Olivia

Ted is gone again. It has been a day and a night. I long for my nice dark crate but he has piled the weights on top of it. So thoughtless. I have licked my bowl so much my tongue tastes like metal. Oh, and of course, of course, that whining sound is here, filling my brain. It rises and falls but never goes away, these days. I can almost imagine I hear words in it, sometimes. Just now it’s bearable. The hunger is worse. It gnaws at my stomach.

The TV is on, some creepy thing about a murderer stalking a girl in a parking lot. It’s dark, raining. The actress playing the girl is pretty good. She looks scared. I don’t like stuff like that so I leave the room. But I can still hear it: the running, the screams. I hope she gets away. Honestly, who watches this trash? There are sick people in the world, let me tell you. I thank the LORD that my Ted is nothing like that.

So hungry.

I stalk around the house. The cord floats behind me. It is sagging and grey today, which seems appropriate. You can’t eat it. I’ve tried. I have eaten everything there is to eat in this place. I even knocked the lid off the trash can, but there were only dirty tissues in there. Since the Bad Dinner, Ted takes out the trash twice a day. Anyway, I ate the tissues.

I patrol the house, scenting for blood. I even go to the basement workshop, which I don’t like too much because it has no windows. The engine sits like a shining sea creature on the workbench, under the spotlight. Boxes line the walls. I climb over them and into them. They are mostly empty, or filled with old parts. Even in my anxious state, the cardboard makes me purr a little. I have to make a big effort not to settle down for a comfortable doze.

I creep under the couch and peer behind radiators. I go under Ted’s bed where beer cans roll about among the dust bunnies. I pull open his drawers and dig through his socks and boxers and undershirts. I scrabble about in the back of the closet. I don’t find anything. No blood, and not even the scent of Lauren.

I stop before the attic door, my tail straight and scared. There is no sound. I force myself to come closer. I put my delicate velvet nose to the crack under the door and I breathe. Dust, dust and nothing. I listen, but all is quiet. I picture the still air, the thick beams sighing, abandoned objects spilling out of boxes. I shiver. There’s something horrible about the thought of an empty room, in the dark. OOoooeeeeeee, goes the singing in my brain. If the lord has a purpose for this almost constant noise, I wish he would reveal it pretty darn quick.

I realise I haven’t looked under the refrigerator. Sure enough after a couple of tries I hook out a stale cracker with a claw. Ugh. Soft.

I am chewing when I glimpse something else in the dusty dark. I gently slide my paw, delicately extend my claws to their full length and reach in among the bottle caps and soft grey fluff. I sink a claw into the thing. It is a yielding surface, the claw goes right through. A little body, is my first thought. A mouse? Ooh … But it’s not flesh, something thinner and more porous. I pull the thing into the light. It’s a child’s white flip-flop. It must be one of Lauren’s. Lauren can’t walk but she likes to wear shoes sometimes anyway.

Well, no big deal, I say to myself, it’s just a flip-flop. The iron-rich scent that fills my nostrils tells another story. Reluctantly I nose it over, and there it is on the other side. The sole is stiff, caked with dried, dark-brown matter. So I think, Maybe it’s jelly or ketchup or something, maybe it’s not blood. But my mouth is filling up with the scent. I want to eat it. The whining rises in pitch and volume.

I drop the flip-flop between my front paws and stare at it, as if there’s an answer written there. It’s probably nothing to do with me. Lauren must have hurt herself. She doesn’t have any feeling in her feet, she’s rough with them. But I can’t help thinking about tiny bones, and the taste Night-time leaves at the back of my throat. About how often he has taken over, recently – how often I have let him. My tail blows up into a bottlebrush of unease. Normally this is exactly the kind of situation in which I would look to the lord for guidance. But I don’t. Somehow I don’t want His attention on me, right now.

There is no blood anywhere else in the kitchen. I am sure of that. In fact, it is unusually clean. I can smell bleach. Now, that is really weird, because Ted never cleans.

Are you there? I ask.

His eyes glow green in the darkness. Is it my time?

No.

Maybe it is. He comes forward, a little playful, trying to take control. I fight him back – but honestly, it is more difficult than I remember. Is he getting stronger?

Did you … I pause and lick my chops. My tongue feels kind of dry and woody. Did we hurt Lauren?

No, he says, and there comes that dark ripple through my body that happens when Night-time laughs. Of course not.

Phew. But my relief can only be short-lived. Then why, I ask Night-time, is there a bloody flip-flop under the refrigerator?

He shrugs, and the whole inside of my mind moves up and down like the swell of the ocean. Hurt herself? he suggests. Kids.

Maybe, I say. But why hasn’t she been around lately?

Not my job to explain things to you, he says. Ask someone else. He turns to go back into the dark.

Well, what a gd help you are! I shout after him. Who the hell else am I supposed to ask?

I don’t feel reassured. The opposite, actually. Night-time was so strong. The hair stands up on the ruff of my neck.

Ted sways into the kitchen. The light blazes up. I hadn’t realised it had gotten dark.

‘What have you found?’ He takes the bloody little flip-flop from me, and goes still, looking at it. ‘I thought I threw that away,’ he says. ‘Why won’t it stay gone? I don’t want it down here, I don’t want you to see it.’ He puts the flip-flop in his pocket and picks me up. His breath is a warm blast through my fur. I writhe and scream but it’s no good.

He puts me in the crate. The lid comes down. I hear him piling things on top. He NEVER does that while I am in here. I row politely, because clearly there has been some kind of mistake. I won’t be able to get out. But he carries on. Ted is trapping me! Why would he do that?

I row and row, but I am answered by silence. Ted is gone. He has locked me here in the dark. I try not to panic. He’ll get over it and let me out. Besides, I love my crate, don’t I?

I can’t sleep. Every so often I twitch awake, convinced there is someone in here with me. I feel them along my side, stirring in the dark.