6:30, the bitch and the brat depart, I check all the locks in the house, make sure my mother hasn't been stupid enough to let the cats out, and hole up in my room with the cats and the dog, thinking the wooden sword I picked up a couple years ago at the Renaissance Festival is pathetically little protection against anything that can get past the front door.
7:00ish, manage to get back to sleep, cuddling up to my sad little bit of protection.
9:14, hideous squealing from outside wakes me up and I suddenly reconsider my decision not to go to Easter services. Let the dog out of his cage so he can slow knaw on the thing's ankle (or whatever's down at that level) if it manages to get in... cats are very unhapy with this.
9:52, screeching stops.
10:00, mother and child come home, and I'm put in charge of keeping the kid distracted while dear old mommy plays Easter Bunny. Fearing a round of prayer circles cause the devil is posessing my senses, I say nothing to mother.
10:10, mother screams from outside... Wicket (the dog) runs to the front door and freaks out, ready to defend her... I do nothing, choosing to stay with the kid instead.
10:15, Easter egg hunt is cancelled by Mother, who has just found that there are severed bunny heads spread all over our yard and some kind of arcane symbols written in their blood on the walls out back. The thing, along with being much smarter than I'd thought before, apparently has a sense of humor.
11:00, festivities continue as normal with an indoor easter egg hunt. The brat gets way more candy than he can possibly eat, I get none because turning 18 somehow automatically removed any fondness for sugar I may have once had.
5:00 PM, I am told that if I do not go out and clean up the mess, I am kicked out of the house...
5:15, my mother starts taking my stuff out to the curb... I reconsider.
5:30, discover that rabbit blood is really hard to wash off of a white wall.
6:00, hinges on the shed doors creak.
6:05, I'm halfway to the local library before I realize people are going to wonder why I'm covered in blood... I keep going anyway.
6:12, wonder how I got to the library so fast when it usually takes me twenty minutes... fear is a powerful motivator.
6:13, am reminded libraries are closed on Sundays... hang out at gas station instead.
7:30, get worried about the cats and start my way home.
7:32, start running after hearing a twig snap off to my right, followed shortly by a dog ahead of me completely freaking out.
7:45, get home. Mother's car is gone from the driveway, she's probably at evening service. Could swear I see something moving at the back of the house... it looked huge. Cats are idiotically lazing around on the front porch... I throw the door open, kick them through, and slam it shut behind me, scrambling to lock it.
7:46, get cats and dog into the bathroom, theoretically the safest room in the house since it has no exterior walls, then run around the house grabbing all the candles I can find. Lock myself into the bathroom with warring pets and struggle to remember what that witch friend from summer camp tried to teach me about circles of protection.
7:48, get bad feeling about mirror, venture out of bathroom to find a sheet to cover it with.
7:49, grab black sheet off the back of the couch--which is right next to the big glass doors. Hear loud metallic crash as something knocks over the (long abandoned) patio swing right on the other side of the door. Wicket and the cats start freaking out. I take half a second to grab the iron fire poker from by the fireplace and run back to the bathroom. Fling open the door and jump through, slamming it shut behind me, and run right into... myself. Max (the big grey tabby) is up on his shoulder, apparently trying to get at his jugular, Wicket (the tail-less Shih Tzu) is hanging somewhat feebly off of his ankle, Tipper (the smaller basic Tabby) lies unconcsious in the bathtub in a pool of her own blood.
~7:50, me and my double are literally at each others throats. He's inhumanly strong, so I quickly find myself backed up against the door, firepoker knocked out of my hands. Wicket continues to hang onto the me-thing's ankle like the bulldog he isn't... I'd later discover that my double's kicks had broken his back legs and several of his ribs. Max is out of commision by this point, stumbling around with a kitty-concussion. Scrabbling for any kind of weapon on hand, I nearly burn my hand on one of the lit candles still laying around from my failed attempt at a circle of protection. I grab it and slam it into my doppelganger's eye, hot wax and broken glass filling his ocular cavity. He stumbles back and I recover my firepoker, quickly knocking him down and pulverizing his skull. He vanishes in a wispy cloud of shadows, floating back into the mirror.
7:52, I tear up some towels and do my best to treat the pets' wounds. Everything's quiet.
7:55, I leave the bathroom, trying to figure out if it's safe yet. Looking out on of the back windows, I see a flash of what might be a tentacle slipping back into the shed as the doors seem to close themselves. Apparently, the thing has had its fun for the night.
7:56, realizing that going to a Vet is probably not the best idea, I get on the computer (my only means of communication with the outside world... we have no phoneline in our house) and rapidly send out e-mails to all of my local contacts, hoping they may for once be useful and know a psi-healer in the area.
8:30, some bitch in an overly elaborate white robe shows up, cranky about being called on to heal mere beasts. I resist the urge to slap her or make fun of her SCA fashion sense, showing her to the bathroom. She sets Wicket's bones, stops Tipper's bleeding, and does what else she can... then asks where her money is. So much for the kindness of strangers.
8:45, I grab a handful of my mom's jewelry at random... she's got too much anyway. Flower bitch departs. I set about the task of cleaning up the bathroom... can't let the bible-thumping Nega see things as they are, who knows what she'll think I've been doing if she finds broken glass and blood everywhere.
9:30, Mother comes home to find the pets oddly subdued and me at the computer, as per usual...
10:30, she heads off to bed, blissfully unaware of anything weirder than bunny dismemberment--which she'll surely blame on the potheads that have a little hide-out (complete with couch) in our hedge, nevermind that there hasn't been any sign of them in months--going on.
11:30, I prepare to post all this and take up Ron on his offer of help when I hear something moving outside the window to my right. I look up and see a severed bunny head on the ledge outside the window, posed as if it's looking in at me... and it definitely wasn't there before. I nearly pee my pants before ushering the cats into my room, grabbing the firepoker and candles, and holing myself up again until morning.
6:00AM, I finally get to sleep... nothing of note has happened, other than the occasional twig snapping or other mundane yet spooky noise.
4:00 PM, I wake up, come to my computer, and set about my usual business, including starting to type this up again...
6:25, just now, I finish... and note that the door to the shed is ajar. Must get firepoker and candles...
