MISS GERALDINE MAYBERRY WOKE with a start as her old cat hissed and batted at the dusty windowpane.
She squinted as she reached for her matches. “Quiet, Rubin.” She sighed as she finally found one, striking it against her nightstand and lighting her lantern.
Rubin arched his back, his massive shadow looming on the wall behind him, nearly sending Geraldine into cardiac arrest. “Damn cat,” she spat. “What would Fort Whipple be without a noble watchman such as yourself?” The question hung in the air for a moment before Geraldine’s smile faded. The cat hadn’t seemed to hear her at all.
He looked terrified.
Geraldine stood slowly, the hair on the back of her neck and arms standing on end. Something felt wrong. The very air in the room felt too cold, too hostile.
She’d never seen Rubin act this way. Sure, he’d sit in the window and watch people pass by, occasionally chattering away, but never like this—his ears drawn back, the fur on his back standing on end.
There was something else, too.
It has been summer in Fort Whipple for six weeks now, and it got awfully hot in south Texas. But now the windows were fogged over, each breath from Rubin’s mouth sending little clouds against the glass.
Geraldine could see her own breath as well. She could feel her heart pounding, could feel her spine aching as her mortal fear
seemed to hold her captive. Adrenaline always did that to her—locked her body up, tense.
Why is it so damned cold in here?
She looked to the other side of the bed, to the empty man-shaped indention where Henry had once lay, back before an awful case of pneumonia sent him to an early grave.
What would Henry do right now?
A memory flickered in her mind of a sad, fragile, dying man—delirious from the medication, too much of the sauce, God help him—and the looming reality of his fate.
Don’t let anyone take advantage of you, ‘dine. You take that gun, take the safety off like I showed you, and—
“You blow the bastard to hell,” she whispered, each word a small cloud before her. She shivered and rubbed her arms as she approached the closet. Rubin hissed from the windowsill again.
The closet didn’t contain much—just a few shirts Geraldine rarely wore, and her mail-carrier uniform—which was what she donned at least five days a week, and sometimes as many as seven if her boss, Mr. Walters, was feeling particularly cruel.
In the bottom of the closet were two pairs of shoes, a few of Henry’s old things, and an old rifle Henry’s father had given them as a wedding gift. She picked up the gun, turned it over in her hands, chambered a round.
You’re being foolish, Geraldine. The cat hissing doesn’t mean a hill of beans and you know it.
But that thought could never comfort someone like Geraldine Mayberry—someone who could never let anything be that simple. Call it a survival instinct, call it paranoia.
She didn’t have a word for what she felt. The strange sensation was enough to make her go get the gun out of the closet. That was good enough for her.
And the cold…
Something crashed in the kitchen, and Rubin took off in a mad dash of claws and hair. Geraldine let out a little scream and immediately wished she hadn’t. With shaking hands, she repositioned the gun in her hands and clicked off the safety as Henry had shown her.
She knew she could do it—shoot someone. It wasn’t a question she needed to ask herself anymore. She had no interest in lying to herself; she knew exactly who would come out living if it came down to her and a strange person in her home.
With newfound confidence, Geraldine swallowed hard and pointed the rifle in front of her, leading out into the dark hallway. She balanced the lantern on the barrel of the rifle while keeping her aim as steady as she could, despite the uncontrollable shaking in her hands.
The hall was quiet, and every bit as cold as the bedroom, if not colder. A chill ran down Geraldine’s spine.
“Wh- who’s there?”
She stopped and listened.
Rubin groaned in the kitchen, a noise Geraldine had never heard the old cat make. It was a hostile, hateful sound.
Clutching the rifle tight, she made her way down the hall, wincing as boards creaked under the weight of her feet.
Quiet, Geraldine.
Once she reached the kitchen doorway, she stood with her back to the wall, listening to Rubin hissing and growling from just inside.
Geraldine took in a deep, shaky breath. She could feel the gun trembling slightly in her hands and tightened her grip on the barrel. Once more, she chanced a look around the corner and caught a glimpse of the mirror opposite the coat rack.
There was an old hat perched above a dirty jacket. Geraldine had never seen these clothes before, and immediately she knew.
Someone is in the house.
She inspected the mirror further, staring into it from across the kitchen, and began to wonder if her mind was playing tricks on her. She wanted to speak—to threaten whoever it was, and hopefully scare them off—but the words caught in her throat.
The hat… It wasn’t hanging from a hook but floating in midair. Geraldine raised the gun to the crook of her shoulder, took a ragged breath.
She watched in absolute horror as the clothes moved by themselves. Partly out of fear, and partly from her trembling nerves, Geraldine pulled the trigger and was horrified to hear only a soft click.
Oh God, help me.
In an instant, some dark, terrible thing flew across the kitchen and descended on Geraldine, knocking the gun out of her hands, and sending it clattering to the ground with a loud clack-clack. The lantern exploded against the wall behind her in a ball of flame and glass.
“Get off me!” she roared as the thing clawed at her, smashing her face into hot wax and bits of glass. Geraldine screamed a guttural, awful scream as a shard pierced her eye, sending white-hot pain through her entire body. She writhed in pain on the floor as the creature bit down hard on her neck.
It lifted her with inhuman strength, smashing through the ceiling and out into the cool night air. Blood poured down Geraldine’s face and into her eyes, making it hard to see the creature that had her in its clutches. She tried to scream but the thing bit down harder on her throat, paralyzing her entirely—save for
save for the sensation of terrible pain, but even that was draining fast. Together they rose, higher and higher, a loud flapping sound reverberated somewhere in the back of Geraldine’s consciousness.
This is it.
She knew that now.
Why didn’t God help me?
It was the last thought she had before the thing dropped her limp body to the ground, splattering Geraldine Mayberry all over the middle of the street in a pulpy mess.
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