I was late. A hard day at work had prolonged to the dead of the night, and now it was well late. I could already picture my wife, fuming with anger. She didn’t understand the use for working overtime, despite the fact that it was that extra pay for that work that made a difference between eating and starving.

As usual, I took the same route as I always did when I returned from work to home. Following that route made it seem like I was walking through a village. In that part, apartments were rarely seen and people preferred to live in single story houses.  It was mostly quiet unlike the bustling traffic of people and vehicles on the main roads.

Even that night, it was so quiet that the buzz of insects in the air, and the shaking of leaves in the wind could be heard. It was quieter than usual but that was to be expected since it was nearing midnight. The people probably had gone to bed early.

I reminded myself that I needed to be in bed as well, and told myself not to observe and examine every single detail. It was a habit that I had since I was little. When I was around my parents I would always ask them questions, and my curiosity never seemed to have a limit. The curious nature of mine, made me notice things that people missed through the habit of proper observation. But that night, I would have gladly traded anything not to have that habit and the ever-growing curiosity.

As I was hurrying past the rows of houses, I noticed one tiny detail, which others wouldn’t have cared to notice. One of the houses had its doors slightly open, and the curious devil inside me told me that something wasn’t right. Anyone else, would have given only a single glance before walking past the house. They wouldn’t have cared even if something was out of place. Mind your own business, people often said, but I believed it was my business once I could see it and knew it. And this house was tingling all of my senses that led my curiosity.

“Hello, is anyone home?” I pushed opened the door which had been left ajar, and a loud creak filled the silent night. The lights were out, yet the starry sky and the moonlight was enough to illuminate the sight in front of me.

I backed up, batting my eyelash once before falling onto my rear. I held up a hand against my mouth stopping myself before I could throw up. But that instant reaction proved to be useless as I felt the sandwich I ate on the way, rise up from my gut and pouring out as slimy liquid from my mouth. I backed away from the mess I made, but it surely wasn’t as bad compared to what lay before it.

A pool of red lay before me, and I knew what it was even before I smelled it or saw what was sprawled over it. Despite the lack of light, there was no mistaking that in the pool of blood was a body. Human, of course, and obviously very dead from the amount of blood that was on the floor. But out of habit, I noticed that the blood wasn’t dry yet very liquid, meaning that it was a fresh kill.

Another thought dawned on me, when I realized that the victim had been killed only recently. I put two and two together and deduced the reason for slightly open door. The murderer was looking for a quick and rushed escape, meaning that he or she was somewhere near here. If the murderer decided to rid of anyone who saw, namely me, what the murderer had done they had to just jump out of their hiding place and shoot me in the head.

That realization hit me quick and harder than any bullet could have and I was soon scrambling off the doorstep. Panic had grasped my movements and I was soon stumbling on my way out of there. I picked myself up again, and had hardly broken into a run when I heard an abrupt command been given. “Don’t take another step!” It said, and I heard a faint click that brings me to a stop. There was no mistaking that the sound was from a gun being pointed directly at me.

My heart started pounding crazily, and my brain ordered my legs to move. But fear had struck me and I found myself frozen unwilling to move. I had a feeling that if I obeyed my brain instead of the gun, my brain would be splatted over the road in a pool of red, just like the one in the house. So instead of finding a solution to my fast heartbeats, I give it more blood to pump faster, while I tried not to make a move.

I could hear the footsteps of the person with the gun, approaching me slowly. Each of those steps seems to vibrate in my ears very loudly, and a century seems to pass between each one of them. As they neared closer, I shut my eyes dreading that in a few moments I would never be able to open them again. I feel my body shudder at the thought. Even though the night was cool, I soon found myself sweating from anticipating the worst of what was about to come.

The footsteps came to a halt, right behind me, and I felt my heart skip a few hundred beats when the end of a gun was placed directly over my head. I tensed, knowing that the hand that was holding the gun, would now have a finger millimeters away from the trigger. I imagined the finger clenching onto the trigger and me falling dead with a single bang that would echo in the quiet street. I wouldn’t even have time to let out a scream, I thought as the impending moment seems to ticks closer in my mind.

But it didn’t come. There was no clench of the trigger, no bang, and definitely no sound of a limp body hitting the street. Seconds had passed since the moment the gun touched the back of my head, but nothing seemed to have happened. For a simple fleeting moment, I had a happy thought that I was probably imagining the gun and the voice. But before I could rejoice, I felt the gun press harder onto the back of my head and the same voice command me again, this time much closer to my ear.

“Turn around, nice and slowly”, the voice had said and I immediately hated myself for getting my hopes raised up. I should have known better than to have hoped that either my brain was making things up or the one with the gun was thinking of sparing me. My captor was obviously a homicidal maniac with a gun, wishing to kill another person before the night came to an end. And he probably wanted to make a work of art out of it, just like the corpse I had just witnessed.

But when I slowly turned around and came face to face with the murderer, I was shocked. I instinctively make noises of relief and confusion as I step away from the man with the gun. He wasn’t the murderer, at least that I could tell from his uniform. It took a few moments for me to realize what was happening and I soon my find my voice back.

“Thank god, you’re here officer!” I exclaim to the policeman who was still clutching the gun in his hand looking at me suspiciously. I was probably acting too funny for his liking because the more I inched closer towards him, the more edgy he became with his gun. I knew that if I didn’t quickly explain the predicament I was in, it would make no difference whether he was a murderer or a policeman, as either way I would end up with a bullet. Unless I explained.

“You got the wrong person, officer. It isn’t me. I didn’t kill that person. The real murderer should be somewhere near here. I swear it isn’t me. If you hurry you can still find him, the corpse had hardly gone cold, I’m sure he’ll be near”. I quickly explain to the policeman but he doesn’t answer for a while. It takes him a minute later to relax with his gun.

“I know, I believe you. So you better get out of here, I will handle the situation”. And when I kept staring at him dumbfounded, the policeman return to ordering me again. “Now go. Before he arrives and kills you too”. I didn’t need further encouragement as I had already broken into a run. I ran like I hadn’t done in years since my youthful days, and found that fear was a good fuel for a run, even for a man in his late thirties.

By the time I reached home, I was breathing heavily and my heart was pounding crazy. But at least this time the reason for my erratic heartbeat wasn’t fear. I was glad that my wife was sound asleep when I reached home because after what just happened I didn’t need an argument with her. If she had been awake I would have been asked to tell what had happened and she would have blamed my curiosity and nasty habit of close observation for the nightly event.

But as I prepared to get the sleep and rest I deserved, my mind replayed the events of the night and my curiosity and close observation soon had something strange to work on. “Why he did let me go?” I muttered to myself. Usually, seeing the circumstances I had been in, the policeman should have brought me in for questioning. After all, I had been found at the crime scene. “But he let me go”, meaning that he wasn’t a true policeman, at least not one who understood the proceedings of the police. But if the man wasn’t a policeman, who was he? The answer that came to my mind was too terrifying that I quickly shrugged of the thought and went to bed.

I fell asleep, knowing that sometime in the night, I would wake up with a nightmare about encountering a murderer, impersonating a policeman.