Visitor in the Night

I almost didn’t answer the door. There was no one I was interested in seeing on a night like that. When the bell rang I was sitting in front of a fire, contemplating the book I had just completed, while the storm raged outside. Occasionally the warm glow in the room would be interrupted by an electric flash, followed almost instantly by a bone-jarring crash of thunder. But the doorbell rang, and after a brief hesitation I answered.

I opened the door and there she was, a lock of her raven hair stuck to her pale face, glued there by the rain. She was wearing a long jacket but no hat; she was soaked.

“May I come in?” she asked. I stood aside and she brushed past me. “Do you have anything to drink?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. She followed me into the den, loosening the belt on her coat while she walked. In the doorway she watched as I poured her a drink, then she let her coat slide to the floor. Beneath was lace and not very much of that.

We collided in the middle of the room, a four-legged beast fueled by lust, a tangle of flesh and sweat and breath. Finally we lay on the couch, intertwined, spent.

She got up at last and crossed to where her coat lay on the floor. She pulled out a compact pistol and pointed it at me. “I’m sorry Mr. Jones, but now you must die,” she said.

“My name is Thompkins,” I said. “Jones lives next door.”

“Huh,” she said. She glanced around the room before meeting my eye. “This is awkward.”

6 thoughts on “Visitor in the Night

  1. Hastings inserted the bookmark at the end of Chapter 3, The Lights Go Out! and set down his novel. He stared for a moment at the cover, Murder, Sincerely, then opened the drawer in the side table and pulled out the torch. Be prepared.

    He climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor, then walked down the creaky hall and opened the door to the bath. He stepped inside and faced his wife in the clawfoot bathtub. “Hallo Luv. How’s the water, hmmm?”

    “It’s grand, dearie, but getting a bit cool. Mind opening the hot tap some more? Why do you have the torch?”

    Hastings went to the spigot and turned it. “Oh this? I guess I’m expecting a bit of a power outage.”

    “A power outage? Was there something on the news?”

    Hastings picked up the hair dryer resting on the hamper and turned to his confused looking wife. “It’s just,” he paused,”it’s just that …” Hastings felt a stammer coming on, “it’s , well, merely, that I sincerely loath you, and …well… here.” Hastings dropped the hairdryer into the tub.

    Hastings wife felt a momentary tingle crawl all over her skin. The lights fluttered for a barely perceptible microsecond and a loud clack came from the GFI socket where the hairdryer was plugged in. The GFI outlet in all bathrooms built well after the years Hastings dusty old murder mysteries had been written.

    Hastings stared at his very alive, very undamaged wife with hair standing on end and said, “Oh my, this is awkward.”

  2. Beautiful. I’m tempted to move this masterpiece to the top level of the blog (with proper credit of course), to maybe encourage others to produce awkward vignettes, but at the same time I like having another level of interesting stuff hidden below the surface, in the comments.

    Hm… maybe a poll is in order!

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