Homicidal Midnight Welder

Very late last night—at around 2:30 AM—we woke up to a loud grinding noise. Bright flashes of light filled our bedroom. Then everything went dark.

I grabbed Andrew’s hand.

“What was that?!” I whispered.

It didn’t help matters that we’ve been staying up far too late watching LOST. Our imaginations were spinning out of control. Especially since we just watched Raised by Another. Is it just me or was that episode especially creepy? We stayed up even later to watch All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues to see if that would resolve anything for us. It didn’t. So we went to bed kind of jittery.

And then it happened again. The noise, the flashes…they seemed familiar somehow. Was someone…welding? Outside of our window? At 2 AM? Weirder things have happened.

At first  Andrew thought that something had gotten sucked into the fan by our bed and was being torn to shreds, but that didn’t explain the flashes of light.

And again. Buzzing and flashing, crackling, fizzling. Then darkness.

When it seemed to be over Andrew flicked on the lamp and we raced to the window. Through the smoke we could see a group of boabs and night guards running around in the streets, gathering under our bedroom window.

“What was that?!” Andrew asked them.

“Don’t know! It came from there!” one of them yelled, pointing to the support column directly under our window.

“Are you sure?” Andrew asked, “There aren’t any wires there. Just bricks.”

“Positive. Do you know where your boab is? We can’t find him!”

“I don’t know.”

Andrew went outside to investigate but found nothing out of the ordinary. No bare, live wires. No homicidal midnight welder. Nothing. He talked with one of the guards who told us to go back to bed. He’d be up all night watching with the other boabs—it’s their job—and would be sure to call for help if anything else suspicious happened.

So that’s what we did. And the homicidal midnight welder didn’t bother us again all night, although we’re still wondering what, exactly, it was that happened.