Stonecrop Magazine

I lift the hot cup of coffee to my mouth, close my eyes, and breathe in the dark roasted aroma.  I take a sip, sigh with relief, and feel that familiar rush through my veins and jolt to my heart. 

Something flickers in the corner of my eye.

“Yeah,” I mutter.  “I definitely need this coffee today.”

Movement invades my peripheral vision again.  This is no longer a case of caffeine withdrawals.  I walk to my front window and notice multiple vehicles outside my house; a foreign occurrence in my typically quiet street.

I turn to catch the flickering movement again.  Someone runs up the side of the house.  I’m overcome with the claustrophobic feeling of being watched.  I’m surrounded.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The front door rattles with loud thuds.

“Open up!” someone yells.  “This is the police!”

The front door is locked.

“Shit,” I whisper.  “Where the fuck are my keys?”

I glance at their usual home on the nearby table.  They’re not there.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I dart in multiple directions, like a manic ferret that just received an electric shock.  I frantically search my backpack, under books and cushions.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Coming!” I awkwardly yell back.  My disorganized life is raising suspicion. 

I throw my hand into the pocket of yesterday’s jeans. 

“Yes!”

I open the door and see two angry detectives.  Plain-clothes officers stand around the house with their eyes trained on me.  Their hands hover near their holsters, like they’ve seen too many John Wayne films. 

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“Are you Greg Johnson?” they inquire, looking me up and down and presenting their badges.

“No,” I reply. 

“Is Susan Brown there?” they continue. 

“No,” I say, more bewildered by the second.  “I don’t know any of these people.  None of them live here.”

The detectives appear frustrated, increasingly annoyed, and attempt to save face by launching an interrogation.

“What is your name?” they ask.  “What is your date of birth? What is your phone number? Who else lives in the house?”

I stand there and answer the questions, occasionally looking over at my delicious cup of coffee growing cold.

“What would you do if there was a fire?” they ask.  “It took you a long time to open the door.  You should ensure keys are in close proximity.”

“You should ensure your databases are up-to-date,” I reply.  “Should I be concerned about any of these people you mentioned?”

“Nothing to worry about,” they sheepishly respond.  “We’ll be on our way.”

***

A gust of wind whips up autumn leaves, creating flashes of orange and yellow across the neighborhood.  When the wind settles, my attention is drawn to the neighbor’s elm tree.

A man is standing in the bushes, with a branch partly obscuring his face.  He is holding a long lens camera; the type you might see an award-winning National Geographic photographer use.

His attire doesn’t match the expensive camera though, with a poorly fitted jacket clinging to his rotund frame; the type of build which makes it decidedly difficult to hide in a bush. 

An old polo shirt, baggy trackpants and faded green baseball cap complete his look.  But it’s his bare feet in clogs which steal the show.

“What the hell is going on?” I mutter, sipping my coffee.  I spy on the guy in the bushes while he spies on others.  I pause and wonder if he can see how much coffee I have left in my cup.

He points his impressive camera at houses in the street, then pauses to admire his work.  He wanders over to a group of gumtrees, hides behind their trunks, and disappears as quickly as he arrived.

A few nights later I wake to the sounds of a noisy car in the street.  It’s the kind of low rumble you might expect to hear at the start of a race and it shakes the windows. 

I peer through the blinds to see a man standing beside the vehicle.  He is staring at my house. 

“Fuck,” I mumble in my sleepy daze.  “This can’t be good.”

The man walks towards the house and I grab my phone.  My fingers hover over the buttons ready to dial 911.

And then the man stops.  He continues staring.  The street lamp illuminates him enough for me to realize that I’ve never seen him before. 

The man analyzes the house with a level of concentration not customary for 3am.  He turns around, walks back to his car and opens the door.  He takes one last look and then drives away.

I don’t get any more sleep.

***

My partner and I try to convince ourselves we aren’t developing paranoid delusions.  We attempt to get on with life, and set about customizing the house to exert control over our environment.

Strange cars occasionally arrive in the middle of the night, only to leave just as suddenly, serving to heighten our anxiety.

One day, a strange car arrives in the daytime.  A man gets out and walks to our mailbox.  He places something in there and returns to his vehicle. 

I watch and wonder if the small package will provide answers to the recent events. 

The man hesitates getting inside his car.  He walks back to the mailbox, opens it up, and removes the small package. 

I jot down the number plate before he drives away.

Our area gets hit with consecutive weather systems.  It brings wild winds, lashing rain and frigid temperatures.  The strange occurrences stop.

“The crazy bastards don’t like the rain,” I joke to my partner. 

“Don’t jinx us!” she says.

We try to fall asleep as the wind rattles windows, and the neighbor’s tree scrapes against the roof. 

“Do you hear that rustling?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s just tree debris on the roof and things blowing around.”

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the rustling sounds competing with the rain pummelling down.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I say, and roll over to sleep.

***

“I think you should come look at this,” she says the next morning.

I rub my eyes and walk into the hallway.  My partner is staring at the ceiling; her focus hones in on the manhole cover.  It’s ajar.

“Have you been up there?” she asks, anxiety growing in her voice.

“Never,” I say, feeling adrenaline kick-in. 

“Well, it looks like someone has,” she says.

We look at each other in silence.  We think back to the rustling sounds, and the other noises coming from the ceiling; the ones we explained away as bad weather.

“I’m calling the cops,” I say. 

My partner grabs a rolling pin from the kitchen.  She means business.

“Is anyone up there?” I call out to the ceiling. 

Nothing.

Police arrive but they don’t surround the house this time.  They’re different and among them is a forensics officer.  We watch as the forensics guy positions a ladder and climbs into the ceiling.

“Ah, yes,” he observes.  “There has definitely been a disturbance here.”

“A disturbance?” I yell back.

“Yes,” he says.  “There has been someone up here.”

“Oh god,” my partner gasps.

Forensics investigate the roof cavity and insulation for further disturbances, while his colleagues run the address through a database.

“Would you like some coffee, officers?” I ask, realizing the irony at sharing coffee with police after they disturbed my ritual months earlier.

“That would be great,” they say, concentrating on their screen.  They nod knowingly at the information.

“It’s the past occupants,” they explain.  “They are known to police and have extensive criminal records.”

My stomach somersaults as everything becomes clearer. 

“They probably kept keys to the house,” they continue.  “They might have been coming back to retrieve weapons, stolen property, drugs; something of that nature.”

“While we slept?” I gasp.

My partner grips my hand.  I think of the SWAT team, the random cars, strange people, the long lens photographer.  I feel anxious.  It all makes disturbing sense.

“What should we do?” I ask.

The forensics officer jumps down from the ceiling.

“I think you should change your locks,” he says.

Rowan MacDonald lives in Tasmania with his dog, Rosie. His writing has previously appeared in Black Fork Review, White Wall Review, Miracle Monocle, Sheepshead Review, Defunkt Magazine and FLARE: The Flagler Review. When not writing, he loves escaping into a good book or spending time in nature.