Picture this.

It’s near midnight. I’m on the couch nearing the end of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road about a post apocalyptic world then I hear our garage door open outside.

My heart stops. For a few seconds I hold my breath and listen for more noise.

I get up suddenly but stand there not knowing what to do next.

Part of me wants to go out there to investigate.

Another part of me thinks, “should I wake Andrew?”

I go to our bedroom and rouse him awake. He sees my eyes and he gets up instantly.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone outside.”

I think he too is stunned. In that moment, I wish we had our lounge room curtains drawn closed. I’m feeling exposed all of a sudden.

I walk to the laundry to my golf bag and take out my old putter. It strikes me odd that even at this moment, I’m even choosing which club to wield at an intruder. I didn’t want to destroy my new Titlists. The putter’s head is heavy enough to bludgeon someone’s head if need be. I hope they don’t have a gun.

I open the front door and walk out holding the putter in front of me.

By this stage, I’ve made so much noise that any intruder would have run away.

However I’m only met by a gust of wind. Darkness all around. No sounds. The front gate is closed and locked.

I look over to the garage door and see that it’s closed. My car is parked directly in front of it. There’s no way it would open fully without hitting the car in front of it. It would have made a racket if anyone did open it.

More silence.

Andrew comes out and looks around.

“False alarm. Are you sure you didn’t hear the neighbour’s garage? I’m going back to bed,” he asks.

I breathe a sigh of relief and then head back in, lock the door behind me and draw the curtains closed in the lounge room. I’m still holding the putter. Pud, the cat looks at me sleepily from his mat on the floor.

I must have heard a noise that made me overreact.

My fear stemmed from the book I was reading at that time when it’s late, dark and silent in the house.

Remind me never to read such books so late in the night that put horrible images in your head about a world where you survive by your wits, scrounge around for food and then have to resort to cannibalism to survive.

I’ll have a book review filmed and uploaded on my YouTube channel soon.