Just Some Paranoia

Tam’s kind of paranoid.

He knows this. Everyone who’s ever met him knows he is. He never learns from watching horror movies late at night, he reads depressing news articles, and he gets freaked out real easily when alone.

Still, he thinks he’s not, you know, THAT paranoid.

But there’s something outside his house.

There’s something outside his house and it just tapped his window.

His day had been normal enough. Get up, eat breakfast, go to work at the local mall, complain about customers with his friends, go to DnD, and come home. He hadn’t even thought about watching anything scary or play any horror games, despite getting the new sequel for a game he’d played years ago. It was still in its casing on his TV shelf, and he’d taken a shower and gone to the kitchen to make a late night meal.

And then he had heard it.

There was a quick tap-tap-tap at the window that is situated above the sink. He was washing a bowl out when it happened, and every hair on his arms rose up in fear.

It’s dark. He can’t see anything outside the window. Only his reflection.

A green-eyed, blond-haired man stared back, his face pale in the light of the room. Water runs over his hands and the bowl, but he doesn’t even feel it.

He’s too scared.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

This is it. Whatever’s out there is about to burst the glass, reach through, and plunge sharp nails into his throat and rip it out. Or perhaps they would taunt him, run him about the house, until he tripped over one of his various hoodies decorating the floor and he’d hear his mother’s words come back to haunt him. ‘Should’ve cleaned up! Should’ve picked up your mess!’

Tap…tap tap tap.

He drops the bowl-plastic, cartoony, nothing breakable thankfully-into the sink and he shoots for the living room, hiding around the corner as his heart hammers, his wet hands digging into his pants pocket. Who does he call? 911? No, they’d think he was crazy. Hearing a tapping noise and thinking you’re about to die?? Who does that?!

Lizzy.

Lizzy was his best friend, and she put up with a lot of his stuff over the years. Perhaps she would hear him out?

His hands slip over the slick surface of the smart phone, and he nearly breaks down in tears when the phone finally works as it should, calling her number as he slots the phone between shoulder and ear, looking back into the kitchen.

Oh.

Oh God, no.

The way the house is set, there’s two out doors. One at the front that’s white and has a deadbolt on it, and the one in the kitchen.

The one he left unlocked.

He can only hope they think he’s smart enough to lock it.

“Mmm, hello? Tam? It’s like nine pm, man-“

“Lizzy,” he chokes out, his heart in his throat as he swallows acid that was crawling up to his mouth. “Lizzy, I’m panicking. Please. Please, help me.”

“What?” she shuffles on the other end, now more awake than when he’d first called. “What’s going on?”

“There was this, there was a tap, it hit my window, someone’s out there,” he whined, shifting weight from foot to foot and practically dancing in place like a child who needed to pee. “Someone’s out there, and they saw me. I swear, I swear, Lizzy-“

“Hey!” she shouted, and he sucked in a breath, stuttering on a hiccup as he blinked away panicked tears. “Hey,” came her voice, calmer this time. “Breathe. You’re in a spiral. It’s okay. I’m here on the phone with you. You said it tapped on your window?”

He nodded, then realized she couldn’t see it. “Yeah, yeah it did,” he said, peering around the edge of the wall again into the kitchen.

“Why would someone do that? Tam, come on. Think about it. Who would seemingly tap on your window if they aimed to break in?”

…she had a point. He let out a bark of a laugh, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. “No one…that’s super dumb.”

“Right. So it’s gotta be something else. Let’s go outside and see.”

“…uh. Okay. Sure.”

He didn’t want to, but with her backing him up, he felt more assured than whatever dark shroud was trying to climb into his brain and take over. He stepped around the corner, slowly stepping closer to the door, reaching the sink and turning off the flowing water. The bowl was definitely clean now. He hesitantly reached the door, and then in a bout of courage, he flung it open, shouting as he darted out. “Who’s out here?!”

“Yeah! Kick their butt!!”

“…I feel so stupid.”

Under the window of the sink sat a trash can he’d pulled back there earlier. And on top of said trash can?

A gleeful, fat raccoon who was busy biting into the rind of a watermelon he set out earlier.

They stared each other down, then the raccoon hissed at him, bumped into the window twice, then ran off with the rind tucked in its grubby fists. He stayed in the doorway to prevent it from scurrying inside the open door, sighing.

He relayed this to Lizzy as she howled in laughter at him. “A raccoon! This’ll be a story to tell at the party!”

“Yeah,” he said weakly, his legs shaky from the adrenaline rush as he gripped the trash can, sighing. “Yeah. I’m just…glad it wasn’t anything else. Thanks, um…for…staying on the phone with me.”

“No problem, Tam Tam. You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, dragging the can away from the window and to the side of the house, brushing his hand off on his pants as he ducked back around the house to the back. “Just a scare is all.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

A light flickered inside, and he made a note to replace the bulb as he reached out to grab the knob of the back door, nodding. “Yup, talk to you then.”

With a click, she hung up, and he opened the door with ease, shutting it behind him.

Yup. Just his paranoid mind playing tricks on him again, thank goodness.

There was absolutely no one around the house, no one who’d gotten in, no one who’d shut the door before he got it, and no one at all hiding away in the house.

…right?