“Gotta use your restroom, honey,” she said in her soft but commanding voice, slinking with feline grace into the downstairs lavatory and closing the door with a thud. Walter shivered and thought about the news reports Lorraine had been watching incessantly; the accounts of the brutal, bloody murders that had drawn a pall over the city.
For a moment there he had honestly feared for his life, but of course that was patently ridiculous. Kat was tiny; if she was five feet, two inches tall he would eat his hat. There was no possible way that petite little hooker was going to do any damage to him; not at six-two. He probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds or more. Even though he was rapidly approaching sixty years of age, Walter knew he had nothing to fear from his houseguest. He tried to chuckle at the lunacy of his mounting fear and the attempt died in his suddenly dry and scratchy throat.
In the bathroom, Kat was changing her clothes, she must be, because Walter could hear her moving around. But how could that be? She had tossed her purse on the table, it was right next to him, and there were certainly no pockets in her leather outfit big enough to store a change of clothes, of that Walter was certain. I should know, he thought, I spent enough time staring at that catsuit.
The racket in the downstairs bathroom continued. In fact, if anything, it seemed to be growing louder and more out of control. Was something wrong with Kat? Was she sick? Suffering from convulsions? Good Christ, what if she died in his house? How in the hell would he ever explain that to Lorraine?
Walter crept to the closed door as quietly as he could and listened. He thought he could hear furtive scratching, almost as if some small animal was trapped in his bathroom, which of course was impossible. He had seen Kat disappear into the room just ninety seconds ago, and he certainly didn’t own any pets. They were smelly and needy and messy and he refused to have them in his house—There! There it was! The scratching noise again, and this time it was joined by what sounded like a soft panting. What the—?
“Kat? Are you all right?” Walter’s voice was shaking and realized he had been holding his breath as he listened at the door.
Silence
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The panting and scratching continued unabated.
“What the hell is going on in there?”
Nothing.
“Goddammit, I want to know right now what the hell you’re up to! You can’t just come into my home and destroy things!”
No answer.
“Kat, you answer me right now or I’m coming in there in about five seconds, and you don’t want that, believe me!” By now, Walter was furious as well as terrified. Whatever was happening in that bathroom was not normal and was definitely not what he had envisioned when he picked up this clearly insane Kat person.
Still no response, but now Walter was convinced the panting coming from the bathroom was louder than it had been just seconds ago. He had a sudden, vivid vision of something otherworldly poised just inches away, on the other side of the door, ear pressed up against the oak surface just as his was. Startled by the thought, he jumped back, smashing into the hallway wall and bruising his lower back.
A roaring noise filled Walter’s ears. His panic was now complete. He was panting just as hard as whatever lurked on the other side of the bathroom door. He wondered if he was having a stroke and pictured Lorraine rushing home because he wasn’t answering the phone and finding him lying face down on the hallway floor.
“SAY SOMETHING,” he screamed, and when he received no response, as he knew he would not, Walter grabbed the brass bathroom doorknob and flung the door open and froze, staring in open-mouthed horror at a five-foot tall leopard crouched on the floor in full stalking mode. The feral beast was completely motionless, glaring at him with eerily intelligent eyes.
Wide green eyes.
Kat’s wide green eyes.
A scream bubbled up from Walter’s throat; it exploded out of his mouth at a volume he hadn’t known he was capable of producing. The big cat’s tongue lolled out of its’ huge mouth as it panted, staring at Walter with—and this was impossible, but this whole goddamned horrifying thing was impossible, so why not?—mocking green eyes.
Then it struck, springing at Walter with deadly grace, its razor-sharp claws extended. Its front paws landed squarely on his chest, knocking him to the floor and shattering his glasses as his head smashed off the tile. Their now-bent frames skittered into the kitchen.
Walter screamed again, but only for half a second. The sound was silenced as the huge cat ripped his throat out, sending blood squirting majestically down the hallway, splattering onto the hardwood floor in random delicate patterns.
The gigantic paws ripped down Walter’s body, tearing off long strips of skin as he kicked and bucked, wildly at first, then not so enthusiastically, then not at all. His now-unseeing eyes stared up at the hallway ceiling, where, incredibly, a splash of his blood had formed a passable imitation of a bulls-eye.
It was over in a matter of seconds, although it probably seemed much longer to Walter. The big leopard stood next to the dead body, staring at it as if assessing the damage, before stalking purposefully back into the bathroom.
Seconds later Kat exited, picking her way daintily around the hideously disfigured body of her latest victim, careful not to step in any of the blood and leave a footprint that might be traced. Her tawny hair flowed behind her as she moved through the living room and lifted her purse delicately off the coffee table, then walked out the front door. She double-checked to be sure it was locked from the inside before pulling it firmly closed behind her. After all, you couldn’t be too careful. The city was a dangerous place.
Finally she turned and strutted unseen down the street, moving with her unusual feline gait toward the red light district and anonymity.
Heart and Sole
There’s no such thing as the perfect crime, although that fact doesn’t ever seem to stop people from trying to commit it. But if you have an air-tight alibi, if you’re hundreds of miles away in front of dozens of witnesses when your spouse dies, and she dies of natural causes anyway, doesn’t that seem to come pretty close to qualifying as the perfect crime? That’s the premise of “Heart and Sole,” which began its existence as a three thousand word short story told in the third-person perspective. After I finished writing it, I thought it would be perfect for a charity anthology being put together by Shroud Publishing called NORTHERN HAUNTS, benefiting cancer research. The only problem was the publisher wanted flash-fiction stories of 750 words or less, told from the first person perspective. I went back to the drawing board and reworked the story and I believe the result was a stronger story than the original. NORTHERN HAUNTS was released in January, 2009.
I hadn’t always wanted to kill my wife. There was a time when we were quite the happy couple, of that I am certain, even if I can’t put my finger on exactly when that time was. Everything changed, though, after Debra moved in next door.
Debra Janet Morgan was her name, and she was everything Marion was not. Deb was young and beautiful, while Marion was older and plain. She was funny and outgoing and socially graceful, Marion being quiet and shy and clumsy. After starting my affair with the alluring young beauty, it became patently obvious that my wife and I no longer had a future together.
Debra was newly single, living off the support payments of her bond-trader ex-husband, who was slaving away down in Boston’s financial district. She had nothing to do and wasn’t one to spend her days lazing around the house; at least not by herself and not fully clothed.