Stirrings in the Black House by Ambrose Ibsen

Author:Ambrose Ibsen [Ibsen, Ambrose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-03-29T22:00:00+00:00

13

I had nothing to defend myself with and was close to simply running out the door.

Someone had broken in while I was gone and was now stomping around in one of the bedrooms. I eyed the door to my back, searching for any signs of forced entry I might've initially overlooked. There were none, but it was possible that the intruder had come in through one of the windows...

I stood at the base of the stairs, breaking into a sweat as I listened to the dense footsteps sounding overhead. “W-who's there?” I chanced. I backed up into the foyer, ready to spring out the front door and to my car should someone threaten me. I buried my hand in my pocket and held tightly onto my keys.

There wasn't any reply, but the footsteps didn't wane, either. They were loud, determined things, the sounds of a grown man stomping around in work boots, perhaps. Though I stood there for a couple of minutes, waiting for someone to come into view in the hallway, or for their steps to cease, nothing changed.

I was going to have to go up there if I wanted to know who was causing such a ruckus. It was unthinkable to me that this house, so distant from anything in town, should have been broken into. A single look around the living room or fridge should have relayed very clearly to a thief that I had nothing worth taking! What, was he walking through the upstairs rooms in search of something to steal; interested in my crappy mattress, perhaps?

My heart flew into palpitations as I crept into the kitchen and grasped the handle of my mop. Unscrewing the mop head furtively, I returned to the foot of the stairs with the wooden pole in hand, holding it straight out like a Roman spearman. Hoping to defuse the situation, I stood upon the first step and shouted to the intruder once more. “I'm coming up there, and... and I'm armed!”

A wooden pole didn't really qualify as a weapon, but it was better than heading up there empty-handed.

The footsteps, unsurprisingly, did not abate. Whoever was up there didn't seem to give a damn that I was coming upstairs. I held out the pole, ready to jab with it at any moment, and rose up the stairs, my feet sending the wooden boards into a fit of creaking.

It was when I set foot on the upstairs landing that the footsteps finally stopped, plunging the entire house into taut silence.

Damn, I thought. Whoever is up here knows I'm upstairs... they're waiting for me. Might be hiding around any corner. Gulping down my fright, I leapt into the first bedroom, on my right, where I usually slept, and thrust the wooden pole out in front of me.

Had anyone been in the room they'd have gotten smacked good and hard, however as I looked this way and that for signs of recent occupancy I succeeded only in finding my own unmade bed and a small pile of dirty clothes I'd left sitting nearby.

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