Interloper

Greg sat in the driver’s seat of his car, listening to the tick of the engine as the chilly garage air cooled it down. He sighed deeply, glad to be home after a hard day’s work, and allowed his head to rest on the backs of his hands. His eyes closed, and he felt the weight of the day slowly settling over his body. He forced his eyes open, sure that if he had kept them closed for just a few more moments, he would have fallen asleep inside his car. He raised his head, which felt like it weighed a million tons, looked to the passenger seat, and lazily extended his arm to grab his backpack. When his hand touched its handle, he allowed his body to go limp over the center console, feeling the urge to surrender to his fatigue and pass the night inside his car instead.

"Aw, fuck," he groaned.

Gathering the remainder of his energy, he pulled himself back up, bringing the backpack into his lap. He opened the car door, swung his legs out and got to his feet. He looked around, trying to see anything in the pitch black garage. He took short steps, kicking at some tools he left scattered on the ground. A motor oil slick nearly caused him to slip, but he caught himself with a hand on his car. It was a struggle just to keep his hazy mind focused enough to get out of there. After some stumbling in the darkness, he managed to find his way to the door. He stood still for a while, taking a few deep breaths.

He opened the door as nonchalantly as he could and immediately almost fell down after missing the small step down from the garage door. He tried to curse, but what came out was an unintelligible mangle of words. Thankfully, the path to the back door was always illuminated. Or at least, it was supposed to be.

Did I forget to leave this shit on again? he thought.

To his relief, a full moon shone in the clear night sky. Its faint, white light aided him in his quest to find the back door. He made his way ever so slowly, making the herculean effort to pick his feet up so he wouldn't trip and fall face first on the ground.

He unlocked the back door and stepped inside. He slapped the wall next to the door frame, searching for the switch. When he found it, he flipped it and regretted it instantly. To his tired and darkness-accustomed eyes, the bulb was as bright as a quasar, thus essentially blinding him. He emitted a grunt, dumbly covering his eyes with his forearm. They felt like they had been flooded by pure energy, his eyelids doing little to stop the assault on his retinas. He brought another arm up to keep his eyeballs from catching on fire.

"Stupid lights," he mumbled.

After a few seconds, his eyes began to get used to the light. He lowered his arm and kicked the door closed behind him. Soon enough, he no longer felt like he was suffering through an alien lobotomy. He left the kitchen for the living room, turning the lights on.

Afraid his legs would fail him soon, he made his way to the staircase. He dropped his backpack on the first two steps, where it rolled down and hit the ground with a soft thud.
He took two steps before putting his hand over the handrail, carefully turning around and crouching, until he was sitting on the steps. He gasped for air, exhausted from accumulated lack of sleep, which happened every time he had to pull off a one week long heroic coding session. He crossed his arms, putting them over his knees, and rested his head on top of them.

"I… should… quit doing… this kind of… thing," he whispered through heavy breaths. Something near his ear beeped. He raised his head, straining to see through the dark spots floating in his vision, and looked at his watch.

"Good. It’s still 7 pm. I should get enough… sleep this time."

With one arm on the handrail and the other on his forearm, he pulled himself up and resumed his ascension to the second floor.

"C’mon Gregory, you're almost there. Just a little… further…" he whispered to himself, trying to gather the motivation to not pass out where he stood.

The second floor corridor was reasonably well lit by a single yellowish wall light. Its light was always on during the night, so he wouldn't stumble whenever he had to wake up to use the bathroom. Or whenever he got home beaten up from work. He was glad his house had walls, for they were pretty useful in guiding him and keeping him from falling over. His head was spinning and he could hear a faint buzz in his ears. The pressure inside his skull was making him wish he could smash it open to alleviate it, but it wasn't hurting, so it could wait until morning. Keeping himself propped against the wall was proving to be a mighty challenge in itself. His shoulder was already burning after just a few seconds, and his feet were hurting from being stuffed inside his shoes for a whole day.

The corridor carpet was suffering a great deal of damage from his muddy shoes, but he gave no fucks about that. His mind had just forgotten how to do that in that particular moment. When he got to his room, no switches were flipped, no stumbling happened. He was on autopilot, and just dove face-first onto his bed. He let out a long sigh, a warm grin forming on his face.

Greg's eyes shot open and he raised his head. The sound of shattered glass startled him back into consciousness.

"What the…" he slurred, looking at the digital clock next to his bed. "4 am? Why am I even awake?"

Too tired to think, he laid his head back down and closed his eyes, ready to be engulfed by Morpheus' embrace. Once more, he recognized the crunch of glass coming from outside. His eyes shot open again in the realisation that there shouldn't be any noise this late at night. His bedroom's window was open and there was no wind blowing, nor any rain pouring, so it wasn't being caused naturally. The street he lived on was always eerily quiet. All his neighbors enjoyed the sound of silence. He groaned, rolled over, and put his feet on the ground, his head still feeling hazy. He rubbed his face slowly with both hands, and passed them through his hair, massaging his scalp. When his mind got coherent enough, he reached for his shotgun that rested against the wall next to the nightstand, grabbing it and standing up.

"Hmm," he said, looking down to his feet.

He sat back down on his bed, put the gun aside, and pulled his shoestrings, carefully taking the shoes off and putting them on the floor. Now, with his feet bare and armed to his teeth, he began his investigation. He stood in front of his bedroom door, facing the corridor outside. Again, the damned brightness of the hallway incapacitated him for a little while until his eyes got adjusted to the luminosity. He poked his head out of the room. The coast was clear. He then exited the room, giving his ears the most focus he could. He took careful steps, making sure to not hit the ground too hard. When he got to the top of the staircase, he stopped and looked down, just to make sure no one was inside his house.

What the… why are all lights on? Did I do this?, he thought, halting at the top of the staircase. He closed his eyes and brought his left hand up to his face, slowly rubbing it. Talk about being trashed..., he continued, sighing and letting his arm fall limply.

Scanning the staircase and front door before him, he could see through the front door's little window that the darkness of the earliest hours of the morning still engulfed the world outside. He began the most careful and stealthy descent of his life. With fast but well-measured steps, he made his way down. When he got to the bottom of the staircase, he looked around. A loud thud came from the general direction of the kitchen, indicating the noises were definitively coming from outside. He carefully peeked in through the doorway that lead to the kitchen, eyeing the the back door. The door to the back yard was still closed, to his luck, for he hadn’t locked it up after getting home.

He slipped into the kitchen, crouching down to avoid being spotted through the windows, quickly crawling towards the back door. Pressing himself against the wall next to the door frame, he stood up and looked through the door's window. It was way too dark. He couldn't see much outside. One thing he could see, though, was the garage door, thanks to the street light. Its glass window had been broken.

"Fuck," he growled.

He sat down on the ground beside the door. His blood went cold as he heard footsteps. A pit formed inside his guts that deepened every time the feet of whoever was outside hit the concrete ground. That wasn't an otherworldly unknown noise produced by an unknown source. There's actually people out there. And there shouldn't be any.

His mind went into overdrive, weighing the situation and his options. Should they be armed, chances are he would get shot. If they were not armed though, kicking them out would be a breeze. Expect the best, but be prepared for the worst. Taking this carefully seemed like the only sane option. Popping out like the star of an action film and forcing them surrender was out of the question.

He peeked through the window once more, trying to get more information from the surroundings of the backdoor. There was nothing much that could be seen. He placed his ear near the door, in the hope of capturing any new noise. Still nothing. Greg was in the dark, which made him sigh in frustration.

A slight clicking noise came from the outside, signaling the trespassers had opened the garage door. Greg looked outside again, and saw two silhouettes slip inside the place. The invaders switched the lights on.

"Ok, now this has gone too damn far," Greg growled under his breath, slowly turning the door handle, carefully pulling it open and slipping outside. He took cover to the side of garage, listening to the intruders, who spoke in harsh whispers.

"I don't see it, Russell. Is it still here?" one of the invaders said, peeking inside the car through the passenger door window.

"I SAW it going through that window. It HAS to be here," said Russell, looking around the garage.

"Maybe you're just high. I don't see shit in here."

Russell looked at the other man.

"Yeah, it will totally be inside the car," he said mockingly.

"Well, it could be," the other replied indignantly, getting away from the car.

"Ugh, shut up Larry. Could you stop being a moron and look around? I didn't run all night long just to walk away empty-handed."

Greg got closer to the garage door, pressing his back against the wall near the doorway.

"Why don't we just forget this? This is such bullshit!" said Larry, kicking some tools that were scattered around the floor.

"We already broke into a house. Now that we're here, let's do what we're here to do. And stop making noise. You're going to get us caught."

"Catching this thing ourselves is stupid, I tell you. If Kevin wants to keep cutting it, why doesn’t HE capture it back?"

"Wanna get cut instead?" asked Russel, flatly.

"Hah, like he would have the guts to do that," replied Larry, ironically. "Killing little animals doesn't make him any scarier than a 16 year old. He's just a twat that pretends to be tough."

"Then go back and tell him that!" said Russell. Both men stood in silence, staring at each other. "What you're waiting for? Go already!"

"Nah, too far away. I'm here anyway, so I'll help you to get that beast back."

"Huh, brave much?"

"What, are you calling me a coward?"

"Yes, I am."

"You better take that back!"

"Or what? Gonna cry?"

"You…!"

"Look, I'll punch your face later for as long as you want if you really want it. But now I want to get this over with, so PLEASE shut the hell up and LOOK around instead of staring at me with your asshole face."

"Pfft, whatever."

Greg decided it was time to pop into the garage. "Ahem," he said, pumping his shotgun, the loud metallic click startling the trespassers. "That's right boys, nice and slow now, I want to see hands in the air."

The two slowly raised their hands.

"Now, turn around, SLOWLY, and you two better not try anything funny."

The two slowly turned around.

"Now," Greg said, in a low and calm tone, "I wanna see any guns you two might have on the ground, one at a time. You go first, fatty," he said, pointing the barrel at Russell.

"W-we don't have any guns, sir..."

"No guns? Hmm... I don't believe in you. So you better drop anything you have you fat fuck, before I drop YOUR insides all over the ground," he said, taking a step further, making Russell step back.

"I-I swear man, we don't have anything!"

"We don't wanna rob you! Honest!" said Larry. Greg snapped the barrel at his direction. "And what about you, huh? What about YOU telling me what you two are doing here?"

Larry gaped several times.

"What? I can't hear you! C'mon, start talking!"

"Sir, we-"

Greg locked the barrel back at Russell's torso.

"Yes?"

"We didn't come to rob you, sir."

"Oh, really? So you two casually broke in my garage... just for the fun of it, I suppose?"

The two trespassers stood in silence, exchanging gazes between themselves and Greg's gun.

"I asked a fucking question. Answer it!"

"N-no, it's not like that. We just..."

"You what!?"

"We're looking for something... that went in here."

"Looking for something? What something would that be?"

"It's... it's hard to explain."

"You better try your best to explain it to me as clear as possible then," said Greg, tightening the grip on his gun.

Russell eyed Larry with wide eyes, getting the same kind of look back.

"Any fucking time now, sweetheart."

"We're after..." Russell gulped, "we're after a horse. That's why we're here."

"A... horse?" said Greg, raising one of his eyebrows.

"Yes... a horse."

Greg gaped, and his eyes turned into slits while he processed that absurdity over and over.

"Inside THIS garage?"

"Yeah, it came through that window," said Russell, shakingly pointing towards the garage's side door broken window.

"A horse... through that tiny window? Are you sure kid? That you saw a HORSE going through THAT window?"

"Yes, sir."

"Because what I think went through that window is a load of bullshit!" Greg said, training the gun at Russell's head.

"Woah woah woah! Don't shoot! I'm not lying! I swear!" cried Russell, taking a few steps back.

"And I SWEAR I'll paint the inside of this garage in brain matter grey and gut red if you two fuckers don't GET THE HELL out of here right now!"

"C'mon Russell! Let's bounce!" said Larry, plucking at Russell's sleeve.

"But we didn't get it back!" replied Russell to Larry.

"Forget it! Let's get out of here!"

"Get out of here?" said Greg. The two man snapped at his direction. "Why should I let you two just go?"

"Because... you... you just told us to do so?"

"Yeah, I said that, didn't I? But now that I think about it, that would be a BAD idea."

The invaders looked at each other and then back at Greg.

"Why?" asked Larry.

"You two would come back tomorrow to get your payback. Or maybe not tomorrow, but in the next week. Or in the next month. Or in ten years from now. Even if I called the cops and you two ended up in jail, you'd get out eventually, and I wouldn't have any peace until we met again. So..." he trailed.

The two trespassers widened their eyes.

"Who’s going first?" he asked, switching his aim between the two.

"C'mon now man, you don't need to do this," pleaded Russell, cowering against the workbench after him.

"Yeah, we wouldn't come after you. We learned our lesson!"

"Oh...?" said Greg, lowering the barrel of his gun a bit, "You... learned your lesson? What lesson would it be then?"

"Uh... well... we uh... we...," started Larry.

"That we... we shouldn't-"

"Yeah, you two learned shit, that's what," he said, bringing the barrel up. "So, I'm gonna ask again, who's going first? Better pick your choice before I choose for you two."

"Please, I don't wanna die!" cried Larry.

Greg's gaze went distant as he heard those words. He stood silent for several seconds, never putting the barrel down. The two men leaned against the workbench, frozen in terror.

"You know... I just had a wonderful idea," he said, his gaze returning to the two. He then looked to the side, eyeing one of his big tool chests. A hideous idea had popped inside his head, perfect for this situation. The kind of solution that would solve this problem for good, and even probably with minimal bloodshed.

He moved towards his big tool chest, his gun still keeping the two men at bay. He pulled the chest's lid open, strapped the shotgun to his back and grabbed the chainsaw that was inside of it. With three firm pulls on its string, he brought the beast to life.

"Mmhhhhmm... oooohhh yeeeaaaahhh..." he hummed deeply, inhaling the engine fumes with a maniac glee. He then slowly looked back at the two with wide eyes, noting their terrified expressions with extreme satisfaction.

In a sudden move, Greg trudged towards them, squeezing the chainsaw’s trigger, making an unholy racket.

"Holy shit! Aww shit! Aaaawww SHIIIT!" squealed Larry, backing away.

"LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! FUCKING RUN, DAMN IT!" screamed Russell, pulling Larry by the arm.

"No, you won't get away. Not until I'm fucking DONE! COME BACK OVER HERE!!"

The two men ran around the car that was parked inside and bolted out of the garage, with Greg following them with a fast paced walk, intermittently revving his chainsaw. When he got to the sidewalk out front, the two were already far down the street. He turned off the chainsaw.

"And stay gone," he whispered.

He turned around and made his way back to the garage, to get a good idea about the extent of the damages. He entered the garage, put the chainsaw back in its place and walked around the car to see if there were any scratches.

Good, the car's okay.

He then looked back at his tool bench, which seemed to have been pulled out of place. Looking down, he noticed that most of the tools he had left scattered on the ground were now under the car. He sighed and began to collect them. His hands didn’t obey him very keenly, for they shook with great might, and every attempt of him to stop that failed miserably.

"4 fucking a.m.... thanks for kicking them... under the car, you... assholes," he grunted through heavy breaths.

After dropping the fallen tools on his bench, he laid both his hands over it, resting some of his weight over his shoulders, letting his head hang low, taking deep breaths. He could still feel his hands shaking, and his legs threatening to fault him at any moment.

Alright, alright. Breathe now, breathe, he thought to himself, trying to ease his mind out of that state of excitement. Each breath he exhaled seemed to take away some of that extra energy. The deep pit inside his guts began to dissipate, allowing him to gradually relax with the reassurance he wouldn’t throw up right there.

He forced himself away from the bench, bringing both his hands to his head, massaging his scalp vigorously before interlacing his fingers behind his back..

“4 fucking a.m… 4 fucking a-fucking-m… ” he whispered, looking to the light bulb overhead, sighing heavily.

He allowed his arms to fall limply, clenching and opening his fists several times, feeling the adrenaline dissipate away from his arms. He sighed heavily, walked back closer to his workbench, grabbed one of its corners, and readied himself to put it back to its proper place when a faint sound, like someone's breathing, got his attention.

Am I hearing that right? He angled his head, aiming an ear behind the bench. In fact, there WAS someone gasping for air behind it. He promptly grabbed the back corner and pulled it away from the wall, letting the light illuminate whatever was back there.

"What the..." he began, but words couldn't describe what his mind was experiencing.

Behind his bench, there was something that he recognized, but made less sense with each passing moment. It had four legs, a tail, a long neck, and a mane. It was a horse. A small one. It could have been just a foal, or even a small pony, except for a few unearthly differences. Its coat, a striking shade of purple, was the first point that made Greg doubt his eyes. Was he still half-asleep? It could be. Maybe it was the adrenaline of kicking those bastards off of his lawn. Also probable. Or MAYBE, that thing was actually there.

Its legs, covered in bruises and blood stains from top to bottom, made him wonder what it had endured before it ended up here. In fact, its whole body was in the same precarious condition. From its back, near its shoulders, two wings protruded out of its body and - wait, WINGS!?

Horses don't have fricking wings! That’s not right! What the hell is that? Greg got closer to it and looked it up and down, trying to capture better the details of what he was witnessing. Yes, there they were. Two majestic, purple wings. One was partially extended, pinned beneath the creature as it lay there panting. The other twitched nervously, showing its glorious, glossy long feathers. At least, for the ones that were still there. Heck, what happened to it? That wing was missing most of its feathers, and some parts of it had exposed flesh. He looked to the left, eyeing the creature's head. The only injury he could notice was a big cut on its left cheek. The cut seemed recent, and serious. He also noticed something as strange as the wings. A horn? What the—

"Pl... please... " the creature whispered. Startled by the sudden vocalisation, Greg jumped back, looking around the garage for more intruders. Finding none, he then looked back at the creature, not knowing what to do.

"Did you…?"

"Help…"

His jaw dropped open. Was an animal talking? And he was understanding?

What the hell? How am I even… Who do I think I am? Doctor Dolittle?

The creature coughed, gasping for air. Greg approached it again.

"Um, hey," he said, trying to think of anything to say, but the words were fleeing from his mind. "You… um… are you ok?"

"H…elp…"

"Uh… well… let me just…"

He wrapped his arms around its barrel, awkwardly lifting it up. Hearing the groan of pain the creature released, he decided that way wouldn't work. He then put it back on the ground and ran inside his house. He came back with a thick blanket, wrapped the creature carefully, making sure all its limbs were well secured, and scooped it off the ground.

"You're kinda of heavy, aren't ya?" he joked, turning around and walking out of the garage. "Well, let's take care of you, whatever you may be."