Kathy's Kelter

Chapter Two- Bereavament

Blotches of ink seeped out onto the towel. Was it ink? The only other possible explanation was one that Kathy would never dream of thinking about. Trying to control her breathing, she lifted the black stained shower curtain. The sight that laid before Kathy's eyes would be the sight that triggered it all. A catalyst. When her vision fixed on the stygian black cloak, she knew.

It was the corpse of her husband, Cula, formally known as Dracula.

Blood, in its dark, black form, percolated down Cula's stiff and pallid hand to the tips of his onyx like nails. He didn't respond to the rhythmic truming of the beads of blood as they neighboured the ceramic bathtub in which he lay, because he was lifeless. No more.

Kathy stood, paralysed. She was a Russian doll, except she had no layers inside. Just emptiness.

Desperate to find a cause, Kathy examined the body. Lacerated skin crept down his wrists, soaked in black void. It was a suicide. She pivoted around, searching for a note. There has to be one. Lifting pill pots, perfumes, and percales, Kathy upturned the bathroom. Beginning to lose her patience, she stood up, and screamed. As loud as she could. She was, however, careful not to infect the virginal minds of the children next door, so she avoided to blaspheme.

Walking out the bathroom door, Kathy felt an adherent object secure itself onto her foot. A note! The note wasn't well presented, just a folded piece of paper with tinged edges. Upon further scrutiny, Kathy discovered her own name written with exquisite penmanship. Summoning her courage, she unfurled the paper with quaking hands.

After her eyes had scanned the note, Kathy remained propped on the door. The world fell silent. She knew it hadn't actually, and that billions were living their normal, quotidian lives, but for Kathy, it had stopped. Confusion was in the lead of the race of her emotions, though anger followed closely behind. How? Why? What? As her mind slipped, so did her feet.

I just hate children.

It knelled inside Kathy's mind, and it was the last thing she heard before her vision blackened.

Kathy Kalloway III lay unconscious on the floor.

• •

The chirping of the birds was ephemeral, as Kathy's ringing ears were of a higher amplitude. Gliding with blithe, flies hastened around the lightbulb. A jolt of panic interrupted Kathy's bemused state, and she sat up.

Relaxation was never an element that Kathy experienced. In fact, she had been in an almost constant state of stress and drained of energy since she had become a teenager.

This took the cake. Kathy stared in utter horror at the dead body of her husband, draped across the bathtub. What would she do with the body? She couldn't bury it - he would turn to ashes after a few minutes in the sun. Would there be a funeral? Kathy contemplated.

Rather fleetingly, a paltry two minutes passed. Kathy's thoughts had culminated. She couldn't heft Cula; his weight for a vampire was substantial. Kathy had been apprehensive before about how much her husband loved and trusted her, as he never permitted her to have a steak for self-defence. She only coveted one as a precaution in case a rogue vampire after Cula decides to visit. It was then when it struck her, loud and clear; there was an alternate answer. If she just got enough sunlight to turn Cula's body into ashes, she could bury him without looking suspicious.

For her stratagem to prosper, she would need sunlight, and a lot of it. Smudging her mascara even further down her cheeks in the will to dry tears, Kathy pushed herself up from the cold tiles and onto her feet, trembling.

She studied the window. An north facing window that small could never bestow enough sun rays to execute her goal. Withal, if Kathy could direct the light in a way that it could reach Cula's body without her having to perforate the wall for illuminance, her plan could be achieved.

The endmost obstacle was the most discernible issue: how? Searching her mind for ideas, Kathy's logical side persevered to latch onto a feasible, but impractical idea. This was to accumulate all the mirrors in her house, and arrange them so that the light reflects in a fashion that she would require.

Kathy rushed pell-mell around the house, chary of slipping on the newly-installed mahogany floorboards. She amassed the mirrors from every room. Fortunately for Kathy, she didn't believe in superstition, so she was more negligent that most might be when handling items said to give you seven years of bad luck.

Her life was already unlucky; what harm would more do?

Following the collection of all thirteen mirrors, Kathy returned to the bathroom. Why they needed so many looking glasses in their home, she didn't know. Kathy only needed one for her maquillage in the mornings, and Cula's reflection was non existent. Her multitude of mirrors helped her in this circumstance, so she circumvented complaint.

Arranging the mirrors, Kathy revolved around the room. The first was balanced precariously on the ornate window ledge facing south east, reflecting rays of light into the next mirror; on the extremity of the bathtub. The remnant of the mirrors were arranged parallel to the body.

In the tenebrous room, Kathy observed her husband for the final time. It was difficult to verily believe that he was gone, and even more difficult to bring herself dispose of his body. Despite her emotional attachment, she knew that it must be done.

Kathy counted down mentally, and on the final figure, she left the blind yawning at the heating sun. Like the mirrors were playing ping pong, with light instead of a ball, the bathroom quarters filled with lustre. She witnessed in perplexity as the cadaver of Cula transmuted. His skin, blood, muscles, and everything else that made him up metamorphosed into frail, attenuated shards of sable black.

Kathy closed her eyes, with little hanker to watch. A mixture of sodium chloride and H2O seeped from her eyes and down her chin. When she felt the tear oust, she unsealed her sight. Where her husband laid just a few minutes before, now had a miasma of emptiness. Her face soaked in ashen pallor, Kathy gathered the ashes into a recently emptied instant coffee container, and made her way to the garden. The shovel from her unfinished garden embellishing was still set by the elephant statue named Clive. At least she had him to accompany her during this harrowing time.

She grasped the shovel, and began to dig. The hole required for the ashes was very Lilliputian, therefore she didn't need to prostrate due to overworking. Before long, Kathy gawked down at a hole, around two foot deep.

There was no point in delaying the inevitable. She portentously sprinkled the cinders into the cavity, watching as they cascaded down.