Fright in the Night

Lying on the couch, the evening outside begins to darken to night. I am surrounded by Kleenexes, journals, my Bible and my phone and wrapped up in my red snow flake covered blanket. Whenever you see me wrapped up in that blanket outside of my own room, that most likely means that there's something physically or emotionally wrong with me. Today, it's physical as I cough and shiver, fever raging. Mom has left for a youth group leader meeting and I've sent Little Sister to go get ready for bed, which I hope she's doing. Finally, with both of them gone and my college work finished despite my cloudy mind, I am free to turn on the T.V. and watch Last Man Standing. Not very far into the first episode, I notice outside a quick flash lighting up the trees. My first thought is that it's lightning. I think it odd that a storm is starting when the air doesn't feel that way and it had just been clear outside as the sun was setting. Still, I give it little thought and turn my attention back to the T.V. Once again a white light slides through the tree branches and I realize it can't be lightning; it's moving to steadily and lasting too long. This time I pass it off as someone's headlights, coming from the street over. In a few moments, though, I hear a rap on our front door. Great, I think, I don't feel like answering the door! Still, I get myself up off the couch, leave my red blanket behind and hope that I can put on a good act and not look sick. At the top of the stairs, I peer down through the screen door's window into the darkness. The fact that our door is wide open doesn't make me feel very easy. Also, I can't see anyone or anything standing there. Suddenly, everything about this situation doesn't feel right to me. Heart starting to speed up slightly, I decide to go tell Little Sister about it, to ease my jitters. There are no other lights on in the house besides in the room that I was in, and I walk through the darkness with even steps, knowing full well that if I run that'll give my imagination free reign to give chase with terrible monsters coming out of every dark doorway. Thankfully I can see the light coming out from underneath our shared bedroom's closed door when I get there. Trying the door knob, I find that it's locked and realize that Little Sister must be getting changed. Being locked out in the darkness with a growing sense of dread makes me begin to slowly panic. With one finger I rap three times on our door. "Let me in." I say softly. When there's no response, I impatiently rap again. "Let me in! Common, open the door!" More loudly this time. My heart is starting to speed up and I glance behind me into the darkness. "I gotta get in! Let me in now! Seriously!!" Finally the door opens slowly and I leap inside like a scared rabbit just as I catch a glimpse of that same light... on the wall next to me... inside the house!

I slam the door shut and lock it again. Little Sister is standing there, frightened by the fear on my face. The door handle is tried on the other side... someone is trying to get in. Frantically I look around the room, trying to decide on a course of action. If we stayed there, there was no telling what might happen. Our door is flimsy and could easily be forced open. My eyes fall onto our fire escape window, the one with no attachments so that it could be popped out easily with a turn of a lever. The knob is rattled more violently; whoever is out there is angry. Rushing over to the window, trying to keep my breathing regular, I throw all my decorations on the window sill to the ground and flip the lever. The window doesn't come out at first. A fist slams on our door. 
"Tina..." Little Sister's starting to cry. 
"shhh!" I tell her harshly. I give the window a good bang with my fist and it falls with a thud onto the grass below. "Quick, go out the window. When you land, don't resist the impact, tumble to your knees and roll." I urgently try and teach her all that I can remember about taking a landing without getting hurt as I help boost her up. Little Sister is clinging to the window frame, too scared to jump. "Go now!" A boot kicks once, twice. The door begins to splinter. She finally lets go and disappears out the window. I hear her land, she cries out a little in pain. I get up into the window, feet dangling over, "move out of the way!" I yell down at her, then, taking a deep breath, I shove myself out into the air just as the door behind bursts open with a loud crash. I land feet first from the second story jump. Letting my knees give out, I absorb the impact with my whole body, rolling off my shoulder. Shakily I get up right away and locate Little Sister standing in the dark crying. My knees hurt from the impact, but I try an ignore it. "Are you alright?" I ask her, she shakes her head yes. I cough, head suddenly spinning with my fever. "We’ve got to get out of here." I grab her hand and begin to drag her along as I stumble through the darkness of the night. The grass is cool to my bare feet, but several twigs and stones dig into them as well. Thankfully, I've developed tough feet from running around our large field bare foot all the time and I don’t slow down. We run through the circle of trees that's on the edge of our yard, heading to our closest neighbor’s house. That same bright flashlight falls on us from our window, casting our shadows wickedly black in its cold hard light on the ground. Fearing that whoever it was had a gun, I yell at Little Sister while letting her go "run in zig zags! Don't run straight!!" I stumble for cover behind a tree, then dart to another one to my left. And then...

Okay, so that last bit was actually me spicing the adventure up a bit the next morning with just a little imagination. What really happened after I leapt inside our room, and told Little Sister about the knock on the door, was that her reaction was like "oh, that's the neighbor girl and her friend. I heard them laughing and talking outside." This made sense to me, and as I went and looked through my books on the bookshelf to help calm my nerves, a sharp noise came at our window. I glanced at Little Sister and now she looked a little unnerved. That same bright flashlight shone directly into our window and danced around a bit. Below, I could hear the two little girls giggling. 
"It's just a rock." I explained to her and began to leave. 
"Why would they do that?" She asked. In the doorway I leaned back into the room with a smirk on my face. 
"To get our attention. Like a guy does to get a girl's attention without waking up her parents in the old days." Then I left.

Photos Public Domain