The Nighttime Knocker

I pull back the reins on my onyx dragon to send her flying up over the mountain pass, when all of a sudden, two massive boulders come crashing down at us with two loud bangs. BAM! BAM! I wake up, and of course I'm not riding a dragon, that's ridiculous, but what isn't ridiculous is that I hear the same thing again, coming from my front door downstairs. BAM! BAM! I look over to the clock, and it's 2:43 A.M. and thinking who could possibly be knocking at my door? I check my Ring doorbell camera from my phone, and I have no idea who this guy is. So, of course, I turn on the audio and ask. "Hello? Who are you? Why are you here, and what do you want?" He responds with just two words that chill me to my very bones. "Hello, Charles."

What. The. Fuck. Who the hell is this guy? "Who the hell are you?" Seemed like a reasonable enough question. I couldn't see this guy's face under his hat, and he had to be cold, it was the middle of the night in January after all, and he had one of those big long coats, but still I would not want to be standing out there, but I sure as shit wasn't about to let this guy into my house. Honestly, I was ready to call the cops, but I figured I'd give him a chance to explain himself over my camera first.

"I can't tell you. But I can warn you." he said without moving a millimeter. Just standing there, cold and still. I'd assume lifeless, too if I hadn't heard his voice over my iPhone.

"Alright, dude, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Can you speak like a normal fucking human, or do I need to call the cops?" I am definitely not even going downstairs, this wacko probably has a gun or some shit, who knows.

He moves for the first time, seemingly looking directly at my camera, even though I couldn't see his eyes. "Say yes today." That's all he says, then he walks off my porch like he's just strolling off to get some milk. Like he owns the place and didn't just completely upend my entire night and probably my entire day today. Speaking of today, what the hell was he talking about saying yes today? What the hell just happened?

At this point I can't see him on my ring camera anymore, so I run to the window and look for any sign of him outside, and he's nowhere to be seen. This guy just vanished into thin air, leaving me with a grand total of 14 words and a lost night of sleep. I cycle through multiple trips of going back to bed and back to the window, debating if I should call someone or just try to sleep. I rewatched the video saved to the cloud on my Ring doorbell app at least 10 times, and of course no astounding shock of brilliance hits me about the interaction, but it is going on 4:00 A.M. at this point, so I can't expect much out myself. I finally get some sleep around 4:30 or so, who knows and then seemingly minutes later my alarm goes off at 6:00 A.M. for me to go to work.

I do my usual morning routine. Take my meds, brush my teeth, jog in place for 2 minutes to get a few steps in on my watch. Go downstairs, make my smoothie, get in the car, and listen to my audiobook on my way to work. "Say yes today." What the hell does that mean? This dude in my audiobook is now fighting 3 people and I have no idea who any of them are, so clearly I haven't been paying attention. I turn it off as I pull into work and resign to the fact that I'll have to relisten to multiple chapters.

Today was just like any other day at work. Paul was far too chipper, Sara was far too moody, Ryu was far too involved. We've been working on this road for weeks and yet now Ryu has all the bright ideas of how we can "work smarter, not harder" but nobody cares, it's a government contract so the end date is as flexible as my Stretch Armstrong when I was a kid. Paul comes up to me and tells me all about his wife and kids, rambling on about something, I don't even care. I'm too busy still thinking about the guy from last night, until I realize he's looking at me expecting an answer.

"Sorry, Paul, I was wool gathering. What was that?"

"I said can you switch shifts with me this afternoon? If I pull chute duty, I bet I can get outta here an hour or so earlier for my son's gymnastics meetup."

I hate when he asks me crap like this all the time. It's not my fault he has kids, and it's not my problem either. I never switch with him, and I don't know why he's asking, but I imagine it's because he's already asked everyone else.

"Say yes today"

The words from the guy on my doorstep last night hit me like a ton of bricks.

"Say yes today"

This has to be a coincidence, right? How would he know? What the hell. Who cares anyway, it's not like I have anything better to do. I just don't want this to become a habit where he asks me again.

"Sure, Paul, what the hell."

He looks up at me like I have lobsters crawling out my ears, and I realize he had zero expectation that I'd say yes.

"Wow, Chuck, thank you! That means a lot to me, thanks man! I owe ya one!"

"Whatever man, just get me a beer at trivia night. I'm trying to save my spare cash. Hope your kid's ballet thing or whatever is good."

"Gymnastics. But yeah, I can do that no problem! Thanks again, Chuck!"

I hate it when he calls me Chuck. Why did I say yes? I'll be here an extra 2 hours than I would have otherwise, and it's cold as balls outside. Whatever.

I eat my lunch, same boring rice and beans I eat every day. Dave Ramsy says it's the smartest thing to eat for saving money on groceries, but I still don't see any money trees growing in my backyard. The day goes on as normal, and I'm pulling shoveling duty now for Paul, while he's sitting comfortable over there working the chute for the cement mixer. Suddenly, there's a loud bang from over there, and I hear the most blood curdling scream I've ever heard in my entire life. It's Paul. I have no idea what happened, but just like everyone else, I'm running over to see what's going on, while Paul is still screaming his head off. Turns out the sleeve of his Carhart got stuck in the gears of the cementer mixer hopper, and pulled his entire left arm into the gearworks. His shoulder outward is a mangled mess of jacket, bone, meat, and sinew. Jesus Christ.

Obviously, we all got off work early, and ironically Paul's gonna miss his kid's dance recital or whatever it was. OSHA has to get involved, my site manager is pissed, and it's this whole ordeal. I'm heading home, thinking how lucky I am about dodging the bullet and it hits me that if I didn't swap with him, that could've been me. Would it though? I wouldn't be that stupid, would I? I realize I've just missed the last two chapters of my audiobook for the second time now, and damnit I do not want to listen to it a third time. I swear, I'm just gonna ask chat GPT to summarize it and move on.

I make my usual dinner, more rice and beans. Seriously, where's the money tree? As I'm sitting there, thinking about how I'm probably not getting that beer on trivia night, I pull out my Ring app on my phone again. I'm watching the video from last night over again and I realize something I hadn't noticed before. My camera is on the left side of my door, so I barely saw this guy's left side since it was on the other side from my camera. But I notice now that this guy's sleeve of his big long coat... what was it a trench coat? Yeah, that's it. His sleeve is just dangling there unnaturally. His right sleeve I can tell has a bend to it where his right hand is in his pocket, but his left sleeve is just as slack as a limp spaghetti noodle. Sure as shit, when I watch him turn around, that sleeve flops about like bunny ears on the damn Easter bunny. I also notice one more thing. His hat. I looked at it from the front 30 times, but I never noticed it from the back. It's my hat. Sure as shit, that is my hat, I recognize the limited edition Red Sox logo from the 2004 World Series as plain as the back of my hand, right next to the tear I got in the hat from catching it on a fence when I was a kid.

I dropped my fork. Set down my phone. There's no way. Is there?