Flash Fiction - 3

Scared

She awoke with a start and quickly shook her husband awake too.
"Did you hear that?"
"Did I hear what?", he said rubbing the sleepiness out of his eyes.
But as soon as he said it, he heard it too. Rat-tat-tat. Three quick knocks from somewhere outside their bedroom.
"Probably a neighbor locked out and trying to wake up his sleeping wife", he said in a rather unconvincing voice.
But then they heard the knocks again. Rat-tat-tat. The knocks sounded exactly like the last time. Even as the two of them sat around wondering what the sound was, they heard a new sound. Creeeeaaaak. This time it was the long and drawn out creak one heard when opening a door whose hinges were not oiled.
Now she was really scared. Was somebody harassing them?
"Can you please go and check the rest of the house?", she asked.
He stepped out of the bedroom cautiously and walked around the house, turning on the lights in each of the rooms as he peered inside. He even opened the garage door, which he noticed creaked as it opened. But the house seemed empty. A little reassured, he went back to the bedroom. But soon after he lay down, they heard three more knocks. And then the creak.
"Thats it. I'm calling 911", she said, picking up the phone and dialing. "Operator, we are hearing some strange noises in our house. We have a 1 yr-old with us and we are scared. Please send someone over quickly".
She switched off the phone, placing it on the bed beside her as they waited. Four officers arrived very quickly. While two of them walked around their garden, shining flashlights behind every shrub, the other two came in and began checking the rooms systematically.
"There's nobody here ma'am", said one officer after they had covered all the rooms. "We've checked everywhere. And we didn't hear any noises either. I think you're OK. Just lock the door behind us and call us if it happens again".
They left but she wasnt fully reassured since they still hadn't figured out what those noises were. But they didn't hear any more and soon, both of them dozed off.
She woke up a little later hearing another noise. He was awake too. This noise was again different. It went dshhhhhhhhh.... Kinda like a small explosion. But this time, he realized what the familiar noise was. It was the sound Yahoo! Messenger gave out when a new email arrived.
He went to the computer room and sure enough, saw the yellow smiley-face icon on the system tray, indicating that he was still signed on. He also saw that he hadn't turned the speaker volume down after listening to some songs that night.
"So the knocks and creaks were just Messenger sound effects as people on my buddy list signed on and off", he thought to himself. "And since it was daytime in India, quite a few people did sign on and off."
Feeling quite stupid, he signed out of Messenger, turned down the speaker volume and went back to bed.

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PS: True Story! Happened to us about 3 years ago...