OK, so, call me paranoid. My brother certainly would, but being a product of our mother it's almost to be expected that one of us would be.
TB is gone tonight, he's off working for who knows how long. He left at nine and said he'd be home eventually, but most likely not until long after midnight. (They're going into tech week on a show.)
This being September and all, I've gotten into the Halloween spirit, following both the antics at I Mockery and X-Entertainment (I like I Mockery better, they review with style; XE reviews with "OK, I don't have anything to say about this, so I'll just type a bunch of half-assed stuff and get my word count in," but XE has a bigger backlog and larger variety of stuff, and it's the stuff I'm interested in more than the articles). Anyway, this night found me and my Lego glow-in-the-dark ghost taking Halloween pictures for Flickr. Oddly enough, I was getting some pretty strange results, in spite of taking a bunch of pictures with the lights on, none of the pictures were coming out with anything but the glow-y ghost. The backgrounds were coming in all black.
Anyway, as I was busily engaged in flipping the lights on and off to re-charge the ghost, I heard a knock at the door. Instantly, I was reminded that I didn't hear very clearly whether TB locked the door or not after he left. So, reasonably, it could be him- if I leave the door locked, he's too lazy to fish his keys out of his pocket and let himself in. He usually can't manage to make it out the door without forgetting something, this was his first chance to run back for it, sure, that must be it. Still, did he say he locked the door or not?
I am a pedantic door locker. If there is a lock to lock, I lock it. It partly stems from always being instructed to lock car doors as a kid- we had a four door without child locks the first six years of my life. Aside from that, living in university dorms and knowing that my door was the only thing that separated me from humanity at large, and the humanity at large on my floor tended to be loud, stupid boys, I now tend to lock all doors as soon as I'm through them.
I've never been certain whether it was real or one of those sleep paralysis hallucinations, but in my first year, I have a vivid recollection of waking up and seeing something enter my room. I didn't have a real clear indication of what or whom, just a red and black something that came in, and then left again. I didn't even have friends who dropped by my room. (I didn't have carpet, comfy furniture, a fridge, or a TV, what was the point?)
I must've fallen back asleep, because when I did wake up, I ran across the room to discover that the door was locked. Now, it wasn't the same in all the dorms, but our rooms were such that we couldn't lock ourselves out unless someone else with the key locked us out. I didn't have a roommate (again), so no one else had a key, unless it were some sort of maintenance thing, and then they would've knocked or spoken to me, or something. If the door was locked, no one should've been able to get in, which is why I assume this must be sleep paralysis. At the same time, I know that I did a lot of strange sleep related things that year- there are times that I would find myself going to the bathroom with only vauge recollections of how I got there, as well as apparently getting up and halfway to class without remembering if I'd gotten dressed, but looking down and discovering that, yeah, I must've, so I possibly could've gotten down from my loft and locked the door in my sleep afterwards, which means that someone did come in, but I don't know.
No, I don't do drugs.
Anyway, when last I drifted away from the topic at hand, someone was knocking on my door at ten thirty while I am home alone and can't recall whether the door is locked. The lamp right inside the door is on, and the window in the front room (where I've been flipping the lights on and off) looks out into the street. There is no doubt that someone is at home.
I call TB.
"Hi." (Random people/construction noise in background.)
"Oh, you're at the theatre."
"Yes. That's where I told you I was going to be. I left, remember?"
"Yeah, but I was just making sure you weren't outside."
"Why would I be outside?"
"Well, someone is."
"OK."
"And I'm not answering it. Did you lock the door when you left?"
"I thought I told you I didn't."
"I didn't hear you."
"I told you twice, 'I'm not locking the door', I said."
The knocking continues. Cue The Exorcist theme on my computer at that point. How I wish I were joking about that one, but Tubular Bells is suddenly filling the house.
"I'm locking myself in the bathroom."
"Why?"
"It's ten thirty and someone's knocking on the door. And the Exorcist theme just came on."
"OK. I have to get back to work."
"Thanks a lot."
"Bye."
"Um, OK, Bye."
Nice and concerned for my life, isn't he? On the other hand, he knows I've spent the last week in a sort of Halloween haze, and he knows me well enough to know that I've probably spooked myself over nothing, but, still.
I hear the screen door go shut. The knocker is, ostensibly, gone. I flip out the lights (an incredibly brave act considering that I've still got Tubular Bells tinkling away and I am a big 'fraidy cat), and look out the window to see whoever coming down the way. If I were to leave the lights on, you can see the blinds move.
No one comes down the walk. I go to the door, no one there.
I change from Tubular Bells to Be Happy, by Aqua, because I'm just far too creeped out by this point. I lock the door. And I turn on the lights and come back here just to write this all out.
The thing of it is that I can't even hope it's an incredibly limber pizza guy who managed to hoof it back to the car in the twenty seconds it took me to look out the window because there was no car either.
I mean, the Mormons don't go out at this hour, do they?
My other thought was that someone was lost finding the NCAA party down the street (the cars started pulling up at six thirty and the door has a big NCAA poster up, whether that's what the party is about, I dunno). Perhaps they parked in the street and walked, but realised too late that all their buddies were down the street and so took off.
I just wish there'd been some religious tract stuck in the door or something, I would've been happy to see that the Satanists had paid a call because they'd have bodies, at least.