Last night my husband and I were scrolling through the offerings on Netflix. Since he is a lover of horror and I am a lover of police procedurals we almost never agree on a show. Last night, however, we landed on something called Evil. Sounds pretty horror-ific, but the description reminded me of The X-Files, a show I love. We watched two episodes before calling it a night. In the show, the main character is tormented in her nightmares by a slimy black demon, and I found myself jumping and covering my eyes quite a bit.
Fast forward to three a.m. this morning.
Ting ling…Ting ling
I awoke with a start.
Ting ling, ting ling
Groggily, I realized what I was hearing. We have bells attached to our back door so the dogs can ask to go out. My first thoughts were, either the dog needed to go out, even though she is usually asleep in my son’s room with his door closed, or my husband forgot to lock the back door and someone was breaking in.
With a sigh, I threw back the covers and slumped out of bed. I was too sleepy to realize that if someone was breaking in, I didn’t want to confront them in my underwear. I opened my bedroom door and looked toward the bells. It was pitch black and images of the dark demon from the show made me wary. Our cat streaked out of the darkness and up the stairs. I yelped as he slid to a stop at my feet. The cat had been known to ring the bells before and I thought it might be that, but then the dog, Harley, appeared, practically jumping out of her skin in excitement. I looked towards my son’s room. The door was closed. Had he just put her out and gone back to sleep?
Well crap! Now I had to let her out. I made it down the stairs and opened the sliding door for her, suppressing the fear that someone was lurking on the other side waiting to pounce. She raced out into the night. The cat wove in and out between my legs before dashing off into the dark house. Both animals were wired. I waited a few minutes then called the dog. She came bounding up the steps and stopped just short of coming inside. I stuck my arm out, intending to wave her in, but she jumped several feet back.
I growled and shut the door. My dog’s favorite game in the word is “Chase Me”.
The only thing that works to get her in when she is like this is the laser pointer. I searched the entryway, the TV room, and the kitchen, but I could not find the laser pointer. I went to my daughter’s room and woke her up, but even though she was the last to use it, she had no idea where it might be.
I resorted to turning off the outside light and acting like I was going back upstairs to bed. This was the most scared I had been so far. Turning off the outside light immediately plunged the house and me into absolute darkness. I stood rooted to the spot, certain that if I moved, a slimy black demon would slide up behind me and grab me. It felt like hours before Harley got the point and asked to come in, but it was literally seconds.
The next step was to get her back into my son’s room or I knew I’d be hearing bells the rest of the night. I opened the door to his room and went to wave her in with a whispered, “Okay, Harley, inside.” But, again, as my hand came toward her, she excitedly jumped back about three feet.
I gave up. I would have to deal with the bells. Angry, tired, and certain I would never be able to fall back to sleep, I stormed back to my room. I forgot we had a fan going in the room and the door was pushed by the wind, causing it to accidentally slam closed after I entered. My husband turned in the bed and said a groggy, “What, what’s going on?”
This was just the right question at just the right time. I started loudly ranting about misbehaving dogs and children who know better than to leave the animals out at night. Luckily for James, he knows how to tune me out and was snoring again before I finished.
I lay cocooned in blankets on my side of the bed, fuming and frustrated and knowing I would never get to sleep. The sound of tinkling bells followed me into my dreams.
Rebecca Lamprey 