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necromaniackat · 10 months

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Cruel Summer

Chapter 5: Pay for Arrogance

Word count: 2.9k

You were pulled away from your sleep by the feeling of pressure crawling up the bed. You were laying on your stomach with your arms wrapped around the soft pillow. Mindlessly you buried your face in the pillow when you heard the very loud purring coming from your cat, Bandit. Bandit was walking up the bed until she got to your head. You felt her fluffy white fur against your head then the vibrations of her purring in your ear as she lowered her face to your ear. Then she had to audacity to let out the loudest most irritated yowl directly into your eardrum.

“I swear to God cat, if it’s before five I’m chucking you in the pond. I swear to f-ugh-k,” you muttered tiredly with a hint of bitterness. You felt Bandit begin to groom your hair, making her way from the ends to the roots and eventually your scalp. She mainly worked around your ear, sending you back into a lulled sleepy state. But it didn’t last long since your sociopathic cat decided that licking you wasn’t getting her food, so she decided to try biting your ear instead.

You groaned and pushed Bandit away so she couldn’t bite you again. Your eyes shot open to the sunny bedroom, a massive difference from yesterday’s cloudy day. Your gaze immediately found Bandit; you pushed her away with one hand and hoisted yourself up with the other. But she was just as persistent, swatting and batting at your hand impatiently.

“Argh, what the actual Hell?!” You exclaimed as you tried to fight off your feral hungry lioness of a house cat. She was persistently meowing at you.

“I hear you!” You quietly shouted at the cat. Bandit merely missed louder and more assertively. “–I’m up for the love of God, stop!” You groaned. The white furred cat pranced around the bed when you sat up, flexing and relaxing your back as you stretched away the night’s sleep. You yawned, rubbing your eyes. Usually you don’t do well with overnights in a new place. It normally takes a day or two for you to get back to your regular sleeping patterns. So to say you didn’t get much sleep last night would be an understatement. With everything that happened yesterday, it’s no wonder you didn’t sleep well.

You looked at your Fitbit watch to check the time; ‘5:15’. You narrowed your gaze at the drama queen at the end of your bed begging for food at five in the morning like she didn’t eat less than twelve hours ago.

“Today’s your lucky day, B. You’re not taking a pond bath but just barely,” you said with a very stereotypical American accent before making finger guns at Bandit. The annoyed looking cat just stared at you, judging you intensely. Shamefully, you lowered your finger guns. You sighed heavily and tossed the quilt off yourself before getting out of bed. It was far too hot for a quilt anyways. It was too hot for clothes last night. Which is why you woke up in your psychedelic “maple leaf” panties and your black bralette. You kept your hair up in a bonnet since it was prone to breaking, which kept your head nice and cool.

“Are you hungry?” You asked Bandit with a straight face. Bandit’s head tilted at the word food and she meowed extremely enthusiastically in response.

“Okay, let’s get you some food,” you groaned as you rolled out of bed and grabbed your phone off the nightstand. Bandit hopped off the bed and made a mad dash to the kitchen, leaving you in her dust. You quickly threw on an oversized military green graphic tee. You didn’t want to put on a shirt but knowing your mum she’s gonna want to “do the FaceTimes” at some point and if you don’t put a shirt on she’ll be pissed. You don’t understand why, your mum did some underwear modeling in the late nineties, early two-thousands.

The house was beginning to shine with morning light, flushing the shadows away for another day. The house was cool from the night but the residual heat from yesterday made it comfortably cool. You didn’t even need your housecoat; you were perfectly comfortable wearing your underwear. Besides, nobody’s gonna see you, so who cares?

You peered into both the living room and the study on your way to the kitchen. Bandit was still yowling at your feet. You paused at the mouth of the kitchen, your mind replaying the events of last night. You can’t explain it any other way besides someone came in the house last night when you weren’t looking. That’s not a very comforting thought to have. You were 100% sure you locked every door last night; unless they came in through a window or something.

You sighed heavily, raking your fingers through your hair. You made the mental note to go to the locksmith today to get the locks changed.

You frowned to yourself, adding yet another thing to your to-do list as you wandered over to the stove. You turned the gas stove on and placed the half filled kettle over the flame. You set your phone down on the counter as you gathered the things you needed to make a coffee and put them in a mug together. Luckily, it was just coffee and French vanilla coffee mate creamer you bought off Amazon. The persistent cat at your feet meowed annoyedly.

“Yes, yes, I’m getting your breakfast, take a chill pill,” you muttered at Bandit, who was still meowing like her life depended on it. You grabbed a tea plate from the cupboard and one of the cans of cat food you left on the counter yesterday, and emptied half the can of food onto the plate. You carefully guided Bandit away from the counter towards the wall you set up her food and water bowls. The cat seized meowing once her face was full of food.

You stared at the purring cat and shook your head at her. Bandit, much like other cats, likes food. It doesn’t matter what kind. If it’s edible, she’ll eat it. And even if it’s not edible, she’ll still try to eat it.

The kettle began to whistle, pulling you back to the stove. You switched the stove off, grabbed a tea towel and lifted the steaming hot kettle off the burner. You poured the boiling hot water into your mug; combining everything into a warm blanket hugging you in the psych ward of life. Just perfect.

The first sip of coffee was divine; a tad painful but absolutely worth it. You sighed blissfully, your eyes closing as you drifted away on a caffeine cloud. You were rudely yanked out of that lovely state of bliss when Bandit let out the loudest, most pathetic yowl. Your eyes shot open and laser focused on the fluffy white cat trotting up to you, begging for more food.

“You just ate! I’m not giving you more!” You exclaimed. Bandit yowled loudly again, still begging for more food. “–You insatiable fiend. I swear to God you nuke my bank account every shopping day. You need to be put on a diet you woolly mammoth polar bear lookin eggplant,” you swore at your cat as she begged at your feet.

“No.” Meow.

“Absolutely not.” Meow, meow, meow.

“Do not talk to your mother that way young lady,” you tutted as you turned to face your extremely vocal cat. You popped your hip out as you put your hands on your hips, giving you cat the deathly mom stare. Bandit meowed quietly before trucking off out of the kitchen. You pressed your lips together and sighed before turning your attention to your phone.

You hopped up onto the counter and sat pretzel legged with your coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. You found your mum was awake most of the night, either texting you or tagging you in things she sees on FaceBook. Your parents are very much early birds whereas you’re a night owl. When you were working nights there were only two times you could actually talk with your mum during the day; when you go to bed and she gets up, and when she goes to bed and you wake up. So she’d be awake right now getting ready for work.

You pulled up her contact and hit call before putting the phone to your ear. It rang once:

“Jesus, Mary and Joesph, Evelyn! For a girl glued to her phone you sure didn’t answer my messages,” your mum claimed boldly, sounding annoyed and worried. Again, this is the furthest you’ve ever been away from her. She didn’t even let you go on a school trip to France for a week for drama class.

“I was asleep!” You cried in defense.

“For nineteen hours?” Mum sassily interrogated you. Your eyebrows knitted together in disbelief. It hasn’t been nineteen hours, has it? You quickly check the time on your phone and confirm it was half past five in the MORNING.

“Excuse me, I did not sleep nineteen hours. I slept from ten o’clock last night to quarter past five this morning. That is seven hours, thank you very much,” you sassed back. You heard your mum sigh heavily when she realized you were right.

“Why are you giving me so much sass today?” Mum asked in a huff. Your eyes widened in disbelief as you stared at the island counter in the middle of the kitchen. An empty fruit bowl sat there collecting dust.

“I literally just woke up!” You proclaimed passionately. The line went dead quiet, you heard your mum curse to herself, asking herself what time it was. She quickly did the math. It was obvious to you that your mum took one of her heavy duty anti anxiety pills. She gets like this sometimes. Actually she only does this when you go away; one day you went to a new shopping centre with your friends across London and your mum had to take one of her anti anxiety medications to help calm down.

You closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Besides, who answers the phone like that?!” You exclaimed playfully then mocked the way your mother answered the phone. You and your mum can joke about things like her attachment issues or your daddy issues, it’s not a big deal to either of you.

“I just miss you is all,” mum said honestly. You could hear in her voice she was on the verge of breaking down over the phone. You frowned into your coffee and sighed.

“A little distance makes the heart grow fonder,” you countered with the age old quote. Your mum chuckled through her tears.

“Yeah it does,” she giggled.

“How ‘bout this; you and Adam can come down for a few days once I get the guest bedroom in order,”

“–Oh! How ‘bout Adam and I come and help you do the guest bedroom. It’ll be like the old days.” You closed your eyes in frustration and tilted your head back. You wanted your mum to be a witness to everything she and your dad, and Adam have taught you about home renovations; you didn’t want her to actively be a part of this project. You have the funds now to actually mean business.

“Anyways I have questions about this hotel business adventure you’re embarking on.” Oh no. You inhaled deeply, keeping your head tilted back.

“Lay it on me,” you commented through strained breath. You heard your mum take a deep breath, as if getting ready to lay it on you and lay it thick.

“Where do you plan on living? You’re turning the mansion into a hotel which means you’re not gonna be living there. How do you plan on running a business if you live two hours away? You’re gonna need employees at some point, how do you plan on going about this? Will the business be paying these employees or are you gonna pay them out of pocket?” You were right, your mum did lay it on thick.

You mentally groaned.

“Mum, when I said lay it on me I didn’t mean seven layer dip me. It’s my first day here, I’m still figuring things out and ironing out the details. Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” you reassured her in an assertive way. You turned your attention away from your cup of coffee to look around the kitchen. Your eyebrows fell together when your gaze landed on Bandit. She was standing, facing a wall. She kept tilting her head from side to side as if she was hearing something you couldn’t.

‘It’s probably just a mouse in the walls,’ you thought, brushing your cat’s odd behavior off. Your mum was busy sounding off her concerns; you heard her voice but not what she was saying. Your mum had a lot of concerns. And you could do nothing but sit there and let her talk out her fears. You occasionally would check the time. 5:30 passed, 5:45 passed, 6:05 passed. Your mum was babbling on about anything and everything in hopes to calm her nerves. And you let her. You listened to her, providing input once in a while and finished your coffee.

Then all of a sudden, there was a massive thud that rang through the house. You damn near jumped out of your own skin. You even screamed a little.

“What?!” Your mum exclaimed. Your breathing was fast, shallow and shaky. You placed a hand over your racing heart.

“Something just fell,” you explained once your brain had a moment to actually think.

“Oh hunny, it’s an old house. I’m sure those shelves have seen better days,” she told you gently. You could hear the nothing smile on her face. You were prone to believe her until another noise filled the silence of the house.

“Mum, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tonight,” you told her, not even waiting for her response before you hung up the phone. You hopped down from the counter as you cautiously made your way through the kitchen towards the foyer.

“Hello?!” You called out hesitantly. You heard the bell from Bandit’s collar jingling up to you. You looked down at her, she stopped by your side, her green eyes beaming up at you as if asking what was going on.

You warily side stepped through the brightly lit foyer and peered into the living room, no one was there. You tiptoed to the mouth of the study and peeked in. Your blood ran cold and every hair on your body stood on end. The morning sun made the study’s dark wooden architecture that much more Victorian. You’ve always loved the architecture of Heelshire; you believed it was like being in a castle. But what you saw in that study that bright and sunny morning tarnished belief.

Open on your grandfather’s neat desk was a photo album. You knew for a fact that, that album wasn’t there when you came down stairs twenty minutes ago. You distinctly remember nothing being open on your grandfather’s desk.

Carefully, you tiptoed towards the desk, looking around for an intruder. The only explanation you had that was logical was that someone broke in. That did not sit well with you.

Your eyebrows rutted together when you looked at the scrapbook and saw pictures of yourself on a bubblegum pink page with your nickname ‘Evie’ spelled out in glittery 3D letters. It looked like a child made this page.

You smiled weakly at the page. It was almost like a collage of pictures of you with post-it notes of facts and stickers scattered around the colorful page. Mindlessly, you traced your fingertips over the page. You felt warm and fuzzy inside as you thought your grandparents probably made this for you, or at least to remember you by. But it didn’t take away from the nervousness you felt about the odd happenings around the mansion.

You sighed heavily, closing the scrapbook and taking it back to the shelves that lined the walls.

“Evie!” A young boy’s voice rang through the quiet house causing you to physically jump, dropping the scrapbook to your feet. You spun around and frantically glanced around, trying to find the source of that noise. But you couldn’t find one. It sounded like it came from either this room or the dinning room, which were conjoined with only a pair of wooden sliding double doors to part the rooms.

You squinted your eyes as you peered into the dinning room from your spot by the bookshelf, leaning as far back as you could in order to get a good look in the bright room. The morning sun did a brilliant job of driving away shadows so you could see pretty much everything in that room. There was no one there; not a trace, not a crumb, not even a morsel of a person could be found.

For a second you thought you were hearing things but then you watched as Bandit trotted through the study into the dinning room which is where you heard your name being called. You cocked an eyebrow curiously as your dumbass of a cat debunked your insanity plea. Which only made the situation worse because that was someone calling your name from somewhere in the house when you’re meant to be here alone.

You rushed back into the kitchen to the island. A napkin was sitting on the counter with the phone number you needed written in sloppy black pen. You quickly dialed the number and held the mobile to your ear. It rang and rang, and rang.

“Hello?” The groggy voice greeted.

“Hey, it’s Evelyn. There’s someone in the house,” you cut to the chase.

“I’m on my way.”

~~~~~~~~~

Tagged: @hao-ming-8