Congratulations to Catherine Heywood for Winning the October 2024 Barefoot Writing Challenge! (Your $100 prize is on its way!)
The challenge was to write an essay that answered this prompt:
In recognition of Halloween at the end of this month, describe a big scare you encountered.
Catherine shared a hair-raising (and true!) tale of a terrifying night experience she endured. Enjoy her winning submission:
Break-In
by Catherine Heywood
Ellie’s growling woke us in the early-morning hours. My husband, Jeff, is a bit of a hothouse orchid when it comes to his sleep, so he pitched a slipper into the dark and barked at her to be quiet. But I’d never heard Ellie growl like that, and when the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, I sat up and listened. There was a singular racket downstairs. There should’ve been no one downstairs.
“No. Jeff.” I jostled him. “I hear something.”
He bolted from the bed, opened the bedroom door to listen, then strode to his closet. “There’s someone in the house.”
One of my greatest fears had come to life. My heart pounded and my blood rocketed through my veins while my mind and limbs froze. Meanwhile Jeff pulled a case from atop his closet shelf, withdrew a gun, and loaded it. It didn’t occur to me then that I’d had no idea he had a gun in his closet. It didn’t occur to me to mind.
At the door, he listened again and declared, “There’s more than one. Whatever you hear, don’t come down.” Then he slipped through the door and down the stairs like a Navy SEAL team member instead of the insurance adjuster he was.
Shuffling to stand before my 18-month-old’s bedroom door, I clutched my swollen belly and listened, terror stricken, to sounds of a struggle. At seven months pregnant, my only instinct was to protect my babies.
Then I heard a woman say, “I’m going to kill you.”
A moment later, Jeff yelled, “Kate, call 911!”
That is when my mind reentered my body. I swiftly placed the call, relaying all the pertinent details I’d learned from watching Law & Order: “My husband’s confronting intruders with his loaded gun.” When I gave my name, the dispatcher breezily asked if we were related to the Heywoods famous in our little town. “No,” I said. “We’re the other ones.”
We’d moved to this Mayberry-like town only three months earlier but had already heard this question many times. The irony was that we’d moved from a city where crime routinely happened but never to us. Now we lived among sprawling lawns and storybook Victorians. And here we were the victims of a crime.
Moments later, sirens pealed, and then I heard Jeff open our front door. He and the officers spoke about his gun, and then he called up to me. “It’s all right. You can come down.”
I dashed down to see a police officer arresting a young woman. Hopped up on drugs, she’d been searching for meds or scrip pads the doctor who used to live in our house had carried.
“Where’s the other one?” I asked.
Jeff pointed to our chocolate Lab. “She was talking to Ellie.”
I looked at our friendly dog, thumping her tail proudly. “Good girl,” I said, near tears with relief.
That’s when I really considered Jeff. My mouth fell open.
Studiously training his gaze upward, the police officer said, “You can get dressed now, sir.”
