Insecurity

Calum could not wait. It had taken Laura and him the best part of a decade to save up enough money to get out of the filthy and neglected tenement flat in the heart of darkest Govan. Despite it's notorious history, Govan was just a rotting shithole, no amount of community revitalisation money could fix it because there was no real community. That wasn't to say there were not good people in the undead borough but even they fell to the grey miasma of defeat that had haunted the place since before there were people to settle the riverbank. It didn't matter, he was out. They both were, time to stop living like kids and move into the world of mortgages, debt, kids and debt.

The 3-up 4-down detached house was on Cruickshill Road, which overlooked the entire scheme of post-war concrete and Victorian tenements below. As you may or may not know, those houses, were built atop Glasgow's tallest hill and at night Calum knew you could look down and across the entire city. It was one of the reasons he bought the place. The main reason though was the price. At three hundred and twenty five thousand pounds, the house was selling under market value by quite a bit. The seller had told the agency he wanted a quick sale with no waiting, the house apparently bequeathed to the owner by an elderly relative he was completely unaware he had.

So on the 25^th of June, Calum and Laura moved into 15 Cruickshill Road, the dark ash coloured house right at the centre of the row. On his first evening Calum watched the sun go down to his right as all the twinkling orange lights flared into life below him. The sight was beautiful, inspiring and he stood on his doorstep with a cup of tea and smiled. He was home.

At around four fifteen the following morning Calum woke after he felt like a heavy weight was crushing his chest. A purring heavy weight. He opened his eyes to find a cat, silver and black, laying on his chest and staring directly into his eyes with it's own half-lidded ones. The Tom was a big beast, confident and comfortable with Calum but it was not his cat. They didn't own a cat. So Calum got up and tried to shoo the interloping feline from his bed. The cat wasn't happy but it scampered off. Calum cursed and decided he better get up and find out where it was and how it got in.

Outside of the bedsheets the house was cold, so he put on a bath-robe and went downstairs to find the invader cat.

The front door was lying wide open. He could see the porch, the drive, the black silent road and the hillside slope down towards the empty twinkling lights of a docile city. He wondered if Laura or he had managed to close it over without locking it, perhaps it had swung open in a breeze, or pushed open by the curious night hunter checking out the new neighbours. Calum looked up and down Cruickshill Road, it was empty, except for a silver Tom cat toddling down the street with it's tail held high.

Tom closed the front door, snibbed it and locked the mortice. Calum, like many people in the U.K. had been raised in tenements and had suffered from a similar issue to many of them. A primal thing, a fear stuck in the head whether one wanted it or not. The fear was always the same, a rapid onset of dread, moments before the key entered the lock of the front door, a terror that with one's back to the world, something would take the opportunity to pounce. It was insecurity, brought about by dark closes open to the outside world. A front door being left open was odd, but it was certainly not the urgent terror that he was used to. He went back to bed and forgot about the cat and the open door.

Two nights later, at quarter past three he woke with the feeling that someone was in the room. He woke hard and with a thumping pounding heart racing beneath his ribs but there was no-one in the room. He turned over and went back to sleep.

The following morning Laura complained that he'd left the front door unlocked and she had to get up and shut it in the early hours of the last two mornings. It was then he recalled the same event and after a quick discussion a joiner, then a locksmith were called to their new home. Neither found any particular reason for the door opening at night but the locksmith was a canny lad and managed to sell them a pricey iron bolt and fix it. Calum and Laura were hopeful that the bolt would at least solve the problem.

They both checked the bolt before they went to their bed and it took a while for either of them to fall asleep. Neither Laura nor Calum could quite switch off, worried about what the night would bring, but both fell asleep after each checked the door one more time.

Calum was not aware of getting up or walking down the stairs. He remained oblivious as he walked out the porch, crossed the drive and stepped out onto the black silent road that overlooked the empty twinkling lights of a docile city. He awoke only when rain began dropping and found himself startled and confused, standing facing the hillside slope, one more step and he would have taken a tumble. He stood on the road, rain soaking through his t-shirt and boxer shorts and realised he had been sleep-walking. He was slightly troubled by this, since it wasn't something that had ever happened before but he was relieved that he had, at least, found a solution to the mystery of the front door.

Laura was also relieved, she was a superstitious soul and had immediately concerned herself that the house might be haunted by some restless spirit. She looked online to find what she could to help with Calum's sleepwalking episodes. According to one site, sleepwalking was common for people who had moved into a new home, that the psyche was unsettled and that it would soon disappear. While this put her mind at ease, she wondered if there was a simple solution to the problem. Another site explained that sleepwalking was usually a regular thing and if one could wake oneself up prior to it, one could fall back asleep and miss the episode completely. It seemed worth a try. Calum agreed.

That night his watch alarm vibrated and woke him up at the pre-set time of 2.45am. He found himself wide awake and with a full bladder, so he went to the toilet. After he had relieved himself he decided to walk downstairs and check to make sure the door was still locked and bolted. He was grateful and pleased to find that indeed the bolt was still in place and the door still locked. With some satisfaction he walked into the lounge. A cold chill slid down his back when he heard the slow metallic scraping noise come from behind him. He whirled round and his eyes fixed on the bolt which was now moving incrementally back into the guard. Calum was too confused for fear to take hold and he stood there watching, with his mouth open, as the bolt unlatched and the handle of the door rotated downwards. The door swung open with a creak.

Calum dreaded what might reveal itself and as it swung open he closed his eyes for a moment but there was nothing but the hissing sighs of the snoozing town. He opened his eyes fully expecting to see some terrifying wraith that would drive him mad, or some axe-wielding psychopath in a mask but all he could see was the porch, the drive, the black silent road and the hillside slope down towards the empty twinkling lights of a docile city.

Calum suddenly felt very afraid standing there as the cold night air invaded his home. He wondered if he was dreaming still, if he had been in some kind of sleepwalking state where he'd imagined the door opening himself. It seemed like the most plausible explanation, even though the actual event seemed to have left him wide awake. He hoped that was the truth, but there was a sneaking suspicion stealthily flitting around in his skull that his home was not secure. He had to find a solution to this nonsense. It was troubling, he felt as if he was exposed to the entire world and all it's horrors, exposed while he slept. He knew the likelihood was that nothing would happen but still that door opening left him vulnerable, weak, emasculated. He feared his own inability to control the situation as much as he feared intruders.

He decided to replace the door the next day. It cost a bit so he made a big show of burning the thing, even had a few friends round for a barbeque and a welcome to their new home. The new door had new hinges, a deadbolt, two mortice locks and a chain and both of them hoped that this would work but still Calum worried that it would be no use.

Neither could sleep that night. Both Laura and he sat on the stairs talking about their friends and avoiding talking about what they were both there to watch., the door. At Three o'clock, Calum was half dozing with Laura curled up asleep on the stairs and resting her head on his legs. The rattling of a chain distracted him from his path to dream and suddenly he was awake, alert and he gasped.

As he watched the chain unlatch itself he woke Laura who took some convincing, when she was finally aware enough to figure out what was going on she squeaked, a tight gasp of terror. The bolt dragged back and the locks all slid backwards in the barrels, without any key. Laura grabbed him tight only repeating the words “oh god” over and over again. The door swung open and again there was nothing behind it but the porch, the drive, the black silent road and the hillside slope down towards the empty twinkling lights of a docile city.

Laura began to cry and Calum knew her tears were telling him more than her fear of such an odd and disturbing event. She wasn't safe, this was not her home, her tears were of disappointment. He knew then he had to leave, that he could not stay in the place. It didn't want them there.

They moved into a hotel short term and eventually placed their stuff in storage until they sold the place. They moved into a lovely large four bedroom flat in Shawlands, top floor, lovely view. The place was so nice that Calum even stopped worrying about being assailed that moment before he put the key in the lock. It was home.

Sometimes at night, when he couldn't sleep, he'd get into his car and drive across the city to Cruickshill Road. He'd sit on the hillside on the silent black road and look up the drive and the porch and wait and watch. The door would always swing open. Those nights, he'd sleep like a baby when he returned to his bed.