Banging on the front door awoke him to darkness.
Paul lifted his phone from the chest of drawers.
2.24am.
Sheila stirred next to him.
“What is it?” she murmured.
“Dunno.”
As he swung out of bed, uneasiness was already crawling up his legs and tightening around his balls.
Opening the blinds he peered down to his driveway.
Both the cars were gone. A rusty old Vauxhall slumped in their place.
He quickly scanned the street but his BMW and Sheila’s Mercedes were nowhere to be seen.
“What the …?”
The banging came again. Louder this time.
Now Sheila was fully awake.
“Paul?”
Jake shouted from his bedroom. “Dad?”
“It’s alright,” he said with more calm than he felt. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”
Pulling on his jeans and t-shirt, he padded downstairs, keeping close to the wall so as not to be seen through the glass of the front door.
As he got to the bottom step everything was quiet except for the thudding of blood in his ears.
Suddenly the pounding picked up again and a voice started yelling.
“Open this door! Open this door right now or I’ll smash it in!”
The man’s words raged with anger and hysteria.
“I took your cars. Let me in and I’ll tell you where they are. Open this door!”
Was there desperation in there now too?
Frozen with indecision Paul waited on the bottom step breathing heavily. Sweat oozed from every pore making an acrid stink that filled the air.
Sheila and Jake stood in the top landing looking down at him. Fear etched on their faces.
“Stay there,” he whispered.
The door frame crunched and buckled as the intruder threw himself against it.
Paul got moving.
He went quickly from the hallway to the kitchen.
Not quick enough.
“I see you in there. Open this door!!”
They had just re-decorated the house. The door that was currently being pummelled had a fresh coat of paint, as did the living room walls. Some of the pictures had been put back up that day, but there was plenty still do. All three of them had really enjoyed it. Like a new start in a bright and shiny house. Paul had left his hammer on the kitchen unit for the next days work. He paused for a second and then lifted it.
Walking cautiously to the front door, the hammer grasped tightly in his damp palm, he waited for the shouting and banging to start again, but all was silent. That was even worse.
Wooden floorboards were cold under his bare feet. Too early for the central heating to switch on, he thought, trying to grasp onto any kind of sane reality.
A foot away from the door he stopped.
“You’ve got to let me in, man,” the voice whispered this time. Thin and wheedling.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
A slam of hand on wood.
“I want in. Didn’t you hear me?!”
“Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”
“They’re a little busy.”
The voice faded and then a thunderous crash shattered the lock and the door flew inwards. A family portrait of the three of them bounced from the wall and shattered on the floor. Their frozen grins becoming terrified rictuses through the distortion of broken glass. Paul stumbled back, but the safety chain held.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelled.
A gaunt, bearded face appeared in the gap between door and frame.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” the man grinned wildly. “Take off this chain man. You’ve got to let me in.”
His eyes were bloodshot and desperate, flicking from side to side. Pleading for entry.
There was a scream behind him. His wife and son were at the bottom of the stairs, watching in terror at this unfolding nightmare.
“I told you …” Paul began.
“Hey little man, why don’t you come and take this chain off, seeing as your chicken shit dad is too scared.”
Paul felt a switch trip in his brain. Like a Roman candle, it caught slowly and then raged into a conflagration.
He turned and strode back towards the door.
The man must have caught the manic glint in his eyes because he tried to pull away, but it was too late.
Paul kicked the centre of the door, slamming it back into place, and connecting squarely with the intruders forehead. There was a pained scream and a metallic thunk as the wounded man fell back against the old Vauxhall.
But rather than make his home secure, Paul removed the chain and walked out into his driveway.
The panicked man scrambled back on all fours, skin jaundiced and doughy in the yellow streetlights, blood pouring from the gash in his face, his eyes fixed on the hammer in Paul’s hand.
“I’m sorry. They made me do it. They have my family. I had no choice.”
For a moment Paul tuned out the frantic babbling and listened.
The night was full of sirens and screams. They echoed around his housing estate, bouncing off the grand, perfectly maintained homes where, until tonight, families had slept contentedly, safe in the knowledge that their world was a peaceful one into which trouble rarely ventured. Not anymore.
He looked back to the prostrate figure who was now holding up a photograph of a woman and two young children like a shield.
“My family,” the man whimpered.
A gust of wind dragged it out his hand and sent it skipping down the street, twirling past a house where flames were beginning to kindle and dance on the living room carpet next to congealing pools of blood from the eviscerated corpses of friends and neighbours.
“My family,” Paul muttered, his head full of buzzing angry wasps. “My family.”
Remembering the terror this man had caused Sheila and Jake, he knew this was righteous justice. Paul slowly raised his arm and brought the hammer down with all his fury. Again and again.
And the screaming went on and on and on.
So, this dark and disturbing story was inspired by a nightmare I had the other week from which I woke myself up screaming. I will leave the various interpretations to the reader. I have my own ideas, but, like I said, it was a dream, and the one with the answers only appears when I’m sleeping, so who knows.
Thanks for reading. Until next time.
You are a good writer, Daniel, no doubt about it. Your content scares me shitless.
I didn't expect the shift from a home invasion to a hint of apocalyptic horror. plot's inspired by dreams are always the best.