Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

his head against the dresser; his hand on his head; his other hand on the hardwood floor; his butt and legs on the wool rug. He envisioned Baxter in his usual state, staring up at Silence with that dumb, pleasant smile and contented eyes bearing a look of sheer admiration, the ever-present line of drool coming from the corner of his mouth, pooling on Silence’s thigh.

Silence opened his eyes.

All right, all right.

He pushed himself to his hands and knees and crawled back to the bed, grabbing the bath towel from the floor. He’d brought it with him, but he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Baxter hated being toweled, and he was already stressed enough knowing that he was going to the vet. Silence had made the fool mistake of revealing the plastic carrier crate before having Baxter fully secured. That’s how the cat had ended up dug into his stronghold beneath the guest room bed.

But with the wound on his cheek and the appointment time growing nearer and nearer, Silence had no choice but to towel him.

Silence saw the little eyes at the far wall as he crawled. And Baxter saw the towel in his hand.

The growl—which still hadn’t broken, a long, continuous sound—suddenly reached an ear-piercing crescendo. And stopped. Baxter hissed.

Silence brought the towel in front of him, scooted his head and broad shoulders under the bed frame as best he could, and made contact with Baxter.

Immediately he felt the cat’s strength through the towel. Aside from the fact that Silence was stunned once more by Baxter’s ability to change temperament—this was a cat who was rattled by houseflies and lived for scratches behind the ears and marathon naps in the windowsill—Silence also noticed how similar Baxter’s sudden strength was to his own. A rigid, taught, wiry, endurance sort of strength. Silence trained for this, the sort of strength that allowed him to pry open rusty doors, pull himself up steep embankments, squeeze the life from a man’s throat. But Baxter seemed to have it naturally in some animalistic reserve that he could tap into whenever he needed, which was apparently when he had to go to the veterinarian.

Silence spoke, trying to make his hideous, demonic growl of a voice as kindly as it could sound. “Come on, Baxter. It’s okay.”

It was more syllables than he would typically utter at once, and it tore his throat up, making his eyes water. But Baxter was worth it. He was a good boy.

One quick thrust of the hands, and Silence finally had a good grip on the cat, wrapping the towel fully around him.

He shuffled out from beneath the bed, grabbed the carrier, threw open its metal gate, and secured the target.

The old wooden steps squeaked as Silence descended to the first floor. Every time he used the staircase—which was rarely, and more often than not for a Baxter-wrangling mission, as Mrs. Enfield hardly used the second floor—he felt like some sort of Southern gentleman of yesteryear. The house was no mansion, but it had to Silence’s mind a very Gone with the Wind vibe with all the ornate Victorian-era touches such as the exquisite handrail that his fingers traced as he continued down the steps.

In his other hand was the pet carrier handle. Baxter’s hissing had ceased the moment Silence got him inside, and since then the cat had been alternating between growls and scared, pathetic mews. Mostly the latter. Poor guy.

Mrs. Enfield was at the base of the stairs, her milky eyes looking up, right at the carrier, somehow knowing exactly where Baxter was. She was small, black, frail, and had hair even whiter than her functionless eyes, from which two lines of tears streamed down the crevices of her wrinkled cheeks.

Knobby knuckles moved in a wave as she rubbed her hands over each other, an infinite loop. She quivered with her sobbing. With her shoulders slouched and her knees bent, she was even tinier than usual, an effect that was amplified by the normal-sized woman standing beside her, wrapping a pair of consoling arms around her.

Lola. Mrs. Enfield’s former caretaker. She too was looking up the stairs, but she was looking not at the cat carrier but at Silence. When Silence met her eyes—which were dark and of the Asian variety, the more dominant half of Lola’s multiracial heritage—she smiled, motioned toward Mrs. Enfield, and then gave a little shrug of the shoulders that said, Isn’t she cute?

Silence found nothing cute about Mrs. Enfield’s suffering. Sure, this was most likely another false alarm, the latest in a long string of old cat lady vicarious hypochondria. Baxter had been puking for a couple days, which was more likely from chewing the wrong houseplant than sipping Liquid Plumber. But if Mrs. Enfield felt in her heart of hearts that something was wrong with him, then she was hurting. And that wasn’t cute.

He looked away from Lola’s gaze.

“You got him!” Mrs. Enfield said, almost shouted, between sobs. “Oh, thank the Lord, you got him!”

“Yes,” Silence said.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a slight reaction from Lola. They’d seen each other many times through the years when she came to visit Mrs. Enfield, but upon every new encounter, there was still some sort of involuntary response to his horrendous voice. People couldn’t help themselves; the voice was that jarring.

He stepped up to the women, raised the carrier a few inches to Mrs. Enfield’s height so that Baxter could see her and she could sense him.

“Hi, Si,” Lola said in a tone too upbeat for the situation. She was a good caretaker, though, and she continued to rub Mrs. Enfield’s shoulders even while looking at Silence.

“Hi.”

She’d called him Si. Mrs. Enfield called him Si, a nickname of familiar endearment, and she’d passed it on to Lola.

The old woman had a finger halfway in the carrier, and Baxter rubbed against it.

“It’ll be okay, baby,” she said as she ran her fingertip along the wet part of Baxter’s nose.

“Nice