Terrors in the dark. Or not.

I woke in the dark of night to the sound of a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream in the distance.  It happened so quickly that I couldn't tell if it was real or I had just dreamed it.  Either way, I sat upright in bed, quite shaken.  Not more than a couple of seconds passed before I heard it again. 

I instinctively jumped out of bed and ran to the kids' rooms to check on them.  They were both sleeping soundly.  I walked to the back door and cautiously unlocked it.  I slid it open just far enough to pop my head out and there I stood and listened for at least two minutes.  Everything is darker in the country.  And scarier.  There are no street lights or patrolling police officers out here.  Just the two dogs who, oddly enough, were not barking at all.  The only thing I saw in the whole two minutes I stood there was my own breath.  I shut the door and relocked it.  I went to the front door and repeated the process, hearing only silence.

I checked on the kids one more time, then reluctantly headed back to bed.  As I pulled the covers over myself, I again heard the scream, just exactly as I'd heard it the first two times.  Upright again and shaking even more, I was wide awake and glanced at the clock in case I would need to report the time to the police because certainly, they would need to be called soon.  Somebody, somewhere was suffering something terrible. 

I decided that before I went to investigate again, I would wake Kenny up.  I wasn't about to head out into the darkest dark and coldest cold night all by myself.  And anyway, he's way better at dealing with trauma than I am.  As I inched nearer to him and was just about to shake his arm, I heard the scream again.

And that is when I realized that the horrific, high-pitched little girl or woman-scream was actually the sound of my husband's nighttime nose-whistle.  Needless to say, I did not get much sleep after that.