Policeman and the cat

4 - Glasses

***

The day before cat's and policeman's eyes met.

***

Ian's resolution took shape in walking up the stairs of the apartment building on Corn Street 56.

This time he rang the bell.

After the fourth ring, the door opened with a "Who?"

The guy didn't seem to recognize him. Ian made a troubled smile. "I'm the policeman who came a few days back," he said.

'And?' the guy's eyes seemed to ask.

"Do you happen to know anything about the mysterious deaths in this neighborhood?" Ian asked. The guy had been right about there being four cases, so he did know something.

The guy rolled his eyes and aimed to close the door, but Ian used his foot to stop the door from closing. He took out his phone and played the words he had said. "self-taught... this might be fourth or fifth victim, though...No, I just happen to know this particular one pretty well. ... This will stay an unsolved case. I mean, to normies the only clues are the rose scent in the room and corpses that seem like they have been drowned with no water nearby."

The guy clicked his tongue, rather than seeming worried, he seemed annoyed. "Do you have a warrant?" He asked.

Of course not, but Ian shrugged over the question. "How do you know all that?"

The guy rolled his eyes again and opened the door, stepping aside.

Since Kenneth had said he knew the guy-- Ian felt some faint reassurance and stepped in, yet he was caught off guard by the guy's hand touching his cheek. It felt extremely cold and like his mind was being frozen. He couldn't move and then something black started to swirl in front of his eyes. He started hearing the guy's voice as if it was spoken through water.

"Calm down--"

Ian refused to calm down and focused on the words, the black swirl in front of his eyes starting to break.

"and lea--" the guy started saying, but didn't finish, moving back moments before Ian's eyes regained their clarity.

Ian touched his own cheek that no longer felt freezing. "What did you--" he started saying, but then... he saw it. 

Something straight out of a horror movie.

A translucent being of death - eyes without a light, hair swirling around like underwater, white dress on an equally white skin. Ian drew a breath, but then a sharp pain in his shin made him instinctively crouch. He bit his tongue.

"Shut his mouth!" the guy called out in panic.

Then came a blast and Ian found himself pinned to the wall, something invisible pressing on his wrists, ankles and lips. He couldn't move and he could not speak.

The translucent being of nightmares made panicked gestures of a girl.

Ian tried to break free, but it led to nothing.

"Wha-Wha-what is going on?" the ghost cast a bewildered look at the guy, who seemed to have teared up and was crouching by his foot.

"I'm in pain," the guy said. "His shin is rock hard."

The ghost made a gesture of letting out a breath. "Not that..." she tried to retort although it looked like the guy's words made her relax a bit.

"That's a normal reaction to seeing a ghost," the guy staggered up and went to pull the door shut.

Their interactions were... surprisingly normal? If Ian pretended, using his imagination at 1000% capacity, that the ghost didn't look like a being that would kill you just with her presence.