The house seems so quiet.  The kids are in bed, the dogs curled up sleeping, and you are relaxing with a good book or maybe your favorite show or movie.  You know those nights, I know I’ve enjoyed a few.  Then when you are really relaxed and involved in what you are doing, you hear what sounds like someone walking around upstairs.  You look up and wonder, Are those kids out of bed?  So you get up and walk upstairs, the kids are in bed and no one else is up there.  So who was walking around?  Strange.  You go back downstairs thinking, old house just creaking again.  Sit back down, get comfortable again, and there goes the floor again, creaking as though someone is walking around, you sit there listening, then a door closes.  By now the dogs are looking around and beginning to growl.  This doesn’t help, it only makes you more nervous.

  Grab one of the dogs, the bigger of them, and take them with you upstairs.  Still nothing there but your dog is trying to get away and go back downstairs.  About now you have decided you are not going to be able to relax anymore so you might as well just go to bed.  At least the dogs will be up there with you. Take a phone and a flashlight up, just in case, you know, even though you are telling yourself that it was just the house creaking again.  Check on the kids, they are sleeping peacefully, then go climb in bed.   You lay there awhile, listening.  Just before you drift off to sleep you hear the sounds of someone walking down the stairs.  “What is going on?” you ask yourself, ” It’s just the house, I’m not going to check.”  Fairly confident with your decision you try to relax again.  Then you hear the kitchen cupboards closing.  Take your flashlight and your chicken of a dog, because you at least feel somewhat safer with them than without, and head downstairs.   A cupboard door closes just before you reach the kitchen, the dog pulls away from your hand and runs whining back upstairs, leaving you standing there frozen.  Be brave, go to the kitchen and turn on the light.  You are ready to scream and run, or maybe attack, when the light flashes on and there is nothing there.

   After checking the entire house for open doors and windows and reassuring yourself that there is no one else in the house you go back to bed.  Okay, so what if you leave all the lights on?  At least you feel safer.  Tomorrow you will have to do something about those chicken dogs though.  Maybe you should get a cat!