Caller in the Yard

I was unpacking my bags of shopping in the kitchen, when I first heard the whistle. It was so clear, it made me stop in my tracks, fresh tomato poised in hand.

I stood, and I listened, feeling strangely at peace in my old-fashioned wood kitchen, but all I heard now were the chirps of the birds feeding in the garden, and I turned my face towards the window, enjoying the last remnants of the day's warmth on it, closing my eyes.

The tomato and indeed the rest of the shopping, made their way to where they all needed to be, and I clicked the kettle on, feeling in the mood to take my coffee and sit out at the patio table, as the sun made its final preparations to go down.

The whistle didn't cross my mind again until a few days later, when I heard it again.

This time it was a little later in the day, early evening in fact, and I was halfway through a film, a romantic comedy I forget the name of, and had seen many times before. An old film which carried the early hopes of romantic love, long before I ever gave up on experiencing any for myself.

It was during a noisy moment in the film, when I thought I heard the sound, but wrote it off as part of the background sound to the movie. Upon hearing the piercing whistle, I grabbed the remote and paused the film, listening intently. Had it come from the kitchen?

The sound had been more urgent than before, or was I simply imagining that? I felt suddenly tearful, as if I'd heard the bell foretelling my own doom. The whistle sounded again as a loud shriek, startlingly close to my ear, making me jump and spin around.

"What the hell..?"

Was somebody in the house? I raced out and grabbed the big knife from the kitchen drawer, before peering out through the patio doors into the large back garden, plants and shed now barely visible in the twilight gloom.

The knife trembled in my hand, and I clutched it with both, trying to control my breathing, my heart thudding in my ears. I used my elbow to open the patio door, and it slid across smoothly, as it always did. I was sure I'd locked it earlier, but maybe not.

I called out, "Hello?" But only silence and distant bird calls answered.

I took a tentative step out into the dark, shivering slightly despite the humidity. I held the knife aloft, feeling suddenly ridiculous, like a cliché in a formulaic horror film.

The whistle happened again, very faintly, and I craned to figure out where it was coming from this time. Especially after the startling closeness of the last one. I felt unmoored somehow, completely at a loss and disoriented. Taking steps forward into the dark, I felt lost in my own garden, which now felt vast, full of spaces and shadows to hide in. Whispers fluttered around my ears, and I gasped with fright. What was happening here? What was happening to me?

Whispers urged me forward and I kept on moving towards the small, dark shed at the back of the garden, because I had to know, I HAD to know. It was all dark, just as I'd left it since last doing my potting and garden pottering earlier that day. Somehow this strangeness felt right. It was... frightening and alluring. A lone bird cheeped.

I moved to the shed side door and undid the bolt with a clank. Still no sound. I slowly pulled the door open, stepped inside the dank coolness. Silence swallowed me up like a black hole. As my eyes adjusted, the whispers began again, sounding now very far away. In the corner I made out a human-sized shape, and raised the knife in my badly shaking hands.

The tall figure turned to face me, and as my eyes began to flutter closed, it called my name as a distant whistle sounded from far, far away. The way it called my name did something to me, did something to my heart. It rushed forwards to catch me, in spindly crooked arms, and for the first and last time in my short life, I felt something resembling love.

I had been caught.