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Raleigh studies the house. It’s a dark night, and the moon is covered by cloud. The light is on at the front of the house, and there’s a light on upstairs – probably on timers. He knows this because they have a cat. And the local pet sitter, who has a sign on her car, has been stopping by and going into this house for the last few days. Raleigh’s seen her every morning on his way to school. How stupid can people be? Hiring a pet sitter with a sign on her friggin’ car? It’s like advertising that you’re out of town, for fuck’s sake.
He’d tried to talk himself out of it. But he just couldn’t resist. He wants to break into a house where he doesn’t have to worry about the owners coming home after a dinner out. He wants to relax and take his time – dig a little deeper, try a couple of different things before he retires.
Raleigh creeps around the back of the house. No one is watching. He studies the doors and windows carefully. No obvious sign of security. But the doors and windows are securely locked. He’s been watching videos on YouTube, just in case. It’s not as hard to break into a house as a typical homeowner might think. He reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out his bank machine card. He slides it along the edge of the door where the lock is and starts to fiddle with the catch. The guys on YouTube do this in a couple of seconds, but it takes Raleigh almost a full minute before the catch gives way with a satisfying click. And just in time – he’s sweating buckets, afraid someone might see him.
He slips inside the door and closes it quietly behind him, his heart thumping. He puts his card back into his pocket and takes out his phone. He turns the flashlight on. The door opens directly into the kitchen. He kicks something – a dish – and sends it clattering across the floor. Shit. He points the light down. There’s kibble everywhere. He squats down, sweeps it into a pile, and picks it up with his gloved hands. Now there’s a black-and-white cat brushing against his shins. He stops to pat it for a minute.
He doesn’t waste time downstairs. The computers are almost always upstairs, in the bedrooms or the office.
The house is obviously occupied by a couple with a baby – there’s a master bedroom, a baby’s room, and an office at the back. He slips into the office at the end of the hall and sets about getting into the computer. With a USB boot stick and a few keystrokes he’s created a backdoor and bypassed the passwords. After he has a quick look around, he’s going to try something new – he’s going to use this compromised computer to try to get into its owner’s employer’s network, if he’s employed anywhere halfway interesting. Raleigh’s feeling relaxed – the computer is at the back of the house, the blinds are drawn, nobody can see in – he can stay here all night if he wants to. He’s engrossed in what he’s doing when he hears a sound. Car doors slamming. He freezes. He hears voices outside. Fuck. They can’t be home. Raleigh panics. He looks out the window. There’s no way out there. No roof to climb out onto. He’s not jumping out a second-storey window.
While he dithers, the voices get louder. Now he hears a key in the front door. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He’s up out of the chair now and standing frozen in fear near the top of the stairs. Can he get down the stairs and out the back door fast enough? But the front door is opening now, and a switch is flicked on, flooding the front hallway with light. He’s so screwed. There’s no way out.
He sees the cat enter the hall, brush against the leg of the hall table, and mew at her owners, but he can’t see them.
‘You take the baby up and put her down and I’ll bring in the gear,’ he hears a man’s voice say. They still have no idea that there’s a stranger upstairs in their house.
Raleigh ducks back into the office at the end of the hall, barely daring to breathe. The computer is still on, but it faces away from the door and it’s not making a sound. The room is dark. Maybe they won’t notice. Maybe he can hide in here until they go to bed. He feels a bead of sweat trickle down his back. He hears a woman come heavily up the stairs, cooing to the baby. Raleigh wills it to start crying, but the baby stays quiet. The floorboards creak as the woman enters the baby’s room in the middle of the hall. The husband is still outside with the car. Raleigh hears the boot slam. Does he run for it now? Or wait? It’s the longest couple of seconds of Raleigh’s life.
He panics. He flees down the stairs as fast as he can, not even bothering to be quiet. He makes it to the bottom of the stairs before the man is at the front door. He hears the woman’s startled cry behind him. He’s halfway to the kitchen before the front door opens. He scrambles for the door in the kitchen, making his way in the dark, and kicks the cat dish again, sending it scattering. He hears the man behind him in the front hall – ‘What the fuck?’ – and hears him abruptly drop whatever he’s carrying and come after him. Raleigh doesn’t look back.
He’s out the door and running as fast as he can. He runs right across the backyard, hops the fence without even thinking about it, boosted on adrenaline. He doesn’t stop until he’s far away and his lungs are bursting.
He hides behind a bush in a park until his heart stops pounding and he gets his breath back. He still has to go back and retrieve his bike before he goes home – at least he’d had the sense not to leave it near the house. There’s no way they won’t call the police. They’ll see that the computer is on, and see what he’s done.
Carmine can’t sleep. She’s tried reading but nothing holds her interest. It’s human company she wants. She misses her husband. He used to read in bed beside her; now he’s gone.
She’s downstairs in the kitchen making some hot chocolate when she hears something outside, in the street. Shouting. She freezes, listening. She hears banging, more shouting. She moves quickly to the front door but doesn’t turn on the light. When she looks out, she sees a lean, dark figure, weaving on the sidewalk at the end of her driveway. He appears to be alone. He’s got something in his hand, a stick of some kind. She creeps forward, and as she gets closer she sees that it’s just a boy. A teenager, probably drunk, on a Friday night. He’s standing still now, swaying, as if he can’t remember what he was doing, and he’s got what looks like a broken hockey stick in his hand. She thinks he’s been smashing her recycling bin.
‘Hey!’ Carmine says, striding down the driveway toward him in her pink bathrobe. The boy looks back at her, as if dumbfounded at the sight of her. ‘What are you doing?’ she says crossly. She’s not afraid of him, he’s just a boy. She’s only a few feet away from him now and can see him clearly. She can also smell the booze on him. Something about him reminds her of her own son, Luke. He seems to be trying to focus, but his face is slack. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t run either. Probably because if he tried to he’d fall flat on his face.
‘You’re not old enough to drink, are you,’ she says, the mother in her speaking.
He waves her away like he’s swatting a fly and stumbles on down the street, dragging his broken hockey stick.
Concerned, she watches him stumble down the sidewalk, until he turns into a house further down the street. She sees lights go on in the house. At least he made it home, she thinks. His own parents can deal with him.
