[ WP ] Out of nowhere , you find yourself being haunted . It is not however a traditional spirit : It 's the animal you accidentally ran over a few weeks ago

[ Part I ] ( https: //www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/48cqgz/wp_something_invisible_lives_in_your_home_you_try/d0is2l4 ) 
 
 Promptly at 6:59 AM on a mostly-regular but still somehow peculiar Wednesday in that same old house on that same old street, Albert woke with a start. 
 
 As was usual in his house, it was silent and for a full blinking minute, Albert wondered to himself whether last night's haunting encounter had been a particularly strange dream or whether it had actually happened. Upon looking around his room and not finding sign of Marbles, the feline that had fallen asleep on his chest, he found himself feeling sad rather than relieved. _I was beginning to like that cat_, he thought. Still, dreams have been said to change someone's mind; all it takes is a night. 
 
 _Might as well have a look then_, he continued to think, as he whipped off his bed sheet and stuffed his feet once again into his bunny slippers and went out to look for the morning papers. Of course, he would head straight for the funnies; world news was of little interest to him. 
 
 Standing in his bathrobe, bunny slippers, paper tucked under one arm and the other scratching a rear cheek, Albert surveyed the street. The neighborhood was fairly quiet. And this was as it should have been. It was why he chose this street. Peace. Tranquility. And a beautiful lack of loud-mouthed children who were always playing their drums, and listening to music without a proper set of headphones. 
 
 Albert looked over at his car and noticed the chrome bumper of his little green Dutsun 510. It had been his father's car and it was a good thing his father was n't around to see the shape it was in now. Not that it was in terrible shape, no -- Albert saw to that on a weekly basis at the local Car Wash Palace -- but more so because there was an awful dent smack dab in the middle of the bumper. This caused the car to look as if it were in constant pain, which Albert did not doubt it was. _I'll fix you up soon, old girl. You'll see. That horrible thing just appeared out of nowhere, I swear it._ The car did not change its expression. 
 
 By the time 7:05 rolled around, Albert had all but forgotten about last night's strange encounter ( he chalked it up to a dream ), the missing cat ( as it turns out, it was quite nearby ) and the painful dent in the Datsun ( we'll get to that soon ). He was drinking some orange juice and eating a powdered donut while sitting in his favorite chair, in front of his favorite TV, which was playing his favorite morning News program. In his lap was the newspaper opened to the funny section. When there was no show and there were no commercials on TV that he liked in particular, he would read another funny while he waited for something good to come back on. That was when he heard the noise he _had_ in fact forgotten. 
 
 _Thump-thump-thump-thump_ 
 _Thump-thump_ 
 _Thump-thump-thump_ 
 
 Orange juice tipped to his lips, Albert did n't move a muscle, save for the muscles in his eyes which swiveled slowly around to look for the source of that sound. Suddenly it occurred to Albert that he had n't forgotten that sound at all, but that it had come from his dream last night. Or what was supposed to be his dream. It did n't matter. What was important was that it was probably just that silly old cat again and he would have to shoo it out. But wait. Did he have to shoo it away so fast? Maybe things could be the way they were in his dream last night. Maybe -- 
 
 _Thump-thump-thump_ 
 
 _Probably just the cat_, Albert thought weakly. He thought back to what had happened in the dream -- how he had n't been brave like he'd always imagined he would be in such an encounter but instead had been terribly frightened -- but at least it was just a dream. What was odd was that dreams were n't supposed to come true. What was even more odd was that if the dream were coming true, the sound should be staying upstairs the entire time while the invisible thing was searching for... whatever the hell it was bloody well searching for. _What was it? _ He could n't remember. All he knew was that time, the sound was n't coming from upstairs, the sound was coming from right behind him. And it was getting closer. 
 
 Using the noses of his bunny slippers, Albert caused his chair to swivel around and face the approaching noises. To his great relief, he saw nothing approaching him. To the utter devastation of that relief, something spoke. 
 
 `` This the one, Gerald?'' It had a deep, gravely voice that seemed to be coming out of nowhere, and that nowhere was only a couple of feet from the ground. 
 
 `` Oh yeah. Him's the one who done took old Nudgy from us.''
