She’d sat down quickly to finish some work. Andrew Bracken had thrown the basic script together as a basic scene outline; she’d been hired to fix it. She loved working on films—she always had. And this time—as often happened—she’d been able to get Colby work, too. Not that Colby couldn’t work on his own—he was one of the best dive masters in Key West! But this film had some money and Colby had made enough in a few days’ work to take the nice little mini-vacation that had brought her here tonight.
Busy editing, she’d really not noticed the thing until she’d headed over to use the downstairs’ restroom. And really, why would she have noticed that particular thing? The little house was filled with movie posters, models, books, art—stuffed creatures. There were pirate heads, skull and cross-bone flags, driftwood creations…Colby had truly followed in the family tradition. She just had never seen anything quite as creepy as the zombie-nun-skeleton thing.
I won’t look at it! She told herself. If I don’t look at it, everything will be fine.
She sighed and turned away and hurried back to her computer.
Waldorf—the giant Persian cat that was the reason for her staying at her brother’s place while he and Tracy flew off to the Bahamas for the weekend—was sitting on her keyboard.
Waldorf was really as much her cat as he was Colby’s, since he’d been their family cat when they’d still been at home. But, she’d had to do more traveling than Colby and now, because he was an old boy, they didn’t like to disrupt his daily pattern or take a chance of moving him around anymore.
“Waldorf, the last time you did this to me, you ripped all the letters off the keyboard. Do you know how hard it is to write anything at all when you can’t find the ‘e’ key? Please…I love my bro, I know how he loves you, but I need to work—do you mind?” she said aloud.
Waldorf looked at her with big blue eyes; she thought that the cat shuddered.
“All right. Treats. Come on, Waldorf. Treats!”
Waldorf loved treats. In fact, he was very fond of food. Waldorf was huge, a big furry gray Persian—a monster cat.
Kathy made a concentrated effort not to look in the direction of the thing as she made her way to the kitchen. Some of Colby’s treasures came from beneath the sea—her brother made his living as a dive captain. Some of his collection, she’d actually gotten for him. She was a freelance editor/consultant for the indie film market, repairing scripts, suggesting changes, and working with everyone from those who had to do cheap advertisements for local markets to those planning major motion pictures that utilized the Florida Keys as locale. For example, she’d gotten Colby the set of vampires figures that held prominence in his bedroom—models designed for She-Shark Versus the Vampires—a bizarre little flick that gained an even more bizarre cult following.
Models, figurines, created to help the costume and design departments in the crew. Some were actually beautiful. They were just resin. There was nothing about them that was….
Evil.
The zombie-skeleton-nun was evil.
Kathy could feel it.
And so could Waldorf.
“Come on, Waldorf. Kitty, Kitty!” Kathy called.
Waldorf looked at her. She could have sworn that he looked toward the zombie-nun thing—and shuddered again.
He didn’t leave the keyboard.
“Don’t look at it, Waldorf. Don’t look at it…just pretend it’s not there.”
Waldorf didn’t move. He was in the taut, hunched position cats took on when they were ready to strike—or when they were very wary and ready to take up a defensive position.
Kathy let out a sigh and brought the kitty treats over to the computer. The cat left the keys—jumping into her arms.
She gave him the treats. “You know, Waldorf, we’re going to go to my place. It’s just a shotgun rental—I don’t own it, and I’m not fixing it up—but we’ll be happier there.
She thought about her own place longingly. A block off Duval, it could be loud; drunks sometimes stumbled by singing at their top of their lungs after leaving the bars on the main street.
She had a few movie props and things of her own that one just might consider creepy.
But not the zombie-nun thing.
“I’m just going to close this up, Waldorf—then we’ll go to my place. You’ll stay in my arms, right? Didn’t bring the car and it’s about six blocks away….”
She sat, looking at the work she had done, ready to save it. She saw a few typos and set about fixing them before saving—then saved again in a backup file that she emailed to herself. As she did so, she felt the cat’s claws dig into the flesh on her thighs. Waldorf began to hiss.
She looked up.
It was there; the zombie-skeleton-nun thing. Standing in front of her. The gaping mouth now seemed to be grinning, the dark eye sockets seemed to have vision, and they were staring directly at her. She could have sworn that she heard it laughing.
Impossible.
It had moved.
Kathy let out a shriek, stood, clutching the massive cat to her.
And yes, it moved…one of the giant hands reached out, reached out across the desk, reached for her….
She screamed and came around the desk, staring at it in horror, wondering in the back or her mind which was closer, the front door or the back door.
She raced toward the front door.