THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter One - Part Two

The dog was harassing the rabbits in the back garden. The back door opened from the side of the kitchen onto a little courtyard, rather than to the rear right onto the lawn. There was a waist high picket fence level with the end of the house and Ralph had his forepaws up on it, letting off low intermittent growls as the rabbits got up to their business.

“Come inside Ralph!” said Clare. “If you’re a good dog and they keep waking me up in the night banging their feet then I might cook you up a nice rabbit pie for Christmas. In the meantime, leave them alone!”

He dropped his ears, glanced again at the rabbits then loped inside following her instructions. He was a Doberman Pinscher but despite a reputation for aggression in his breed, all one hundred of his pounds in weight were dedicated purely to dopey love and a need for regular belly-scratching.

It was still armpit hot or hotter inside the kitchen. She couldn’t believe how hot it felt!

It said thirty five on the digital thermometer; then seconds later, thirty six; but Clare wasn’t aware of this.

The rubbish bin needed emptying. The recycling one wasn’t too bad. If there were five reasons why having lodgers in was a bad thing then the bins were definitely one of them. It wasn’t the top reason; the literally endless waves of washing up with no working dishwasher were at the top of that list; but it was skanky work that she could have done without and more people living there made a hell of a lot more rubbish. And the bin bags made it worse.

Obviously Clare had meant to buy the heavy duty ones that never split and more than filled the twin plastic bins that stood side by side just inside the back door. This wasn’t how it worked out though. A rushed shopping trip with no basket and too many items already in her arms meant that she’d grabbed the wrong ones. These were thin like kitchen towel and barely filled the bins, the plastic discolouring where they were stretched round the square rim to hold them in place.

Holding her breath, Clare bunched up the top of the bag, trying to tie it into a knot. There was too much rubbish inside though and not enough left over at the top to tie together without it slipping back open. She grumbled one of her little semi-benign curses (“Arse-crack”) and pulled as best she could to get it out. It didn’t want to come, weight and suction holding it in. She almost considered waiting until Henry emerged from the toilet so he could do it for her but he probably had less upper body strength than she did thanks to her swimming and the others wouldn’t have been better. Selina wouldn’t be back from work for another couple of hours and Joey... Joey couldn’t do much of anything.

She huffed long enough and managed to get it out, whipping her free arm underneath to support it before it had a chance to split and yelped immediately as something sharp bit into her palm. She pulled her hand back sharply, suddenly caring less about the bag splitting than this new wound, and lowered it onto the tiles.

There was a tiny ball-bearing of blood in the palm of her left hand where she’d been pierced at the inner curve of the base of her thumb where her life line crease came almost close enough to touch her health line. “Ow!” She sucked it, palm up against her mouth then considered what germ-infested item might have caused it and dropped a little pebble of spit into the open top of the bag to inexpertly clear her mouth of any contamination.

Clare’s policy was that broken glass always went in a box before it entered the bin. All evidence showed that bin men didn’t lift bags anymore – the whole wheelie bin got attached to the back of the lorry and flipped up inside – but it was better to be safe than it was to be sorry. Obviously one of the guests hadn’t been so thoughtful. She knew she should look in the bag until she’d found what it was and box it up in an old cereal packet from recycling but she couldn’t be bothered and her hand was killing her. Another bead of blood appeared but the wound only looked small. Even so it was killing her.

She sighed and headed toward the cupboard under the sink to get her rubber gloves – it wasn’t worth some poor dustbin man cutting himself like she had – but as she turned she caught a glint of metal near the bottom of the bin bag and crouched down. There was a short sliver of metal jutting from near the bottom of the bag, like a nail or a needle poking out from something and sticking through the plastic sheet. She took hold of it. Whatever it was stuck in didn’t want to let go but she pulled harder and it snapped off in her hand. It was a needle; maybe from a sewing machine; but an odd one.

Clare decided she’d better wash her wound and went over to the sink, twisted the tap and let the cold water run onto her palm. The chill of the water accentuated, by contrast, the heat in the room. It was extraordinary. Was it even hotter now? Was that possible? She was ten years shy of the menopause but maybe she was an early starter on hot flushes. She’d ask Henry when he finally emerged if he was feeling it too. Surely he had to be.

She still had the needle in her other hand. She lifted it to take a closer look, trying to work out where it had come from. It wasn’t a normal needle at all. There was a tiny hole in the end of it. Like... a syringe? He raised it even closer to get a clearer look (she was three ignored reminder letters past the time she should have gone for another eye test) but movement outside drew her eye.

The tall trees in next door’s garden had caught the wind suddenly, rocking left and right. It wasn’t tornado strong but it was severe enough to strike Clare as odd, especially with the heat as it was. The sky didn’t look like it was building toward storm weather; didn’t even show a sign of where this soaring temperature could be coming from. It looked like just an averagely cloudy August day.

The tree tops stopped moving, then just as quickly the leaves of the jasmine bush hanging from trellis on the back wall opposite the kitchen window started to move. The wind shivered the entire bush, every little branch and leaf quivering, then that too became still.

Perplexed, Clare tilted her head.

The hallway thermometer read forty two.

The sixth guest had arrived.