My aunt asked us to house-sit for her, so the three of us temporarily moved in. I had trouble sleeping that first night. I was restless. Instead of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, I decided to wander around the house just to make sure everything was all right.
I noticed that the French doors to the patio were unlocked and slightly ajar, so I shut and locked them. Then I noticed a window was open, so I shut that too. But when I looked back at the French doors, they were now wide open and I heard noises.
I peeked outside and the street lamp illuminated a group of three young people leisurely loading things from the house onto a truck. There were two teenage boys and a slightly older girl who was referencing a piece of paper. They were in no hurry, and looked like they belonged there.
At first I thought maybe my aunt had requested they pick up some things for her either as donations or junk or who knows what, and had simply forgotten to tell me. But then I didn't understand why they were doing it in the middle of the night.
Then it hit me that these people had no idea we were there. They thought the house was currently empty. They were stealing her things.
I started to panic. I was afraid to alert them to our presence in the house, for fear of them hurting us. I decided instead to quietly call 911 and have the police come out to confront them.
While I was getting my phone, I heard them casually drive away. They weren't speeding, so I figured the police could still find them easily enough.
I dialed 9-1-1 and the woman who answered the phone told me that emergency services didn't handle our area, that it was privately serviced by another group. She was really nasty and mean about it, too.
I hung up and called again, hoping to get someone else. The line connected and I heard a man speaking, but he wasn't speaking to me. He was saying, "I'm not here, I'm playing solitaire, leave me alone..." in a sing-song voice. He had connected the line but never even put it to his ear.
So, I hung up again and attempted to call back, but the call wouldn't go through. I couldn't get a signal. I dialed again and again and again, eventually giving up when I heard the thieves back in the driveway again. They had come back for round two.
Since I had been standing at the open doors, they saw me. The biggest of the three ran up the driveway to the house and barged in. I ran upstairs, into where our young son was sleeping. I stood behind the door, ready to bang it as hard as I could into the man's face once he got close enough.
Then I woke up.
