Dennis Larsen - With Cruel Intent

The nighttime interior decorator had almost forgotten about the spray paint, but seeing it sitting on the kitchen table reminded him that he had a few more things to get done. Taking the paint in hand he stepped from the kitchen into the hallway and was about to enter the living room when he saw a light suddenly appear under the door at the end of the hallway.

His heart jumped into his throat and he froze, unable to move or breathe. Slowly, he backed up retracing his steps until he had reached the kitchen table. Rummaging around in the pack he found what he was looking for, and removed the can of pepper spray he’d picked up in a hunting store a few months ago when he’d been traveling through Kentucky. Seems they use it there for defense against black bears but he suspected it would be just as effective against middle-aged women in nightgowns as well.

One side of him was screaming to get the hell out of there and the other was pushing him beyond limits he’d never known. How could he leave yet, still didn’t have any pictures of what really interested him personally. The work he’d been paid to do was pretty much taken care of but he wanted it all. At any moment he expected her to open the door and come walking down the hallway, but it didn’t happen. Patiently he listened as he inched his way down the hallway to the point that he was standing just outside her door again, this time with the pepper spray in one hand and his camera in the other. If she was going to get a face full of this stuff he wanted to document it for later review.

Intently he listened and then he heard some movement coming from inside the room. He tried to imagine what was happening on the other side of the door, he strained for clarity. The sound of her moving about on the bed was followed by the box springs squeaking as he pictured her sitting on the edge of the bed getting ready to stand.

“What’s she doing in there?” he thought. “Does she know something is wrong? Do I bust through the door and pepper spray her into oblivion or simply wait?”

He chose the latter, inched as close to the door as he dared, closed his eyes and focused on the auditory signals coming from the bedroom. Time stood still as he listened and waited. Another sound, this time the opening and closing of a drawer in rapid succession, followed by an unmistakable quick ‘CHKKK CHKKK’, metal sliding smoothly against metal in a finely engineered mechanism.

THUMP thump, THUMP thump, THUMP thump, his heart hammered against his chest wall making it almost impossible to hear as the sound echoed in his ears. His blood pressure rising, and with it the swishing sound of blood in his own head. Footsteps! Yes footsteps, he was sure of it! Getting louder, moving toward the door, then stopping. Had she heard him or noted the door to her bedroom was now closed? He was overcome with fear but the adrenalin blasting through his arteries kept him rooted in place, finger on the button of the pepper spray.

“Here it comes!” The night crawler readied himself for the assault but the opportunity never came. A few minutes passed and he could hear a toilet flush and feet moving back to the bed.

Quietly he waited, held his breath and listened, expecting the light to be turned off and the sound of intermittent snoring to begin again. Instead he could hear the box springs giving way to her weight, then again the metallic ‘CHKKK CHKKK’.

“Does this woman go the bathroom with a shotgun?” he thought, not wanting his initial impression to be true.

There was nothing he could do but wait. His back ached from having to stand so perfectly still for so long. His imagination was running wild, conjuring up all sorts of outlandish possibilities, each of which had a very negative impact on his health. He shuffled his feet, lowered the camera and spray to allow his muscles a quick break. They’d be useless in a fight if it came to that. Ambient sounds from the bedroom could again be heard coming through the door, the rustling of sheets and covers and bed springs reacting to her trying to get comfortable. The noises continued for a second or two before there was complete silence. He took a deep breath in and slowly blew it out continuing to be absolutely motionless and quiet, then as quickly as it had all started the light under the door vanished.

He waited, huddled by the door, until he could make out the delicate sounds of her sleeping and then returned to the work at hand. Time was running short and he had to be out of there soon to make it back to the van and home before the sun came up. He anticipated all hell would break loose in the morning once Mrs. Criddle woke up and discovered his antics of the night.

Methodically he packed up his things, matching everything that went back into the backpack with a list he had created earlier. Once he was sure that he had all his belongings he took the paint back to the living room and wrote in large bold letters above the couch, ‘We’re Back!’. Last but not least he needed a picture of the heart-stopping Katie. With the digital camera in hand he crept back to her entry, took a preparatory deep breath and put enough pressure on the door to swing it open.

The gap was just big enough for him to get through but he didn’t slide in until he ducked his head around the edge, checking to make sure she wasn’t sitting up in bed with a shotgun aimed at the door. He was relieved to see her lying on her back with her right leg again under the covers and her left leg slipped out from the sheets and lying bent into a figure four with the other.

Emboldened, he entered the room, lifted the camera and took a couple of pictures of his victim, as she lay so exposed to his penetrating eyes. Suddenly she shifted, pulled her left leg back under the covers and rolled over on her right side, her face now directed to the bathroom and the diffuse light coming from the partially open door. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged herself in a fetal position before her steady, even breaths returned.

The intruder waited for her to settle down before moving even closer to Katie. He moved slowly and deliberately to the side of the mattress, careful not to bring his feet down too heavily on the hardwood flooring. Rounding the end of the bed, he could see a book and a pair of spectacles on the night table along with an alarm clock that read 3:18. Keeping his eye on the Criddle woman he swung his right foot forward, and in the same motion brought the camera up to get a profile picture of his sleeping prize. Without warning his right foot slammed into something shadowed at the base of the bed. Pain shot through his stocking clad toes, radiating upward through his leg and sending signals to his brain to scream in agony. Rather than uttering a string of blasphemies, he dropped to his knees, grabbed his aching foot and rubbed the injured digits. Katie had not budged and her slumbering remained stable as he nursed his throbbing extremity.

Once he regained his composure the prowler looked for the instrument of his discomfort, and there lying next to his swollen foot, was a prosthetic leg.

“Now I’d say that was some vital, need-to-know information,” he thought.

The attachment was skin-toned, designed for coupling at the knee with a metallic latching mechanism near the top. He considered taking it as a reward for his efforts, but excused the thought when he imagined himself walking down the road with a leg sticking out of his backpack. Finally rising to his feet, he took one last parting shot of Katherine and backed from her room.

The long walk back to the van would be agonizing but at the least the ‘outing’ was a success, and with one last quick surprise for the woman of the house completed, he threw his backpack over his shoulder, put his altered shoes on, scaled the fence and was on his way. Mission accomplished with only a broken toe or two to show for his troubles.