[#065] A Bell Rang Out

Coffee spilled over the lip of my mug as I slammed it down on the counter and leaned over the kitchen sink, eyes tracing the cornfield swaying for miles across our property. Clouds strangled out the moonlight, cloaking the rows in darkness. Nothing stirred where I could see, and I cursed and checked my watch.

Eleven-fifty-three. I swore I heard a bell, but it wasn't time yet. Perhaps they'd just begun to gather.

The shotgun he left by the nightstand felt good in my hands. I racked it like he showed me, and I found the sound intoxicating. The coffee tasted better with his whiskey in it, and the warmth it poured down my throat made it easier to swallow the task ahead of me.

Eleven-fifty-six. I leaned back in the chair with the mug and the shotgun. The ceiling creaked above me, and I worried he was up too soon. Perhaps the sound of the gun had woken him and put the plan at risk... Far harder to disguise a gunshot wound than what they'd do to him.

I paused and listened for the hinges. By now he'd noticed the gun was missing, and he'd have to reach for the safe if he wanted some other protection. I'll hide in the cabinet beneath the stairs, I thought. He won't see it coming.

But that won't stop them. I'd already paid for their services, and dearly. And once they were called, they wouldn't leave until they were fed.

I glanced at my watch.

Eleven-fifty-eight. Something scratched at the door outside, too low to sight through the window. A smile crept across my face, and only the slightest pang of guilt shivered down my spine as I thought of what my mum would say if could see me.

The first step creaked above, and the cabinet door beneath the stairs shut without a sound behind me. I held the shotgun tight across my chest and sucked in all my breath, freezing myself so fast I felt for sure I would have fooled a mouse.

But he saw.

The door flew open faster than I expected, his wild eyes piercing through the dark just before the muzzle flashed. I leapt backward from the force and he stared in horror, clutching the giant hole in his chest as he slid to his knees and toppled over.

A bell rang out in the darkness.

It was midnight, and the only living meal in sight was me. I closed my eyes and breathed my first and last as a free woman just before the back door of the house burst open and first claws scratched their way across the kitchen floor.