One Night Not So Long Ago - A Short Story

Something slammed into my subconscious and forced my eyes open. "It was just a bad dream" I repeated silently to myself as I rolled onto my back. "Just a bad dream, nothing to worry about". I struggled to calm my racing heart by taking long, slow breaths.

In...out...in...out. As I lay there trying to focus on my breathing I berated myself for my childish idiocy. After all it was just a dream and I am too old to be scared of the bumps in the night. My heart slowed it's frantic beat and my eyelids became heavy. I was hoping for the sweet oblivion of a dreamless sleep.

Tap. Tap. Tap...

SCRAPE

My eyes flew open and I sat bolt upright in bed, the sound jarring me back into full consciousness. I could not move, could not breathe as fear slithered through me and began to roil in my belly.

I'm not sure how long I sat there listening but, as silence greeted my straining ears, I dared to take a breath and the air burned in my lungs. In the blue glow of the digital clock I quickly grabbed my glasses, hoping that the clarity of vision would help to explain those unsettling sounds. I hooked the frames onto my nose and the black fuzzy outlines became nothing more than the shadows of the furniture that filled our room. Nothing was out of place, but that did not ease the tension building in me and so I reached for the bedside light to flip it on.

Tap. Tap. TAP...

SCRAPE

My hand froze on the way to the light.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The noise was coming from the hallway downstairs.

TAP. TAP. TAP...

SCRAPE

It was getting closer.

I snatched my hand away from the light and swung my legs out of the bed and, as softly as I could, I planted my feet on the floor and rose from the bed. My body felt like jelly as adrenaline coursed through me. I placed my hand on the mattress to steady myself. For a moment I just stood there, listening and trying to decide what to do. The blood pounding in my ears was making it difficult for me to think clearly.

Whatever was making the rhythmic noise in the darkness was, once again, silent.

As if of their own accord, my legs started moving forwards out of the bedroom door and to the top of the stairs. I gripped the banister hard with my sweaty hand as the noise came out of the blackness of the stairwell.

Tap. Tap...

"Hello?" I whispered. My throat was tight with fear. In that instant, I realised I had made a mistake. If I hadn't alerted whoever or whatever to my presence before, I certainly had now.  All of a sudden the tapping stopped.

I heard a soft scuffling followed by that chilling scraping sound and then again, silence. It had moved away from the bottom of the stairs and was outside the door leading to the kitchen. As frightening as the noises were, the silences in between had become deafening.

My exit was blocked and I realised that my only way out was to go down stairs and either confront what awaited me or try to run for the back door. Keeping a firm grip on the banister I unsteadily made my descent. As I neared the bottom step there was a loud CRASH.

Something had forcefully struck the kitchen door. The shock of the sound made me lose my footing and as I slipped down the stairs...

I screamed.

Scrabbling back onto the bottom step, my hand fumbled up the wall looking for the light switch. It felt like an eternity before I managed to lay my finger on it and slam it on.

I squinted, trying to adjust my eyes to the bright light and hoping that my screaming had scared away whatever had been lurking in the dark. I finally managed to focus.

He stood in front of me, his yellow eyes weary and seemingly undecided as to what to do next.

It was the fucking cat.

After he had decided that I posed no threat, he stalked off to sit by the kitchen door where his treat ball sat. With a flick of his paw, the ball spun into the door and created a slight 'tapping' noise as it bounced off. He continued to repeat this and then, on the third attempt, he hit the ball into the door with a little more force and the treats flew free. He reached out his paw again placing it firmly on the treats and dragged them towards himself. They made a 'scraping' on the tiled floor as he brought them to rest at his feet. One by one he scoffed them, taking his time to lick up any morsel that escaped his mouth before starting in on the treat ball again.

"You utter bastard!" I shouted at him. "You scared the crap out of me!" He cocked his head to one side and stared at me, seeming confused by my fury, then continued his task of batting his treat ball into the door. I pulled myself up from my heap on the bottom step, flicked the light off and stomped back off up the stairs. "You're a dick" I shouted over the banister. As I fell fuming back into bed I heard...

Tap. Tap, TAP...

SCRAPE.

Reboot

So, it would seem we are in the era of the reboot. Many superheroes and film classics are being given  a bit of a nipple tweak, a new coat of paint and some shiny-shiny actors that will appeal to the modern generation.

Ok, I might not be quite as hairy as King Kong and I am definitely lacking in superhero skills.  Unless you count the ability to dislocate my thumb as a super power, but surely I'm allowed to reboot aren't I...aren't I?

 Very little and a whole lot has changed since I last wrote anything that I have actually published. That is not to say I have not been writing, but much of it is random sentences and odd monologues that pop into my head from time to time. Things that may well be elaborated on in the future, but for now they are little more that the musings of a crazy person/a shy person who is not quite ready for the whole world to see the full on crazy. Lets take things slowly ok?

Since the last time I poked my head out into the world of social media, my Better Half, the two furry beasties and myself have left the convenience of the home counties and moved to what I fondly call the county of cheese and pork. Many of you know it as Somerset. The move has had it's pros and cons... mainly involving cheese and our waistlines, but I will come back to that in more detail at a later date. Other than the little nuances that life so often entertains us with and the proverbial shit hitting the fan on occasions, not a lot has changed.

"So, why haven't you been writing?" you may ask. Well, I could tell you;

I've been busy - sort of true,
I've not been feeling well - unfortunately, very true
The cats are arseholes and won't give me five minutes to myself to think coherently - also true, but they are monsters of my own making

Or I could bitch and whine and moan about the  fact that the bloody laptop sucks and I haven't been using it because it constantly has the spinning wheel of death when I load any page and I think it may well explode/be launched at the wall as it will not stop fucking buffering!!!!!!!!!

Sadly, I used the last excuse so much so that, my Better Half took pity on me and did what he does best and fixed it. How dare he listen to me and do something nice to encourage me! Bastard.

However, like my Mum used to say to me and now I like to say to my Better Half (mainly because its crudity makes him cringe and I like to see him squirm on occasion).

 "Excuses are like arseholes, everybody has got one."

And I have many. Excuses I mean. Not arseholes...that would be weird and pretty gross.

If I am truly honest with myself and with you who read my ramblings. No excuses, no rose tinted filter that makes life seem warm and beautiful. I was scared. I am scared. Not just because people will read this, which was my initial anxiety when I first started writing, but that in order to write anything that is worth reading you have to feel something. You have to use your emotions, deep down, gut wrenching, overwhelming, all consuming feelings and I couldn't. It was all too much. So many things I don't think I have quite come to terms with yet and the exposure of metaphorical scars made me feel raw. Vulnerable. It is so much easier to stay in my little rose tinted bubble, with my Better Half and annoyingly adorable cats and all the unconditional love and bloody cheese that I could eat.

But anything worth doing isn't easy right?

So, here I go again. No new licks of paint or shiny-shiny actors.

Just me.

Rebooted.

With a nipple tweak...or two and my ramblings.