It's Worse When the Sun Goes Down

At our house, you go to the bathroom armed, or you don’t go at all. At least, once the sun goes down. There’s a pistol wedged between couch cushions with handle raised for easy access as we watch TV. You think I’m joking, that maybe the gun is metaphorical, or that this is the start of some fictional story. It’s not. Every word is true.

It all started a month or two ago. We’d hear them moving around. Little sounds. Things you could write off and not really worry about: “Probably just a mouse…” But each night the sounds got louder. The little scratches escalated until they were thumpings on the wall. And then the hole opened up, like the gaping maw of hell itself. It would almost be better if it really was an entrance to hell. At least with hell there’d be flames, or something. But this is just blackness, silent and dark. Maybe the Christians have it wrong.

We take turns staring at the hole now. We stand watch… once the sun goes down, the dogs safely ensconced upstairs. They’d just be collateral damage if we let them out. Part of me wonders if there’s a point. We don’t know if our weapons will even effect them. We’ve shot at them before with no effect. They’d hear the sound, or maybe see us moving the gun into position. Maybe they simply hear the explosion as our projectiles exit their chamber and step out of the way.

They haven’t touched us… yet. But they’ve come close. For the past couple days, ever since it happened, I’ve been having flashbacks. Adrenaline coursing through my system as I hurled myself backwards watching it pass inches from my face and set my heart pounding at a thousand miles an hour. I don’t think it was even trying.

We tried laying out a field of glue. Some super adhesive stuff. I think they may actually use a variant of it as an organic equivalent to waxing legs. Heat it up, slather it on, add cloth, and rip… Depilation was not our goal though, nor were we so naive to think that it would actually capture them. No, we were hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would slow them down enough to get a shot off, that maybe, it would buy us a moment of distraction, just long enough to aim, and fire.

All it did was annoy them, and I assure you, you do not want to annoy them.

We’ve put in a call for bigger guns. Gods help us.