Out of the Mist (9 page)

Many years ago, a new
family with two young children and two cats moved in next to us.
Tim, the older of the cats, was a large ginger tom with a confident
air, tattered ears, and other battle scars that showed he was a
force to reckon with. He quickly asserted ownership of our house
and yard, and began periodic visits of inspection. He would sit
outside the patio door leading from our kitchen to the back deck,
staring into the house. If we didn’t open the door quickly enough,
he would scratch on the glass to get our attention. After a
greeting that seemed more like a scolding if we didn’t let him in
promptly, he would do his inspection before leaping onto one of our
living room chairs for an afternoon nap. Around dinnertime, he
would sit meowing by one of the doors until someone let him
out.

These visits occurred
two or three times a week for almost five years, from the time he
arrived in the neighbourhood until shortly before he died at the
ripe old age of 18.One day, about six months before he died, Tim
came as usual for a visit. Climbing the stairs onto the back deck
had become difficult for him, and his inspections were now
curtailed. He no longer went to check out the basement, and only
wandered through two or three of the main floor rooms before
settling down in his favourite chair. Climbing onto the chair, only
15 inches above the carpet, had become a struggle for the arthritic
old cat. On this particular day, he slept in his chair for several
hours. None of us gave him any thought as we started preparations
for dinner.

“
How about the
Spanish noodle skillet dinner from the Mennonite cookbook?” Linda
suggested to our daughter and me from the living room doorway.
Amelia had her head buried in a text book and didn’t
respond.

“
Fine with me,” I
replied. “What do you need me to do?”

“
Cut up the onion and
green pepper, and brown the hamburger after I get the bacon cooked,
please.”

Twenty minutes later
three crisp pieces of bacon were set aside on a paper towel, the
hamburger was browned, and the cut up vegetables, as well as the
spices and a can of stewed tomatoes, were all added to the fry pan.
We both left the room while the concoction simmered.

“
Tim, you monster!”
Linda yelled from the kitchen, just minutes after I left. “Get down
off that counter immediately!”

I heard the patio
door slide shut as I hurried into the kitchen. Linda was bent over
laughing, and pointing at Tim outside the door. He had a stunned
look on his face and a piece of bacon protruding from his mouth.
The wily old warrior had taken advantage of our absence, and proved
he still had some life in his old legs.

“
Man, was he up on
the counter?” I exclaimed.

“
Yes. He stole a
piece of bacon, and was calmly chomping it up as if there was
nothing wrong.”

“
Wow, a few hours ago
he could barely climb up on one of the living room chairs and now
he has the strength to leap three feet onto the
counter.”

“
I’m not the least
bit surprised,” Amelia said from the doorway. “If I was a cat, I’d
jump twice that high for some bacon. What are we going to do with
the other two pieces?”

“
No way I’m eating
them after Tim’s been sniffing around,” Linda replied.

“
That’s what I
thought you’d say,” Amelia said, biting into a rasher and offering
the other to me.

“
Groossss!” Linda
dragged out the word as she headed to the fridge for more
bacon.

From that day onward,
we called Spanish noodle skillet, “Tim’s dinner”.

***

Many years have
passed and Tim is long gone. Amelia has a family of her own living
in another city, but Linda and I have remained in our family home.
Every month or so we have Tim’s dinner for our evening meal, and
whenever we do, I swear I hear a little scratching noise at the
patio door in the kitchen. When I go outside to see if a tree
branch is rubbing against the door or the adjacent window, there’s
nothing to be seen. But once the door is open, I always have the
impression that something passes me as I go out.

I know it makes no
sense, and Tim’s ghost cannot have entered, but I always break one
or two pieces off the rashers of cooked bacon waiting on the paper
towel, and place them aside for Tim to find. Later, when it is time
to crumble the bacon and return it to the fry pan, those pieces
have always disappeared.

“
Did you eat the bits
I left for Tim?” I invariably ask Linda.

She always replies,
“Of course not. You and Amelia are the only ones crude enough to
eat bacon a cat’s been sniffing.”

But they’re never
there. I know I haven’t eaten them and Amelia lives 4,000 miles
away, so where have they gone?

~~~***~~~

Room 428

Catherine A. MacKenzie

Ocean’s End Hotel,
Cape Chignecto, Nova Scotia

1890

Alice gazed out the
window, watching the distant fog slowly advancing over the water
toward the hotel. Smudges and water stains distorted the glorious
view of the Atlantic Ocean and added to her foreboding. Mason, her
husband’s son, was riding, which he did every day. He'd come into
view soon; she could count on him like clockwork. Him and his
horse, Chamois. She thought Chamois a silly name for a
horse.

The previous year
when he’d purchased the mare, he had said it was the perfect name
for her. "Just feel her. She's so soft, like a baby's breath,
gentle, beautiful....”

She saw something
akin to lust in his eyes, and jealousy spread through her. "It'll
turn on you someday," Alice said. She—Alice—should have been enough
for him. His eyes should have been on her, not on some dratted
animal.She sighed, her heavy breath making a perfect circle on the
glass.

Eventually, Alice
gave up waiting, donned her husband’s hat and coat, and ventured to
the balcony where she sat on a weathered chair. She pulled a cigar
from the pocket of Freeman’s trench coat and took her first drag of
the day.

She’d been dying for
that moment. While Alice took another puff, and another, and
another, she watched for Mason.

***

Mason struggled with
the reins. Chamois was acting ornery. Mason tried to pull her in,
but the animal was determined to have its own way. "Whoa, girl.
Calm down. Steady, steady.” Mason’s words were in vain, and Chamois
veered away from the well-trampled path and toward the cliff’s
edge, east of Ocean’s End Hotel.

Chamois galloped
closer and closer to the cliff. The waves below whipped against the
boulders, the sound not unlike hundreds of frenzied fathers
attacking screaming children with endless belt lashes. Mason bit
his lower lip, tasting blood mixed with the salty mist. Menacing
clouds scudded above him as if racing away from danger. Several
colossal crows circled and chanted their incessant, piercing caw
caw caw!

When he passed the
hotel, Mason glimpsed a figure on the balcony. Thick smoke curled
above the individual, who exhaled perfect curlicues that soon
disappeared.

“
Whoa, girl,” he
shouted again. “Stop!”

The person, who was
too small to be Mason’s father, stood and looked his way. There was
a familiarity about the way the stranger rose from the chair, but
Mason couldn't recognize him, not with a hat covering his head and
a coat’s collar reaching his chin. Why was the small man bundled as
if for a blizzard when the early evening, though damp, was mild?
Mason yanked on the reins again. The edge, where the cliff dropped
500 feet to a jumble of rocks and boulders, neared. Surely Chamois
would not gallop any closer?

The mare’s pace
slackened. "Good, girl," Mason mumbled. His words were barely out
before the animal picked up speed and galloped toward the cliff’s
edge once again. Inches from land’s end—so close he felt the earth
separate and give way under the animal’s hooves—Chamois came to a
full stop and abruptly turned sideways. In one slick motion, the
horse hurled Mason toward the horizon.

July 1927

Reginald glimpsed
Elizabeth, his wife, approaching. He grasped her elbow when she
reached him. “Elizabeth, love, I want you to meet an old friend.
This is Duncan Dunn. We studied at Dalhousie together. We’ve been
talking about old times.”

Elizabeth extended
her hand and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Duncan.”

“
My
pleasure.”

“
Duncan graduated a
year ahead of me. What year was that? 1913? Or was that my year?
Age is taking its toll.” Reginald chuckled as he glanced at his old
friend.

“
Old age? You're
younger than me, Reginald. What are you, 38?”

Elizabeth laughed. “I
think we’re all in the same boat. I’m forgetting everything
nowadays as well, and I’m younger than both of you. How long are
you here, Duncan?”

“
Just overnight.
Catching a ride to Amherst in the morning, then the train to
Halifax.”

Reginald faced his
wife and interjected, “I told Duncan how you and I are here for a
short vacation.”

“
Yes, Reg is Truro’s
sheriff. Did he tell you that? He’s been so busy.” Without waiting
for an answer, she continued. “This is the perfect place for a
rest. So secluded and quiet. And the weather is beautiful this time
of year. We’re going to take a walk through the woods tomorrow
morning, if the bugs aren’t too bad. Right, Reggie?”

“
Yes, dear, whatever
you want.”

Duncan glanced at his
watch. “Sorry, but I must run. Might catch you in the morning
before I head out. If I don't, have a pleasant time and a safe trip
home.”

“
Safe travels to you,
too,” Reginald said.

Elizabeth gazed at
Duncan and held out her hand once more. “Nice to have met you,
Duncan. Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime.”

Duncan accepted her
hand and held it to his lips a second longer than
necessary.

Reginald watched his
friend leave. “Haven’t seen him since he graduated. Nice to have
run into him. Hasn’t changed much. He always was a wild
one.”

“
Wild?”

“
Liked the women, if
you know what I mean.” Reginald snickered.

“
I see.” Elizabeth
paused. “Perhaps I’ll go to my room and rest up. Finish my book,
maybe, if you’re going to play poker.”

“
I’d like to, if you
don’t mind. The game starts at ten. I’ll go to the bar
first.”

“
Stay as long as you
like. I’ll be fine.”

“
Should be over by
midnight.” Reginald kissed his wife on the cheek before heading to
the bar.

***

Reginald gulped the
last of his rum. He glanced at the clock hanging over the bar,
surprised it was only 9:45 p.m. He’d already decided to pass on the
poker game. For some reason, he wasn’t in the mood. Perhaps he’d
had too much to drink.

"I'm going to head
in," he told the bartender. “Put the tab on room 428, will
ya?”

Donning his hat, he
headed to the staircase. At the top of the stairs, he stopped to
catch his breath and then turned right toward his room. He
retrieved the brass key from his pocket and, not wanting to wake
his wife, stealthily inserted it into the door.

At first, he didn’t
realize anything was amiss. The moon’s rays shone into the room,
enough illumination for him to make his way to the bathroom, yet
something made him hesitate. There appeared to be more than one
person in the bed.

When his suspicion
registered, he froze. What the hell!

Reginald coughed, a
nervous reaction. Whatever hid beneath the blankets
stirred.

Two figures, once
shrouded by linens and darkness, bolted upright. The bedclothes
concealed the lower halves of their bodies, but the beam of
moonlight trapped the couple in its glow. The light framed the two
lovers as though they were meant to be together, like a hurriedly
snapped photograph of a recently married couple. Except they
weren't a married couple. And they didn’t sport happy faces. One
was Reginald’s dearly beloved Elizabeth. It took a few long seconds
before he recognized his college buddy, Duncan.

Tongue-tied, Reginald
stared. The couple had apparently lost their voices, as
well.

Reginald coughed
again, on purpose, which injected life, albeit sluggish movement,
into the shadowed room. Before Elizabeth or Duncan reacted,
Reginald reached inside his jacket and withdrew his gun.

He pulled the
trigger. The flashes produced eerie luminescence when he fired two
precise shots before the unsuspecting couple were able to jump from
the bed or regain their voices. Tears formed in his eyes as the
force threw the individuals—first Duncan and then
Elizabeth—backward on the bed where they lay as if never
disturbed.

Reginald spewed a
thick wad of phlegm to the floor before tossing the Smith &
Wesson onto the bed. He visualized the blood of the two lovers
mingling as the thick fluid seeped into the mattress. The raw
acridness wafted toward him though the smell was probably in his
mind. He knew from his investigations into dozens of homicides that
the pungent, metallic odour wouldn't fill his nostrils that fast
unless he stood in a slaughterhouse.