Grim
BY P.J. RICHARDS
Dusk is curling its fingers through the trees, stroking the daylight from the branches. The waning moon is an amber claw snagged on the indigo sky.
The front door slams hard enough to rattle the frame, I hear the clatter of the safety-chain swinging—I should run downstairs, slide it into its brass runnel and double-lock the door. I should, but I won’t.
He knows I’ll never try that again. Not after last time. I trace a finger around the uneven socket of my eye, draw the knife-edge of my nails along the scar on my cheek, as I watch him from the bedroom window.
He pauses and turns his head as if he’s heard something. I step out of sight behind the veil of the net curtains and hold my breath—I can’t help it—then check again. He’s gone. I sigh with relief, and the white nets billow around my face like heavy mist.
He never leaves me alone for more than an hour. But I make good use of the time.
I go downstairs, pick up his penknife from the shelf by the door, take off my shoes and pad along the hallway, the tiles cool and smooth beneath my bare feet. The narrow side passage leading to the cellar is windowless, steeped in darkness now there’s no daylight left to borrow from the hall. It’s better this way. I reach out my arms like a sleepwalker, walk forwards, touch the doorframe, feel down to the latch and open it with the faintest click. Push it open. Press my face into the blackness beyond, count the steps down, eyes wide and blind.
A chill draft prickles my skin, there’s a smell of damp stone, mildewed sacking, old cardboard and newspaper–and this time, a faint tang of breathed air. My heart leaps.
Something shifts in the furthest corner, somehow blacker than the void around it, and my eyes strain to catch its shape—but abruptly it is replaced by an absence, the impression of a split sealing shut.
I’m alone again.
I open the penknife, grit my teeth and pull the blade through my palm. The brightness of pain is a beacon, the warmth of blood in my fist is a trail to follow. I swing my arm as if casting seed, and the drops scatter, sucked into the dark.
There is the smallest seismic jolt beneath my feet. A stone cracks. Grit patters.
And I hear my blood being licked up in long lines smeared across the flagstones, rhythmic and thorough–I know when it’s all gone; there’s a quizzical motion of the cold air in the cellar, shunted towards me on the notion of an eagerly cocked head, of lips smacked with a wet tongue.
I don’t move, don’t breathe.
She’s still there. Waiting.
I unclench my fist, let the cut seep until my fingers are warm and sticky. Spread them and offer my palm.
Claws tick, tick, tick, closer, counting down to my death. Air is sucked from around my body, tasted, judged, then exhaled in a furnace-hot gust that blows my hair and shuts my unseeing eyes. Her tongue wraps my trembling hand, coats it with slime. I don’t flinch. Slowly, delicately, she licks it clean again, she swallows my blood, pain, fear and sorrow. I can feel their hooks tear out and fall into the abyss. Then her tongue is a warm velvet cloth wiping my eyes, soothing and savouring the tears, and my hands find the thick fur of her ruff and I bury my fingers and hold on so tight that I expect her to yelp, but she leans into my desperate grip.
Twin slits of fire glimmer, then open wide. Eyes like ruby red coals with obsidian hearts glare past my shoulder to the top of the stairs.
A key turns in the front door.
A low rumble builds to a growl in the throat under my fists. It travels up my arms into my chest, I feel it vibrate in my gut, fill my body with a savage, pent-up rage.
Our lips curl back from bone-white daggers, our muscles tense, braced for a leap, and we wait in the shadows of the cellar as the door above slams shut, and the footsteps come closer.
