Ingrid Díaz

When it comes to potential danger, my wife and I have polar opposite responses. If there’s a strange noise in the middle of the night, my first impulse is to hide under the covers, while hers is to put on her shoes and “go check it out.”

This is the difference between someone who spends her time listening to true crime/paranormal podcasts and someone who does not.

With that in mind, here’s something that happened a few weeks ago.

It was around 3AM or so and K had gone outside to get our cat after he’d hopped down from her office window.

After a short while, I hear the front door open and K call out, “Can you come outside with me for a minute?” Which I immediately find concerning because she knows me better than to ask me to do things like go outside in the middle of the night.

Very calmly I demand an explanation for this unreasonable request, and she follows up with the worst possible answer:

“There’s something in the terrace and I don’t know what it is.”

I respond something like: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE TERRACE AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS??”

She says, “There’s something back there, staring at our house.”

And again, K is not the sort of person who scares easily or who believes in weird things, so everything coming out of her mouth is setting off every alarm bell in my head.

I’m shooting off questions like, “But does it look human?”

And she’s saying really comforting things like, “I don’t know! It’s a dark shape crouching by the window.”

So I tell her to get inside. I say we need to lock the doors, close the windows. Mind you, at no point do I consider it could be an intruder or that we need to call the police. I’ve gone directly to werewolf. I start wondering whether werewolves also need to be invited in or if vampires are the only ones who extend that courtesy.

K reminds me as I’m trying to pull her back inside that Poe is still out there which is why she needs me to come with her.

I say something brave like, “I’M NOT GOING OUT THERE! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND??”

She goes, “Then I guess I’ll go alone.”

She turns to go and I flash forward to having to explain to the police that my wife got eaten by a werewolf.

I realize that I don’t want her to get eaten by a werewolf. Nor do I want my cat to get eaten by a werewolf.

I begrudgingly start putting on my shoes while mumbling that our odds against a werewolf are slim.

K does not contradict this which is extra alarming.

I follow her out into the cold, foggy night.

Dogs start barking.

I’m saying things like, “This is how every horror movie starts. I should know better than this. I do know better than this and yet here we are.”

I ask her more questions about the thing in the yard.

None of her answers make me feel better.

She seems genuinely freaked out which only serves to freak me out more because K does not freak out.

We round one corner of the house.

I half expect to come face to face with something dark and menacing, but there’s nothing there except wet grass and fog.

Dogs are still barking.

Everything feels ominous.

We push forward to the final corner.

I take several deep breaths before following.

K says, “There it is.”

I expect something terrifying to come charging out from the darkness.

K says, “Oh.”

My heart stops.

“Nevermind. It’s the garden hose cart.”