It’s been a few days since my first post, mostly because I’ve been stewing in my own guilt. There’s been no sign of Everett, and the lady next door has returned home. I can’t imagine how embarrassed she must feel knowing someone was in her house.
I sort of thought seeing the cops at the lady’s doorstep would satisfy me. It didn’t, not even a little.
Mom and I watched her get taken away out of our dining-room window. Two officers, a short, beefy woman and a younger and significantly taller man, knocked at her door at about noon. I didn’t hear what exactly they told her, but I saw her face crumple up more and more. The more upset she got, the more guilt I felt rising in the pit of my stomach. She looked so frightened.
The police spoke with her a while longer before she nodded and closed the door, the officers waiting outside. A few minutes later, she emerged in an old, moth-eaten dress. Not bothering to lock her door, she quietly moved towards the police car, the male officer gingerly helping her into the back, and they drove off.
“At her age, who knows what she could have done?” Mom mused, more to herself than anyone else. “She always was a strange character, though.”
I should clarify that I haven’t told anyone that I found the watch. My mom, as loving as she is, is extremely anxious, almost to the point of neuroticism. If the police came knocking at our door for questioning, it would take hours for her to calm down enough to even sit down. The only person I spoke to about where I found it was the watch’s owner, the veteran that lives next door. His name is Mr. Marshall, and he’s a very nice fellow, but I made him promise to keep me anonymous if he called the police about this.
Mom sighed a bit and fiddled with her wedding ring.
“Oh, but what’s going to happen to her cats? Someone has to feed them. I wonder if I should bring over something for them…”
“I’ll do it.” I said.
I want to say I jumped at the opportunity out of the kindness of my heart. Part of me insisted that this whole watch thing was simply a misunderstanding and I had just gotten an innocent old lady dragged off to be interrogated; so I should do something to balance out my karma and feed her pets. Another part of me wanted to take this opportunity to snoop around and see if this woman really had something to do with the disappearance of Everett, and this was the perfect time to do it. No one was home and I was technically doing something good by taking care of that woman’s hellcats.
I waited a little while for all the excitement about the police presence to die down, and then grabbed a few cans of Starkist from the pantry.
It felt surreal walking up to that old house. I had systematically avoided going anywhere near there for two decades, and now I was just going to calmly enter like I owned the place. It took a bit of psyching myself up, but I soon pressed my thumb down on the door’s old-fashioned lock and pushed my way into the anteroom.
The air smelled of overpowering and perfumey artificial flowers and springwater, some sort of air-freshener sprayed on much too thick. I doubted the cats could smell anything over the over-saturated air, but I opened one of the cans anyway, setting the others down on a chipped pale blue sideboard.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty.” I feebly whispered, waving the open can of tuna in front of me in a way I hoped was enticing. I received no reply, so I continued further into the house, flipping a light switch in the hallway. No luck, the house remained as dim as ever.
The kitchen was barely navigable, the floor taken up by piles of cheap, unopened food, swollen to bursting garbage bags, and other clutter that didn’t even belong in a kitchen like a rotting bookshelf and an ancient computer modem among other things. Unwashed and greasy pans sat on the stove, and a new-looking microwave sat on top of a much older one, with its number pad yellowing and beginning to peel off. I didn’t dare open the refrigerator.
I clicked my tongue a few times, trying some more switches in my search for a functioning light. A bare bulb in the center of the kitchen’s water-damaged ceiling tinkled and flickered to life. Better than nothing.
A shape darted into view down a hall. A cat, one of those flat-faced ones, leered up at me from a few paces away. I got to my knees and set the tuna can down a safe distance away from me. The cat continued to stare.
We stayed like this for a good half-minute before I rose to my feet and left down another hall, giving it some privacy. I’ve heard some pets like to eat by themselves. Dutchess was never like that, she’d scarf down her food around anybody. I bet even if someone broke in, she wouldn’t so much as look up until she finished licking her bowl.
Another cat slinked past me a few paces down the hall, a skinny salt-and-pepper number. It meowed sharply as it passed me by, exiting from the bathroom. I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but I had come this far. So I pushed the door all the way open.
The smell that hit me was so offensive it stung my nostrils. The toilet was tilting dangerously to one side, the bolts holding it down and even some of the floor around it crusted over with reddish-brown rust. I made the mistake of checking the bathtub too, where the faucet and knobs had long since fallen off, water stains trickling down from the empty holes. The tub itself was lined with dried cat shit.
I headed for the anteroom to open the rest of the cans. My plan to explore the entire house dissolved into my rising sense of both guilt and nausea. Like this was any of my business in the first place, if this lady had done something to Everett or anybody, the cops would find out. I’m just the nosy prick that called them.
I left the other cans of tuna in the kitchen as well and prepared to say good riddance until I heard a noise. A dry, wheezing creak sounded from a shut door next to the bathroom. Of course I went and opened it, because I clearly wanted to get myself into more trouble. Even at the time I repeatedly told myself this was beyond stupid.
It led to a closet. The only items inside were about a dozen photos glued or possibly taped to the back side of the door and a large wicker basket. Every picture was of a different cat, the photos themselves de-saturated and cloudy, clearly having been taken with a much older camera. Below each photo was a small bit of scrap paper with an inscription on it. I really had to squint to decipher one of them.
Mico Juni 98 - Marz 14
My attention turned to the basket, something runny was leaking out of the bottom. I took the lid off and felt my guts constrict.
It was stuffed with the bodies of cats. Some of them still had their eyes open, as glassy and cold as marbles, but others had chunks of fur and flesh missing entirely, the empty holes squirming with maggots. I threw the lid on top of the basket and slammed the door shut, just barely whiffing a smell twice as putrid as the one from the bathroom.
I showered until the water was freezing.
This is probably going to be the last post for a while. I’m truly sorry for intruding in on that woman’s privacy, especially since I was trying find something that would incriminate her.
Christ, I still don’t even know her name.
Submitted June 30, 2017 at 08:37PM by boywithburninghands http://ift.tt/2u6NxyZ nosleep
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