FOOTPRINTS
By Randy Romero
Thor was acting peculiar, to say the least.
Not that cats need an excuse to act
strange. Cats march to the beat of their own drums. They come and go as they please.
Sleep as much as they want, eat as much as they want. Sometimes they want our
attention, and sometimes they mosey about as if they’re completely unaware of
our existence.
Cats are hedonists. Pleasure
seekers. They exist only to satisfy their own impulses, needs, and desires. And
Thor was no exception. But that didn’t stop Vincent Guillory from loving his
feline companion.
But Vincent–or Vin, as he preferred–was
having a hard time deciphering the cause behind Thor’s behavior.
Thor was fixed on one corner of the living room. He was crouched,
his tail stiff as a board, his ears drawn back.
“What is it, boy? A mouse in the
walls? I hope it’s not a rat. We can’t afford an exterminator. Not on an
artist’s salary.”
Thunder clapped in the distance. The
rain was expected to last through the night. It splashed against the windows
and hammered the rooftop. Vin looked out, but could see nothing past his
weeping windows.
He let Thor be and wandered into the
kitchen, opened the fridge. Nothing but condiments, bottled water, a half-gallon
of milk, and a loaf of moldy bread.
“You’ve really committed to the
whole ‘starving artist’ cliché,” he mumbled to himself as he slammed the fridge
door shut.
Vin considered himself lucky that he
even had a place to call home. The house belonged to his parents, a summer
house that they barely used. They owned four properties in four different
states. So they let Vin stay there for next to nothing until he got on his
feet. All Vin had to do was keep up with the monthly bills and his parents took
care of the rest.
“Thor,” Vin called as he returned to
the living room. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”
Thor hissed. Not at Vin, but
seemingly at the wall. He inched back, but his eyes stayed fixed on his
invisible antagonist.
“This is getting…weird,” Vin sighed.
“I’m going upstairs to my studio. Feel free to join me.”
And with that invitation, he left
Thor to his business and retired to his upstairs studio, which was about as big
as a walk-in closet. The doorway was so narrow it took him and a friend three
hours to figure out how to squeeze his desk through. But Vin didn’t need
require much space for his work. All he needed was a desk and chair to sit down
for his sketches, and a canvas for his paintings.
Vin was self-employed, as many
artists tend to be when they start out. He sold his paintings online, at auctions,
rented tables at craft fairs and showed up to every art show to promote his
work, did drawings and sketches for the occasional comic book. He’d currently been
working on some sketches for an unpublished horror comic. Whatever helped pay the
bills, he thought.
Vin spent about an hour on the
latest sketches. He was deep into his work when something broke his
concentration. The living room was right below his studio and that’s where the
noise seemed to emanate from.
“Thor,” he called out. “What are you
doing down there?”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“What the hell…” he trailed off as
the sound continued.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy footsteps, pounding the living
room floor like a sledgehammer.
“Who’s there?” he cried out.
No response.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound reached the bottom step
and continued as someone or something ascended the staircase.
Sweat dripped from Vin’s furrowed brow.
His throat was as dry as a desert. His hands trembled as he fumbled through his
pockets for his cheap, off brand cellphone.
“I’m calling the police,” he
croaked.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The footsteps stopped at the top of
the stairs.
The door to his studio was wide
open. He always left the door ajar incase Thor felt like watching him work.
The hallway was engulfed by a large,
indistinguishable shadow. A dark figure lurched forward and stood accusingly in
the doorway. Vin could not make out any features beyond its silhouette. It had
a human shape, but he couldn’t see its eyes, couldn’t see a nose or a mouth or
hair or clothing of any kind.
The rumble of thunder gave Vin such
a startle he was almost ejected from his desk chair. The lights blinked and the
room went dark.
When they came back on, the shadowy figure had vanished
without a sound.
Thor was twitching at Vin’s feet.
Vin went for his phone again and
dialed his parents number.
“Vin, is everything alright?” his
mother asked. “It’s late.”
“Mom, I need to know everything about
the house. Who did you buy it from, who lived here before us? Did the realtor
ever mention anything strange to you or dad about this place?”
She recognized the trepidation in
his voice. “Oh, God…” she said and trailed off momentarily. “I was hoping you’d
never find out. Your father got the property for a steal. The realtor was
upfront with us about everything. They told us about the incident. But we simply
chose to ignore it.”
“What incident?”
“The family that lived there, their
son died. The realtor said he had problems with drugs, that he owed money to a
lot of people. There was a break-in when his parents were out of town. There
must have been a struggle because they found blood in the son’s bedroom. Some
of it belonged to the son, some of it belonged to a second party that they
never identified. His body was discovered a few days later, dumped in a mud
bank down by the edge of the river. Vin, I’m so sorry. We should have told you,
but–”
It was only then that Vin observed
the muddy footprints in the threshold of the door, leading out into the hallway.
“Mom, I’m gonna have to call you
back…”
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