Home Alarm System

Submitted into Contest #182 in response to: Start your story with a home alarm system going off.... view prompt

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Mystery Black Suspense

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, “piercing echoe's are heard through my humble abode”, travelling all the way down the hallway where I was on the verge of deep sleep. 


Startled by a loud noise, my heart thumping rapidly, like a heavy drum being pounded by a mallet stick, I quickly sat up, glanced over at the clock, reading 3am. 


My dog was going off like I had never heard him before.


Still half asleep, I look around, and for that split second, I needed to awaken my sleepy conscious state to determine what the hell was going on.


Realising it was my front door home alarm system alerting me of undesirables, I threw the blankets aside, jumped my naked body out of bed, and grabbed the first thing in my sight that would enable me a form of protection.


The lamp on my bedside table was a two in one self-defense tool, yeah that’ll work, I thought. 


My thoughts running at the speed of light, imagining the worst case scenario, I could use the cord or the lamp base, depending on position.


Before making a rash move, I briefly paused to see if I could hear voices, footsteps, or movement of any kind, but all that was heard was the sound of the alarm.


As I was about to take my first steps towards the bedroom door to head down the hallway, the alarm turned off. There was complete silence. 


Okay, that’s strange, I thought. My home alarm system has to be manually turned off. There must be someone inside my house.


With a trembling body, I flicked the hallway light on, and quietly worked my way down, throwing caution with every step, and with my lamp held tightly in my right hand, ready to knock the intruder down.


I get to the dining room, turn the light on, nothing. I work my way to the lounge room, turn the light on, nothing. Then, I headed directly to my front door, where the front door home alarm system was situated to find the door still shut and locked. How bizarre, I thought, with a slight pause before re-setting the home alarm.


To cover every access in and out of my home, I back tracked to the back sliding door, turned the patio light on, nothing. The door going into the garage was still closed, but appeared to be secure upon inspection. 


I thought to myself, false alarm, faulty alarm. What else could it be? Accepting that as that, I took a deep breath and let out a relief. 


I no sooner turned to head back to my room when the indoor home security camera pinged, pinged, pinged, pinged from my phone app, alerting me that motion was detected.


I wasn’t even in the study when it went off, and as far as I was aware, there were no alerts prior to the front home alarm going off or thereafter until now.


My heart began to pound all over again, thinking motion is instant. There is no delay once detection is spotted. My imagination suddenly spikes to a fearful peak. 


I cautiously went into the kitchen where my phone was situated to view the motion clip. Upon viewing, I suddenly felt instant chills running from the back of my neck, down my spine.


The clip showed a dark figure moving across the camera lens ... Up, down and around, back and forth, then disappeared down the hallway.


Realising this was not of human form, curiosity set in. I needed to know more about this unearthly, mysterious occurrence.


I had all these questions running through my head .... What is it exactly? Why is it here? Who could it be? 


You see, my partner took his life just over one year ago under our pergola, so just maybe this occurrence was a visit from a man I once loved in the flesh.


For this, my spine tiggling fear turned more into a nervousness of the unknown, and curiosity combined. I have longed for a sign from my love. 


With a calmness about me, I turned all the lights off in the house and took myself back to bed. 


As hyped up about this notion though, surprisingly, I slept very soundly, waking up with sunlight shining through my window and the sound of birds chirping their melodious tune. With all that went on last night, today was as if nothing had happened. 


As darkness fell, the air became cool. This was a big change, as opposed to that very day, and the days and nights prior.


With having no understanding of why, I wasn't going to ruin the chance of possibly seeing my past love by racking my brain on something that could very well be just the seasonal weather. I palmed it off as just that.


I took my sleepy self to bed at 10pm that night. I laid there thinking on the "what if" and fantasising on how I imagined things to be the moment I may finally see my true love. 


I fell asleep with these wondering thoughts, and with my body positioned on my side, facing the bedside table. It's unclear on the time frame. However, I was woken up by the movement of my bed. It felt like something or someone had sat down on the opposite side of the bed where my love had once laid.


With my eyes wide open, still lying on my side, I lay there still, to see if there were any signs in relation to that movement. To my surprise, I felt whatever it was, creep slowly towards me, until it seemed to have stopped flush with my back.


Before I knew it, I had this overwhelming feeling that there was something hovering over me, looking down at me.


I sat straight up with such fright, turned my lamp on, and looked around to see what was in my room. There was nothing there that would cause such a feeling. What the hell was that all about, I thought.


Before I could grasp it, beep, beep, beep, beep, flooded my house with piercing echoes from my front door home security alarm system, followed by ping, ping, ping, ping. 


My indoor home security system phone app had detected movement, and lots of it, too.


My heart was racing, and my head was in a spin with the echoing of my alarm, and the pinging on my phone seemed louder than ever before.


To rule out human undesirables, I turned all my lights on, and checked the front door yet again to find the door was still shut and locked. I became even more puzzled.


I turned the alarm off, re-set it, and made my way back to my room to grab my phone.


Upon viewing the saved images and clips, I saw the same black figure moving across the camera lens .... Up, down and around, back and forth. My camera movement was going haywire. It couldn't keep up with this speedy character.


For this, it made me feel quite uncomfortable, to say the least. 


Witnessing, what came to my thoughts as some sought of paranormal activity really did scare the crap out of me.


Having say that, though, while I felt I should grab my car keys and leave my house at that instance, I didn't, I stayed.


Whether the thought to stay was in relation to my love that took his life, thinking this may be him, I am not certain about that. I just know that I didn't feel the need to leave.


As the days and nights passed, things began to elevate within my home, and my dog's character began to change.


My front door security system, along with my indoor security camera, was tripped every single night thereafter ... Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping.


I found myself jumping up out of bed to check, re-set, and view to find nothing at the front door and the same dark figure captured on my security camera.


With the shift in my dogs behaviour, he would not allow me to sleep. Each night, he would be going back and forth over me as I tried to sleep. My gut told me he was protecting me from something. What followed was evidence enough to have me see that just maybe that gut feeling was right.  


While lying in bed, I felt a vibration sensation underneath my skin in both my legs. Initially, I thought it maybe due to a hard day's work on my feet. I didn't think a great deal of it, but then that feeling became stronger and stronger. I could feel the vibration working its way up my body. 


When it started affecting my right hand, I realised then that something was not right.


With fright, I sat up, turned my lamp on, and rested on the back headboard of the bed. The vibration was so strong that I thought I'd be able to see movement under the skin, but there was nothing visibly noticeable.


Straight after thinking how strange this was, my bedside lamp went crazy. It was flickering dramatically, and what seemed like morse code flickers.


I didn't know what to do or what to think of this. I just reached over and turned my lamp off, then on, again. 


After flicking the switch, the lamp was back to normal, and the vibration under the skin and my hand subsided. It all went away, just like that. It was the most oddest experience.


My poor dog began to pant in such a frightening way that I thought would provoke a heart attack. To go with that, 24/7, all he wanted to do was jump up on my lap, put his two front paws on my chest, staring directly in my eyes, all the while panting in my face. It certainly felt like he was warning me of danger. 


He would jump up on my visitors' laps every time they visited. This was not the dog I had spent 7 years with. He had changed. 


He did not want to be inside our yard or inside my house. My dog made several attempts to get out of here by chewing at the timber side gate, where at one point succeeded. He chewed his way through a timber paling and squeezed his way out. I didn't know what was going on with him.


I decided to leave him inside while I went to work one day to see if this would be better for him, and when I got home, I had found the door frame leading to the garage chewed to bits, along with the door frame in my ensuite bathroom. He showed great desperation to get out. Mind you, he didn't succeed. That was not like him. All this was totally out of character.


I had great concerns for his well-being, so I took him to the vet to see if they had an answer. They decided to try him on a daily dose of calming pills, where we soon found out they were not working. So, the vet put him on a different lot, but he was to take the initial pills in conjunction with the new lot. None of it worked. He was still extremely frightened on every level of that word.


Night after night, the lights in the ensuite bathroom, kitchen, and under the pergola would flicker profusely at random times. It had never done that before, not prior to my loves death, nor did it do that after my loves death until just over a year later.


We were both being taunted every night for 3 months. I was at my wits end. I was warn out and drained from this entire experience.


What else can I do? By this point, I was desperate to stop the beep, beep, beep, beep, ping, ping, ping, ping night after night.


The stress my dog was put under by something that was lurking in my home was gravely concerning. 


A friend suggested I organise to have a priest visit my once humble abode. So, that's what I did. I felt silly doing this, but I felt it was the last resort.


Two priests knocked on my door, and they entered my home. I made them a cup of tea, we chatted.


While they were sitting at the table under the pergola, my dog went up to them with a bone in his mouth and laid at their feet.


One of the priests bent down, patted my dog on his head, around his face and around his mouth, while he had a bone locked in his jaw.


To my amazement, my dog allowed this to happen. That blew me right away, as no one has ever gotten that close while my dog has a bone. He was extremely calm and seemed to be relieved to have them there.


A short time later, the two priests got up off their chair, blessed myself, the friend that was there with me, my dog, and blessed every room in my home.


When they left, there was literally a sense of calmness. The shift in the atmosphere had completely changed. I couldn't believe it.


For the rest of that day, and the days thereafter, my dog was back to his usual self. 


The nights were completely silent. No beep, beep, beep, beep, ping, ping, ping, ping from my home security system, or dramatic flickering of my lights and no more taking, what seemed like the attempt to take my soul. 


I'm no closer to knowing if that was my love, but what I do know is that whatever caused the character change in my dog and the sleepless nights, was certainly undesirable alright, even though it was not of physical, human form.


Beep, beep, beep, beep, ping, ping, ping, ping

January 26, 2023 11:36

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1 comment

Wendy Kaminski
22:51 Jan 30, 2023

Creepy story! Dogs always know, don't they? This line "It felt like something or someone had sat down on the opposite side of the bed" would have made me want to run screaming, had it happened to me! At least there was a happy ending. :) Welcome to Reedsy!

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