What I remember about last night

Stephanie has given an overview of last night and stated that I would give a more detailed account. So here is what I remember.

I remember going to bed in the second bedroom (I snore loudly and often keep Stephanie up, when we sleep in the same room), and the next thing I remember is Stephanie telling me to get out of the house. And like any concerned husband I immediately asked "Why?" To which Stephanie answered that they smelled gas. I am never quite with it, when I first wake up, so I wasn't really paying attention to the smell of gas. I got dressed fearing that by turning on a light, I would blow up the house. I turned on our light anyway, just to make sure. To my relief I did not blow up the house. I left the house, and found everyone gathered out by the firetruck. I could no longer smell the gas over the smell of the firetrucks diesel. We waited while the police and firemen investigated what the cause of the problem was. Shortly thereafter the policeman took off (we later found out that there had been 2 calls about a prowler in the neighborhood behind ours). After about an hour and a half we found out that some one had doused our lawn with gasoline. So we went back to bed, with fumes still in the air, thinking someone had just pulled a malicious prank on us.

After we woke up, we found out the extent of the dousing. Apparently someone had poured gas all over the front lawn, all over the bushes right in front of the house, as well as the grass right in front of the side door (the door that Steph and I use to go in and out of the house), and in the drain right in front of the door. Thus it seems as if they were trying to block all the exits from the house.

So looking back at the situation as a whole, it appears that whoever did this used plenty of gas (we estimate at least 10 gal.), and had a plan. (blocking all the entrances, and they would have made several trips to wherever they had the gas for the amount of gas that was poured) They also didn't care who they killed apparently. As far as knowledge of the family, they obviously don't know us very well, because if the didn't they would have known that someone was usually up at 4am on Saturday nights.

At this point we have our suspicions about who it was (there is only one person we can think of who would want to do this. And they already have a criminal record.) The problem at this point, now that the fumes are gone, is whether the person is willing to come back to finish the deed. That's the scariest part. We are pretty sure that they got scared away, because Steph's aunt woke up from the fumes and turned on lights. Our fear is that they will come back, having learned from the experience. So as we pray for safety at night, we really, really mean it.