Too Many Movies?

A few minutes ago I'm sitting at my desk in my bedroom, happily playing email Scrabble, when I hear footsteps underneath my window. Ask anyone who knows my backyard, and they'll tell you it's creepy at night. It's gigantic, and extremely dark, and lined with shrubbery around the entire fence that protrudes a good 10 feet into the yard.

I know I heard the footsteps, because my desk is right up against the window and my window is open. So despite the fact that I can't see shit because it's too dark (I never shut my blinds), I hear them and I stop. I perk up. The footsteps stop, then I hear them again, very distinctly the sound of two heavy feet walking on the dead leaves, going in the opposite direction. And it truly sounds like they're about 4 feet from my window. I have a door in my room that goes into the back yard as well, so first thing I do is look over at the door to make sure it's locked.

My roommate Garrett has a telescope he likes to take out into the backyard sometimes, so I leave my room and go knock on his door, thinking maybe it's him outside messing around, but he answers from inside his room, so obviously it's not him. However, he decides to go investigate with me.

I grab a hammer and a flashlight and we go outside. We scour the entire backyard and of course find nothing, but I swear to god it was not my imagination. Yes, I looked at about a hundred videos of ghosts today and watched Session 9 tonight, which was creepy as shit, but I heard it, and I stand by my story.

Both sides of the backyard have big gates, and the one on the north side is always standing open, and fairly secluded by a garage apartment (and that person has moved out, so I know it wasn't her; it's empty right now), but it's still there. Yesterday I saw two homeless people walking down the street, the state hospital is 3 blocks away, and a couple months ago, as I rounded the corner onto my street riding my bike home from work late one night, some cops had the entrance to the street from the main road blocked off and several cops were walking up and down my street with their flashlights. I didn't ask any questions; I just went inside and made sure all the doors were locked.

So even though it was probably nothing, it's not completely ridiculous that someone could have been in the backyard. And I'm still sleeping with the hammer next to my bad tonight.