"I'm telling you, I can't remember the last time I had some time for myself without at least one person underfoot."
She's excited for this opportunity. As she has been telling her friend for the past fifteen minutes, it's been a long time since she's had the house to herself. When you live in a house with six other people, being home alone is a very very rare occurrence.
Her parents have decided to take the three youngest kids out to the local drive-in theater to a double feature, some new animated films that have ads plastered all over the TV lately, and her oldest brother is going out with friends for the night. If she were a normal freshly-graduated-from-college person, she too would be out doing something, but she's decided to be a bit of a homebody lately. There's a bunch of old movies on tonight that she hasn't seen a while and a lovely couch to lounge on with her name on it.
When she gets home from work, everyone is still home, so she flips though the TV guide to try and decide which movies she's going to watch tonight. Eventually everyone leaves for their own activities and it's just her and the family dog. She settles in to watch a cheap sci-fi movie, grabbing some chips and turning out the lights.
Apparently the work day was longer than she thought since she dozes off halfway through the first movie. She probably would have slept though her whole peaceful movie night if the dog hadn't started barking.
Great, now I've got to deal with this until he realizes it's just a damn squirrel.
She tells the dog to cool it, that the critters outside are allowed to be there. Honestly, you think he would be used to this by now, it's not like they moved out to the woods overnight, but he just keeps barking. It's really starting to get on her nerves and she's about to just put him outside so he can see there's nothing there when she hears it.
THUD...creeeaaaak
That sounds almost like it came from the basement. Alright, that creeps her out a little bit.
Oh shit...Is there someone down stairs...
Can't be, the dog would be going completely psycho if he heard someone in the house, this is just an "OMG there's a rabbit outside" bark...
But what if...
Her hands start to get a bit sweaty. The dog has stopped barking, this is probably a good sign, and the only sound is the space battle on the TV. She mutes it and listens.
Nothing.
But her mind won't let her get distracted by the movie again, she needs to be sure. Going back to her brother's room she grabs a bat, if she's going to be a paranoid girl like in the scary movies, she's at least going to not make one the mistake of investigating without something to smash someone in the head with.
"Come on, Charlie. Let's go check the basement. Let's go prove that I'm being a scared little moron."
The dog just looks at her and they head down the basement steps. Since the house is built into a hill, the back side of the house is exposed and the basement is laid out so that there are two different doors to the outside. The first door is at the bottom of the stairs, still locked and deadbolted. So far so good.
"Well, looks like I'm being a moron, unless someone is hiding in the basement."
She raises her voice on this last part, feeling a bit better. It soothes her nerves when she mocks her fear aloud; somewhere in her mind it proves that there is nothing there since no one responds. Her dog just wanders off into the other half of the basement while she continues her talk with the nonexistent creep in the basement.
"Just a warning, if you are hiding in my basement, I've got a bat and I'm not afraid to bash someone's head in and make you scream like a little wuss."
The other half of the basement turns up bupkiss, not that that is a surprise. The other door is locked as well. Charlie looks at her, almost if he's trying to say, "Are we done here now?". Feeling like a grade-A dumbass, she takes the dog back up stairs to finish her movies, turning out the basement lights as she goes.
She shuts the basement door, puts the bat back so her brother won't bitch at her, and settles on the couch. Her movie is over.
Just great, I really wanted to see that again. Stupid paranoid brain.
Turning to the channel that's going to be showing the next movie she's been wanting to watch, she heads out to the kitchen to grab a snack, Charlie at her heels. She rummages through the cupboards and picks out some fattening junk food and ambles back to the living room where the TV is flickering away, still muted.
Just as she's getting comfortable on the couch, the dog starts to bark again.
Not again...Ok, this time he's just going outside.
She's had enough of this; she just wants to watch TV and enjoy having the house to herself. Getting up, she stomps over to the front door, opens it and the dog runs outside. Finally some peace and quiet, she cozies up on one end of the couch to finally watch a movie...and promptly falls asleep.
It's the silence that wakes her up. Mom and Dad must've come home and muted the TV so everyone can go to sleep. She sits up and stretches, checking out the TV to see what's on, when she sees movement out of the corner of her eye.
"So what was that about making me cry like a wuss?"