Company

There was a man in my house last night.

At about three in the morning I woke from a dream of storms to find I desperately needed the toilet, and after I was finished I realised that I needed another drink. Dry mouth makes my throat click when I'm trying to fall asleep and it's every bit as irritating as a mystery beeping or a distant car alarm.

I wandered down the landing and went downstairs without turning on the lights- I never turn my lights on when I get up in the night. Yeah, it means I have to sit down when I pee, but my night vision's pretty good and it keeps me from blinking all my sleep away with the flick of a switch. I went down the stairs and into the kitchen, and when I passed the living room something spiked a little note of worry in the back of my head. I didn't realise what it was until I was on my way back with the glass- I'd left the television on, and it was flooding the room with the weird dark light you get from a black screen. I opened the door to turn it off and there he was.

He was sat on the coffee table, his boots pressed together neatly on the floor. He was facing away from me, looking at the TV. I can't remember much about what he looked like; he was average height, average build. I do remember that he was sitting very still, so still that my first thought was that he was a mannequin one of my friends had put there as a prank.

"Hello," he said. His voice sounded familiar and for a moment I thought he was my brother, until another shellshocked neuron reminded me that Bill lived four hundred and fifty miles away.

"Hi there," I said. I don't know why. Something was really wrong with the whole situation; there was a smell I couldn't place, a pattern to this that was clawing at the back of my mind and telling me to be very careful indeed. I remember thinking very clearly that I could go into the hall, get the five-iron out of the closet and tell him to leave but I immediately discounted it as impossible to the point of ridiculousness. I wouldn't make it three yards. I don't know why that seemed so obvious.

"Could you give me a drink please," he said and again I felt like I could almost place his voice. I almost stepped forward to give him my water when I noticed three glasses next to him on the coffee table. I'm not a neat freak but I keep that table clear. One of the glasses was half full.

"Yes," I said quietly. "I'll go and get you one."

I stepped out of the room and closed the door. I walked backwards up the stairs, looking at that door, skipping the fourth and sixth and twelfth steps so that they didn't creak. I was at the top of the stairs and could only see the bottom of the living room door when it opened without a sound.

I turned the corner and kept walking slowly towards my room. I don't know how I knew the rules, but I knew them; no loud noises. No running. No looking away. I reached behind me and fumbled with my door handle when he came into view at the top of the stairs. I hadn't seen him move, hadn't heard the trick steps creak. He wasn't looking at me yet.

The door finally came open and I stepped through as quietly as I could, holding the handle down as I closed the door so as not to make a sound. I turned the lock in the doorknob and the lock clicked on, almost obscenely loud.

Something heavy slammed against the door, hard, and it bent slightly under the impact. For a moment I thought it was going to splinter and I dropped my glass. It shattered on the hardwood floor, too loud, and I danced back around the shards onto my bed and wrapped myself in the blanket, staring at the door. I heard a scratching sound for a moment and then a snuffling, like someone with a cold. Then a sound I didn't place until the next morning. I tried to stay very still.

Five hours later and when the sun had fully risen, I found out I'd cut my foot on the glass. The water had mixed with the blood on the floor and washed it under my bedroom door, leaving a sticky sheen across the floor. When I sighed at the sight of it- blood's a real ballache to clean off anything- I felt brave enough to open the door again. I bandaged my foot and it seemed practical to fetch the mallet from the camping kit under my bed, reasonable to shout about the police before throwing the door open. There was no-one and nothing there, of course, but the blood and water had been carefully wiped away where it had seeped through the crack under the door. I investigated the whole house as thoroughly as I could; the only things out of place I found were three of my best glasses washed and stacked in a neat pile on the kitchen table and a twist of kitchen roll with something wet inside on the coffee table. I put my gardening gloves on before I threw them out and tried not to think too hard about the TV, happily powered down in the living room. The whole place smelled of lemons, nothing like it smelt last night.

I was cleaning the blood later on when I placed the sound- it's the sound of a cat licking butter off the floor or your finger, a rough sort of scraping noise.

I've bought some new locks.