• The guest





    Before I turned out the lights, I checked the locks again. I reluctantly get up from my soft bed and head to the door of my bedroom. I crack the door, peek out, and promptly slam it, bracing it with my back. I saw the front door, hanging loose on one hinge. I'm assuming that wasn’t a salesman who I thought I saw following me.
    Prior to entering my house, I thought I saw something tailing me, but assumed it was just paranoia kicking in. a few blocks from my house, I stopped noticing it and guessed it either gave up its pursuit or was nonexistent from the start.
    Come to think of it, it may not have been a salesman. It could have been a burglar, or a Jehovah Witness. The prior seems more likely.
    I want to get the revolver from my night table (once again, the fact that I have a revolver at arms reach of my bed is another clear sign of paranoia), but I dare not take my back from the door. I see a sneaker next to me and jam it beneath the door, then dart for the night table. I open the drawer and remove the gun, make sure it’s loaded, and take off the safety.
    I don’t really plan to shoot the burglar. In fact, I’m going to let him steal whatever he so desires, I just desire a way to scare him off if he decides to enter this room.
    I hear a screechy meow, which ends abruptly. Would he steal a cat? No, he probably just kicked it to shut it up or something. I hear a crash, like someone knocking over my antique depression-ware lamp. My aggravation immediately melts away and shock replaces it as I hear the cry of whatever the lamp landed on. The metallic, high-pitch, inhuman shriek.
    Okay, not a salesman and definitely not a Jehovah Witness. It sounded like an animal, but no animal I know of.
    I hear what sounds like the scuttle of a man with two steel peg legs, and a shadow appears under my door. I cannot determine anything from the shadow and it passes.
    I hear no sound for a little over an hour, which calms me. I remove the shoe from beneath my door and open it slowly. No one is there. I walk out, clenching the revolver tightly. I come to the door and adjust it so that it latches and appears fine.
    No way I can go to sleep now. I look around; all that is out of order is the broken lamp, shattered all over the floor. I’ll clean it later.
    I should probably call the police, so I head over to my sofa where I can relax and contact the proper authorities. I sit and reach for my phone on the table to the side of the sofa simultaneously. My hand pauses as it notice something odd. I’m standing in something warm. I glance down to see the mangled remains of what I can indecisively identify as my cat beneath my feet. I jump up and immediately begin wiping my feet of on my carpet.
    Okay, no kick could do that.
    I decide to call the police as soon as I can. I pick up the phone and dial 911. The receiver goes to my ear just as a drop of water hits my hand. Oh great, all I need now is a leak. I subconsciously glance at the drop on my hand to see it is not water, but a red substance, mixed with something else, some clear gooey liquid. I look up and the phone falls from my hand.
    Above me I see teeth. Of course that is not all, simply what predominates my concentration. I basically ignore the oblong, brownish, exoskeleton-like head and the piercing red eyes. I ignore the rigid back, lined with blade like spikes. I ignore the six long, translucent legs which keep it sturdily on the ceiling. I only see the large, needlelike teeth, hanging from which, is the mangled and disembodied leg of my cat. Another drop falls from the leg onto my face. I am frozen.

    The police are in my apartment taking DNA samples and dusting things for fingerprints. They swarm all over it, like wasps on a rotting carcass. One of the officers approaches who resembles a chief.
    “Sir” the officer says, “all DNA tests have came out negative, and we cannot find a single fingerprint except those of the resident.”
    “Well, that is expected. You don’t find many clues when dealing with a suicide.”
    My body lays there, gunshot wound in the side of my head, bloods cat’s arm in my hand.
    My body lies there, as an evident symbol of my own state of mind.