One thing I love about traveling is the adventure of it
all. I know lots of people that travel
and hate every minute of the time they spend running from terminal, to check in
counter, to hotel room, to meetings.
What I think they fail to notice is the exciting things that can and do
happen when you visit new places and people.
This is one of those times.
I recently went to visit a church in East Texas, Nacogdoches to be
exact. The church was Grace Bible
church. They are a dynamic church
located on the Stephen F. Austin campus.
Prior to coming out for a day visit I asked them if they had a place for
me to stay the night. They were a
smaller church and I often stay with a pastor’s family when I am on the road to
help save costs. Many of my colleagues
see this as pure insanity but I have made many a friend this way and for the
most part it is better than staying in some anonymous hotel room. They were happy to oblige and said that I
could stay in their intern house where they put up college interns when they
have them working on staff. They
mentioned that they would leave the door open and gave me the address. The drive from North Dallas to Nacogdoches is
about 4 hours and I arrived at the address around 10:30PM.
Not a light on in the entire house and to say
it looked like the Bates Motel would be a step up. Not only that, but there were people walking
around the area. College students no
doubt, but if you have seen kids these days they all looked a bit
suspicious.
Upon entering the residence that was either built in the
late 40’s or early 50’s I had the strange sense that I wasn’t completely
alone. I searched the house and made
sure that no one was there. Many of the
light switches didn’t work or were not connected to lamps so the house was
dark. One bedroom contained a freshly
made bed with a towel set laid upon the comforter. This led me to believe this was to be my
room. The other bedroom was tidy but had
the appearance that someone had been sleeping there lately. A bible and a coffee mug on the night stand were
the main clues that I had. There were no
pictures or clothes lying around so I just assumed someone else had bunked here
in the last few days.
The front door did not have a dead bolt. In its place was what can only be described
as a screen door latch. Suitable for
keeping a screen door from flying open in the wind but nowhere near a security
lock. The back door was similarly
secured with a screen door latch that when applied might be one quarter of an
inch into a suspect door frame.
Although I am always up for an adventure I have seen one too
many movies where the killer sneaks into your room late at night and silently
slits your throat. I really don’t want
to go like that so I latched both screen door security devices went to my room
and promptly jammed a folding chair under the door handle. This too would probably not keep a determined
killer out of my room but I thought it would give me enough time to dial 911 or
at least scream like a girl at the top of my lungs. At this point I feel the need to tell you I
am 6’4” and spent 9 years in the Marines.
But as my drill instructor was fond of telling us after we had been
through combat training “any idiot with a gun can kill an unprepared Marine”.
Sleep came without much tossing and turning. I was dreaming of successful data conversions
and happy customers (yeah right) when I was awoken by a loud crunch. At first I thought it must be morning and the
church was there to wake me up for breakfast.
I slowly got out of bed and stretched.
When I grabbed my phone to check the time I was surprised to see it was
3:33 AM. I am easily distracted so I
watched the clock for a minute and pondered what a strange time 3:33 AM was and
also wondered when the last time I had seen this hour of the night. Then I realized that the noise I had heard
had definitely come from inside the house.
I opened my phone and dialed 911. I didn’t hit send but I also didn’t want to
have to find those buttons if I came across an intruder. I quietly moved the chair away from the door
while I was intently listening for the sound of thugs stealing what little this
residence had to offer. I kept the light
off in my room and opened the door. The
rest of the house was in complete darkness so I used my cell phone to light up
the room. I slowly moved to the front
door while scanning the room. I was
thinking about a movie I had recently seen where Will Smith was in a similar
situation. He was trying to avoid blood
crazed simi-vampirus humans in a dark environment and I was very possibly in
the same situation. It was 3:33AM
anything is possible.
The front door was locked and the screen door latch appeared
to be doing its impossible job of securing the door. At that point I was surprised by how much
relief I had when I saw that latch. It
at least told me that no one had been through this door. I then moved to the rear entrance as quiet as
a mouse.
As I approached the rear entrance there was something wrong
with the rear door. In the darkness it
appeared that the frame was somehow dislodged from the door. Upon closer inspection I noticed that someone
had kicked in the back door and the screen door latch had failed me! The latch had valiantly clung to the door
frame but not the door. I pressed the
send button and held my breath.
Thank God for 911 operators at 3:33AM. I quickly and quietly caught the nice lady on
the phone up with the situation and tried to explain how this was not my house
and I was only a bit sure of the address.
She assured me that the police were on their way. I moved back to the front of the house;
mainly because there was more room to move around in and I wanted more room to
fight in if simi-humanoid vampire appeared out of one of the homes many
corners. The 911 operator asked me if I
had a weapon. I told her no but that was
a good idea and began to move back towards the kitchen to get a knife or a
spoon or something. She told me not to
do that because the police were now outside the house and she didn’t want me to
be shot accidentally. This sounded like
an even better idea so I put the butter knife back. I asked her to tell the police not to shoot
the big bald white guy in his underwear to which she laughed.
I peeked out through the mini-blinds in time to see 3 police
cruisers slowly and stealthily approach the house with no lights on. As they officers exited their vehicles they
left the doors open so as to not make a sound.
I thought this would be a good idea if you wanted to catch someone but
my main goal was to not be killed so I opened the front door and motioned for
the closest officer to come in. He was a
nice middle sized middle aged non-descript East Texas police officer. The other officers went around searching the
outside of the property.
I quickly explained the situation and led the officer to the
back door. He agreed that someone had
definitely forcibly entered the premises so he began looking around the living
room with his flashlight. Again the
interior lights didn’t work so it was still dark in the house. I went to the bedroom and put on some
pants. If I was going to be killed now I
at least wanted to be wearing pants.
The other officers entered the house and they all talked for
a few seconds about the situation. One
of them noticed
there were two closed doors and asked if those rooms had been
searched. I mentioned that I had
searched them earlier in the night but not since the break in. In one motion they all pulled their guns and
flashlights and in C.O.P.S. TV show fashion they approached the door. They grabbed the first door and flung it open
while pointing their guns at the quivering vacuum cleaner tucked into the small
closet. Unfair as it might have been
pictures of Barnie Fife popped in my head and I feared for my life again.
The second door stood ominously as the last possible place
for someone to be hiding. I was fairly
sure that whoever broke into the house was long gone and so when they grabbed
the handle and launched into the room I was fairly shocked when they started
shouting. “GET YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN
SEE THEM!” I was right behind the
officers so I glanced around them and saw a terrified 20 something male getting
out of bed wearing nothing but boxer shorts.
Dread filled my soul as I realized this must be the
intern. I had assumed wrongly that the
house was unoccupied. After the police
got the intern to show some ID and he explained that he actually lived there
the officers turned to me and said “Then who are you!”
The officers all agreed that this would make a
very funny story the next day at the church.
It is funny now but at the time it was a bit too close to scary to be
funny.
Matthew McMaster
Delivery Manager (Part time vampire slayer wannabe)