A terrified mum standing outside her house looked up to see what she thought was Freddy Krueger standing in her bathroom, pressing his clawed hands against the glass. Lyndsay Cash shrieked when looked up from her back garden to discover the silhouette of two clawed hands and a face pressed up against her bathroom window.
The horrified 42-year-old, who was on the phone as she stood outside, ended her phone call, took a quick snap and rushed back into her home. Lyndsay raced up to her bathroom as she geared up to confront the sinister-looking figure.
But mum-of-two Lyndsay ended up in stitches when she realised there was nothing evil lurking in her bathroom at all. Instead, she found the Freddy Krueger-like claws were caused by shadows from her two spikey aloe vera plants. Lyndsay said: "I was in the back garden on the phone for about 15 minutes. Towards the end of the call I spotted the creepy figure. I yelped 'oh my god there's something in my bathroom, I need to go'.
"I ended the call so I could go and investigate, it definitely gave me a fright. It looked like Freddy Krueger. I was in a rush to get up the stairs and find out what it was but petrified at the same time."
The plants which caused the horror (Image: Kennedy News and Media)
The spooky illusion was even more convincing as her son's 17-year-old girlfriend Rebecca Maiden had popped into the bathroom to remove her make-up - giving the creature a clearly-defined head. Aesthetics practitioner Lyndsay, who'd watched the film Malignant alone the night before, said when she told her friends they laughed at her over-active imagination.
"I was an idiot and didn't take anything to arm myself - I didn't think that far ahead," she said. "I had no idea what was in there.
"The night before I'd watched a scary film called Malignant - the bloke in it had spiky fingers like that. I thought there would be an explanation for it but because I'd watched the film the previous night it put doubt in me that there was a monster in my bathroom."
After racing upstairs and bursting through the bathroom door, Lyndsay started laughing with relief when she realised there was no-one there. The relieved horror movie fan plodded downstairs to let son Devon Brogan, 19, and Rebecca know, with the pair rolling their eyes and chuckling at her.
Lyndsay said: "I was a nervous wreck, but then I laughed at myself when I got in the bathroom because I knew the aloe vera plants were the spikes that looked like hands. I put the plants on the window sill to break up the white and grey [from the bathroom tiles] with a bit of colour.
"It turned out my son's girlfriend had gone into the bathroom to take her make-up off so it was her head that I could see. Devon, Rebecca and my friend were all laughing at me when I told them what happened. They just rolled their eyes, because that's typical me."
But it seems it hasn't put Lyndsay off watching scary films in future. Lyndsay said: "I love horror films - the adrenaline rush makes you feel alive and excited. I've got some other spooky films lined up ahead of Halloween. Now I know what it is, it'll just make me chuckle - there's no need to move the plants."
