I am used to getting up early but this was way too early and I was way too alert, something was telling me that things were just not right. Edging off of the bed and listening for any sounds that didn’t fit, the feeling was not going away and the voice in the back of my head was screaming, ‘Get smart, fast and don’t be a victim!’ Behind the partially open bedroom door was a bat, used to break up cat fights back when we had a cat, that would have to do.
As if any more adrenaline was needed, there was the sound of a footstep in the living room. One step through the bedroom door put me, unseen, in the back hall, a corner hiding me from whoever was in the living room but also cutting me off from my only means of escape, the front and back doors to the house. My advantage was that as the intruder came towards the bedroom door he would be silhouetted by the dim blue glow of the wifi router on the curio cabinet, at once highlighting his presence and killing off most of his night vision.
I waited in the darkness listening to his footsteps coming towards me and tried to concentrate on my breathing, I would have to be absolutely silent until the very last second. I saw a faint blue glow that put him astride of the router’s light and when his face began to pass in front of me I swung the bat with everything I had, hitting him on the bridge of the nose and then I slammed him into the wall next to the door frame and we both went down to the floor. I hit him with the bat again but the first shot had been plenty. While I was getting myself together I noticed that the dude had a gun. I wanted to go for the lights but I wanted to know if the guy had any friends first.
The scuffle hadn’t produced any kind of an audience so I guessed it was safe enough to make a little noise and found a roll of strapping tape in a drawer and proceeded to tie the guy up as well as I could until the tape ran out, that would hold for a while until I could get something more permanent worked out.
I went through the house and checked as many doors and windows as possible, everything was locked except the front door, nobody lurking about that I could see. There was a car that didn’t belong, a couple of houses down, next to the street light. I grabbed my laser pointer from the bedroom and an orange from the kitchen counter and me and the bat went for a stroll out the back door.
There were three houses between mine and the corner of the street where the street light was, the first two would give me all of the cover I needed to take care of the light so that I could get closer to that car. There was a trick that we used on the fourth of july to make the fireworks show more enjoyable from our front porch, aiming a laser pointer at the light sensor on top of the street light tricked it into thinking that it was daylight and shutting off, making the pretty lights easier to see, the orange makes the pointer easy to aim and holds it still as long as you want.
The driver was alone, engrossed in his phone as I walked up on his side of the car, the street light no longer able to alert him of my presence. The bat made easy work of him as well, I pushed him over, drove the car around the block and parked in the easement behind the house. Then it was time to call ‘the Yard Dog.’
Living below parallel 