HAPPY HALLO-FREAKING-WEEN BABES! Before I begin, I made this a blog post as well as a podcast. It's the same information today but I thought I would offer it via both outlets depending on what you are more receptive to. With that being said, if you would prefer to listen to this blog post, go check out the Bubbly Thoughts Podcast on iTunes, Spotify or here.
Without further adieu, here are all the scary thoughts for you this holiday season!
Pop!
So if you have read any of my previous blog posts, or listened to any of my podcast episodes, you may know by now that I am obsessed with scary movies, books, podcasts, you name it.
I even spend some time scrolling through a sub thread on Reddit known as “No Sleep.”
Fun fact: they have a podcast as well (with the same name).
NoSleep is a place for authors to share their original horror stories. And It is one of the places where I have read the scariest, freakiest most unsettling things ever. It’s also been a place where I have seen some of the most brilliant, captivating writing as well.
So you probably now think I am a total freak, but I am okay with that. Because I am who I am.
So I bring all this ghoulish creepy stuff up because it’s the month of Halloween and I thought it might be kind of fun to do something extremely different than my usual bubbly thoughts episode and read you a scary story that I submitted to NoSleep.
Now, before I begin. This is NOT a true story. Let me repeat! THIS IS NOT A TRUE STORY.
I actually came up with it because I had this crazy nightmare one night and I remembered it all the next day. So I decided to write it out and realized it was actually kind of interesting! So I embellished on the details a bit and made the whole thing flow a little better because dreams are so all over the place. And decided to submit it! And because of the upcoming Halloween holiday I want to share it with all of you.
Disclaimer: if you are someone who doesn’t like scary things. Don’t read this blog post. It’s not too bad, but I want to make sure that people who are listening are advised that this isn’t a happy post like I usually have. Please know it is a little graphic. So if gore freaks you out, do NOT listen to this episode. And, not to ruin anything, but there is some gun violence involved. If that triggers you, do not listen to this episode.
Lastly, many of the details in this story are going to sound familiar to those of you who know me because the story takes place from the perspective of my life...because it was my dream lol. Cam is in it, because he was in my actual nightmare and of course I am in it too. So just please remember this story is absolutely and 100% fictional. Cam and I are perfectly safe and fine.
This is my final warning, readers….beware.
SCARED YET?!
Alright so here we go, my horror fiction article entitled: You Have a Lovely Home
Fizz...
I live in an extremely safe, family-friendly, beautiful neighborhood. I love where I live and both my boyfriend and I agree that even after 4 years of owning this beautiful townhouse, we still love coming home to it every day.
My boyfriend and I try to have a date night once a week. We have been dating for 5 years now and I can honestly say, we are still extremely happy and in love. It's good to keep things fresh in a relationship. And for him to set aside one night a week on a weekday to take me somewhere special, means a lot to me. I cook most of the time during the week (saves money and I truly enjoy doing it). So it's a nice little break from the monotony of the week as well.
Last night was one of our date nights. We were going to a restaurant we hadn't been to in a while, but that we loved the first time we went. We were both really excited that it popped into our heads because we had almost forgotten about it since we had gone the first time. All day during work, I couldn't wait to get home, get ready and have a really good meal (on his budget).
I was getting ready with my usual routine: watching one of the episodes of whatever trashy reality TV junk I am into at the moment (last night it was Real Housewives of Orange County), putting on fresh makeup that wore off during the work day, and of course a glass of champagne. It was around 7 pm or so and it was just getting dark.
Just as I was finishing the gloss to coat the top of my lip stain, I heard a noise. It was faint, almost as if it was coming from right next door...or downstairs.
It sounded like footsteps, just a few though...which was strange....my boyfriend has an hour commute from work and I knew he wouldn't have been home just yet.
My heart started racing as I attempted to listen for more, but sure enough...I heard nothing. All I could hear again was my show.
I also have two large dogs, who are extremely well-behaved (we've taken the time to make sure they are well-trained). One is a Weimaraner and one is a large black Lab. It sounds ridiculous but I almost forget they are there at times because they are so quiet and well-behaved. They never bark or jump around like when people walk by our window outside or anything like that. They're close to perfect (the training costed us an arm and a leg, but it was absolutely worth every penny).
Truth be told, I am skittish and watch far too many scary movies. So I brushed it off, as I always do when I hear a noise that scares me, and let my racing heart slow to its normal tempo again. It was probably just a neighbor or one of the dogs (our townhouses are close together and the walls feel paper thin sometimes, noises are a part of the norm here).
My phone rang, which caught me off guard because I was still a little jumpy from the unknown noise earlier, and it was my boyfriend. He called and told me he was almost at the house. I told him I was ready and would just meet him outside.
As I walked towards the stairs, I realized I had forgotten to turn the lights downstairs on.
I came home from work around 5:30 pm and at the time the sun was still out. We also have a lot of natural light in our place so I didn't feel the need to have additional lights on. A little nervous to walk down to complete darkness, I scurried down the stairs and turned on the light switch closest to the front door.
Usually when I come downstairs, after I turn on the light, I turn around and walk towards the kitchen to start cooking dinner or watch TV. But because I was ready to walk out the door, I simply walked out without looking looking behind me.
I know it's a waste of electricity, but I usually leave that particular light on when I leave the house at night to avoid walking into a dark empty house when I get home. Like I said, too many scary movies.
As I walked outside, my boyfriend's white Range Rover pulled up and I got into the car.
We exchanged hellos and he gave me a kiss and I went to type in the route to dinner into the maps app on my iPhone since we had only been to the restaurant once before and it was on the other side of town.
After a long moment of silence, while I was looking down at my phone, I realized we hadn't started driving yet. I looked over at my boyfriend, expecting him to be answering emails or doing something on his phone. Instead, all I saw was the back of his head....he was still as could be and was just staring at our townhouse.
I asked if he was ready to go
....no response...and a longer silence.
What the heck was going on? I was starting to get nervous. My heart went back to the anxious flutter I was feeling while I was upstairs getting ready and heard the weird noise.
I asked him, "What's wrong, are you okay?"
To which he replied, "There....there's someone...in our house..."
My heart began to race and I was at a level of nervousness that I had never felt before.
I cautiously moved my view from the back of his head to look at our townhouse.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then...I saw it.
There was a dark silhouette of a tall stocky man standing inside our house in the window next to the front door of our house...right next to where I was moments before.
We must have both been in shock because all we did was stare at the house in complete silence for what felt like an eternity, but was really a few brief seconds.
The suddenly, the light I left on for us to be able to see when we walked into our house again, shut off. I could no longer see the outline of a man in our window...All I could see was darkness.
As we sat there in dead silence, my boyfriend finally said, "I am going in there." To which I replied, "WHY DON'T WE CALL THE POLICE?!" And before I knew it, he was already out of the car and a mere few feet from walking inside our house.
Scared to attract attention from our intruder, as much as I wanted to scream for him to stop, I could barely breathe, let alone scream.
I don't know what came over him. Was he so angry that someone was trespassing in our home that he couldn't sanely handle the situation and understand that calling the police was the safest and most sane option? We didn't know if he was armed and as I said...even from far away where the car was parked, I could tell the man in our house was big.
Then just as quickly as my heart raced when we saw our intruder in our window, my fast-paced heartbeat completely sunk.
My dogs. What if he tries to hurt my dogs?!
And sure enough, right behind my stubborn boyfriend, I rushed into our house without even thinking. It wasn't smart, it wasn't rational. But this situation wasn't rational. How could someone have gotten in? What did he want? We lock our doors even while we are inside the house and we have a security system that notifies us with a loud beep if anyone walks in our front or back door.
We both head strongly entered our home. I ran to the room where the dogs were when I left the house and flung the door open. Thankfully they were perfectly safe and okay.
While I went immediately to my dogs, my boyfriend went into his front office to the window where we saw the silhouette of our intruder.
No one was there...
He then searched the entire house while I was in the room where the dogs were with the door open so I could be with them and protect them while also making it easier to run if my boyfriend did find the intruder. It took no time for him to look everywhere, our townhouse is small and there aren't places to easily hide.
When my boyfriend came back into the room I was in with the dogs, I couldn't help but wonder how confusing this whole thing was...we both know what we saw, but yet we couldn't find anyone...
My boyfriend finally said, "it must have just been a weird shadow. Our minds played a trick on us."
It seemed logical. I was probably just nervous from the stupid sound I heard earlier and my boyfriend turned our house apart looking for our trespasser only to find nothing; not even a coffee cup out of place. Even so, I still felt extremely uneasy and went to grab my phone to call the police. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep here tonight without knowing we were 100% safe.
But when I went to grab my phone, I couldn't find it. It must have fallen out of my pocket in my rush to get to the dogs. While nervously scrounging around trying to locate it, my boyfriend called it and we heard it vibrate.
The sound of the vibration was coming from behind us...both of our backs were facing the open door of the room we were in.
As we both turned around, we heard the creek of the open door coming to a close.
There... hiding behind to area where I had opened the door to the room where the dogs were, and the one place where my boyfriend didn't look, stood a tall stocky man with 5 o'clock shadow in a dirty white wife beater with a revolver in his hand.
As my eyes swelled up with tears and my boyfriend and I squeezed the life out of each other, the intruder said, "You have a lovely home."
He pointed the revolver at my boyfriend, curled his finger around the trigger and shot him in the forehead. Blood started gushing as I was convulsing and shaking as if I was Jack holding onto Rose's hand after the Titanic sank.
I redirected my attention from staring into the lifeless eyes of the love of my life and ended up looking right into the barrel of the revolver. Then just as the intruder who I had no idea what he doing in our house and why he wanted to kill us, pressed his forefinger against the trigger
...I woke up.
Breathing heavily as if I had been drowning, I was horrified and confused at the terrible thoughts my subconscious had tricked me into while in my vulnerable state of sleep. Looking around the sheer darkness that was my room, I saw my boyfriend sleeping peacefully next to me. Once I was able to calm down, I was unbelievably thankful that it was just a terrible nightmare.
Exhausted from the emotional distress, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.
I rolled over to put my arm around my boyfriend and squeeze him for comfort when I noticed...his usually clean-shaven face had 5 o'clock shadow and when my eyes were able to adjust to the darkness, I noticed he was wearing a dirty wife beater and the hand I had wrapped around his body was touching the cold metal of a revolver.
CLINK!
So that was my spooky bubbly thoughts blog post in honor of the Halloween holiday. I hope it kind of got you in the mood for this time of year and honestly I just hope you enjoyed it!
The next blog post will be less “what goes bump in the night” and back to poppin the bubbly.
Let me know what you think!
Cheers have a safe Halloween
and as always, stay bubbly.