This short story was my final project for my penultimate semester, and with my earlier project being a dark fantasy (to be posted eventually), I wanted to take the opportunity to not only experiment with genre, but also perspective and emotion. Twisty narratives that pull back the curtain on something mental are cliché (thanks Fight Club), but I still wanted to take my own brief crack at it. In horror, I like to go for the unsettling, if not downright cruel, emotional torture that is upturned by the end. There is a particular incident herein that some classmates found distasteful, while others, my professor, felt it was imperative for the main character’s drive. I wanted grief, or the horrors of loss and loneliness, to be the central motif around which the action and resolution gravitate. Much of this stems from personal experience, namely with the loss of my cat Dante in 2018, along with other, more broad emotional desolations. Thanks for reading.
The cat purrs atop the cloud of off-white pillows, her tail swishing against the floral lace framing each square. She narrows her orange-green eyes, twists her head down, contorting into a sinewy puzzle of fluff and stuff. A hand comes down like a gliding butterfly upon her head, cupping her scalp horizontally then stroking her back. Her purr, at once soft and quaking, reduces the strokes to slower, gentler caresses.
“Oh Pan,” soothes the voice of the hand.
Pan twists again, this time back into the full shape of what a cat should be. She rises on four delicate gray legs, extending them like elastic stilts as she wrings the sleep from them. She yawns, her prickly tongue curling outward like an agitated hedgehog. Her head nuzzles underhand, walking, letting it slide down her neck, her spine, before gracefully circling off her striped tail.
The hand rises from Pan’s gray head, a delicate sprinkle of fur floating back to land on her head like an astronaut on the moon. The hand, a left one, has a rose gold band on the ring finger, shining, pristine. The fingernails are painted a dulling black, cracking, revealing the pink-white of keratin beneath. The palm is soft, not disused, but free of hard labor nonetheless. It levitates to stroke errant black-brown locks from covering a pair of ocean green eyes, both pooling into darker blues at their centers.
Pan gently half-hops, her head bopping the base of the left hand’s wrist, demanding further affection. Her purrs hum as the hand resumes its ebb and flow. The ticking of a watch pokes between the mellow rise and fall of Pan’s content humming. It sits on the worn oak of a side table, it’s crystal face reflecting the tame glow of the lamp above it. The silver plating is dull with age, with light scratches intercut across its segments. It was once impressive, worn with pride. The hand pauses to consider the ticking. The right hand reaches across the empty side of the queen bed. It scoops the watch as if it were made of air and glass. The palm shifts subtly, flipping it facedown, revealing the reflective underbelly. Unlike the rest of itself, the underside was unblemished, its steel beaming with polish. The top of its circumference is etched with a delicate font: Love You Forever.
The right hand trembles, a layer of sweat forming beneath the watch’s warming metal. The pulse beneath it all quickens with panic. Both hands rise, curving to the shape of the head above, the fingers curving into anguishing hooks. The seagreen in the eyes ripples, alive with water that now spills through a dam of lashes. Pan cocks her head, issuing an indignant squeak at the sudden lack of affection, then flutters her ears as a tear plops on her nose. With uncommonly human touch, she reaches a pink-beaned paw up to bat a twisting strand of hair. The left hand reaches down to run its index finger across Pan’s cheek, then retracts beneath a quivering chin.
The whole of the feminine body turns to its side, facing the other side of the bed, the right hand stretching through the emptiness. The fingers compress then shift into a knife-like shape that begins to slide across the comforter with a languishing grace. It stops to rest, the bones under the skin contracting and expanding as if riding the breath of a ghost. It pauses then runs along the faint impression of a body, the shape of grief. The hand softly wilts into a fist, resting on the empty pillow.
The ring of a phone blasts through the silence like a train through a still night. A startled Pan darts off the bed. The phone continues to ring, its tone shrill, irritating, then ceases. The answering machine clicks on, its single beep trilling through the quiet ringing’s wake.
[Minnie, it’s me], a woman’s voice coated with electronic fuzz. [I’m worried about you. I haven’t seen you since the funeral. It’s been two months, sweetie… I hope you’re eating, I’m glad that cat of yours is there. At least you’re not alone. Please call me…]
The woman’s tone, cautious, hangs in the air for a second before another sonorous beep closes the message. Minnie, properly Minerva, lets the answering machine click off while Pan rustles with what is likely a plastic bag under the bed. Minerva finally sighs. Her right hand smooths away the salt under her eyes. She sniffles, twists her full lips into an angle of a smile, then allows herself a chuckle. The first modicum of a joy in weeks, its arrival a mystery. Minerva covers her mouth with the tips of her fingers, as if hushing herself; happiness was a passing fancy.
A feeling, just a feeling, like a door left slightly open on a cold day, creeps across the lilac carpet, under the off-white bed skirt, up Pan’s pink nose, then settles down her spine, playing her vertebrae like a hollow xylophone. Her hiss stabs into the wood of the door, lancing into the blackness of the hallway beyond. Minerva tenses upon hearing her cat’s hiss, then crawls to the foot of the bed. Pan is four feet from the door, her back arcing with apprehension, her whole self a low rumbling…fear. There is something behind the door.
She hisses again, the piercing breath of her threat spears under the door, stopping at…something. Minerva wrings her hands, each slick with anxiety, each squeezing over the other in a nervous game of leapfrog. She bends down to touch Pan, but the movement causes the bed to slightly protest, sending Pan back under the bed, once again taking viscous shape among clutter. She flattens her head against the floor, her superb vision searches the darkness visible under the door. Pan’s fur rises electric down her back as the something, the shape of its feet unknown against the blackness, moves past the door.
Minerva steps down from the bed, her toes, also painted black and cracking, curl into the soft lilac of the carpet. She shuffles them across the carpet, her clammy feet leaving a tense slick across the fibers like an oozy snail.
“Pan..what is it?”
She presses her left palm against the eggshell white of the wood. On the other side, the unmistakable sound of a fingernail skating across wood startles her. She backs away, her breaths frequent, rapid, scared. The doors were locked, the windows locked, it was as much a fortress as any house could be. In this quiet, there was no possibility a breaking window could go unheard. The fingernail was joined by what sounded like two more, the trio skating an unsettling pattern up and down the door. A fourth joins the synchrony of digits, only briefly, as the quartet itches down the length of the door.
The four wrap under the door, each long, slight tufts of red-black hair at the midjoint, human. Another quartet of fingers slides under the door, two feet from their counterparts. A gentle thud, the squish of two thumbs finishing the hands’ grip. They tense in unison, shaking the door from the bottom up. Minerva screams, falls back on the bed, the shaking stops, the fingers withdraw, then all is quiet. Minerva huffs.
“I’m losing my fucking mind…”
She lifts herself from the bed, shaking her head in disbelief at her apparent cabin fever, as she flips the light switch in her master bathroom. The room is a soft blue, made softer still by the clement lighting, a trio of moon-like wall lamps on the angular walls. Stopping at the leftmost of the two sinks, Minerva turns the cold water dial, its stainless steel layered with fingerprints. She pauses to consider a pill bottle tipped to its side, then smacks it off the counter. Folding her hands, she splashes the coolness across her face, sucking the wet off her lips as she does. Her seagreen eyes meet her own gaze in the mirror, her brown-black hair pasted to her forehead by sweat.
“I need to get the fuck outta here…”
The sound of fingernails against drywall startles her, wheeling her around to face the opposite wall, itself running parallel to the main hallway. The finger-skating this time was slower, heavier, louder. Minerva leaps across the smooth blue-white tile, slapping the switch off. The nails move past the bathroom wall, over the bedroom wall, onto the door again, then down the hallway. Pan rumbles a warning from under the bed. Losing my mind, Minerva repeats in her head. She glides across the lilac carpet to her bedside table, clicks the brightness on her lamp down once, then takes up the watch in both hands, holding it tight against her chest, its ticking in tandem with her heartbeat. Her walk is cautious as she approaches the bedroom door. Her right hand uncoils from the watch to hover, shaking, before the worn brass doorknob. She exhales then turns it.
The hallway is a void, the warm dim from her bedside lamp allowing only thin fangs of light to creep into the blackness. She dares to poke her head out, the rest of her body resting on the inside of the door, the watch pressing tight over her heart. She breathes, the hallway swallows it. She pushes the door wide, the dim forming an orange rectangle against the opposite wall. Minerva tiptoes down the hallway, her left palm firmly sliding against the wall for security. As she nears the stairwell the soft glow dissipates back into a void. She peers down the stairwell, its blackness impenetrable. She places her left hand on the tip of the oak bannister. At the other end, she feels the vibration of another hand twisting around the wood. Her hand recoils. Losing my mind.
“Is…is anyone there?,” the skeleton of a sound.
The blackness at the bottom of the stairs whispers: “Yes.”
A heavy foot, a boot, lands on the bottom stair, then the second, the third.
Minerva whirls around, her hands hugging her face to suppress any noise. The watch, warmed by her fear, ticks against her cheek, sticking between her teeth.
The fourth stair. The fifth stair.
As she approaches the saving glow of her bedroom, she catches a blur of white. Pan! Minerva half-whirls, trying to snatch the cat, but she darts through her hands grasp with a vacuum of hurried air.
The sixth stair. The seventh stair, stopping.
Pan mad dashes to the stairwell. The air is thick with fear, with darkness. Her lithe body taut with panic. She stops midway down the flight, the something is there! The cat begins to contort in an attempt to reverse before a wide hand closes around her ribs.
The eighth stair. The ninth stair. The tenth…
Pan scratches madly at the hand, hissing, spitting, screaming. Biting, so much biting. The grip tightens around her. Minerva finally screams from her bedroom door, her right hand clawing into the darkness for Pan.
The eleventh stair. The twelfth stair. Stop.
The phone is behind her. She could get there in time if she shut the door…but Pan. She can’t leave Pan. Minerva squints into the void, towards the end of the hallway, her eyes finally adjusting. There, at the top of the stairs, is a figure, the dark silhouette wreathed in a darker darkness. She sees Pan, squirming in the grip of a massive hand.
“Let her go!”
The blackness at the top of the stairs whispers: “Here.”
The grip on Pan tightens like a python. She squeals in agony. Ribs crunch. Air and blood rushes from her mouth in a death tide. Pan goes limp, her tiny paws twitching with the last impulses of life. The blackness grabs her by the tail, spins her once over its monolithic shoulder, then flings her limply down the hallway.
Minerva sprints from the light of the bedroom, the metal of her watch strapped around her right knuckle. Her body lurches past the guest room, the guest bathroom, an unused nursery. She screams at the blackness, a savage scream, a bellow unleashing an unbearable weight of loss. No, no, no…not Pan too. She reaches the top of the stairs, then falls through the blackness, flipping over and over down the entire flight.
The watch skitters across the hardwood landing, disappearing into the shadows. The wind rushes from her, her frame unable to retake it. Her hands claw at her chest. The pain is searing, everywhere. There’s a metallic tang on her tongue. She turns on her side, slowly, then rolls on her belly, pulling her body along the hardwood. Her left hand searches the shadows, finally touching carpet. The right cradles her ribs, doing all it can to pressure the pain inward. She rises halfway, her knees bent, her toes searching the carpet for a wall. She knows this place, even in darkness. The kitchen should be five feet to the left. To the right is the living room, which she passes now, while she feels eyes bore into her as she enters the open doorway to the kitchen.
Minerva gropes for the light switch, finding that it has been torn from the wall. She feels for the cold marble top of the island. The window above the sink allows a sliver of moonlight to illuminate the knife set, their handles glinting in the pale light. She maneuvers around the island, ever aware of staying faced to the living room. She finds the knife handles, her fingers searching the curvature of each to ensure she makes the right selections: the butcher and the cleaver. She takes the deepest breath she has ever mustered and turns to face the living room.
Before her a red light gradually illuminates. The radio. A droning synthesizer swells from the speakers in unison with the brightening red. The dials glow like cat eyes, while their muted crimson sneaks up the white of the wall, staining it pink. The same red plays across Minerva’s face, darkening the blood on her forehead, nose and mouth into a shimmering black. She gasps as the synthesizer swells again. The light from the radio shifts to a brighter red. Across the room, in a corner untouched by the blaring red, a pair of eyes, green as rot, stab through the light and sound. Minerva looks from the eyes of the blackness, then in the direction of the hallway leading to the front door, then returns her gaze to where the eyes lurk. Gone. She steps forward, her bare right foot cracking on glass. She recoils at the sound. Keeping her attention forward, she kneels down, setting the cleaver at her feet, then picks up the picture frame. It’s her, beaming, wrapped in another’s embrace, their face obscured by cracked glass, both in cheap Halloween costumes. In her hands is a tiny puff of gray-white, a kitten.
She brings the handle of the butcher knife up to her chest, the cleaver swaying next to her left hip, the red flashing off their pure steel. The synthesizer escalates to mid-tempo percussion. The red brightens: “For Pan.”
She steps into the living room, the unblemished metal of the knives reflecting the red, her bare feet gently sliding across the tile floor. She turns to the hallway leading to the front door, its darkness pure, as if all light in the world was smothered. Minerva grips the knife handles tight and descends. The cool tile gives way to an discomforting warmth that slithers between her toss. The red light pouring from the living room touches her heels as she bends down, allowing the light to refract off the broadness of the cleaver. The light illuminates her path just enough to reveal the squirm veins ahead of her, each twisting, contorting, searching.
“What the fuck…”
She lets her feet slide into the gore ahead of her, the sopping veins tangling harmlessly around her legs, ineptly attempting to catch her. Reaching out, she lets her right index and middle fingers search the wall, finding that it too throbs with horrific life. Minerva stops, the pink tendrils taking the pause to coil around her ankles. Sensing a presence, she waves the butcher knife before her, its blade slicing only emptiness. Nothing.
A chilling breath drapes over the knape of her neck. Without turning she thrusts the butcher knife just behind the right side of her waist. The steel plunges into a firm wetness. The breath on her neck turns into a hot roar of pain. Not letting her hand leave the knife’s handle, Minerva twists around to finally face the blackness. The rot-green eyes burn with hatred as she twists the knife further into its pale abdomen. Its face startles her. It’s you…
A massive hand, caked in blood, jumps to her throat. Minerva shoves the knife further, then rapidly rips it out, a dark spray staining the sky blue of her nightgown. She blindly stabs again, the steel driving through bone, the impact rattling her whole arm. It can’t be you. She backs away, the butcher knife pointed, ready. The red light floods the hallway, revealing the fullness of the terror that has taken her home. The blackness cups its giant hands beneath the fountain raging from its stomach, allowing the deep blood to pool. The syncopated beat of the synthesizer slows. The red light darkens.
The blackness lets the blood trickle between its fingers: “Is this not love?”
Minerva sighed: “Yes..once.”
It lurches for her. She brings the cleaver down on its head, the metal parting the top of its skull with a sickening crack. Its eyes roll back into their sockets, then keep rolling. Its tongue darts outward, then bisects, then again, while bony spears protrude from all four tips. A deep hiss rattles up from its throat, like teeth in a bell. The split from the cleaver continues down the rest of its face, neck, chest, then stops just above the crotch. It blooms open, an explosion of gore sending Minerva off her feet, sliding her back into the living room, smacking her against the leather couch. She firmly clutches the butcher knife in her right hand, while her left hastily slaps the blood from her face. The synthesizer melts into a haunting cacophony. The red reflects off the pond of blood, all around is death.
The blackness lurches again, its spindly human legs struggling to uphold the writhing mass above its waist. Where the cleaver had split it down the center was now a stinking maw with ribs for teeth, each rung bending, their points clacking against each other. What were once organs slosh and pour from its wound-mouth, lumping at its feet, sliding towards her with each step.
Its arms, flapping lazy on each side of the mass, now stretch unnaturally for her. She kicks one away, then grabs the other with her free hand, hacking and stabbing madly with the other. The edge bites through bone, again and again, until the hand splashes into crimson below. The surviving hand recoils with the rest of the pained mass, an abattoir scream blasting from the wound-mouth. The blood around the severed hand begins to boil as it springs to life. The finger nails break inward, their beds contorting into tiny, screaming mouths. The stump twists, elongating into a bony whip, arcing like a scorpion's tail, its tip dripping green-white pus.
“Fuck this.” Minerva sneers as she brings the tip of the knife onto this new horror. She stands, the shrunken hand-horror flailing useless on the tip of the knife, a rose gold band constricting its ring finger. She snaps the finger off, taking the band into her left hand with its twin.
The mass moves towards her once more, cautiously. The top of it begins to reform, the head becoming whole again. The head sweeps down on a serpentine stalk of a neck to meet Minerva. Its eyes find hers, the seagreen reflecting off the rot-green that now lightens to a gentle blue. This is not you, this is the emptiness you left. She reaches up, gently caresses its left cheek, her fingers lingering briefly before retracting, while a single tear of blood races after the last friction of her touch.
The pond of blood dissolves into salt water, tears. The cacophony fades into silence, tranquility. The red lightens to a pastel blue. Minerva turns her back to the mass that now collapses backward. In its fall, the unnatural parts of it peel away, ascending into the night with pink smoke. The body, now a human form, naked, hovers above the pool of tears. She glides through the crystalline water, the air filling with a soft hum as she approaches the body. She runs her hand over their eyes, the gentle curve of their eyelids eclipsing the lunar blue. She lets her finger trace each perfect imperfection she had once fallen in love with: a crooked tooth that made their lips uneven, a mole at the base of their throat, the one pinkie finger that curved weird. I miss you. She produces the ring from the fold of her nightgown, placing it tenderly on their chest. She gingerly bends their arms up, moving them in such a way as to let them rest one over the other, over the ring. They lay frozen in this pristine repose as the water recedes, revealing the white earth beneath. A wave of stargazer lilies radiates outward from the body, their white petals tickling Minerva’s ankles as she continues her retreat. The body settles gracefully into the small pool beneath it, the lillies gently covering it over like an angelic shroud. As she backs away, her heels find the wood of a door jam, her hands the door itself, her palms pressing gently against it. I have to let you go.
Minerva closes her eyes, her hands firmly pressing against the door, the sound of pills spilling into a sink loud in her ears, then silence. The tranquility fades into the harmless ambience of a house in the night. A wisp of softness kisses her ankle. She turns her eyes down, snapping her eyes open. Flopping onto her back, exposing her cream tummy, was Pan, who greets Minerva with a coo of a meow. Minerva answers the invitation with a tickling, her tongue playfully clicking with each motion. Pan issues another satisfied squeak, her purr gently radiating into the floor.
Minerva kisses Pan’s head, then enters the bedroom, pulls open the curtains, and lifts the window open. The brisk autumn air kisses her face, thick with the subdued sweet of dead leaves. Across the street, next door on both sides, jack-o’-lanterns flicker. Plastic skeletons dangle on leafless trees. Ghosts of simple white cloth sit peaceful among neat leaf piles. Trick r’ treaters laugh up and down the lane. The moon, full in the early night, illuminates it all with her serene luminosity.
Minerva allows herself a complete smile, perhaps the first in months. “You sure did love Halloween,” she looks down at her yard, barren of any decoration. “I’ll have to remember that next year.”
She closes the window, then walks around the bed to the empty side. Pan jumps into the corresponding window, her head nuzzling the cold pane. Minerva takes the watch into her hands, grasping it tightly, its metal joints protesting slightly. She softens her grip, her thumb sliding over the engraving beneath the watch face. With her free hand she clicks off the lamp on their bedside table. Love you, forever.