TTGBITN: Chapter 3- Encountering the Beast

Welcome to the third installment of Things That Go Bump in the Night. Be sure to read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 first if you haven't had the chance!

That very night, as we are tucked snug in our beds, I hear an all too familiar sound: Scratch, scratch, scratch. I lay there, hoping that I am imagining or dreaming. But then Mother Hen whispers, “Sarah….Sarah. Do you hear that?” Frustrated, I yell “YES!” Apparently, we either have another squirrel, or some other rodent. SIGH. I think I set out another sticky trap at this point.

A few nights later, we again are snug as a bug in our beds. The scratching begins. Mother Hen is squealing/snoring off and on as she goes in and out of deep sleep [due to me yelling her name every so often ;)]. The scratching gets louder, and I notice that it is on the other side of the wall, near our built in drawers. Mother Hen is now awake and listening as well. “Do you hear that?” she asks me. “Yes”. As we are speaking, we hear a thump and a squeak. It sounds as though the mysterious creature had FALLEN INTO ONE OF THE DRAWERS. Mother Hen frantically whispers, “Its in the drawer”. IT. A New Beast. Different [hopefully] from the Beast. And the New Beast was in a drawer. And not just any drawer. No, the perverted creature found his way into MY unmentionables drawer. The very drawer that I had failed to close all the way earlier that day. Mother Hen and I are frozen, sitting in our beds in the pitch black dark, staring wide eyed at the dark, open crack in the drawer.

I slowly crawl out of bed and across the floor to the ‘drawer wall’. I reach out a shaky hand to my drawer, with the mindset that I am going to slam it shut, thereby keeping New Beast in the wall. As I put my hand on the drawer and begin to move it, a dark object shoots out of the opening, past me……and in the direction of Mother Hen’s BED!!! Well, of course all hell breaks loose. In my startled state I start screaming. Mother Hen, who had seen the dark New Beast fly towards her and into her bed, jumps up and starts screaming, standing stock still on her mattress. I run and jump into the window seat located at the far end of the room. Mother Hen starts screaming, “DON’T LEAVE ME! DON’T LEAVE ME!” All this time, we are in the dark, and the New Beast is somewhere in Mother Hen’s bedding. I finally get the courage and turn on a lamp. Mother Hen is still screaming from her position on the bed.

Small side note here: I want to explain that our apartment was located catty-corner to the Campus Police headquarters. There were often one or two of NSU’s ‘finest’ security/police guys who would loiter outside in the driveway area of the building. Here we are, two girls, SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I mean, we were LOUD. The small window in our bedroom never closed properly and was often open a crack. No one came over to check it out. That is when I decided that those guys were pretty much…..worthless. A bunch of Rent-A-Cops…..

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had run downstairs to find a suitable weapon. I bring back... a broom. Mother Hen has by now moved from her place on the bed with the New Beast. And so begins our Dance with the Foul Furry Creature. I talk Mother Hen into pulling back the covers. The New Beast is there. He sits there for a moment staring at us with his black, beady eyes as I shake the broom threateningly at him. Then he starts dancing. In the flurry of fur, broom, and screaming that follows, we somehow manage to corner him into the far corner of the room. VICTORY!! But then we realize the problem….NOW what are we going to do?? Are we planning on keeping him cornered with the broom for weeks on end until he finally dies of starvation??? One of us, and I am going to take storyteller’s liberties here and say Mother Hen, gets the brilliant idea to use a sticky trap to catch him on. Well, as we are figuring out the best method of getting the New Beast onto the trap, he makes a jailbreak.

What ensues is a frenzied scene of chasing this poor scared creature ….wait….that’s not right…I mean this Horrible, Hideous, New Beast from the Bowels of Hades all over our small house. The New Beast made an amazing escape from his corner, and then proceeded towards the stair opening leading downstairs to the living area. The little bugger then FLEW down the stairs. Yes, flew. He leaped into the air, opened up his little skin flaps, and flew through the air. If it hadn’t been the dead of night, and if we hadn’t been terrified at having a rodent loose in the house, I am sure I would have thought it was a pretty cool sight. Mother Hen and I raced down the stairs after the New Beast, and chase him around the living room a bit. I think we had decided to try to chase him towards the dining area, down the other flight of stairs, and out the front door. Unfortunately, this does not happen.

New Beast makes it as far as the kitchen, and manages to squeeze himself through a crack beneath one of the cabinets and the floor. At first we thought he was in the cabinets, but soon realized he was gone. We optimistically decided that he ended up in the garage below. I didn’t really care at that point; I was just glad he was not inside our home.

By this point Mother Hen was fed up. I can’t remember if it was that night, or the next day, that she decided she wasn’t going to sleep with the squirrels anymore. She marched next door to the CCF Female Interns’ house, home of Bubblewrap Girl, and made a new nest for herself on one of their couches. The girl basically moved in. I can’t remember how long she ended up squatting over there, but in my opinion she had to have worn out her welcome. She slept there every night. I admit, I crashed on a couch myself the first night or two after the Night of the Flying Beast episode. But then I missed my bed and moved home. I also had decided I was not going to let some Furry Flying Beast evict me from a home I paid rent on.

The first night back in my own bed, I hear the scratching noises. My blood boils. And so begins Operation: Extermination.

the fourth installment of Things That Go Bump in the Night will be making its debut soon to The Green Eyed View. Don't miss it!