I was swimming in the ocean, waves cresting overhead. My toes squished in the sand and the sun warmed my face and the top of my head. It was glorious.
And an alarm was going off.
I pushed off with my legs and launched my body forward into the water, splashing gracelessly, headfirst. When I emerged, laughing, I shook the water from my face and did a single backstroke before the waves shifted me back forward towards the beach.
And an alarm was going off.
Up on the beach, I could see the silhouettes of my family. They were waving me back to shore. Reluctantly, I moved their direction -
And an alarm was going off.
I opened my eyes and sat up in bed, alone. The blaring alarm filled the entire house. Where I was alone.
But apparently not anymore.
I slid off the edge of the mattress and crouched into the small space between my bed and the wall, groping for my phone on the nightstand. It seemed odd that the alarm company hadn’t already called me to see if everything was okay. But when I tried to unlock my phone screen, I realized why. My phone was dead. I had apparently forgotten to plug it in before I fell asleep. Great.
The next contact on the emergency list was my sister across town. No doubt she would try to call me too. I reached under the bed and patted my hand around on the carpet to find the charging cable. Before my fingers wrapped around the cord, the alarm turned off.
In the sudden silence, I heard the footsteps on the stairs and froze. They stopped a moment later, probably realizing their movements were no longer hidden by the alarm noise.
I was so very aware that my unmade bed made it obvious someone was in here. Unless they would believe I was just a slob and would leave my bed a mess all day long. But the bed would be warm. Would they check that? How smart would these intruders be? How many were there?
Instead of trying to find the charging cord, I opened the bottom drawer to my nightstand as silently as I could and grabbed my pistol, and checked to see if it was loaded. Then I rolled onto my stomach and wiggled slowly underneath my bed to watch the door.
I controlled my breathing, my gun held firmly in my right hand and aiming towards the door. Seconds ticked by and I didn’t hear another sound. Part of me hoped the intruder had turned around and left. Maybe they were after the television. But I knew on some level they were in the hallway, back pressed against the wall. Waiting for me to come out to investigate the alarm.
But I was smarter than that.
They’d been watching my house for over a week. I’d known it was only a matter of time before they made their move.
It was possible they’d been following me for longer than I was aware. But once I’d become aware, they were very hard to miss. Their eyes following me, day and night. I felt them crawling all over me. It became nearly so unbearable that I almost went for them instead.
But I’d made myself wait. I’d worked very hard to be patient, and they’d finally jumped.
And so I called on the same patience now, staring at the doorway. If I moved first, it could very well be the last thing I did.
At last, they stepped on the creaky board right in front of my room. I aimed at the center of the wall to the left of the door and fired twice. A short delay, and a body hit the ground.
But I didn’t move yet. I had no way of knowing how many of them had come in.
“Shit.” I heard one of them say.
“Shh!” another snapped.
Two more, at least. I waited. In their moment of discussion in the hall, I hurried onto my bed, pulled down the stairs to the attic, and went up into the darkness. I secured the latch on the door and opened up the camera system I had hidden up there. The surrounding room lit up green as the loading screen spun.
I checked every camera angle, and sure enough, there were only the two more in the hall. But outside, I saw the truck at the top of the hill and two men under the streetlight in the other direction. At least four more. I needed to get downstairs.
My bedroom door creaked open below me and something thudded to the floor. I smashed my hands over my ears and a second later, the flash bang went off like a bomb. I counted to ten and let the stairs open an inch, the door still hanging on the clasp. The two men stood in the center of my bedroom, looking around and under every piece of furniture. When they both had their backs to me, I took aim and squeezed off two more shots. They fell one after another.
My path clear, I leapt to my bed, grabbed my go-bag from the hook on the back of my door and slid my feet into the shoes I always kept next to my bed. I didn’t have another second to waste. The ones waiting outside would be on their way in within the next sixty seconds.
I sprinted to the ground floor, opened the door to the closet under the stairs and groped in the dark for the hidden door. A stale gasp of air filled the small space, and I slid into the tunnel under my house.
They’d sweep the entire building, but they wouldn’t find me. And before they had even the inkling of an idea to check for a hidden passageway, I’d be long gone.