Writing Prompt #2 Muddy shoes- December 23, 2020

 The following blog is a short story derived from a prompt.

Only 2 more days until Christmas!!

I am not the paranoid type. Since my husband is a paramedic, I am used to the crazy hours that sort of job entails.  He is even loving enough to remind me when he won't be around as much and is in high demand.

I am not the type who gets scared easily. I like to watch horror movies for fun, and I enjoy scaring the shit out of myself. I am not sure what that says about me or my personality, but I like to think that I am a pretty rare type. I will also tell you that the house that my husband and I share is not new in any sense of the word, It creaks, and if I didn't feel safe in it, I would be the first to admit that it just might topple over on me while I am inside! I know that sounds scary, and if we could have afforded the mortgage, we would have bought a much newer and modern house. However, this house is what was in our budget and we have made the best of living in an older home for now.

Maybe once my husband gets the promotion he was promised, we might be able to afford more of what we would like to deem our dream home.

With the age of the house having been explained, I would now like to tell you that I have been hearing some odd sounds around the house and around our yard. They are the sort of sounds that startle me from my sleep and send my heart into full-on alarm mode! /You must understand that I use a wheelchair to get around so once I get around to getting out of the bed to investigate the odd noises, they usually disappear. Even though I am used to the sounds of an aging home, these are more of the kind that you hear in horror movies when someone is chasing after someone else and is trying to barge into their locked home.

It's just a nightmare, I tell myself. It's just your head reenacting the horror movie that you so stupidly paid to watch on HBO on a night when your husband wouldn't be home until the morning hours when you were rising from your slumber the night before.

Once my anxiety and my uncontrollable shaking ended, I was usually able to fall back to sleep once I had laid there wide-eyed for about 2 hours. My husband is not the most observant person in the world, not at all, but he even he noticed a fright and anxiety in my voice. 

I tried my best to quell it, and I promised him that I was completely fine. I did not want to raise his anxiety even more, especially on a night when I knew he would be tending to some of the season's worst injuries and emergencies.

Once I hung up the phone call with my husband, I usually felt a bit more at ease and more confident in my ability to drift off to sleep.  I went to sleep clutching the pillow on my husband's empty bedside.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of my husband's monotonous snoring. Poor guy, I knew he was tired, but clearly, I did not have any idea how utterly exhausted he had been..

I scoot to the edge of the bed as carefully as I could as to not wake my husband from his peaceful and albeit well-deserved slumber. I pull my wheelchair as close to me as possible and try my very best to make a smooth transition. 

I go into the living room and notice that our door had been tampered with. So much so that the doorknob was loose and it looked as if it was hanging by a thread. That made it much easier for it to be opened by me..

When I peered outside, my eyes immediately went to the huge muddy footprints next to our brand new welcome mat. Not knowing what else to do, I let out the biggest scream known to man. Of course, this then scared the crap out of my once sleeping husband who ran to my rescue with the most concerned face I had ever seen.

WHAT IS THIS? I screamed. Out of all of the many years, we had lived in our cozy little tree-lined neighborhood, we had never even heard of a crime being committed here. WHY US? Asked my husband. I wasn't sure how to answer him, and being wrapped up in terror surely did not help matters.  husband promised me that he would get in touch with his best friend who was a cop for the city. 

It instantly calmed my nerves when he told me he would contact Matthew. He was a good cop when all was said and done and would have our safety in mind. An hour passed before my husband came back and told me that Matthew had confirmed that the Neighborhood watch was seeking out someone suspicious who was inching around the houses in our area looking to dislodge the door and its locks. 

Matthew confirmed that they had his picture back at the station and would be watching over us and the people living around us with a very keen and careful eye. Matthew also confirmed that he would bring us the latest security system that all robbers were deathly afraid of.  

That immediately soothed me. Maybe now thanks to Matthew, I could now return to sleeping like a baby on a log each night....