The Undertaker

She draped her camera and the big shoulder bag around my neck and pushed me back against the wooden fence with my hands knit together. As light as she was, I barely felt her weight as she stepped from my hands to my shoulder and draped the newspaper across the razor wire. “Good thing I changed into the shorts,” she said as she looked down at me. “I wouldn't want some pervert looking up my skirt.” She dropped back down, “Okay, one, two…” She rocked backward, and “three!” I tossed her upward and she soared effortlessly over the razor wire, clearing it by at least a foot. She dropped out of sight on the other side, but I heard no screams or snapping of bones, only a soft “Thump.”

Moments later, the bolt on the gate rattled and she pulled it open, dusting off her hands with a flourish as she welcomed me inside the dark rear yard. “Warning: performed by professional acrobat. Do not try this at home,” she said with a big grin on her face.

“Show off,” I mumbled.

“Show off? I remind you that you would be standing out in the alley picking your nose right now if you hadn't brought me along.”

“You're lucky you didn't break your butt!” I whispered.

“And you'll be lucky if you don't get another bruise later.”

“Hush.” I put my finger to her lips and we stood listening, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. She started kissing my finger, running her tongue up it, and putting it in her mouth until I pulled it away and glared at her. “Will you stop that!” I whispered.

“You didn't complain when we were on the train. Then again… maybe that wasn't your finger, was it?” she whispered with a gleam in her eye.

Doug's back yard was as dark as a cave and the damp air slowly came alive with the sounds and smells of a warm summer night. Rich and earthy, still wet after the rain, I smelled roses, lily of the valley, and honeysuckle. I heard mosquitoes buzzing and the flapping wings of a large moth. Too much. Too little. And very quiet. Slowly, the outline of the yard emerged from the shadows, blacks on darker blacks and grays on darker grays.

The garage took up almost half the area between the fences, but there was a tool shed off to the right and a cracked, uneven sidewalk leading to the back door of the house. I took Sandy's hand and we walked slowly to the wooden rear stairs. They creaked as we stepped lightly up the half-dozen risers to the covered back porch. There was a window on each side of the rear door. I tried to look into the dark rooms, but I couldn't see a thing. I opened the screen door and squinted through the small glass panes in the kitchen door. That was just as fruitless, so I turned my attention to the locks. One was set in the doorknob and he had two dead bolts in the door. No hope there. I looked closely at the door and window frames. There were no electric contacts or wires from a burglar alarm system, but I knew he had one. I pulled out my handkerchief, placed it against one of the small panes of glass in the door, and smacked it with my elbow. In the still, damp air of the back yard, it sounded like a car crash, but it probably wasn't loud enough for anyone to hear next door or out in the street. Not in these old buildings. The front and rear walls could stop a cannon ball. I slipped my hand through the broken window frame, intending to open the door as Sandy reached out and turned the doorknob. To my surprise, the door swung open. The damned thing hadn't even been locked.

“Men!” she whispered in my ear. “You always gotta break something, don't you?”

“Slow down!” I whispered, trying to hold her back, but she ignored me as usual and stepped through the open doorway into the kitchen. The best I could do was grab her by the seat of her shorts and stop her from going any father.

“Have we been formally introduced?” she asked as I let go of her rear end. “Yeah, come to think of it, I guess we have, haven't we.”

The room was very dark. There was barely enough dim light coming through the draped rear windows to tell me we were in the kitchen, but not much more. Her hand ran along the wall, searching for a light switch, but I seized her wrist. “No, wait,” I said as I heard the panicked skittering of sharp nails on the tile kitchen floor. Three terrified balls of fur dashed past us and tore out the back door, screaming like banshees.

“What the hell was that?” Sandy asked.

“Doug's cats, I hope.” Without seeing them, I knew one was a big, black Persian, fat as a turkey, and the other two were Burmese, one white and one gray.

“Something sure spooked them.”

She was right about that, and there was a damp, foul smell in the place. I wasn't sure what it was and I wasn't sure I wanted to know, either. We stood there in silence, listening to our own hearts pound, but nothing else came out of the dark at us. The townhouse was as silent as a tomb. Still, something had terrified the cats.