The Late Night Visitor

 

 

So, It was 2001, My Mother and her husband had moved up north in 1996.

She called me one night and told me her husband had just passed away. She lived eleven hours North of me in the Hills of Franklin N.C.

I jumped in my car and got there in a record breaking 8 1/2 hours. I only stopped for gas. No eating or anything else. And O.K. I drove a little faster than the speed limit. It was late by the time I arrived.

When I got there she was so relived to have someone there with her after all she had been through the past few days. She had listed her husbands death in the local news paper. She said somehow it made everything so surreal.

 

 My Mother was simply exhausted and all she wanted to do was to sleep to put the pain and grief from the day behind her.

We talked for an hour or so and she couldn't stay awake any longer.

I decided I would also tuck myself in for the night, I was also extremely exhausted.

 

 

All of a sudden as I rose from the kitchen chair I had an awful premonition, just a dreadful feeling that something was very wrong.

I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was really bothering me.

My Mom never locked her doors living high on the mountain as she does but tonight I decided I would lock them all.

 I went to the front door and locked it, but somehow I didn't feel safer. So I went downstairs on the first floor of her two story home and locked that door as well, and check all the windows. I still had a weird feeling I just could not shake. I felt like trouble was all around us. But why?

It really had me very aware of it. I just couldn't put my finger on where it was coming from. I didn't mention it to my Mom as she had enough on her plate to deal with. She didn't need me scaring her with a weird feeling I was having. I decided locking the doors was the right thing to do. After all we were alone in the pitch dark of the heavily wooded mountain.

 

My Mother never locked her doors at home, ever! She had said once that she knows everyone on the mountain and there all good country people.

I felt weird locking everything up tight.

I stayed up and cleaned a bit in the kitchen and then headed off to bed myself around 1:00 a.m.  Mom had taken a sleeping pill she had gotten that day from her doctor, So I got back up and I checked in on her and then headed back to bed.

 

It was about 3:00 A.M. in the morning, and I dreamt I was hearing a constant doorbell. I thought gee that sounds so real for a dream. Why doesn't someone answer the darn thing? Then I heard it again, and then again. Now I was awake and I did hear the doorbell. I was really groggy, and the door bell was really ringing, over and over!

I went to the front door, turned on the outside light and was shocked as I and looked out and saw a man standing there. He was a young man probably in his late 20's in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. He yelled in to me and said there was an emergency and he had to use our phone right away. I told him to wait a minute. He pleaded for me to open the door, I said just a minute, I had to gather my thoughts, There was no way I was believing that story for some reason, just a gut feeling again. So I went to wake my Mom to see if she knew this young man. It was hard to wake her from the effects of the sleeping pill. It took a minute or two. That's a long time when someone is at the front door banging on it.

She finally came to I explained what was going on, and she said, just let him in Teri, If it's an emergency then give him the phone.

I said, "no Mother", I'm not opening the door to this young guy, something isn't right. She yelled at me and said what are you talking about, it's an emergency, give him the phone! She was still very groggy, again I said "no". You need to get up and tell me if this is someone you actually know! I didn't understand why I was being so demanding, but it was coming from my gut. I was very leery of this man at the door. I have no idea why? By now it had been 5 minutes that my Mother and I were disputing giving this man the phone. Finally my Mom , tired and upset with me for acting so demanding got up, walked past me to the phone, picked it up from it's base and went towards the front door with it.

I jumped in front of her and took the phone out of her hand and said "wait"!  Please look out there, do you know that man?  She looked at him through the glass window and said , "no", he doesn't look familiar. I said I thought you knew everybody?

Then, giving me a very disapproving look, she went to open the door. I said "wait Mom", she hesitated and again said, "Teri", in an extremely frustrated with me voice. 

 I ran and got the shot gun from the kitchen near the back door, I remembered she always had it there, and then I stood behind her as she opened the front door. I made sure he could see the butt of the gun. I thought to myself, "what the heck am I doing"?  My heart is pounding out of my chest, I'm functioning on pure adrenalin here, My Mother is so trusting and friendly, I'm acting like a cruel idiot, but I can't seem to stop myself! I just trust my gut after all these years!

She handed him the phone and then said to him what emergency do you have? He said something about his girl friend up the mountain. I pushed my Mom aside almost knocking her over and closed the door and dead bolt locked it. My Mom yelled at me, she said "what are you doing"? Let the man make his call for heavens sake!

He picked up the phone as we both watched, but didn't dial anybody. He played with the buttons, but never got through to anybody. Then I heard him say to us "never mind" in a rude voice.

I thought, how clever, he has our only way to call for help.

So I shut the porch light off and yelled. Leave the phone at the bottom of the door when your done with it. He put the phone down and walked away from the door.

I then ran down stairs and made sure all the windows were locked again. I shut off all the lights. I could hear the man walking all around the house on the rock pavement from the driveway.

Ten minutes went by. I didn't hear him any more.

Then all of a sudden I heard him near the garage. I thought, what the heck is this guy doing?  I could just barely make out his white T-shirt in the darkness from all the surrounding trees.

I ran to the front door, looked around, quietly opened the door and grabbed the phone. I knew we were in trouble now. He never used the phone. I felt it was just a scam to get the phone away from us.

What was going on here? 

My heart was still beating so fast, I ran from window to window trying to see what this guy was doing.  

 I asked my Mom if she had ever used the shot gun?

She started laughing and said, "what shot gun"?

I said the one I got from the kitchen!

She said that's not a shot gun, silly, that's a Beebe gun!

 I was to terrified to laugh. I thought to myself, well. O.K. I know that, and she knows that, but hopefully, he doesn't know that!

 

I picked up the phone and persuaded My Mom to go with me into the bedroom walk in closet so we could call the police.  It was so quite I could hear the man walking around but I wondered if he could hear us as well. YES! It's that quite in the mountains!

I told her If I could hear the  mans footsteps so clearly, maybe he could hear us talking too?

I didn't want him to know the police were being called. I hoped they would catch him walking around the house.

It took the police 2 minutes to answer their phone!

 Two terrifying minutes!

The police officer on the line told us it would take them up to forty five minutes just to get to us.

I gave them the man's description as best I could and our address.

Then I went back and waited, listening and watching where this man might be. I could still hear him walking around outside. His every step gave him away.

It seemed like forever, but I could see the lights from the police car coming up the mountain from Highway 441.

Then I heard the man take off back up the road leading up the mountain.

I ran out to the police car as they pulled up and pointed which way he went.

They assured us they would patrol the area! They said not to worry but make sure everything was locked up!

 

The dreadful feeling I had had all night finally began to leave me.

I knew we were safe.

We both talked for a moment, and decided to just go back to bed.

My heart was still pounding. But I was exhausted as it was almost four a.m. in the morning.

 

I closed my eyes and began drifting slowly towards sleep. I could feel the adrenalin leaving me as I succumbed to sleep once again.

 

The next morning, as we both awoke, I should say late morning, somewhere around 11:30 a.m. my Mom put the news on.

They were reporting about the next couple mountains over from my Mom's. A woman and her two daughters had been beaten, raped and robbed.

 

I looked at my Mom and said that is exactly why I had such dreadful feelings all night last night. The report was exactly as ours. A man had come to the door claiming an emergency. Called  a pay phone and his friends showed to rob the house and work their plan.

 

I was so relieved we had recovered our phone and called the police.

I don't think the man at my door the night before felt as if he had control, so he never called for his friends that were waiting for his signal.  He gave up on us. Thank GOD!

 

Why do I share this story. TRUST your gut. At all cost. These people were targeting victims who had just lost a male loved one. They knew we might be alone. They knew we might have taken something to sleep better because of our grief, which gave them an advantage.

I share this to alert and educate you.

It was horrifying to live through, but the Spirit quickened me to be aware, and thank GOD I listened.

Perhaps it was my Mothers husband who alerted me to the impending doom awaiting us that night?

I'm just grateful I acted as I did.