Late Night Serenade

I have to admit I've never wanted to put an animal out of its misery more than I did last night. We have been having some lovely monsoons but they usually keep themselves to late afternoon-early evening. However, last night we had a DOWNPOUR that lasted several hours. After falling into a fitfull sleep because of all the lightening and thunder, I woke up at 1:30 to the most obnoxious, loud sound. I wasn't even quite sure what it was that was making the sound because it was so rhythmic that I figured it must be a machine. But it sounded like it was in my backyard, so how could it be a machine? After looking out the windows and seeing nothing to confirm the machine idea, I decided I needed to investigate further. Keep in mind, it's pouring rain and there is NO WAY I'm going out there to see if it's an animal. It could have been a bobcat, a mountain lion (remote, but still a possibility) a javelina, or even just an extremely loud frog. (The rain pounding on the roof and the thunder were making it hard to actually place the sound. All I know is it was LOUD!!!) As I searched for a powerful enough flashlight to shine out in the backyard, I saw two of my neighbor's lights go on, so I knew that this poor creature was keeping more than just myself awake. Anyway, long story short, I shined the light out in the backyard and the noise stopped. I didn't see anything, but whatever it was saw me because it stopped...bawling? Would that be the right word to describe the sound. When I turned the light off, it started it all up again. We played this cat and mouse game a couple of times and then I decided that shining my flashlight really wasn't doing anything and that I'd better just go back to bed because I certainly wasn't going to venture out in the rain at 1:30 in the morning when it could be any number of creatures. I ended up listening to it for about an hour until the rain let up a little and it stopped making noise...or moved to another place to make noise...or I just finally was so extremely exhausted that my body just let me sleep through it. I love to see the wildlife around here, but seriously, I hope that whatever that was NEVER comes back.