Horror on White Oak Drive

It was a dark and stormy night.

Ding-dong!

Cindy and I were immediately awake. I turned on the bedside lamp.

“Was that the doorbell?”

“Yes!” Cindy replied, her eyes wide open.

“What time is it?”

Cindy looked at her bedside clock. “Four o’clock!”

“Four o’clock! Well, who—why. . . ?”

I got out of bed and stepped from the bedroom into the dark hallway. I looked through the nearly lightless living room toward the front door. Its window was small, probably ten inches by ten inches, a square resting on one corner. From my location in the hall, I could see that the front light was on. And I could see raindrops glinting as they passed through its glow.

But I couldn’t see anyone on our front step.

Tightening the muscles in my solar plexus, I crossed the living room to the door and looked directly out the window.

No one. I cracked the door open, knowing that there was still at least a locked storm door between me and any boogerman.

There was definitely no one out there. No one I could see, at any rate.

I unlocked and slowly opened the storm door and stuck my head out.

No question about it, no one was there! Our doorbell had rung at 4 in the morning . . . but the doorstep was empty. . . .

Was this a prank? But who would prank us at 4 AM on a night that was as wet and dark (but not as warm) as the inside of your mouth?

After looking around as best I could from my vantage point, I ducked my head back inside, shut and locked the storm door, and shut the main front door, which locked automatically.

Truly mystified, I walked back to our room. Cindy was sitting up in bed with the blankets pulled up to her chin.

“Who was it?” she asked.

I replied in a voice made quiet by fear, “There was no one—”

Before I could finish the sentence, it rang again.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

Six rapid, frantic, panicky rings, all in a row! My mouth and eyes were wide. Cindy cried in a frightened voice, “Steve!”

I whirled around and ran to look through the little diamond again.

No one.

How could the prankster possibly have vanished in the three seconds it took me to get to the window? Was he watching me somehow, aware of my movements? That wasn’t a very pleasant thought.

I know it’s not a ghost, I thought. It couldn’t be a ghost. I mean, that’s ridiculous. That would be impossible . . . wouldn’t it?

Well, if it wasn’t a prankster and it wasn’t a ghost, the only logical conclusion I could reach was that it must be a psychotic madman bent on terrorizing and murdering our family. But that didn’t really make me feel any better.

What if he was out there right now, concealed behind that big tree in our front yard—or what if he was hiding up in its branches? Or in the shrubbery on either side of the door? What if he rang the bell, hoping to lure someone out so he could use a hatchet for purposes not intended by the manufacturer?

Suddenly I envisioned my rain-drenched body lying face-down on our doorstep while blood—my blood—ran freely from a gaping but invisible wound and was diluted by rainwater as it flowed into the gutter. Two police officers were standing over me with those funny little cellophane hat protectors they wear when it rains.

Officer O’Shaugnessy (played by Ward Bond) was shaking his head, his hand on his chin. “Feeth and begorrah, Pulaski,” he said as raindrops spattered off the funny little cellophane hat protector he wore when it rained, “no question aboot it. He’s strook again.”

After gulping melodramatically, Pulaski (played by Don Knotts) replied, “The R. N. D.-R. H.-W. P. S. K., Sergeant?”

“Ah, to be shoor, to be shoor, laddie.” O’Shaughnessy nodded sagely. “This is the t’ird toim the Rainy Night Doorbell-Ringing Hatchet-Wielding Psychotic Serial Killer—the R. N. D.-R. H.-W. P. S. K., for short—has hit this neighborhood this week. So far, though, we’ve been able to keep it hooshed oop, thank the Blessed Virrrrgin.” There was a pause, and then he looked at Pulaski with a glare. “Well, doon’t just stand there, laddie, get the bloody body bag oot o’ the paddy wagon!”

Pulaski’s jaw dropped. “Language, Sergeant!”

“Language!? What are ye talkin’ aboot, man? Go to the paddy wagon and get the body bag that’s already got blood on it, so we don’t have to wash both of ’em later! Glary be, if yeh had two brain cells to roob together, yeh’d be dangerous.” Pulaski scurried away into the darkness as O’Shaughnessy pulled an Oirish pipe from his breast pocket and began tamping good old Oirish tobacco into it. “Glary be!” he muttered. “Feeth and begorrah!”

Security vs. Insecurity

I snapped back to reality. I had to do something. I was the man of the house—I had a wife and a newborn son to protect! And furniture and disposable diapers and lots of baby toys and other stuff too!

Even though it was located just off campus, our house was part of campus housing, so I went immediately to the wall phone in the kitchen. “I’m calling campus security. Somebody needs to come by and figure this out!”

I phoned and quickly explained the situation to the dispatch officer. “OK,” she replied, “we’ll have someone swing by in a few minutes.”

I spent those few minutes looking out the little window in the door. I was watching for the patrol car to come by . . . and for the R. N. D.-R. H.-W. P. S. K. to make an appearance. If they both showed up at the same time, that would be really efficient.

My mind was still working. Maybe the R. N. D.-R. H.-W. P. S. K. is a deranged dwarf, hence his ability to hide easily!

I considered that to be highly unlikely and therefore discarded the theory quickly.

What Cindy and I did not know that night was that rainwater had made contact with the wiring, shorting the bell and making it ring. This problem had never happened before, and it never happened again. But it happened that night at 4 AM. Twice.

A “Police Presence”

I squinted my eyes and looked at the road that ran parallel to our property. There it came! There came a campus police cruiser, slipping slowly past our house. I stepped out onto the doorstep and waved.

The cruiser slowed and did a three-point turn, starting back. When he reached a maximum, blistering speed of ten miles per hour, he continued up the road in the direction he had come from . . . and was soon out of sight.

“Well!” I said, stomping back into the house and locking the doors behind me. “I guess now I know what public safety means when they say they will ‘swing by’! That guy drove past, turned around, and drove away!” Then I added, “Why is it that every time I call campus security, I end up feeling less secure?”

By now Cindy was up, standing in the living room. I headed for the kitchen again and returned armed for battle—flashlight in one hand, the largest butcher knife I could find in the other.

“Steve! What are you doing?”

I walked into the bedroom, tossed the items on the bed, put on my bathrobe over my T-shirt and sweats, and pulled on an old pair of sneakers. “If campus security won’t protect us, I will! I’m taking this flashlight and this knife and I’m going outside to look around to make sure there’s no insane killer dwarf hiding on our property!”

“An insane killer—dwarf?”

I picked up the flashlight and knife again and grabbed my keys from the dresser. “No time to explain,” I explained. “I’m going outside to look around. I have the house key with me. Do not open the door to anyone who does not have a house key! OK? No one!”

“OK.” I suspect Cindy was torn between feeling glad I was making sure we were all three safe, and feeling sad that I might end up with my rain-drenched body lying face-down on our doorstep while blood—my blood—ran freely from a gaping but invisible wound and was diluted by rainwater as it flowed into the gutter.

I headed out into the night, closing the locked door firmly behind me.

Into the Void

Once outside I shined the light up into the branches of the huge white oak tree in our front yard. I couldn’t see anyone. It struck me then that it was unlikely anyone could hide up there, since the lowest branch was at least twenty feet up.

Satisfied that, like a police officer searching for a drug kingpin in a crack house, I had “cleared the area,” I moved on.

I turned left and crept around the side of the house, past the windows of Matthew’s bedroom, the bathroom, and our room, moving the flashlight back and forth in what could best be described as a “wide swath” (as opposed to a “narrow swath”). I saw nothing but raindrops, wet pavement, wet grass, and darkness.

I turned to go behind the house. This was the scary part. Our backyard light, located on the left of the back door, was turned on, but its beams were paltry. They were scanty. They were meager.

They were dim.

Stupid 40-watt bulb! I thought.

The backyard wasn’t that large, and it butted up against a fence overgrown by bamboo. That bamboo would be a good place for a creepy guy to hide. . . . I began to move the flashlight back and forth, once again using my “wide swath” method.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind me, a light shone across the grass! My mind began working at lightning speed (as one’s mind is wont to do in such situations), and I immediately narrowed the source of the light down to three irrefutable possibilities:

1.     It was the R. N. D.-R. H.-W. P. S. K. He’d gotten the drop on me somehow. My right hand gripped my butcher knife more tightly. Would a butcher knife be any match for a hatchet? I was bound to find out . . . or die in the attempt.

2.     It was Cindy, coming out to make sure I was safe. Bless her! My right hand gripped my butcher knife slightly less tightly, and I tried to say, “Honey? Is that you?” But all that came out was, “Habba? Habba hoo?”

3.     It was light from a UFO that had landed in my driveway. Maybe those pesky little aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind had been ringing the bell and flying off in a saucer at the speed of light, giggling behind their rubbery fingers! Would a butcher knife be any match for technologically advanced aliens armed with lasers and blasters and Kodály hand signs?

I was amazed to learn that all three of these irrefutable possibilities were wrong. The light was coming from the headlights of a car pulling into our driveway. Who could it be? I scurried back to the front doorstep, where the light was brighter.

Ah! It was a campus security patrol car—the cavalry had finally come!

Why was it just sitting there? Why didn’t the driver get out?

Suddenly it dawned on me—I looked down at myself. Old tennis shoes, rumpled gray sweats, a heavily snagged terrycloth robe, a flashlight, and . . . a butcher knife.

Hokie smokes! I thought. He probably thinks I’m the guy!

Out of the Void

I whirled around to open the door while shoving the knife deep into my bathrobe pocket—so deep it created a hole and clattered onto the cement. I put the flashlight under my left armpit and fumbled for my house keys in the other pocket. I pulled them out. They seemed to have expanded into a confused clump the size of Hoboken. Why were there so many of them!? My fine motor skills deserted me as I pulled key after key from the bunch, trying each one in the lock—some of them sideways, some of them backwards—

“Cindy! Let me in!” I hollered.

“You said you had the house key!” her muffled voice came back.

“Arrrrrrrgh!” I heard footsteps behind me as I finally found the right key, inserted it, opened the door, grabbed the knife, tossed it onto the living room floor, and turned around to greet the officer.

He stood a few feet away from me on the wet grass. He looked tense. I, on the other hand, was the picture of innocent nonchalance, my right elbow resting on the doorframe, my right hand on the side of my head, and my right leg casually crossed over my left at the knee.

“Hi! Wow, I didn’t hear you drive up! Boy, am I glad to see you!”

“Who are you and what are you doing?”

“Oh, I, uh, live, uh, I live here. Th-this is my house.” I patted the doorframe affectionately. Then, since he didn’t reply, I said it again. “Yep, I sure do live here! This is the old house-aroo.” It became obvious he wasn’t interested in being friendly in the least. “Want to come in?” I backed into the living room, smiling invitingly while covering the butcher knife with my right foot.

Rats! He was too smart for me. He strode in and immediately pinpointed the main piece of evidence that I feared would end up putting me in the electric chair. “What’s that?”

“What?” I looked down. The bright tip of the butcher knife that extended past the front of my shoe gleamed in the light. I moved my foot and said, in a shocked voice, “Oh! Oh, wow, it’s, uh, it’s a—a knife. I mean, I guess it’s a knife.” I bent and looked more closely at it. “Yeppers, that, sir, is a knife!” Then, “Cindy!” I called. She was nowhere in sight—coward! “You shouldn’t leave knives lying around where the baby can get at them!”

Said the officer flatly, “I saw you throw it in here.”

“Wha-a-at? You did?”

“I hope you weren’t planning on using that.”

“No, oh no no no.” I shook my head and laughed a little. Then I reconsidered. “Well, only if it was one of those pesky little aliens.”

Copyright 2024, Steven Nyle Skaggs.