quote:

THUMP

That’s what awakened me, the unmistakable sound of my front door closing, a door never used because there was no key for it but sure enough someone had just closed it, meaning, of course, that someone had to have opened it.

With adrenalin pumping into my bloodstream ripping the sleep from my eyes like a speed flavored cappuccino I stealthily peeled myself from bed and grabbed the shotgun from the closet, checking the chamber, just as it should I saw the light blue plastic shell, in it an ounce of solid lead, it’s whole reason for existence was to make someone’s day very rough.

It was a Mossberg 590, it’s the kind of gun a man wants when a man needs a gun for business. No frills, no gadgets, point this end at whatever you want to die and then squeeze that part down there. If you need another shot move this slide right there back and then forward again, squeeze the bang button once more. Repeat as necessary. I had loaded it with slugs in case of bears, not that I had any trouble with bears, it’s just that you never know when the circus will be rolling through town.

I carefully opened my bedroom door and peeked out, nobody in sight, but I heard someone messing around somewhere behind the fireplace likely by my computer, my house being essentially one large room with another large room attached to it, separated only by a large rock fireplace. My bedroom and the bathroom being the only two room separate from the rest.

I came around the side that would prevent his exit from either the front or back doors, meaning his only option was to leap through a plate glass window into some blackberry bushes.

He was a man of medium height but painfully skinny apparent even through the baggy pants and thick hoodie, with a goatee on a scarred face like someone who had a lot of acne as a teenager or did a lot of drugs.

I said to him, "How do you feel about being sent to your maker with the last image burned into your brain being my wiener flopping around from the recoil?"

He whirled around, a look of stunned amazement and fear on his face, likely from a combination of seeing a naked man holding a shotgun on him and the fact that a man as large as myself would be able to slink in and out of the shadows so efficiently. He is of course now aware that I am the Night.

He stood there stuttering and stammering trying to find some way to maybe, just maybe, talk his way out of this terrible situation he broke himself into, but I continue and say, "Now you got a choice, you can make a move, or," as I tossed him a jar of Vaseline sitting on my dining room table for some unexplained reason, "you can lay down, set a spell, take your pants off."

He turned the jar over in his hands, opened it and said, "This is empty."

"I know," I said and then began to laugh maniacally.