“Oh God,” moaned Kat, shuffling in her heated leather seat. “I’d give my left nipple to get my hands on his goodies.”
The sound of her friend Sally chuckling, echoed over the speakers of the car’s phone system. “Kitty, you’re so bad. If he’s so irresistible, why don’t you just knock on his door and tell him you want to rip his clothes off?”
“Oh, I’m tempted, believe me. My vibrator just isn’t doing it for me anymore. I need cock, and lots of it.”
“Kathryn!” her friend gasped comically. “If only your mother could hear you now.”
Kat smiled. Sally had always been good for a giggle, and with the unnerving rumble of thunder in the distance, she was in desperate need of one. A drive back home through the rural backroads of Massachusetts wasn’t exactly what one would call entertaining. Certainly not at midnight, and not when it was eerily gloomy and freezing cold outside. Kat hadn’t seen a street sign now for miles, and if it weren’t for the sat-nav unit glowing comfortingly in her dashboard, she would have been completely and hopelessly lost.
“She’d probably faint,” giggled Kat. “You should see him though, Sal. He’s got muscles on his muscles, and he dresses like he’s robbed an Armani delivery truck.”
She squirmed in her seat. Just the thought of the man in apartment twelve made Kat uncomfortably warm. He’d only moved into her building a fortnight earlier and already she was aching to get better acquainted with him. He had that physique which women find irresistible: the broad, strong shoulders and big burly arms. It was the kind of body that could make a woman want to slip a discrete hand somewhere wicked, and tease herself whilst watching him unload a removal truck down on the street below.
“He sounds fucking gorgeous,” replied Sally. “Listen, I’ve got to run. Seriously though, get your ass round to his place in something sexy. You never know.”
“Thanks, Sal,” said Kat, her finger hovering over the little red ‘end call’ button on the steering wheel. “Consider it done. See you tomorrow morning, okay?”
“See you then.”
Kat hung up and slumped back into the plush leather interior of her Mercedes C-Class. Images of the hunky mystery man tiptoed through her consciousness, teasing her delightfully. She imagined unbuttoning his soft, white linen shirt and running her hands over his firm sculpted chest. Kat sighed in frustration and focused back on the road. It was so dark outside that if it were not for the change in pitch of her tyres as she left the road, she would never have known that she was driving over the steel grating of a small truss bridge. As she approached the halfway mark, her headlights picked out two, bright green eyes in the middle of the road a split second before she was about to plough into whatever creature they belonged to.
“Shit!” shouted Kat as she swerved wildly to avoid hitting it. She stamped her foot down on the brake pedal, but was travelling too fast to avoid slamming her car into the side railing of the bridge. With a deafening crunch of steel on steel, and a terrifying shower of sparks and broken glass, she watched in horror as the front of her vehicle punched through the safety barrier.
A loud explosion knocked Kat back into her seat as her airbag deployed. It filled the car with a choking, acrid dusty smoke that burned her throat. Disorientated and confused, she began to wrench helplessly at the seat belt pinning her down. It was no good, she was trapped. She tugged harder and harder at the securing buckle, but froze in fear as the car lurched forward. Icy cold air, rich with the scents of earthy woodland, rushed in through the hole where the windshield had been. Kat stared wide-eyed out into a pitch black abyss, terrified that at any moment the car might tip forward. There was nothing down there but a river, and it was too dark to see how far down the freezing waters were.
“Oh God, oh God,” Kat whimpered, trying desperately to free herself from the wreckage. A grumbling groan of twisted metal resonated as the car tipped and leaned even further over the edge.
“Help me, please!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Specks of blood peppered the glass as she pounded her fists on the door and shattered driver’s window. There was no one out there, but she pleaded anyway should someone have been close enough to hear her pleas.
“Help me!”
Those were the last words she screamed before the car rolled off the edge of the bridge and plunged into the silent inky black.
***
Storm clouds hung in the air, obscuring the blue hue of the waning crescent moon behind a hazy autumn veil. Dried leaves, the colour of burnished gold and antique amber, rattled and hissed as the breeze caught the tall branches of the trees. Other than the whisper of the wind and the swell of the river’s current, silence reigned supreme.
One sensation drowned out all others as Kat eased into consciousness. As she lay immobile in the tangled weeds of the river bank, she was painfully cold. A stinging wind bit into her sodden clothes and numbed her aching limbs. With all of the strength she could muster, Kat rolled herself over onto her stomach and began to scramble up through the thick mud and brittle reeds. Fist over fist she crawled until she was out of the water.
Dizzy and in pain, every yard she travelled was both a challenge and a triumph. When she thought she was able, Kat clambered unsteadily to her feet and looked around. Nothing looked familiar. There was no bridge, no road, and no car. She felt woozy as she balanced precariously on unsteady legs. Kat touched the back of her hand to her forehead and then glanced down at it; the blood looked black in the moonlight.
Without any idea of what to do, and with no indication as to which direction she should travel to find help, Kat set off into the woods. She stumbled and fought her way through the dense trees and bushes. The further she travelled, the harder it became to progress through the heavy foliage. Branches snagged her wet, torn clothing, like someone was pulling her back, fighting against her efforts. Worse still, every single sound in the wildwood solitude kept her on edge. From the crack of a snapping twig, to the rustle of brush, everything had an ominous bearing of malevolence. She was sure she was being followed.
As if on cue, a booming crash of thunder exploded and ripped across the sky, shaking the very ground she walked on. Kat pressed her back to a tree defensively and clasped her arms around her body. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest like a heavy fist banging on a table. Heavy, frigid raindrops began to fall, clattering through the overhanging limbs above and pitter-pattering on her head. What was already a dire situation now seemed to be getting worse, and Kat was fast losing hope. She was cold and alone, aching and bloodied, and lost in the middle of the woods with no expectation of help.
Still she trudged on, through the scratching branches and thickening mud, until she eventually caught sight of a hulking shadow in the distance. As Kat got closer, she could make out in the gloom the silhouette of what looked like an old wooden cabin. With her heart hammering away and a sudden surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins at the prospect of rescue, she made it to the porch of the old shack just as the heavens opened.
Despite the limited light, it became immediately apparent that the structure had long since been abandoned. The wooden planks of the porch floor were split and twisted, and the windows were caked in a film of grime and furry green moss. Kat tried the door but found it was locked. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to force it open.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she screamed, frustrated and tired.
As she was about to try and break a window to gain entry, the door clicked and eerily creaked open in front of her. She stared at it for a moment before pushing it open slowly. A thick, blanket-like settling of dust covered the ancient floorboards, disturbed for the first time in an age as Kat cautiously stepped inside. Unbeknownst to her, a small black cat which had silently followed her through the woods, slipped inside before she latched the door closed behind her.
The place looked like it hadn’t been touched in two hundred years. Every surface was thick with powdery dust, and shrouded by huge, silvery grey cobwebs. Adding to the charm of the place was the dank and musty smell; it was earthy and rich, like the hollow of a felled and withered tree trunk. Against the side wall lay a collapsed wooden table and the remnants of some old wicker baskets. The far wall appeared to be made of stone. There was a small square fireplace at the foot of the wall with a rusty grate sat in the bottom.
The rain outside began to fall heavier as the storm moved in. Despite the loud drumming on the roof, the floorboards could still be heard creaking as Kat ventured further into the darkness. Even though the cabin was sparse and uninhabited, she still considered herself fortunate to be out of the rain.
Scattered around the floor in the corner of the room were a number of books and sheaves of old, faded paper. Kat bent down and picked up one of the books, but no discernible writing could be made out on the pages. They were dried out and curling at the edges, having clearly languished unloved for many years. With her hands still shivering from the cold, she tore some pages from the book and scrunched them up, throwing them into the fire grate.
Kat had nothing to start a fire with, but hoped there may be a discarded box of matches lying around on the floor somewhere in the room. As she turned to start searching, there was a soft ‘swoosh’ sound from behind her as the pages burst into flames. She spun around, gasped and stepped backwards. Her eyes darted wildly around the cabin in search of danger. Something wasn’t right about this place, she’d felt it as soon as she’d stepped inside.
As she watched the pages burn from a distance, they unnervingly never turned to ash. Kat watched them blaze for nearly five minutes, becoming more and more concerned that the laws of physics seemed to be absent from her shelter for the night. She was thankful for the light and warmth, but at the same time perturbed by that which she could not explain. The wind outside was now howling, and the heavy rain streaked down the dirty panes of glass in rivers. There was no way she was going back out into that.
Sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire, she began to pick the small pieces of broken glass from her hands. There were small cuts all over her palms and knuckles, that were starting to swell slightly where they were beginning to bruise. As she meticulously removed the sharp shards with her fingernails, it bothered her that she was unable to remember how she’d escaped from the car. There was a sensation of being submerged lingering somewhere at the back of her mind. Lost deep in her thoughts, Kat was startled by the unexpected sound of a cicada moth flexing its wings. It buzzed loudly in the comparative silence of the cabin.
Kat shuffled backwards, instinctively trying to distance herself from the strange noise. As she put her weight down on her hand behind her, a floorboard lifted almost causing her to fall. The wooden plank was uneven and warped from years of damp winters and hot summers. Several deep breaths steadied her nerves as she stared at the shadowed hollow. An inquisitive and unaccountable urge to search the pitch black floor space overcame her. With a tentative curiosity, Kat reached inside slowly and felt around, eventually resting her hand on top of something solid. She removed the heavy rectangular object that she had found, and blew off the thick layer of dust which had settled onto it.
It appeared to be wrapped in some sort of rough-cut, yellowed animal hide. Underneath the rudimentary skin wrap was hidden away a leather-bound book. The rich, glossy chestnut patina shimmered in the amber light of the unnatural fire. Despite obviously spending countless years under the floorboards of an old house in the woods, it appeared to be in perfect condition. It must have been at least a couple of hundred years old, and clearly the previous owner had thought enough of it to try and protect it.
A square brass lock secured the book closed on one side, and despite Kat’s best efforts, she was unable to prise it open with her sore hands. She tugged and pulled at the latch, but all she managed to accomplish was to leave a smear of blood across the subtle, slightly tarnished engraved runes in the brass plate. A bronzed gleam drew her eyes to the side of the book. She turned it around and angled it towards the fire in order to read the words on the spine. Although the script had a semi reflective surface, the gold lettering seemed to burn brighter than it should have in the light from the flames.
The book had an unearthly feel as she held it in her hands, as if there was something unnatural about it. Kat didn’t know why, but an inkling of its contents flittered into her head before fizzling out, like a sudden and bright spark in the deep dark. What she held in her hands was a repository of danger, an Alexandrian library of dark secrets from times of old. But whether it was a tomb of maleficence, or a fountain of forgotten knowledge remained to be seen. With her pulse now racing and throat dry, she leaned in close and whispered the words quietly as she read them, “Sapientia de Maleficarum.”
A soft metallic click sounded as the locking plate popped free and the latch dropped open. Her breath caught in her throat as she sat the book in her lap. With fat, heavy raindrops tapping on the window and roof, and the wind howling and groaning as it whipped around the outside of the old cabin, Kat rested the book on its spine and thumbed her way to a random middle page. Her lips and throat were parched, her eyes wide with curiosity. With one last deep breath, she parted the book in the middle.
A blinding golden light flooded into the room, stinging her eyes. She tried to open them but everything had become a bright painful blur that she was unable to focus on. Kat felt like she was sinking, or rather, that she had sunk to the bottom of something but was now beginning to surface. Gradually, the feelings of surprise and unease faded and were replaced with the sensations warmth and comfort. The familiar and distinctive smell of jasmine could be detected from the essential oil reeds that sat on her dressing table. She was in bed at home, and the radiant light that hurt her eyes was the morning sun flooding in through her bedroom windows. ‘Was it all a dream?’ Kat thought to herself as she stirred. Through her groggy, sleep-hazed vision, a fuzzy silhouette began to come into focus. A black cat was stood on her chest looking down at her.
“I’m hungry.”
“Fuck off,” Kat grumbled. “I’m trying to sleep.” She rolled over and pulled her snuggly duvet tight around her shoulders and neck. A soft warm paw began to tap her cheek, squishing it and rolling it around.
“Go away,” groaned Kat, scrunching up her face and trying desperately to sink back into a restful sleep.
“Fooood,” the cat continued.
“Alright! Jesus, I’m getting up.” Kat threw off the duvet and climbed out of bed. Her limbs and muscles ached like she’d fallen down several flights of stairs, then climbed back up to the top and thrown herself down them again. As she stumbled her way to the bedroom door, she froze. Something wasn’t right. Kat slowly turned around and stared at the strange cat sat on the foot of her bed. It cocked its head to one side inquisitively as she narrowed her eyes.
“What?” said the cat.
“Ahh!” The scream was blood-curdling as Kat staggered backwards into her dresser. She crashed into it heavily, knocking over a vase of flowers and tipping over all of her perfume bottles and small trinkets.
“Ahh!” screamed the cat in response.
“You can talk!” Kat shrieked. “Who are you? What the fuck is going on?”
“What’s going on is you’re freaking out,” replied the cat. “Take a deep breath. Chill out.”
“What?”
“Breathe. If you don’t breathe you’re going to pass out.”
Kat stared at the little black creature and remained pinned to the mahogany dresser. After a minute or so she started to take some deep breaths and calm herself. Her heart was racing, but it eventually started to slow down.
“Thanks,” she replied quietly.
“No problem.”
After taking a moment to absorb the last sixty-seconds and consider the situation she found herself in, Kat turned and ran quickly out of the room and into the kitchen. She hurriedly flung open a corner cabinet and took down a medical box, ripping off the lid and tipping the contents out onto the counter.
“What’re you doing?” asked the cat. It had followed her from the bedroom and was now sat on the kitchen table behind her.
“Trying to see if I have anything for,” she frantically twirled her hand around her head, “imaginary voices.”
Kat glanced to her side and saw her reflection in the small square mirror hanging on the wall. Her hair looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. It was all caked up with mud, twigs and tiny pieces of broken glass. She leaned closer and ran her fingertips over where she had cut her head the night before; there was nothing there. Her hands were also completely free of any cuts or bruises.
“Why don’t you have something to eat instead of getting drugged up?” suggested the cat. “And speaking of breakfast…”
“Would you please stop talking!?” Kat turned to look at him, shrugged her shoulders and went back to delving through her small mountain of miscellaneous medications. “I don’t know why the hell I’m talking to you anyway. You’re a cat, and cats don’t talk.”
“Listen, lady,” the cat replied, lifting one of his front legs. “You nearly killed me last night. I think I at least deserve some breakfast before you completely lose your shit.”
“Don’t you point your paw at me, you furry little bastard!” shouted Kat as she spun around to face him. “It was you, wasn’t it? You ran out in front of my car last night. Oh God, my car…” She’d completely forgotten about it. If a police report wasn’t filed straight away, people would soon be out searching for her body.
“Hang on,” she continued. Kat stared off into the distance as if she were trying desperately to remember something. “How-how did I get home?”
The cat just shrugged and started licking his paw.
“Well, how did you get here?”
“Dunno, actually. Woke up on your couch.”
“D’you know what it is?” asked Kat. She was smiling now and visibly more relaxed. “I’m still dreaming.” She chuckled to herself as she opened the refrigerator, took out a carton of milk and began to drink it. Big droplets splattered on her still sodden, dirty t-shirt as she gulped it down greedily.
“So what’s your name, anyway?” she gasped, swallowing the last of it and wiping her mouth on her arm.
“Fluffy,” he responded, and watched as a raised eyebrow was about to precede a question. “Don’t ask. It’s a long and tragic story. How about you?”
“Kitty.”
“Kitty? Are you winding me up?”
“No,” she replied. “My name’s Kathryn, but my friends call me Kitty or Kat.”
“Okay. Kitty what?”
“Meowenstein.”
Fluffy started to laugh hysterically. He rolled onto his side and tucked his paws in so that he became a jiggling ball of furry mockery. His tail knocked an orange off the fruit bowl which rolled across the table and fell onto the floor, “Stop it, I can’t breathe, too funny.”
“Shuddup you,” said Kat, pouting. She reached into the cupboard and took out a tin of tuna chunks. As she clipped on the can opener and began to turn it, she watched as Fluffy’s eyes went wide and his little tongue poked out.
“Here,” she said, pouring the brine into the sink, tipping the contents out onto a plate and placing it on the table. “Enjoy.”
It was actually funny to watch how animated he was whilst devouring the tuna. His tail swished from side to side, and he rocked from one back leg to the other like he was dancing a jig. Kat slumped heavily against the refrigerator door and closed her eyes. It was hard to make any sense out of anything: the car crash, the strange house in the woods, the book. Just as she’d decided to head for the shower and finally get cleaned up, there was a loud knock at the door. She dashed over and opened it a crack to see who it was.
“S’up, girl?”
“Oh, thank fuck!” whispered Kat loudly, dragging Sally into the apartment. “Get in here.”
“Kat, what the…” replied Sally, looking at her friend. “Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”
Kat started pacing up and down the apartment whilst she nibbled on her fingernails. Her appearance and erratic behaviour was clearly concerning Sally.
“Fucking cat, bridge, then in the water. Raining. Old place, smelled funny. This weird book… I dunno. Then back here.”
“What?”
“And Fluffy can talk!” she yelled, gesturing with both hands to the black cat lounging on her kitchen table.
“When did you get a cat?” Sally asked. She walked up to her friend and clasped her face in both hands. With her thumbs pulling her cheeks down, she peered into Kat’s eyes. “What’ve you taken? Are you on drugs?”
“No, of course not,” Kat replied, shrugging her off. “Oh, never mind.” She collapsed wearily into the chair behind her whilst Sally took a seat on the couch. For a good thirty-seconds she watched as Sally shuffled about trying to get comfortable.
“Kat, seriously, you look like shit. Have you been camping in the woods? You’ve got twigs in your hair.”
“Last night, my car…”
Kat started the sentence but thought it better not to worry her friend. Explaining the near death experience of crashing through the side of a bridge would be bad enough, but how would she put all the other crazy stuff into sensical words? She wasn’t sure herself yet what was real and what was imagined.
“It broke down in the middle of nowhere. I got caught in the rain.”
Sally wriggled in her seat distractedly. Every few seconds she shifted her weight from one side to the other, or kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, unable to keep still.
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that, babe. I hope it’s nothing too serious.”
“What is wrong with you?” asked Kat in an irritated tone. She’d been watching Sally try to discreetly scratch herself for the last minute. “You haven’t stopped fidgeting since you got here.”
“I had to sort my bikini line out,” she replied. “I’m going to Miami in a couple of hours, remember?” Kat had forgotten all about it. There was no way she could tell her what had happened now, she might cancel her holiday. As she watched with her face scrunched up, Sally stuffed her right hand down her jeans to have a scratch.
“Oh God,” moaned Kat as she turned away and glanced out of the window. “Where’d you go to get it done?”
“Well, I was going to go to Tiger Tammy’s. She’s got a special offer on at the moment.”
“Who?” Kat turned back to her friend, sporting a look of confusion.
“Tiger Tammy, you know. That weird bitch who runs the salon next to the bank. She’s got pink hair and eyes that look in different directions.”
“Are you serious?” Kat asked incredulously. “I’ve heard bad things about that place, Sal. I mean, what sort of name is that anyway?”
“You’re kidding me. You really don’t know why they call her Tiger Tammy?” asked Sally excitedly.
“No.”
“Well, the story goes that she went round to her sister’s house one day to drop something off that she’d borrowed. Her sister wasn’t in, but her sister’s husband was.” Sally leaned a little closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial volume. “The sister came home and walked in to see Tammy’s huge fat ass bouncing up and down on her husband. She was giving him a seriously good banging by all accounts.”
“Fuck off!”
“I’m serious! Tammy and her sister’s husband were going at it like no one’s business. They never heard the door open, and the sister was just stood there in shock. That is until Tammy moaned something about how good a lay the guy was. The sister lost her fucking mind hearing that. She went to the kitchen and heated up a big griddle pan…”
“Urgh. I don’t want to know,” Kat groaned, suddenly feeling a little sick. “Jesus, I can’t believe you let her near your cat flaps with hot wax.”
“Well, I didn’t. I chickened out at the last minute and ended up shaving it off instead. Now it's itching like fuck.” Sally’s hand jiggled away in her pants in a most unladylike manner. “I had to run for the bus yesterday and the friction nearly set fire to my knickers.”
“I’m really glad we have these little talks, Sal,” replied Kat.
“Listen, I can’t stop. This was just a flying visit. I’ve got a plane to catch and I reckon you need a shower, or maybe two. Just don’t do anything crazy until I get back, okay? I’ll give you a ring later.”
“Okay,” sighed Kat, suddenly exhausted. She saw her friend out and then flopped onto the couch. Even underneath the cushion that she had pressed to her face, she could hear Fluffy laughing.
“What?” she asked.
“Cat flaps. I just got it.”
Kat sat up straight and grabbed a notepad and pen from the coffee table.
“I’ve got to figure out what happened last night or I’m gonna go nuts,” she whispered to herself as she started sketching out letters. “What the hell was the name of that book? Sapi-something, sapientia de…”
As she closed her eyes and tried to picture the scene, a vivid image of the book’s spine materialised slowly in her mind. “Maleficarum. What the hell does that mean?” Kat reached out and picked up her laptop from the coffee table.
“Means witches,” offered Fluffy.
“How do you know?”
“I Googled it.”
He sat perfectly still on the window sill on the other side of the room. He was watching a wood pigeon sat on a branch of the tree outside.
“How do you know what Google is?” asked Kat, looking up and narrowing her eyes. Fluffy’s ears twitched. “Were you using my laptop this morning?”
Curiosity got the better of her. She clicked on the browser toolbar and started to scroll through her browsing history. There were lots of links to sites on magic and witchcraft, several of which used the latin word ‘maleficarum’ in the title. As she neared the bottom of the list, several porn sites were listed with search results for ‘sexy kitty’.
“Oh my god, you didn’t.”
Fluffy just shuffled himself around a little more and continued to gaze out of the window nonchalantly. She was going to have to have words with him about this later.
“So this phrase apparently means the ‘Wisdom of Witches’.