Cry Wolf: A Short Story

A yawn escapes my mouth as I rinse out my snack bowl. My eyes are getting that glazed over, dry feeling. I guess it’s time to go curl up in bed and give in to sleep. My kitchen window overlooks the side of my neighbor’s house. I usually glance in his windows whenever I am by the sink--not really being nosy, just curious.

Sometimes I can see my neighbor David when he is on this side of the house. He does a lot of cooking and entertaining. He had people over yesterday night. This time something abnormal causes me to do a double take.

David isn’t in the kitchen, though. All the lights in his house are off. I lean in toward the window to see if his car is in the driveway. It is. He’s probably in bed. Most of the neighborhood is at midnight. Something moved outside. I knew I had seen something. A cry slips out of my mouth.

There is something beside David’s house!

It’s looking into his kitchen window. Now it’s pulling itself up onto the window sill. I can’t move. I can’t make my muscles work. Am I seeing it? What is it? It’s standing in his window and I can’t seem to make my body do anything but stare.

It’s trying to move the screen off of the window. Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand is tapping on the window. First I’m frozen then something possesses me to tap on the window like I can tell it, "No." How stupid of me.

It immediately turns to stare at me. It has red eyes. They narrow into glowing slits. What kind of creature has red eyes? It looks like it is calculating, thinking. Then it suddenly lifts its arm. Oh, no! It’s going to come after me.

Now my body can’t seem to move fast enough. I dash to make sure all the doors and windows are locked. Where’s Marshmallow? Where’s the cat? Surely he’s not outside right now. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely move things around to search Marshmallow’s usual hiding spots. He’s behind the chair. Thank God.

I have to do something. I have to call for help. I have to call 911. I run back to the kitchen to see what it is doing as the phone rings on the other end. It’s in his house now. It’s in his house. The operator picks up. “911, what is your emergency?”

“There is something in my neighbor’s house. I can see it through the window. Send someone quick please. It’s in his house!”

“Okay, ma’am. Is your address 20 Treemont Avenue?”

“Yes. Is somebody on the way now?”

“I’m dispatching an officer right now. Can you give me a description of the person in his house? Is he armed?”

“It’s not a person. It’s some kind of creature.”

“Okay, it’s an animal then? I’ll send for animal control as well.”

“No. It’s a creature. It’s…I don’t know what it is. It’s standing on two legs. It has hair all over its body. It has red eyes. It looked at me.”

“Okay, stay on the line ma’am. Let me talk to the officers en route.”

It’s moved out of sight now. What if the police don’t make it in time? It’s in there somewhere. I can call David and let him know. I pull the phone book out of the drawer. I can hear the 911 operator talking to somebody else.

I grab my cell phone and dial David’s number. It’s ringing. It’s ringing. “Hello?” I hear David’s sleep-filled voice.

“It’s Dana next door. There is something in your house. I saw it in your kitchen.”

“What?” David sounds groggy still.

“Lock the door of the room you are in. Don’t go downstairs. It’s there. I called the police. They should get there soon.”

“What is? What do you mean?” His bedroom light flips on.

“An animal, a monster. I don’t know. I can’t see it now. I don’t know where it is.” I see a light in the driveway. “The police are here now.”

I hear them bang on his door. One of the officers walks around to the back of the house.

David says, “I need to get the door.”

“I don’t see it. Don’t leave your room. The police can get it.”

“They can’t check it out if I don’t let them in. I’m hanging up now.”

I hang up with 911, too. Then I hear a loud knock on the other side of my house. I can see one of the police officers talking to David on his porch and the other one is walking around the back of his house. Then I hear another crashing sound at my back door.

I open the kitchen window and yell out at the police. They look up and the one who was talking to David walks toward my door. I open the door for him. “What’s going on?” The policeman is being way too calm.

“I heard it. It was just at my back door.”

“Okay. I’ll go look. You just stay inside.” I see him walk around the side of the house.

As I’m watching the scene outside, the monster’s face appears at the window. I scream and drop the phone that I am holding. It gives me a look and then runs off.

Where is the policeman? I look out the front windows. He’s standing on the sidewalk talking to the other officer and David. Another police car has pulled up along with an animal control truck. One of those officers is checking out the inside of David’s house.

The policeman comes back and knocks on my door again. “It ran that way,” I say pointing toward the tree line around the backside of the house. They don’t find it. It’s gone. It knew to leave.

The police stand around talking to each other for a few minutes. Then one of them comes in to check inside my house. After about thirty minutes the police leave even though I try to tell them it will come back. They tell me to call 911 if I see it again. I nod my head at them, but I know it will be too late then.

I need something to protect myself. Dad’s old gun. It’s in the spare room. Do I have bullets? Yes. Two of them. I don’t even know how to load a gun. But how hard can it be? I fiddle around with it a bit and figure out how to stick the bullets in. If it comes down to it, I think I know how to cock it and shoot.

It’s quiet now. The cops are gone. David’s house is dark. Idiot. How can he go back to sleep when something was in his house? They all thought I was jumping at shadows. But they didn’t see its eyes.

I can’t sleep now. I know it’s going to be back. It wasn’t an animal. It was doing something. It had some kind of mission. An hour passes. I have just about every light in the house turned on. I can’t do much but pace. I try watching TV. I can’t pay attention to it right now, but the noise in the background is comforting.

I can’t keep my eyes from the windows. I bring my laptop into the kitchen. I look up monsters. None of the sites I find are helpful. I look up werewolves. That’s not helpful either. None of the drawings look like the thing that was here. What is that thing? What was it doing? If I had a clue about what it is, I might know how to handle it. Not knowing what it was or what to do if it comes back makes it that much worse to deal with.

I guess I must have dozed off. I look around. What woke me? It’s been about 15 minutes. 3:45. I walk to the window. Nothing. I stick my hand in the pocket of my robe. The gun is still there. Having a loaded weapon on me makes me nervous, but the thought of having nothing to protect myself makes me more uncomfortable. I go check the doors and windows again. All the same. Still locked. The cat is curled up in the chair now.

I look out the window again. Nothing. Then I see movement in David’s house. I freeze. Something dark in there moved again. David turned off the light in the kitchen so I can’t see what it is.

I pull the phone out of my other pocket. I dial 911 again. “I called a few hours ago about a monst-, um, something in my neighbor’s house. I think it’s back. I see something moving in there.”

“Ok. I’ll send an officer.”

“Thank you.” I hang up with the 911 operator.

I walk to the back bedroom and look out at David’s. It’s in David’s room now--moving! What’s it doing? It’s too dark to see. Then it disappears. Where is it? Why didn’t David wake up? I run back to the kitchen. I don’t see it. Then I suddenly do.

It’s in his backyard. It’s leaving. I run to the back again. It turns and looks at me, stopping for a moment. Then it keeps on going into the tree line where it went earlier. The knock makes me jump.

It’s the front door. The police came straight to my door this time. Guess I’m the nut job to them now. It’s the same two who were here earlier.

“You saw the animal again, ma’am?”

“It’s gone now. It was in his house doing something and then it just walked off into the trees.”

They give each other a look. “Okay. We’ll walk around and check around the houses to be sure.” I guess my obvious fear was enough to convince them to investigate a little.

A few minutes later they knock on my door again. “We didn’t see anything ma’am.”

That’s what I figured. They tell me to have a good night and to try to get some sleep. Maybe I will. But those eyes…

***

The next day David stops me as I’m getting into my car. “Hey, look what I found this morning.” He takes me over to his window. There is a rip in the screen.