Bartrum rolled smoothly up the driveway and slowed to a halt, cutting the engine. Once the parking brake was secure, he flicked the lights off and pulled the keys out of the ignition.

From where she lay in a perfectly lumpy rectangle on the front steps, Freida gave him an appraising glance, popping one yellow eye open and blinking slowly in his direction. Bartrum sighed, gathering up his briefcase and his smart plaid sport jacket from the passenger side and slinging them both over an arm, cracking his door and leaning out into the cool early evening air.

The break in the rain had lasted the whole drive home, and he had been grateful to experience his commute without the incessant scratch and squeal of his windshield wipers as they furiously beat back the torrential storm as he had seen them do that morning on his way into the bank. The world was dotted with the remnants of the last bout, and rainwater was flecking every surface with delicate shards of glass that shone dully as the sun attempted to breathe through a tiny crack in the haze of clouds moving rapidly northeast in the sky above.

The neighborhood was unusually quiet for this time of afternoon--normally Bartrum could catch sight of a few children on their way home from school, or a couple of his more advantageous careered neighbors cycling home on their sleek little road bicycles. The rain was obviously taking any fun at all out of being outdoors, and even though Batrum huffed annoyedly as he stood and stretched from his seat in the Caddy, he felt rather charmed by the tender breeze that was buffeting the greenery of his shrubs and trees and by the way the left-behind drops seemed to dance light across ordinary things such as the hood of his Cadillac, and the iron railing of his front steps.

He had been listening to the radio of the events that had occurred on the A2 three weeks prior. The news broadcasts had been nothing but chatter about the strange occurrence on the roadway that seemingly came from the ether, and conspirator theories were buzzing in every newspaper and on every wavelength of the television and radio that had any sort of expertise in reporting. Rumors ricocheted ceaselessly: some stated their beliefs of bombs being set off underground, while others swore it was the result of high-velocity tectonic plates shifting so suddenly that it marked the imminent sinking of London into the crust of the earth below. Others even still believed that it was all a media scam, and that the A2 wasn’t affected at all by mysterious changes in terrain, and that it was in fact the result of a high volume of automobiles on the roadways, sparking multiple heated debates on overpopulation and its effect on the ozone layer of the environment.

Bartrum, of course, huffed indignantly at all of the commotion and instead turned the radio off, opting to drive in silence rather than humor the chaos of modern reporting and media posturing. Between the A2 and the Southwark Bridge fiasco, he was grateful that his commute to the First Regent Bank in Mayfair didn’t involve either stretch of roadway.

The smell of a nearby neighbor’s dinner hung in the air, and Bartrum felt his stomach grumble disagreeably. Having skipped lunch due to a particularly difficult client request at work, he knew that preparing some semblance of a proper meal would fall on his shoulders that evening, and as he ascended the steps of the house on Abbott, he was reminded that Hannah was out for the evening at the library, and that she had mentioned not waiting up for her for supper. Freida stood when he reached her step and she stretched her spine upwards, butting her rump up against his calf affectionately with a purr of greeting.

“Good evening, old girl,” he bent to pat her raggedy ears with the tips of his fingers, and she blinked up at him with what he could have sworn was a look of great appreciation. “Hope the day wasn’t too exciting for you.”

Freida stood beside him as he faced his front door, waiting patiently to be let indoors, no doubt wanting to curl up on her well-worn spot on the linoleum that bumped up against the warm radiator. Bartrum shuffled his briefcase and coat clumsily in his hands, trying to get to his house key in his back pocket. Above him, a few stray drops off of the gutter of the house fell and splattered onto the top of his balding head, and there was the faint sound of someone accelerating their engine in the distance.

He plucked his house key out of his pocket and jammed it into the lock, giving it the trademark jiggle and the knob that same firm pull inward that it always required in order to allow itself to be unlocked. He had a bit of leftover salmon in the refrigerator that would go well on some toast, and he knew that there was a jar of capers somewhere in the back of his cupboard. If he could find a slice of lemon somewhere in the back of the ice chest, perhaps he would be in good standing for a fine supper.

The key spun easily in the lock, and Bartrum froze, finding the knob turning loosely in his hand.

“I forgot to lock the door?” He muttered to Freida in disbelief. The cat stared up at him knowingly, flicking her tail from side to side. He pushed open the door a crack, and Freida bolted inside, shimmying her hips into the darkness of the home without a second glance backwards.

Bartrum never forgot to lock his door. In fact, he could not recall a single time in the last five years that he had ever even misplaced his house keys. They were always either on the hook by the inside of the doorframe while he was indoors, or stashed safely away in his back pocket while he was out and about. He swore that he distinctly remembered turning the key in the lock that morning, being pelted by the unforgiving onslaught of rain as he bustled hurriedly from his porch and into the dry safety of his Cadillac.

He blinked stupidly into the wood of his door, his hands still clutching the knob and his key. Come to think of it, he was nearly positive that he had seen Freida sleeping soundly on the corner of his sofa that morning as he shut the door behind him on his way out, and that he had told himself that she would definitely appreciate a day of being shut up in the house while it down poured so horribly.

An odd chill ran down his spine, and he dropped the knob, wiping a sweaty palm on his trousers. Inside the house, he heard Freida meow softly.

He shook himself, straightening his shoulders and gripping his briefcase to steady himself. I must’ve forgotten to turn the key far enough, and Freida must’ve found her way out through the basement somewhere--perhaps the old grate in the corner has a hole in it.

He pushed open the front door and stepped into the silence of his home. Far above him, rain began to thrum softly on the roof, the next cycle of the storm beginning to make its presence known. Bartrum reached beside the door frame and hit the light switch, illuminating his home in soft yellow light from the bulbs above.

He glanced around--the kitchen, the living room, the sitting area, the closed door to his bedroom--everything was in order. Freida stood in the center of the floor just ahead of him, her yellow eyes fixed on him, and she blinked slowly with another smart swish of her tail. Bartrum swallowed hard, realizing that his mouth had gone rather dry, and he smirked nervously, hanging his house key on the familiar hook and setting his briefcase down beside his feet so he could hang his coat on the oak standing rack.

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“Loony,” he said aloud, his voice breaking in his throat, and he coughed determinedly to cover it up. Freida watched him intently, her whiskers twitching. Around them, the home was creaking with the breeze that had begun to pick up once more outside, and the windows clicked with the raindrops that merrily pelted against them. “Absolutely loony,” he mused, pulling the top of his tie a bit to loosen it from around his neck. He crossed to the kitchen sink with a forced chuckle, and he reached for a glass to fill with water. “Nothing to give a second thought to. You’ve been alone too long to be thinking such wild thoughts like intruders, Bartrum.”

Freida meowed--a sharp, high-pitched sound--and Bartrum jumped so violently that he nearly dropped the glass he had raised to his lips. He turned on his heel to face the cat, and his nerves shredded with anger, “old bat,” he hissed reproachfully, “can you please not--”

Freida was no longer standing in the center of the foyer. In fact, she wasn’t anywhere that Bartrum could easily see, yet her meow had been as clear and loud as if she had been right over his very shoulder. Bartrum gazed at where she had been, and he set the water glass down on the counter behind him with slow precision.

“Freida?” He called, and he searched the living room before him with laser focus, straining for any movement from the animal. When nothing happened, and when Freida did not reply with a second meow, Bartrum felt his pulse thundering in his throat. He took a tentative step forward, and then a second, his wing tipped shoes clicking flat on the linoleum. “Where are you, you blasted creature?”

Something caught the corner of Bartrum’s eye, and he turned sharply in the direction of his closed bedroom door. There was a piece of white paper lying on the rug just in front of the crack under the door.

He cursed the shock of fear that was taking root in his stomach as he approached the paper. He knew where his personal handgun was stored in the case beneath his mattress, and his thoughts swirled wildly around the idea that he would feel much better if he were able to pull it out from under the bed frame and hold it in that instant. Then he shook himself once more, angered at the fact that he was scared to smithereens at the simple sight of a sheet of notebook paper on the floor. But where did it come from? He questioned as he moved closer. I don’t leave rubbish lying about--and I certainly would’ve seen this underfoot this morning.

He stood over the paper, and he recognized it as a piece of stationary from his desk, but that it had been ripped in two, the top section that bore his simple letterhead of R having been torn away. He reached down, plucked it up, and turned it over in his hands, finding it blank on both sides.

Another curt meow from Freida nearly sent him leaping out of his skin, and he whirled towards the sitting room, his eyes fixing on her from where she appeared seated atop his desk, her yellow eyes like great spotlights against the gray backdrop of the window behind her. Bartrum huffed at her, flapping the torn piece of paper in her direction with a scowl.

“Horrible girl!” He bellowed, moving towards her in a flourish. “You’re behind all this--tearing my stationary and giving me a fright!” Freida did not so much as flinch as he came up to her; she merely tilted her chin upward to stare at him, unblinking, her tail flicking side to side passionately. “I bet you ate it,” he grumbled, placing the torn stationary down on the desk’s surface with vigor. “Bored as you probably are--can’t catch mice, no--you’d rather wreak havoc on my personal belongings, wouldn’t you?”

Freida regarded him with what could only be a quizzical glance, and Bartrum waved a hand dismissively at her, shooing her off the desk. “Hungry, tired, and tormented by a cat. What a sight I must be.”

Gloriously frustrated, Bartrum crossed to the television and snagged the remote, turning on a channel littered with infomercials for hoovers. He then went to the table where he kept his turntable and he struck it on, placing the needle down on the record and letting the collection of piano ballads begin to plunk out over the sounds of the rain, the combined sounds of both the music and the obnoxious salesmen drown out the harrowing silence that he had let infiltrate into his bone marrow during Freida’s tirade, and his lunacy of believing there had been a break in.

Grumbling, Bartrum rummaged in his refrigerator and began to fish out the salmon and a pat of butter. As he worked on toasting some bread and tracking down the capers, he felt his nerves settle back into his skin, the raucous noise he filled the sitting room with helping ease whatever terror he had stupidly brewed up just moments before.

Freida, accosted by the dichotomy of the television and the turntable, glowered at Bartrum from under the sofa, but he refused to meet her eyes as he worked away on supper, all the while muttering to himself that he was too old to be scared by such silly pranks by a bad-tempered house cat.

Outside, the rain thundered once again, covering any semblance of a sunset beneath blankets of gray light fading slowly into night. A car lumbered by on the street, and Bartrum settled at the dining room table and ate his toast, gazing glassy-eyed at the television, his thoughts humming louder than the infomercial that was playing for a set of overpriced drawer organizers. The desk sat undisturbed, the piano was closed as he had left it, the lights had been off, the kitchen had been spick and span. His bedroom door had been closed up tight, the furniture had been precisely in their places, and the stairs at the back of the house leading to the basement were shut up behind the ancient door with the rusted deadbolt at the top.

The windows had been closed. The driveway and porch had been undisturbed. When he finished his supper and went creeping into this bedroom to peer beneath the mattress, his handgun lay innocently in its case, scaring away any of the remaining demons that lurked in the corners of his thoughts.

But as Bartrum cleaned up from supper, finished some paperwork he brought home with him from First Regent, showered, retrieved his pajamas, and at last began to brew some hot water for his nightcap of tea, he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling of disturbance, no matter how many times he went over the events in his mind. Freida had finally settled into her usual spot by the radiator as he flicked off the lights in his home and headed to the bedroom, having checked for the eighth time the front door was locked--as well as all the windows in the kitchen and the sitting room. He curled up in his bed with his book--a great, hulking commentary on trade commerce in India--and every few moments he eyed the same crack he always left in his bedroom door for Freida to come and go as she pleased through the night.

This night, it looked particularly more menacing, and Bartrum sighed in exasperation as he read and then reread the same sentence twelve times in his book, his mind wandering to the crack nearly every four or five seconds.

“To hell with this evening!” He scowled, slammed his book on the bedside table and reached for the lamp string, tugging it indignantly and casting himself into darkness.

To hell with this house, to hell with my desk, to hell with my keys and my damned front door. And to hell with the cat.

The cat in question leapt silently onto his bed moments later, giving him a fright that could last him a lifetime. He stifled his scream, and instead wrapped his covers around himself into a tightly-wound cocoon blocking out the sounds of the rain, the creak of the radiator, the hum of the refrigerator, and the soft breathing of Freida at his feet.

To hell with this house, he thought in a tirade as he felt sleep pulling at his consciousness. To hell with being alone. I can justify every bloody event that’s taken place tonight with reason. To hell with any other thought.

But he knew deep down that he had seen the grate in the basement patched seven months ago when there had been water damage in the basement. And he knew deeper still that no animal in his knowledge of biology had the agility or ability to possibly reach the deadbolt over the door to the basement stairs. And he knew within that knowledge that Freida abhorred the basement entirely, and she opted never to descend those steps whenever he ventured down into the bowels of his home to search for something in the boxes below.

As he fell ruefully into a fitful sleep, he somehow knew deepest of all that he could not in good faith justify forgetting to lock his blasted front door.