The Night of the Screams
This is Steven Petrick posting.
Monday night I was tired and decided to go to bed early, actually before 2100 hrs.
I had just (to the best of my ability to judge) achieved sleep when I was brought to awareness by the sound of multiple female screams.
The screams in this case registered fully as "true terror," not a case of a females squealing in pretend fright in response to their boyfriends mock-attacking them.
The screams cut off, and I felt at that point obligated to investigate.
I got out of bed and drew on a pair of shorts before stumbling out the door of my apartment. I could see that I was not the only person who had heard the screams, as other doors were open and people were looking toward the row of apartments I am in, perhaps not aware of precisely which apartment the screams had come from, and now being accosted to a short overweight male in nothing more than a pair of shorts being backlit by the light falling from his apartment door.
Nothing I could do about that, so I continued to the door of the apartment next to mine, and as per military protocol I struck the door three times and waited.
A time interval passed, approaching the point where I felt I would need to knock again and thus raising my own sense of unease that something had happened.
At this juncture the door swung open revealing one of my neighbors, one of three females living in that apartment, now presented with the fat old guy from next door standing outside her door in a pair of shorts. As she looked at me I asked "Is everything all right?"
She responded with a quick explanation of the situation.
Shortly after this conversation, I turned to head for my apartment, but looking at the various other individuals standing in the doorways of their own apartments, I called out a one-word explanation.
"Spider."
With that, the tension resolved into a series of chuckles as everyone turned back into their apartments.
Monday night I was tired and decided to go to bed early, actually before 2100 hrs.
I had just (to the best of my ability to judge) achieved sleep when I was brought to awareness by the sound of multiple female screams.
The screams in this case registered fully as "true terror," not a case of a females squealing in pretend fright in response to their boyfriends mock-attacking them.
The screams cut off, and I felt at that point obligated to investigate.
I got out of bed and drew on a pair of shorts before stumbling out the door of my apartment. I could see that I was not the only person who had heard the screams, as other doors were open and people were looking toward the row of apartments I am in, perhaps not aware of precisely which apartment the screams had come from, and now being accosted to a short overweight male in nothing more than a pair of shorts being backlit by the light falling from his apartment door.
Nothing I could do about that, so I continued to the door of the apartment next to mine, and as per military protocol I struck the door three times and waited.
A time interval passed, approaching the point where I felt I would need to knock again and thus raising my own sense of unease that something had happened.
At this juncture the door swung open revealing one of my neighbors, one of three females living in that apartment, now presented with the fat old guy from next door standing outside her door in a pair of shorts. As she looked at me I asked "Is everything all right?"
She responded with a quick explanation of the situation.
Shortly after this conversation, I turned to head for my apartment, but looking at the various other individuals standing in the doorways of their own apartments, I called out a one-word explanation.
"Spider."
With that, the tension resolved into a series of chuckles as everyone turned back into their apartments.
posted by Federation Commander at 2:23 AM
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