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Wrong House!
By Armando Almase
August 13, 2015
It was around seven o’clock in the afternoon, and I was in the kitchen getting some ice-water for Carrie and Brice; the kids were in the Computer Room, watching cartoons. Julie, my wife, was in the basement doing laundry that we’d put off for far to long.
I found myself staring at the dark brown curtains hanging from the dining room windows, which we also used for the kitchen, as I began screwing the lids onto the kid’s cups. Suddenly, somebody began banging on the closed door which led from the dining room to the basement. “It’s not locked, Julie!”, I said. What’s the deal?
After tightening the lid on Brice’s monster cup, I began walking toward the door. The banging continued and the annoying sound grew louder as I approached. As I reached for the doorknob, it happened – a vertical crack began to form in the center of the door’s lower half. Then the door began to split up the middle and a large brown boot appeared through the opening. Massive amounts of adrenaline began pumping through my body and I started shaking.
Then I noticed the door’s handle was locked; Julie must’ve mistakenly locked it behind her out of habit. I stepped back several feet and frantically looked around the room for something sharp. As the banging on the door stopped, I could hear my kids talking from the other end of the house, but then somebody started knocking on the front door.
I turned and observed a person, standing on the other side of the semi-transparent decorative glass, centered in the door. They were knocking on the glass with their left hand, and in their right, I observed a large unidentified object.
I ran down the hallway toward my children, locking the hallway door behind me. When I reached the Computer Room, Carrie and Brice were still sitting on the sofa.
“Kids, get in my room, now! Hide in the closet!” I said sternly.
“Why, dad?” Carrie replied.
“Just do it!”
I followed my kids to the bedroom and grabbed the 9MM semi-automatic pistol from the safe in the nightstand, then positioned myself behind the partial wall near the opening of the closet door. I ordered my kids to remain on the floor, at the far-end of the closet.
I pulled back on the pistol’s slide, just far enough to observe a hollow-point bullet in the chamber. I stood with the gun aimed at the hallway door and waited for one of those assholes to open it.
Then, the bedroom’s phone rang; it wasn’t an incoming call from an outside line, it was the phone’s intercom system. Somebody inside the house was using one of the other cordless phones to call the bedroom.
I turned my head and saw the phone on the nightstand next to me, and pulled it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Babe, it’s me.”
“Julie!?”
“Listen, there are at least three people in the house. I’m hiding under a pile of clothes in the laundry room. They haven’t seen me.”
“Fuck!”
“Are the kids safe?”
“Yeah, I’ve got them with me in the bedroom.”
“We need the police.”
“I’ll call. Stay where you are! Julie? I’m coming for y-!”
The phone line went dead. I’m going to fucking kill these people! “Kids! Stay there! Do not move until I come back!”
I locked the closet door from the inside and closed the door. I removed two fully loaded 9MM magazines from the gun safe and pushed them into the front pocket of my shorts, along with a TAC knife which I shoved in my back pocket.
I walked slowly toward the hallway door and observed the shadows of two feet from the other side. With my gun aimed at the center of the door, I fired two bullets from my pistol as I continued walking. Two holes had formed in the door and the shadows from the feet disappeared.
I unlocked the deadbolt, turned the doorknob, and pulled open the door. Leaning back against the wall, opposite the bathroom, was a stalky, unidentified twenty-something male, holding his chest. His hands were covered in blood which was dripping onto his shoes and an old, rusty sledgehammer laid at his feet. I aimed the gun at his head and squeezed the trigger. His head snapped to the left and his Trucker Hat flew off his head, as his body dropped sideways to the floor.
My kids began screaming from inside the closet. I turned and ran back toward my bedroom, “Are you guys OK?”
“Yeah, daddy! What’s that loud noise?”
“Just stay there and keep the door locked!”
I turned again to face the hallway and noticed the man I had shot in the head, was gone. On the floor was a smeared trail of blood which led across the hallway to the bathroom.
As I began walking back down the hallway, I placed my back against the wall as I approached the bathroom, and began side-stepping, hoping to gain a tactical advantage. Lying face down on the bathroom floor was the young man I had shot. Stepping just inside the doorway, I aimed my pistol at the back of his neck and squeezed the trigger. The force from the bullet created such an enormous hole in his occipital bone that I could clearly see the linoleum floor.
I stepped back into the hallway and continued toward the front, west-end of the house. I reached the intersection between the dining room, front door, and living room. Do I clear the living room first, or the dining room and kitchen? “Fuck it!” I said to myself as I entered the kitchen.
What remained of the dining room-basement door was hanging from the frame’s hinges. Julie better be alright! Suddenly, I heard footsteps approach from behind me. I spun around and an unidentified, middle-aged female was standing ten feet in front of me, and wielding a large hunting knife in her right hand. My 9MM was aimed at her chest and my finger had pressure on the trigger.
“You invaded the wrong house!” I said as I squeezed, firing two bullets into her sternum. The woman staggered backward as blood began to appear through the front of her brown flannel shirt.
Suddenly, I heard slow and heavy footsteps approaching on the stairs from the basement. “Julie!?” I said quietly, as the footsteps continued, and I turned to face the approaching footsteps. Another unidentified male appeared at the doorway, grinning. You’re a big fucker.
I aimed my 9MM at the giant’s chest and squeezed off two rounds, center mass. The large man took one step backward and looked down at the bullet holes in his pine-green sweatshirt. No blood. I fired off two more rounds at his stomach. The man stumbled sideways, falling against the dining room table, and a small pattern of blood began to form near his navel.
“HAHAHAHA!” The giant laughed.
“A FUCKING VEST!?” I yelled, as he looked at me and grinned, and I began walking back into the kitchen.
He pushed himself up off the table, adjusted the unseen body armor underneath his clothes, and began walking toward me again.
“DADDY!?” Carrie screamed. My kids were running down the hallway toward the dining room.
“STAY BACK!” I yelled as the large male lunged toward me, and I observed my two children behind the giant, as I fired two un-aimed bullets at the man as he fell on top of me.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself on the ground and the monster was lying motionless across my stomach. I grabbed the wet, matted mop of hair on top of his head and pushed upward to look at his face; at least one bullet had connected because what remained of his nose, upper jaw, and left eye was inside his skull. The kitchen and dining room were now dark, A bullet must’ve struck the ceiling light.
My vision quickly adjusted as I looked toward the dining room, but my kids were gone. I scanned the floor around me and noticed my pistol laid to my left. After I rolled the three-hundred-pound male off of me and sat up, I used my shirt sleeve to wipe the blood from my face; as I reached for my gun, I heard a voice from the shadows.
“Don’t move, asshole,” A man said from the hallway, “I’ve got your fucking kids!”
“Listen, you fucking coward! If you-.”
“SHUT-UP!”
I heard footsteps approaching again from the basement but this time they were quiet and careful. My eyes remained on the man’s faint silhouette in the hallway. “Daddy,” Carrie said, “he turned off the lights.” I could also hear my little boy sobbing in the distance.
In my peripheral vision, I saw a figure standing at the top of the basement stairs to my left, and I quickly looked toward the doorway; it was Julie with her finger to her mouth. I fixed my eyes back at the man in the hallway, “What do you want?”
“I want your children.”
“You know that’s not going to happen,” I said as I stood up.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain near my liver; I looked down and observed a small, homemade knife sticking out of my shirt. I’m not dying until my kids are safe. I raised my head and stared at the man, holding my children.
“Stay the fuck back! I’m walking out of here with these kids, and you’re not going to stop me!”
I began walking slowly toward the older male, as he backed up into the foyer. When I reached the dining room entrance, I noticed the front door was opened behind him. “You’re so dead!” I said to him.
Clinched tightly in his hands were my kid’s shirt collars, and the whites of his bony knuckles reflected the dim light shining through the front door. Something’s not right. As I looked closer at his hands, I noticed those weren’t his knuckles reflecting the light; he was wearing brass knuckle knives on both hands, and the blades were pressed against my children’s necks.
I looked up and stared into his eyes, “You know… I’m going to fucking kill you,” I said.
“Hmph!” He slightly chuckled with a grin.
I heard Julie crawling on the dining room floor behind me. Keep your eyes on me, you ugly fuck! The room’s too dark for him to see her.
“Let my children go,” I said, as Julie picked-up my gun from the floor in the kitchen. I leaned to my right, bracing myself against the wood molding of the dining room entrance, as the shiv sticking out of my shirt jarred inside me. The pain was increasing and I knew I didn’t have much time. With the right side of my body already out of view from the man, I extended my right hand from my side.
Julie placed the grip of the gun in my hand, but unfortunately, I was left-handed. Please, God! I looked at my children and said, “Close your eyes”.
With a speed and accuracy of which I never before possessed, I fired a single bullet toward the man’s forehead; his head snapped backward, and my children were freed from his grasp.
Carrie quickly grabbed her brother and held him close, as the man fell backward, toward the front door; his neck was lying on the floor plate of the doorway. Julie ran out into the foyer and grabbed our kids, holding them tightly against her chest. My family began crying, as they collapsed to the floor.
I pushed the 9MM into the back-waist of my shorts and walked toward the man who laid on the ground; the bullet grazed the right side of his skull and he was still alive, and the brass knuckle blades were loose in his hands.
I knelt down and straddled the man’s chest, pinning his arms with my knees against the tile floor. I looked into his eyes as I slowly removed the TAC knife from my back pocket, and exposing the five-inch blade from the handle. The man’s expression of uncertainty turned to fear.
I began to hear the faint sound of sirens approaching from up the road, which grew louder by the second. “BABE!” Julie yelled. I placed the tip of my knife at a slight angle against the man’s neck, between his lower jaw and his trachea.
Feeling relaxed and slightly off-balance, I re-positioned myself to allow my one-hundred-ninety-pound body to apply enough force needed to remove the man’s head from his shoulders, with a single motion.
I glanced up to observed the emergency vehicles beginning to enter the steep driveway, then, looking into the man’s eyes, I smiled…
(Disclaimer: This story was based closely on a personal dream. The descriptions of characters and/or their names, if resemble a likeness to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. – Armando Almase.)
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