The Twilight Zone

Masala heard it first.

It was just after we'd gone to bed. I zipped him in his crate, tucked myself in, and made a quick phone call. While I was on the phone, he started doing this crazy bark I'd never heard before. Sort of a bark, sort of a growl, sort of a whine. It was continuous, too. He didn't stop to breathe.
I hushed him, but he wasn't having it. Unblinkingly, he stared at the wall.

I turned off the light, thinking maybe he was barking at a shadow. That seemed to work for a bit, but eventually the bizarre barking continued.

This was unacceptable, so I took him downstairs and told him he would have to sleep alone tonight. (I know, terrible mother, but I had motions to argue in court the next day and really needed my sleep.)

Back to bed I went, doing my best to avoid the clock and just concentrate on getting some zzz's.

At first I thought a car was stopped at the red light near my house, that I was hearing the dull thud of heavy bass and rap music. I thought this for awhile, until I realized that was the longest red light of all time.

I went back downstairs. Was that damn dog chewing on the molding again? I was not in the mood for this.

Masala barely even opened his eyes when I checked in on him. Hmm. He's not the culprit, so what gives?

Ignore it I told myself. Just go to bed, woman. I tried. I really, really tried. But the dull thud was still there when I crawled under the covers. This was getting absurd.

I put the pillow over my head. That might have worked if I was trying to dodge sound, but this was more vibrations than anything, so the pillow was useless. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Except I couldn't.

I was stuck in the middle of the Tell-Tale Heart and there was nothing I could do about it.



Out of bed, down the stairs again. What the hell was that noise?? The air conditioner wasn't on. The refrigerator was quiet. In fact, you couldn't even really hear it downstairs. It started around the landing of the stairs and continued up into my bedroom.

Thump. Thump. THUmp. THUMP.

I looked out the windows of the office and the yoga studio - nothing. Also, no noise in those rooms. Suspicious. Very, very suspicious.

At this point I was starting to get a little freaked out. It was 1am but I didn't care. I called Jeff. "Can you hear that?" "Um, no. I live 4 hours away from you," he sleepily replied.

I explained the noise/feeling - a dull thud, a regulare rhythm. I assured him that I was not crazy because Masala, well, Masala must've heard it too, and that's what he was barking at.

He agreed with me - must be the Tell-Tale Heart. Did I need to confess anything?

It dawned on me, "What if it's aliens?! I'm going to be abducted tonight!"

He deadpanned back, "Well, yeah. It's either nothing or it's aliens." But he did kind of have a point. What the hell could it possibly be that was going to harm me (in the dark of night I had plenty of ideas) except something supernatural or paranormal - and if that was the case, well, not a whole lot I could do about it.

Accepting his assessment of events, I let him go back to sleep and continued to lay in bed plotting ways to smoke out the devil playing drums underneath my bed. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump. The rhythm would remain the same, then stop for 10 seconds, then start again, a different, steady rhythm. Thuuud, Thuuud, Thuuud.

W.T.F.

I wish I could end this post with an explanation, but I can't (and if I could, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting). The thumping continued until around 2:15am when it magically stopped. Around 2:30am I think I was finally able to catch those zzz's.

Edgar, you better not have put a corpse in my attic. Tonight I'm bringing back-up and if you dare try that stunt again, you're goin' down.