(prompt: 'trap' 18/10/19)

"There it is again. Wake up. Wake up."

"Wha... wha...uhrrhum...??"

"Shh-shh-shhh. Quiet! But just wake up and listen," I stage-whispered into his ear.

As the moonlight shone through the slightly opened window I could see him blinking furiously as he valiantly shifted sleep aside.

Sure enough, though no shadow could be seen, there was definitely something outside our bedroom window. The spider of fear crawled up my spine as that strange muffled huff-huff kind of sound came once again.

"A heavy breather?" I whispered. Sheesh! I hadn't heard one of those in the longest time. Way back when I was a Lifeline telephone counsellor, heavy breathers came with the territory - especially in the wee small hours of a sleepless night. They didn't have any vocabulary to speak of. Guess it was mean of me, but finally I learned to say, "Shame about your asthma, dear. Perhaps you'd like to call back when you've steadied that breathing and you're able to talk to me." And I'd hang up. Worked a treat... there. But here? In my own home? This was spooky.

I could see Kanute's head shaking. "Not out here. Not this far from town."

He had a point. This was surely an unwelcome event exclusive to suburbia - not out here in the country, on a farm set so far back from the road (and even that was a dirt road, off another wider dirt road, off a bitumen road, off the main road into our local town). So confident of our logic, we'd not set any kind of trap. We would regret this.

After several silent moments that felt like forever, as we strained our ears and eyes for the tiniest movement, it came again. Huff-huff.

Kanute leaned close and whispered in my ear, "I've got my super torch here on the cupboard. Going out to see what's going on. Stay there."

I hated it, imagining an ugly confrontation and who knew what next...

Despite Kanute's sensible advice, I simply had to sneak out of bed and carefully peer through the window from behind the heavy velvet curtains. And even in the midst of this stressful moment, register the irony of these incredible 'block-out-everything' curtains that were never closed at night, because who would be outside a farmhouse, waiting to look inside? Well no-one. Or so we'd reasoned... until now.

Attuned to the tiniest sound, I heard our front door's small squeak on opening, instantly followed by the brilliant, revealing super-torch-light flashing along our wide verandah and then fanning out over the lawned area to the sheltering trees surrounding the house and garden.

My mouth was parched, pulse thundering painfully in my ears now as I saw a flurry of movement of something out at the light's edge.

The long beam of light swung in the opposite direction. Oh no! Kanute hadn't seen it.

I couldn't help myself calling loudly, "NO! He's in amongst the trees. Over there. By the cherry plum tree!"

But it was too late. Whoever it was had escaped into the darkness and safety of the bushes.

...to be continued.