A violent knock startled me at 3:30 a.m. This knock wasn’t coming from my front door. It was on the bedroom wall, almost as if someone knew the precise location of my mattress.
I bought this home three years ago to get away from people. Hadn’t invited a single person over since the move-in date. The closest neighbor is a mile up the road. For someone to be knocking on the bedroom wall seemed most unusual.
“Hello,” came the haggard voice. “I can hear you stirring.”
How in creation could someone hear me stirring? I could barely hear the sheets being kicked off me, having twisted themselves around my leg.
“Who are you?” I hollered through the wall. God, I was hoping this was a bad dream. The idea of seeing another human at 3:30 in the morning put me in a bad place.
“There’s an injured wolf on your porch. Can we use your phone?”
If there ever was a time to question my sanity, it was my behavior after hearing that sentence. An injured wolf on my porch? Why did I suddenly kick it into high gear after hearing about the injured wolf?
Secondly, can they use my phone? The owner of the haggard voice and another human? Or the haggard voice and the wolf?
Logic was off, but I seemingly didn’t care.
“Meet me on the porch,” I yelled back.
It was the owner of the haggard voice who caught my attention first. He was a very overweight man in his early seventies. The man was out of breath and petting the wolf.
That poor wolf couldn’t have been more than a few months old. I wanted to scoop it up and kiss it.
“You have the phone?” the old man asked.
“Yes, on the wall in the kitchen.”
I pointed the old man in that direction, but instead of assuring he made it there, I started blushing. What kind of young man in the twenty-first century would choose a home phone mounted on a wall rather than a cell phone? Someone who was once obsessed with those devices. Someone who fell in love with a “woman” only to learn it was some scam artist draining nearly $3,000.
The wolf groaned. I took a step back, but its puppy eyes seemed to beg me to step closer. Not worth the risk. It could have rabies. Then the wolf and I would be in two separate medical centers.
“Animal control should be here any moment,” the old man said, hovering in the doorway, huffing and puffing. “We shouldn’t touch the wolf. Just let it be.”
He then looked around, shivering.
“Let’s go inside,” I offered, not knowing whether this man was about to force my head into an oven or just wait peacefully for the arrival of animal control.
