The Unlucky Burglar

This story was inspired by the idea of what would happen if someone broke into my house.

It was dark that moonless night and the wind bit at his skin.

Mookie was lost again. Typical. He had a map, he’d used his GPS, but from where he was standing, every single house looked the same. Red brick. White Shutters. Blue garage doors. Welcome to the vanilla suburbs, he thought to himself.

He was on a mission that night and needed to keep moving if he was going to accomplish anything before sunrise.

Mookie looked at his stylish watch (it was a Ralex, a fake) and it declared the time as 01:34 AM.

“Where is this damn place,” he muttered under his breath. Mookie was not a small man. He was six foot six and 280 pounds, his blood type was beef gravy.

He checked the map again.

The address he had been given was 1234 Rolling Road. He was on Rolling Road, but he couldn’t find 1234 anywhere.

This wasn’t even his heist, or his first heist for that matter. He had sworn off his criminal activities time and again, then his gambling and love/hate relationship with betting on the ponies forced him back into his past. There was a time when he was a successful cat burglar, one of the best. But if age and wisdom and especially the six years he’d spent behind bars had taught him anything, it was: Don’t get caught!

This time he’d really done it though, he’d borrowed money from the mob, and lost.

“You bet against the Harlem Globetrotters?” Large Antonio had asked incredulously.

“I thought the Generals were due to win one,” Mookie had replied. Now, if he didn’t get the Italians all the money he owed them in the next two days, he’d lose his fingers, then his hands, probably his head.

Desperate for a quick score, Mookie had hooked up with an old connect, Johnny Boy. Old JB gave him a lead on a house owned by an old lady in a quiet neighborhood that had a safe built into a wall behind a fake Monet. Not that Mookie could tell the difference between a Monet or a Manet, he’d just rip all old-looking paintings from the walls until one of them had a safe behind it. Bingo, bango, he’d crack the safe and take his score to the mob and pay his debt. Life saved.

First though, he’d have to find the damn house.

The neighborhood was lit with aging street lamps that buzzed and hummed over head. Small light snowflakes danced in the yellow glow of the street lights as he pushed on.

He’d been walking in circles for the past half hour and was starting to lose his patience and his faith in old JB. Had the old man given him a false lead?

Looking back at the map, Mookie wondered for the first time if he had written down the address correctly.

When he looked up, his eyes were drawn to the house number in front of him - it was 1324. That numerical combination seemed familiar. Made more sense than 1234, he thought to himself.

He looked around. All the lights in the neighboring houses were out. He was the only person on the darkened street. It was quiet, dark, perfect.

From what JB had said, he expected this to be a quick in-and-out. There was no alarm system, so he would tape up a glass panel on the back door and smash it in with his heavy flash light. Easy-peasy.

Snaking through the shadow of an old oak tree, Mookie crept up to the back gate of the pitch black house. He quietly opened the gate and walked up to the back door. In the backyard there were toys laying all over the ground. 

“I didn’t think there were supposed to be kids,” he muttered to himself as he stepped over them.

He dropped his satchel to the ground and began rooting through it. He pulled out white tape and the flashlight.

“This is gonna be no sweat,” he said as he whistled the theme song to the Andy Griffith’s Show. He slipped on a pair of black leather gloves.

Smash! The glass panel crackled into little shards and he carefully reached in with his hand and popped the lock.

“And that’s how you do it.” He smiled to himself. He turned the knob and switched on his flashlight, then slowly, cautiously made his way inside. He closed the door behind him. Wiped his feet.

The first thing he noticed right away was the scent of cigarette smoke. It was in the furniture, the walls, the curtains, Mookie had to cover his mouth when he coughed.

The back door led to a short set of stairs which led into a small, white kitchen.

He left the kitchen and walked out into a simple living room. He flashed his light on the walls and searched for the Monet. The walls were covered with pictures, but no paintings. All of the furniture was covered in blankets. Where is that painting? he had thought to himself as he moved through the old house.

As he walked up a small hallway that led to three shut doors, a picture on the wall caught his attention.

He shined the light on it.

“That’s a big ass dog,” he uttered. The dog was wearing a cowboy hat.

Say hello to my "little" friend.

Then Mookie turned to go down the hallway.

“That’s a big ass dog!” he cried as a giant white Great Pyrenees appeared out of nowhere.

Mookie just about crapped his pants.

The dog looked him in the eye and cowered. It slunk to the floor, it’s tail between it’s legs. It was scared.

“Hey there fella,” Mookie said. “I won’t hurt you.”

The dog looked up, eyes full of fear. Mookie reached out, placed his hands on the dogs head, gave it a small pat. The tail began to wag, it made a thumping noise when it smacked the wooden floor.

“Shush,” he said to the dog. “Don’t make a sound.” The dog stopped wagging it’s tail. “You’re a nice boy.”

The dog got to his feet and jumped on Mookie. It gave him a big slurpy kiss.

The white dog was so huge, it pushed Mookie off-balance and he clumsily fell back onto a blanket-covered couch.

“Bark! bark!”

Mookie crashed down on top of another dog. The dog had been sleeping and Mookie had awoken the little beast when he fell upon it.

His bite is worse than his bark.

The curly haired dog stood about waist high, his eyes were covered with fur, he smelled old.

“It’s okay,” the man told the near-deaf dog. When he reached out his hand, the dog bit him. Hard.

“Stop that!” Mookie cried. The dog bit him again. This time harder than the first time. “That hurts!” His teeth were sharp, his breath was wretched.

The giant white dog jumped up on the couch, tried to climb into Mookie’s lap.

“Get out of here!” Mookie hissed at the dog. Looking shocked, the dog jumped from his lap and gave him a good kick in the nuts. 

Mookie dropped the flash light. It switched off.

The small dog attacked him, ripped his flesh. Blood dripped from his wrists and down his slick gloves.

Mookie got up from the couch and headed blindly down the hallway. The big goofy dog followed him and slammed him into the wall. He saw stars and might have dislocated his shoulder.

To escape the dogs, he opened one of the doors. It led into a bedroom and he entered it quick. He closed the door behind him. The small dog wouldn’t quit barking.

“Shut up,” Mookie called through the door.

He looked around the dark room as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Hazy orange light from the street lamps came through the window and lit up the bed, where a grey-haired lady lay face down on the bed, head buried in a pillow.

“Oh crap,” he whispered. He was screwed. On the bedside table there was a glass with dentures in it. Next to the glass was a pair of hearing aids. The lady was deaf. “Thank god for small favors.”

Why are you running? I just want to eat you.

Mookie moved to the window and tried to open it with no luck. The windows had bars on the outside! The only way out, was back down the hallway, where the big dumb dog and the angry little one awaited. Mookie wasn’t sure which one was the more dangerous of the two. Either way he wasn’t getting out there without being bit, scratched or worse.

He opened the door and peered out. There was no sign of the dogs.

“Perfect,” he muttered as he left the safety of the bedroom. He made his way back down the hall. He took a left into the kitchen and was greeted by the big fluffy dog, who bowed down, and acted ready for a play. Mookie slid by the big goofy dog and tried to make his way out the back door. Screw the painting, he thought to himself. He just wanted to get out of there before he was mauled to death.

The little dog was waiting by the door. And he was angry. Real angry. Spitting mad, in fact.

The Terrier backed him up against a door. He bit his thigh and Mookie cried out in pain. He fought against the bite, but the dog was relentless. Mookie began to tear up. He tried to escape. He was getting woozy from blood loss. Behind him there was a door. He turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Through the dim light, he could see stairs that led down to a furnished basement.

He closed the door behind him and got away from the vicious dog, who continued to bark in his absence.

Though Mookie considered himself an animal lover and would never hurt an animal for no reason, he was going to need something to beat that dog with, otherwise he was never going to get out of that place alive.

The meanest of them all.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he heard a low deep growling. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a huge black dog with blood red eyes, a hellhound, standing around the corner. Seeing Mookie the big black dog began to bark and lunge. He charged Mookie. The big man turned and ran back up the stairs. The black dog bit his ass and tore a hole in his jeans. Mookie cried for mercy.

At the top of the steps, there was a cat. A big fuzzy cat.

“Move!” Mookie said and kicked at the cat. The cat deftly moved out of the way, then turned and sliced Mookie across the left achilles with his sharp claws.

“Christ!” cried the unlucky burglar. He smashed his way out the basement, bashed the terrier out of his way and ran from the back door of the house without ever looking back. He tossed the map with the address 1234 Rolling Road into the wind and ran out the back gate and into the street.

His hands were covered in blood, his ankle hurt so much he limped. His shoulder was sore, his jeans were ripped, he was covered in bruises and bites. And he didn’t have the score. He was a dead man.

“I think it’s time for me to move to another city,” he said as he jumped into his rusty blue Dodge Neon and fired up the engine.

As Mookie drove far away from that crazy house, he vowed once again, to never commit another crime.