First Scare

"I don't want to freak you out, but..." --addie

I don't care who you are, where you're living, or what time of day it is. 

When you come out of the bathroom and find your boyfriend standing at the entrance to your large, un-lit and un-finished closet, with a look of un-easy caution on his face, you'll get weirded out. And when he turns around, wide-eyed, and says "I don't want to freak you out, but..." the shudders will start. 

But what will really get your scurrrred paranoia going is when you hear the "scritch-scritch-eeehhhh--scritch-scritch" of something--something--that's caught in one of the many cardboard boxes filling the closet. Or in the walls. OR SOMEWHERE ELSE.  

Oh, and to establish proper atmosfear, this is what the inside of the closet looks like, during the day, when we have all the lights in the basement lit, except for the closet light (which is really a 60watt bulb behind a patterned lantern shade):

totally inviting.

   

What was causing that really sick noise? 

FIRST THEORY:

Mouse. 

Usually, they look like this:

d'aww, can't you can imagine his nose twitching

Usually, there's nothing scary about that. And usually, I'm a pretty stead-fast, not easily scared by woodland creatures kinda person. And when mice are outdoors, or in a cage somewhere, they're always totally cute, and pretty harmless. I mean, LOOK AT THAT FACE COME ON.

However.

When they're in my house, scurrying through my things, they always. ALWAYS.* look like this:

I WILL EAT YOUR FACE

Some scary, deformed, rat-man with fangs and raptor claws, who'll shoot out tape worms and HIV while clawing and eating its way up my legs. 

Needless to say, I danced around, skittish like, waiting for the Minotaur of Mice to surface, as Addie pulled out each box, looking for the trapped mouse. He handed me a broom, and said to chase the mouse back into the closet if it happened to run out. Right. Like I'd be able to do anything but screech and run to the highest point in the basement if it came running out. So I added holding the broom like some brain-dead, terrified Samurai warrior to my dance of Mouse Fear.

HOWEVER. 

We Addie looked through each box, and found nothing. No mice, No Rat Man. And yet, the chewing and scurrying sound persisted, sounding angrier and closer with every box we he moved or scooted across the ground. We looked at each other, confused.

"where the hell is it?"

"Um... I think it's in the dryer vent tube."

"But a mouse would be heavy enough that the tube would be jumping around like crazy as it scurried through."

"And how did it survive all the dryer blasts this morning?"

SECOND THEORY:

Demon.  

Thanks to The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, The Haunting in Connecticut, Poltergeist, and any other possesion-oriented film I can think of, I know that soul hungry demons lie in wait in the basements and attics across America, especially in houses in the woods, waiting for unsuspecting new couples or families to move in and attempt to live a happy existence. 

We live in the basement. In a house in the woods. We are a newly moved in couple, trying to live a happy life.

Cue, DEEEEMONNNNN.

I'm pretty sure it would look like this:

satanic infant demon mitosis. look it up.

or this

eeeughhhhh

this

don't act like this isn't unsettling.

or even this.

there are no words.

I presented to facts to Addie, who was quick to assure me our basement isn't haunted. Sure, we might have glow in the dark symbols (money and stars and twirly things) that appear on our pillar when we turn out the lights, and there are a lot of crossed out names, dates and phone numbers on our bathroom closet door, but we probably don't have any lingering ghosts of teenage North Carolina gang members rooming with us.

Probably. 

With no mice, no ghosts, and still lots of angry sounds, we had to dig around for another theory. Which, in retrospect, was the easiest.

THIRD THEORY:

Bees.

Yep, bees:

the link to this, by the way, includes the phrase "killer bees"

my bad. BEES.

Not the Seinfeld variety

Out of nowhere, it occurred to us that it might just be a bee, caught in the dryer tube that runs from the dryer in the garage, through our closet, and up outside. So we approached the next few steps in as much of a scientific matter as we could.

first, we listened closer, each of us at different ends of the tube, and determined that sound was, in fact, coming from the tube, and that the tube was moving ever so slightly, without us touching it.

second, we took turns tapping the tube with broom handle, noticing that the scritching sound got louder whenever the tube was hit. Then we took turns poking the tube where the sound was loudest, and sure enough, the sound got louder. 

Then we took turns just hitting the tube for fun. 

We went outside and walked around the house, to where the end of the dryer vent met the outside world. And sure enough, there was an opening, and even more sure enough, there were bees flying around the yard and the dryer vent entrance.

I looked at Addie, and we gave each other the "eh, good enough." shrug. 

CASE SOLVED:

it was a bee caught in the dryer tube. No, we did not have a confirmed sighting of the trapped bee, but, as they say, it's close enough for government work.

A little under-whelming, to be honest, but also, completely relieving. And yes, Addie was quick to dismiss the DEMON theory. But I'm still on the look out for signs of possession. After all, I'm more Giles than Buffy, and the chances of me surviving a demon fight might be are pretty slim.

!! Not lieing, I just heard some shuffling and a weird voice on the other side of the basement. Like a basket being pushed across the floor, and a low, yet falsetto voice saying something I couldn't figure out. 

When I got up to check on it (I know, I know, that's the first step in getting me killed/possessed), I saw it was Addie, rolling over and sleep-talking to Dog. Now I'm just too adorabled-out to be freaked out right now.