The Robbery

The night-time was dark in the little valley. Tom and Davo crossed the train tracks that separated the trees in the park from the slope of houses between here and the main street. It was quiet, with just an echo of traffic from the street above bouncing off the hill behind them and back again. The house they had been watching was completely dark inside now that the sun had scurried away and dragged with it the last of the light. They could make out the white outline of the fence, a solid white barrier about six feet high.

Tom carried the small ladder with him, it was important that they didn’t hang about too long on this side of the fence, being seen here was the biggest danger. In the back yard of the house was an outdoor table and chairs that Davo could use to scramble back over, but that was much less of a concern. Davo didn’t like being out in the open like this “quickly man, bring the ladder over to the corner” he rasped in that half whisper half bark that people use when they’re trying to be both quiet and heard. Tom didn’t answer, he just scuffed his feet across the loose gravel on the side of the train track and pulled his jeans up with his free hand.

The ladder made a thwack sound against the fence, Davo was looking around anxiously and Tom could feel that there was tension in the air, he chose to deal with the tension by pulling his jeans up again, this time with both hands.

“Ok, hold the bottom of the ladder still for me, when I get over the top just go and hide in that bush. I’ll whistle or something when I need you to come back and help me”.

Tom was just about to pick up the ladder and head for the camouflage of the bushes when Davo stopped and made a kind of whimpering sound. He was halfway through lowering himself into the back yard, only his elbows, shoulder and face were above the fence. Tom lookrd up, Davo looked scared. Tom mouthed, hardly speaking at all “you alright?”

“I thought you said they took the dog with them?”

“They did, I saw it get in the car when I was waiting for you”

“What was that noise then?”

“What n…”

And then there was a screeching noise, not the sound of any kind of dog Tom had ever heard. A sound that was more like a scream than a bark. There was a strange orange flash and Tom thought he saw a shadow looming over the fence, a formless darkness that was twice the size of his friend who’d just disappeared.

Afterwards Tom thought about what had happened, he tried to beat himself up for a while, about the decision that he’d made. But he’d pretty quickly come to the conclusion that he didn’t have any decision to make, given the circumstances there was no other course of action to take. He can’t think of anything he could have done except run. Tom got out of there as fast as he could, he didn’t consider picking up the ladder, and he had moved well past concern for his friend, he had only felt fear.

For the first few days he’d kept expecting Davo to turn up at any moment. Or maybe the police would come around asking questions. He even thought that maybe he should check the hospitals or even the police, but there isn’t a lot of institutional support for criminals injured on the job. After a while other friends and even Davo’s family started to ask Tom if he’d seen him. He couldn’t tell them, so he remembered the second to last time he’d seen Davo and that was what he told everyone, he was almost starting to believe it himself after so many months.

No sign of Davo ever turned up, and after a while Tom stopped expecting it to. It was hard to grieve for his friend when he wasn’t really sure what had happed to him. Part of Tom was also still scared by not knowing, occasionaly he felt the fear that had sent him running that night. This lingering fear wasn’t helped on sleepless nights when Tom was struggling to sleep, when the night was still and quiet and he could swear that he heard that same screeching noise somewhere outside his window.