The exercise:
Not excited to bring back this one, but here it is anyway - write about: thieves in the night.
The office was broken into last night. Quite a lot was stolen but nothing from my desk, as far as I've been able to tell. They smashed in the door to the kitchen, which is on the other side of the building, and seemed to hit the desks nearest there the hardest.
2 comments:
Hmm, I'm sure you mentioned snow in one of your recent comments, so let's introduce some wintery weather at last :)
Thieves in the night
As snow falls outside the lights go on inside. Daylight is muted by the grey clouds and swirling flakes of snow and the windows don't seem large enough to let it all in so the lamps are turned on and the fire is lit in the fireplace and the crackle and pop of wood becomes the background noise for the downstairs of the house.
Deb starts making cinnamon cookies in the kitchen; there's a slam as the bag of flour hits the worksurface and then the clatter of things being moved around in the fridge while she searches for the butter. Jack heads outside to split wood; Deb loves the fireplace but will only light it and so he takes on the responsibility of keeping it clean and making sure that the woodpile never runs lower than half. Not easy when the blizzards roll in, so he prefers to overdo it now than struggle later on.
When he returns the house is full of the smell of fresh baked cookies and something else -- he checks, it's a pork roast -- is in the oven now and Deb has fallen asleep in front of Netflix. It's dark outside now, practically night-time, so he's a little startled when there's a knock at the door.
"Visitors?" he mutters and considers ignoring them. But... it's cold out there and there aren't many folks up in these parts. They might need help.
There's no-one at the door. He stands there for a few moments staring into the night, wondering if he was too slow and they walked away, but he can't find any footprints leading to the door or away from in.
"What is it? You're letting the cold air in." Deb has come up behind him, stretching and yawning and looking out into the darkness of the winter night.
"Thought I heard something," he says.
"You were wrong," she says, looking out herself. "Shut the door. I'll see to dinner."
He closes the door and goes to see what Netflix will suggest they watch this evening and is struggling to find anything meaningful when there's the clatter of a spoon in the kitchen and he hears a shout, half cut-off.
"Went round the back, hey?" he mutters and picks his shotgun up from the corner. It shouldn't be there -- there's a gun cupboard in the bedroom that legally is where it lives, but no-one who needs a gun up here keeps it in the legal place else it would be useless. He points it in from of him and goes to the kitchen.
Deb is lying on the floor face-down and the spoon is a few centimetres from her hand. His mind flashes back to six months ago when she complained of chest pains and he sets the gun aside and goes to her. He never sees the elongated, stick-thin figure that's clinging to the ceiling. It drops onto him like a spider seizing prey, and its fingers with their five knuckles each slither over his face and the smooth egg-shaped head presses against the back of his and everything goes numb while he senses are stolen by the thieves in the night.
Greg - if you must...
Yup, you must. Sigh.
Why did I keep reading this once I knew where it was going? I suppose I'm as much to blame as y... nah, you're definitely the one to blame.
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