My house was warm I left the heating on. It was lunch time
so didn’t need to leave a lamp on and I knew my Husband would be back before me
today as he was working local. I went out to meet with my friend. Everything
was normal, apart from a black cat, sitting on my wall outside, that my dog
found rather tempting. In fact, she licked her lips in a way I have never heard
before. We did pass a skeleton that spoke to us, again, after reading a funny
thing today a friend posted a story about a picture of a skeleton wearing a
dress sitting on a bed and the caption below read. “Waiting for my date”” I just
thought, well, all in a day.
My friend looked beautiful in my minds eye. The waiter at the
café we went to certainly thought so too!
We had a delightful lunch. We are like sisters her and I in
the respect we can say anything to each other and we are so similar in so many
ways, so it was a very relaxing time. But then it was time to come home.
Passing a huge inflatable pumpkin and a ghost on a lamppost, I really got into
today. But this was the first year ever since I was probably a baby that I have
not participated in the events of the 31st of October. Halloween.
As my friend neighbours and strangers told me what I had
just passed I found the atmosphere rather odd, I have to say. Especially that
cat! Neighbours laughed as my dog looked at it and obviously was eyeing it up
for a starter to a three-course meal. But the cat, didn’t move. They said it
was jet black and wondered who it belonged to and our neighbours know everyone
around here.
I returned home. The front
door was locked. So, my Husband was still out, odd, as he was due in two hours previous.
As I opened the front door, stepped in, the house was freezing. Colder than
what it was outside.
I put my keys on the table in the hall and just where I put
it, was something different. On further examination, it was a chunk of fur. I
know for sure it wasn’t our dogs fur. And it was on the hall table. I went into
my home office to answer some important emails that had to be sent before 5pm
and on my desk, was a tiny bell. A cat bell. This was odd. Oh my, had the cat
got in from before? It can’t have as I locked the door then saw the cat as the
neighbours told me about him sitting on my garden wall.
As I sat at my desk, I felt something rub against my leg
from under the desk. Oh my, I jumped. The stairs creaked on the third step up,
the one that always creaks. As if someone was walking up the stairs. But no one
was in the house. I shouted out on my Husband and he wasn’t there. I knew that,
but I just hoped he was in the back of the house and I had missed him. He wasn’t
there. I knew it.
The house by this point was cooler in fact as if a draft.
Okay, I was really scared now. stuff the emails I went downstairs with my dog. She
was in the sitting room. She was just standing there. Still. So, still. I picked
up her favourite toy and she showed no interest. Who was in my house? I checked
all around the house went back to my dog, she was just staring up at the
ceiling. All my doors were locked, my windows were closed. There was a draught
though, I couldn’t detect where it was coming from.
It’s really scary when you can’t see. Especially when you
just sense something. What to do now? I picked up my iPhone to call my Husband I
knew his meeting was due to finish a couple of hours ago. I had no signal. My dog
still stood there. I picked her up, sat on my sofa with her on my knee but she
was ridget. Her always wagging tail was stiff.
This was the first year I had no treats for the children, I hadn’t
made pumpkin soup for my family. I hadn’t decorated the house. First year. And first
year my imagination worked overtime to write this silly short story for you, for
Halloween. Smile. Happy Halloween and be safe tonight, if you see a black cat,
tell him I have his bell.
In my imagination.
© Fiona Cummings
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