"The Scary Tape"

Do you ever feel like you're being watched? Like every step you take leads them one step closer to revealing themselves? Revealing their true sinister intentions? Unraveling before your very eyes what was there in plain sight...

    It was another autumn evening. The sun hung low in the sky as it was beginning to dip beneath the surface to make way for the night.
    I had planned for today to be another chill day of me playing some video games, but my wife warned against it. She claimed that the faucet in the kitchen had been leaking for a while. But as I looked, the leak wasn't much at all. There was maybe one drip every few minutes.
    I tried turning the knobs a bit tighter to see if that helped, but as I did I found I couldn't turn them any more.
    Taking a couple more moments to look it over, I came to the horrifying realization that I had no idea how to fix one of these things.
    I decided to go back to my wife and tell her we needed to call someone to come out and fix it.
    As I made my way to the bedroom, I found that she was wrapping something in wrapping paper. That's when it clicked for me. She didn't want me to leave the room to fix the faucet, she wanted me out to wrap my birthday present. I chuckled a bit. I forgot my birthday was even coming up.
    She turned to look at me as I stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock. She grabbed a pillow off the bed and chucked it at me. "Why are you in here? You're supposed to be fixing the sink or something."
    I shot her a shy smile. "Is that for me?" I asked, my eyes glued to the box she had just finished wrapping.
    She nodded. "It is, but you can't open it until your birthday tomorrow."
    "I wouldn't dream of it," I said.
    She slid the box under the bed and we both left the bedroom to make dinner.

***

    Later that night, I was restless. I couldn't stop thinking about that box under the bed. I wanted so badly to open it, but I knew I had to be sneaky about it.
    I waited until she was asleep and then I made my move. I silently crawled out of bed, being careful not to disturb her. I then waited for a few moments to make sure she didn't randomly wake up.
    Once I was in the clear, I slid down beside the bed, reached under, and my hand felt something cold and scaly. I quickly jerked my hand back. I leaned down a bit further to get a good look at what it was. A pair of eyes met mine. I held back a scream, as to not wake my wife. I grabbed my phone and turned the screen onto something bright and shone it under the bed.
    What I saw next horrified me. It was a small, green, scaly creature. Was that a goblin?
    "You weren't trying to get your gift early, were you?" the thing under the bed hissed at me.
    "No, no, I just heard something and thought I-" I started.
    "You're a bad liar," the thing hissed at me. "You should have known what she used to wrap this gift."
    "Wh-what did she use?" I asked, terrified.
    "She used the scary tape to wrap it," it hissed.
    I knew exactly what that meant. That was the scariest thing she could have possibly done! I trembled as I slowly looked back up to my wife. Her face was twisted into a terrifying grin that made my blood run cold.
    "It's a good thing I used the scary tape!" she cackled in her most sinister tone.
    And she was right. She did use the scary tape...