A Night Adventure

The house was unusually quiet. I was writing a story in my laptop late at night, as usual, but I kept feeling the skin in my arms tingle. I realized that I didn’t hear the neighbour’s dog barking for a while. Perhaps the cats learned their lesson and stopped annoying it. I’ve always hated its loud barking, especially when I was trying to sleep. I’d always hoped that it would shut its mouth for a bit. Now that it did, I felt a little bit uneasy.

Oddly enough, I couldn’t concentrate on the story. Perhaps the barking even gave me inspiration.

I turned off the laptop and went to the kitchen. I always forgot to have dinner. I fixed myself a sandwich and poured a glass of cold milk, then sat in a chair facing the window with only the light of the fridge to guide me. It was dark outside. The street light was too dim to make a difference. It was quiet too. The only sound was the munching and drinking I made. If I had been in a horror story, a murderer would have suddenly appeared in my window, or maybe a ghost.

I fantasized for while of a perfect scenario that I may write. A shudder ran through me at the thought of what could happen. There goes another night. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep after that if my life depended on it. Had I still lived in my parents’ house, I’d have been comforted by their presence.

I was still hungry after the little meal, so I decided to have some more. As I was about to get up thinking of using jam instead of butter for the sandwich, I saw a figure running past my window. My legs let loose and I fell back to my chair. A loud knocking at my door broke the silence, and my heart fell out of my chest.  

 Maybe living alone wasn’t a good idea after all. I remembered leaving the fridge open, so I quickly crawled to close it, too shaky to walk. The knocking at my door stopped and the sound of running started. I heard knocking at a neighbour’s door then a knocking at a farther door.

I slowly moved back to the window to check. The moment I peeked out, I heard another pair of feet and another figure ran past my window in the same direction as the other. The tingling sensation under my arms started again.

I tried to make out the shadows outside. All I could tell was that the first figure stopped knocking and ran far from my sight as the second followed behind. I listened closely in case another person were to come again, but there was no one.

Those two could have been a couple of stray dogs, but dogs don’t knock on doors. Perhaps they were some teens messing around. As reassuring as that thought was, I couldn’t help thinking that it was someone in need. I probably wouldn’t catch up to them, anyway.

I gathered my courage and went looking for any heavy object. Too bad I didn’t own a baseball bat. I grabbed a frying pan, pulled on a jacket, and put on a pair of shoes. I took my phone with me before heading out.

I came out of the house making as little sound as I could. In a night as quiet as that, even clothes rubbing against each other sounded loud. It would have been much better if the dog started barking now. The moment I thought of the dog, its owner came up to my mind. He was a mute who lived alone with a bunch of cats and one loud dog.

When the first figure was knocking at my door, I heard some sort of moaning sound. My neighbour Phillip makes similar sounds when I greet him. Also, both of the shadows came from the right where he lived. I hoped that my hunch was wrong.

I tiptoed to Phillip’s house making sure to walk against the wall like officers do when they are investigating. The drapes to the first window were shut, so I moved towards the door. My heart beat quicker at the sight of the wide opened door. I swallowed my saliva and tightened my grip on the pan wishing it to be a gun.

I slowly made my way inside the house. All the lights were off except for a room at the far back. I walked slowly towards it looking out for any shadows that could be lurking around. I felt something brush my leg and I froze, barely holding back the scream I nearly let out. The light of the room fell on the furry animal that walked past me. I breathed out a sigh of relief remembering that there were at least a dozen cats in this house.

I walked into the room to find it a kitchen. Knives, pans, and papers were scattered on the ground. A chair lied on the ground near a table that had more papers on top of it along with a camera. The stove was running with a pan full of boiling water. What was odd about the kitchen was the bed with straps. A shiver ran down my spine when I thought of what it could be used for. The situation was straight out of a horror story. Imagine If I opened the fridge and found body parts. I looked at the boiling water and imagined my neighbour cooking his victims for a late night snack. I snickered and walked out of the room.

I used my flashlight to check the rest of the house for any sight of my neighbour. Having become sure of my hunch, I dialed the police asking for help. I assumed a burglar tried to break into the house, but Phillip found him and it got out of hand.

I walked back to my home thinking of what I should do next. I tried to convince myself to go sleep since I did what I could do, but an image of myself in my neighbour’s stead popped up, beaten to a pulp and unable to call for help. I decided that I would do one last heroic act then call it a day.

 As I walked to the figures’ direction, I wondered why nobody came out after all that knocking. They couldn’t have all been away, but then again, I was terrified before I decided to be Batman. I wished somebody was with me.

I heard footsteps running to my direction, so I ducked behind someone’s flowers. The two figures came out from around the corner back into my neighbourhood. The one behind caught up and jumped at the other sending them both rolling on the ground. They wrestled and moaned in pain every time one landed a punch on the other. I couldn’t see them well, so I moved closer. I tried to make out my neighbour, but it was too dim where they were fighting.

I took in a deep breath then pulled my phone and flashed the light at them, “What’s going on in here?” I asked making my voice as intimidating as I could.

Phillip was on top a bearded man, both of their faces seemed battered. Seeing that Phillip was distracted by my sudden appearance, the other man kicked him then he pushed him off and tried to run, but he tripped and fell to the ground. Before I could react, Phillip jumped up and swung his leg at the burglar’s face and then to his stomach. He knelt to the ground and started punching the air out of him.

I was taken aback by the strength of the old man. I’ve always thought that a little blow of air could send Phillip tumbling to the ground.

Something felt off.

I pulled Phillip away from him and said: “Stop that. You’ll kill him.”

The burglar did not speak, did not ask for my help. He only looked at me and moaned in pain. It took me a few seconds to realize that the burglar was also a mute.

I moved my hand away from Phillip’s shoulder and scratched my arm. The burglar tried to run, but Phillip threw him one last punch knocking him unconscious.

“A burglar?” I tried to make my voice as calm as I could.

He stood up catching his breath and nodded. He put one hand to shield him from the flashlight, so I lowered the phone enough to see his face but not bother him.

“Do you need any help with that? I could call the cops for you if you’d like.”

He shook his head. His eyes shifted to the pan in my hand. I had forgotten that I had it with me. I raised it and laughed nervously, “Alright then, I’ll let you deal with him.”

I walked back to my house feeling his eyes following me. I opened the door and entered locking it behind me. I put the pan on the ground and threw my jacket beside it. I went to the bathroom to wash my face as though I was showing him that I suspected nothing.

What was I so worked up for? I was inside my house safe and sound. It was not like he would suddenly appear around the corner. My imagination was running too wild. I decided to reassure myself and went to the Kitchen keeping the lights turned off. I went on my knees and crawled to the window. I tried to stop imagining Phillip’s face pressed against my window shield waiting for me to peek out. Someday, my imagination will cause me a heart attack.

I slowly peeked out, but neither he nor the burglar were where I left them. I moved a little bit trying to peek at my neighbour’s house and I saw Phillip dragging the other man towards his house. I put my hand at my racing heart and ran to my back door making sure that it was locked.

The fact that they were both mute meant that one of them knocked at my door. One of them was in danger, and one was causing the danger.

I went to the bedroom fished out the door’s key and locked it before I headed to bed. I didn’t think I could sleep, but before I knew it, Phillip’s dog sat at my table eating noodles. It looked at me and opened its mouth to bark, but instead, it sounded like sirens.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The sound of knocking woke me up. I wanted to ignore it and continue sleeping, but I remembered the night’s event. I dragged myself out of my bed and opened my bedroom door. The knocking kept going on followed by a female voice calling out of for me.

“Emcy, open the door. Did you die or something?”

I opened the door to my snoopy neighbour. She handed me a plate full of cookies and I put a whole one in my mouth waiting for her to start her investigation.

“Morning,” I said with a yawn.

“Good afternoon Emcy. Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

“Sure,” I turned to see the clock on the wall pointing at 1:40. “The dog didn’t bark much yesterday.”

Smiling, she said: “Well, we all can have a quiet good night’s sleep, now that the dog is gone.”

“The dog is gone?”

“Yes, it was poisoned yesterday.”

“What?” 

“Some guy couldn’t take it anymore and sneaked to Phillip’s roof and put some poison in its food or something.”

“How did you know that?”

“Didn’t you hear the sirens this morning?” Before I could answer, she rolled her eyes and said: “Seriously, you sleep like a Koala. Phillip was arrested. Everybody’s talking about it. I heard someone say that he caught the other man in his roof and dragged him to the house to torture him.”

I remembered him watching me enter my house and shivered.

“I didn’t think that somebody could go so far for a dog. Some people say that it wasn’t his first victim, but the police didn’t say anything yet. Some say they heard someone knock at their door in the middle of the night.” She looked at me expectantly and asked: “Did you hear anything?”

“No, not really.” I shrugged and reached for another cookie. I didn’t want her to go around gossiping about my night adventure.

“Oh.” She tried to hide her disappointment with a big smile. “You could write a story about it, right?”

“Aha.”

“I’ll you go now. If you hear anything else, drop by my house. I have more cookies.”

I watched her go back to her house and glanced at Phillip’s. I closed my door, washed up, and prepared some milk to have with the cookies then went to my office. I turned on my laptop and started a new document.