A couple of weeks go by and nothing happens. I had just chalked up my experience to an overactive imagination which in my case is very likely 99.9999% of the time; when the weirdness started to crank up again.

One lonely and mildly depressing Friday night I'm talking to my kids on the phone when I hear something in my apartment. It is right at dusk so I am nowhere near the crazy hours of midnight to 3 morning (I don't know why I consider those the crazy hours - I just do). Still the world has a different look to it at dusk, doesn't it? Everything is just a little off. Shadows don't form right; you can't quite see as good as a few minutes ago and everything kinda glows a little bit. I am currently reading Stephen King's collection of short stories called Just After Sunset where he believes (or pretends to believe) that the crazy minutes are right after sunset and I tend to believe that also. To me it is when other "beings" start looking for a way into our world - again my looney notion that light helps keep them away comes into play here - but can't quite make it until after midnight.

Back on subject - I'm sitting there letting the voices of my little people envelop me when I hear this rustling. This sound brings me out of this blissful world of children speak to the odd world of my apartment at dusk with no other natural light than that and the ever changing glow of the TV - always on. I look around to try and find the source this rustle and to my astonishment I see a bird flying around my apartment. Now I no longer hear the enchanted singing of my fairy princess but am engrossed in this flying dinosaur in my abode and let my munchkins go with our customary "I love yous" and "I miss yous".

I walk to my dining room light to try and get a better perspective of the goings on in my apartment. I flip the switch and illuminate the place only to be further amazed. I immediately notice that the creature flying about trying desperately to find its way out is no bird at all. No - it is a bat. Not thinking too much of it other than I need to get this pesky critter out of my living quarters, I open the front door. As if reading my mind, the bat flys directly into the hallway of the apartment building. I shut my door and walk a few paces to the end of the hallway where there is a window without a screen (frequently these windows are open but not tonight). I open it to let my frantic buddy out so he can feast on the world of flying insects.

I walk back into my apartment excited that I have just had a one on one encounter with a bat. My exburence is short lived though as another thought enters my head - where exactly did mini Dracula come from? After two exhaustive searches around my apartment I could find no entrance. My front door was firmly shut with no gaps. All my windows were shut with no openings. All stove and water piping was properly shut and/or sealed so I was befuddled.

Then I noticed that there is about a two inch gap at the bottom of the locked closet door in the second bedroom.

Read part 5 here

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