The Book of Ashes

Midnight alarm... 9:59PM

So its midnight Sunday, we're asleep in bed, resting for the coming week at work and we are awoken to a loud alarm. It sounds like its coming from out front of the house or close by. We get up, groggy from sleep, put a dressing gown on and wonder downstairs. The noise gets louder, a lot louder, our flatmate Ed is out on the stairs, he says something about the alarm box being in his wardrobe and it was keeping him awake (buzzing) so he went to open it to see if he could turn it off and it went off instead. So just a little backgound, this is the alarm system that has not been used for 6 years, we've never used it, didn't even know it worked, its midnight, theres speakers in his room and the lounge, the noise is ear splitting, I open the door to go in and have a look then close it again, it hurts my ears, and did I mention its midnight? Theres also a flashing light on the front of our house, the whole neighbourhood is probably awake. We ring the number on the alarm panel (different from the box Ed opened) and they tell us, sorry we discontinued this service 6 years ago, we should ring the landlord, we're about to do that when it stops. I think it went for 5 mins. I was thoughouly awake by then.