when They come for you

Caught#03-with a friend

Autry suddenly jumps back a bit when the door shakes. Someone has just knocked. At our door. It could be an investigator. Come to kill us all.

"I'm so sorry, mum", Autry whispers, "I'm so sorry Kiev. I tried to lose them, I swear I did – I didn't want them to follow me to you guys", I think he's crying. I haven't ever seen Autry cry since we first made our way here. Not even when his girlfriend dumped him. But that was two months ago.

"Hey, you in there? It's me, Marion. Stella?", a woman's voice comes through the door. Stella is my mum's name, but there is something unsettling about the name 'Marion'. It sounded similar to my mum's old middle name; 'Mary-Ann'.

"Open it", mum looks my brother in the eyes. Autry raises an apprehensive expression, and mum just nods. He edges away from the door, and clumsily shoves the key into the lock.   

Two men with silver brief-cases enter. Oh, no. Perhaps it was all just a trick.

But then a woman enters.

She wears coal-coloured heels and stockings with a collared black shirt. The woman takes off her sunglasses, and appears to survey our small apartment, as if appraising it. I can imagine the walls cowering under her gaze.  

And then she walks past Autry and sits down, right next to mum, on the couch.

Autry and I remain on guard, even when mum smiles genuinely at her.

"Well, hasn't it been a while, Marion? Would you and your companions like a cup of coffee?", Mum gets up to go to the kitchen. Are these people ghouls also? Mum knows them?

"No, Stella. You know what I'm actually here for, don't you?", the way Marion says mum's name, makes it sound like the  binding of a spell or chain. In my peripheral-vision I see Autry shift from the door, to stand directly behind Marion. The two men also move closer to my brother. They now stand on either side of Marion and their metal cases are in my full view. I wonder what could be inside them, if not quinques-

"Here", the leaner of the two men bends over the couch and places his case on the coffee table.

"Thank you, Meredith" Marion says in monotone. Wait- Meredith isn't a man's name . . .

My mistake is confirmed when I realise Meredith's lips are too pink to not have any lip-gloss on them. And now that she's knelt by the coffee table, under the artificial light, the brown bun at her nape is visible. But only Marion is wearing a skirt among the three, and is also the only one not wearing a black suit. These people kept getting weirder by the second. Unless of course, they had been attending a funeral. But their almost formal casualness tells me otherwise.   

"Stella's in the kitchen", Marion lightly brushes Meredith's wrist and gets up from the couch. I realise that even as Marion walks away, Meredith remains holding her head in the same direction, as if looking over the case. I'm guessing that's the work of the, uh . . . blindfold? Unlike the rest of her business-like outfit, the cloth tied at the back of her head is chequered in bright aqua and basil.   

"Why have you covered your eyes?" I ask, feeling a little braver, with Marion gone and Autry still here - though the presence of the other man still unnerves me.

"Hehe, you want to see?", Meredith is already untying her blindfold. And then, eyes still closed, she stands up and begins to turn slowly on the spot, until she stops, facing my brother. "Were you the one that asked?". But Autry is already moving towards where I'm sitting, and now he stands in between the couch and the coffee table. "Ah,so it was the smaller one who asked?", she is now directly facing us. How can she know the difference between us, when she can't even see? But then I realise that the blind fold is clenched in her hand. But surely even now, she can't properly see us? Her eyes are like poached eggs, with opaque blue marbles in the centre of each eye. The marbling reminds me of the fat dispersed in meat.

"Do I talk a lot?", Meredith interrupts our observation, and begins to tie back her blind fold. When she sits down by the table again, I ask,

"Were you always blind? How could you tell where we were sitting and what direction to face?", I ask.

"Heh, that's a lot of questions. It's called echo-location", the silent man finally speaks. He has a yellow-brown tan, and wears a black fedora, the brim lowered to shadow his eyes. Is he blind too? When he gives us a side-ways glance with bright green eyes, I realise he can't be.

Mum finally comes out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with six mugs of hot coffee. My brother and I stare meaningfully at her.

"Ah, boys, Marion's an old acquain-"

"-friend", Marion interjects.

" . . . an old friend of mine", mum finishes. 

..................................................................................

Now that I look back, 'Meredith' may've been too lame name . . . Well, wait till you guys see the even lamer name I gave the green-eyed guy with the black fedora.