus, still shaking with fear, followed closely, holding on to her mother's robe. They tip-toed down the steps, the wind whiping sharply at them, feeling the sting of the crisp air against their ankles. The thumping became louder as they turned down the side of the house. Exodus peered around her mother's robe expecting the most horrible creature to jump at them, and there just beneath her window, was a huge, black, disfigured form. It moved! It stood up, even larger... the neighbor's old red-bone hound! What relief, but what about the monster in her window. Exodus felt silly when her mother showed her how her own reflection in the iced window peered back at her.