Old Windows

Unsolicited Visitors

* Next Day

Claire was unanticipatedly awoken by the blaring ring of her phone. Foggily and half asleep, she moved her hand around sloppily until her fingertips brushed against the phone.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Claire? Claire are you okay?"

"Elise?" the woman's voice catching her attention and Claire attempted to sit up.

"Yes Elise. I've been calling you all morning. Actually all day."

'All day'? Claire questioned to herself. With joints cracking and popping, she checked the time on the clock on her wall: 4:07. She harshly squinted her eyes to wake up and sat up against the couch.

"I didn't even know I slept that late," she just about whispered into the phone.

"It's okay, I'm just glad you aren't dead," she lightly chuckled.

"Yeah, sh*t I'm sorry. I didn't even realize," she stretched through her words.

"Did you and Mort have a rough night or something?"

"Uh, you could say that," she paused, "I don't know what's going on. It's like he's changing into something I've never seen before. And honestly it's scaring me."

Elise rolled her eyes through the phone, "What happened?"

"I mean, I already told you about how he flipped out on me at the flea market. But it was like that week break I felt okay with not talking to him. But he didn't. He called me everyday like 5 times. And one of the few times I picked up, he went off on me again. Just a bunch of 'where are you! I've been calling you!' bull sh*t. Then this whole rant about how you're trying to make him look bad. It's like he's online shopping right now for a chip to implant in me."

"He went off about me?!" Elise spat.

"Yeah, but I defended you don't worry. He's just a little psycho recently."

Elise shook off an expression of disgust and disbelief, "Claire?" she paused.

"Yeah?"

"I know it's not my place. But," she paused once more, "I think you should look at his records," Elise let the silence simmer before speaking again, "I'm not saying he's a murderer or anything, I just think it's a wise thing to do at this point. Let's say Mort hadn't been acting like this, then I wouldn't say anything. But now...I think you might want to."

The static from the empty line filled the phone, "I'll think about it," Claire spoke softly.

To Elise' surprise, she spoke up again, "Truly, I just want you to be safe. It can never hurt looking at records. And you know, if nothing's in there then you can forget about the whole thing and let me know what a sh*tty friend I am," she laughed sharply to lower the tension.

"No, no. I believe you. It is a good idea. He told me the only thing was shop lifting or something, so I am expecting that to be on there."

"Thank you for not blowing up on me."

"I'm trying to just listen to people for once. Especially the people who care about me. Thank you for checking up on me Elise. I love you so much."

Elise smiled, "Of course. I love you too Claire. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Talk to you soon." she hung up.

Claire set down the phone and scraped her hands across her face with thoughts and concerns racing in her mind.

_

Meanwhile, Elise wasn't so settled with the conversation. Not anything about Claire but about Mort. How dare he slander her the way he did? Rambling on about her as if she's the cause for Claire wanting alone time from Mort. Elise came to the unwavering decision that this man had to be put in his place, and if Claire wasn't going to, then she would. Snatching her keys off the counter, she marched into her car.

Although she didn't have a distinct memory of how to get to his house, she did however have a clear cut image in her head of what that dreary and depressive lakeside cabin looked like. She drove around for maybe 20 minutes before stumbling across his house.

"F*cking a**hole," she whispered as she kept her stare glued onto the house and jerked her car into park.

Stomping up, she banged on her front door. She didn't care how crazy Claire made him out to be, she needed answers.

"Mort!" she hollered. No answer, "MORT! I know you're there!" No answer.

Elise let herself in and was unpleasantly welcomed to a demolished home. The fire place ceased to be cleaned and anything that was on the counter was thrown on the floor; either shattered or ripped. A small amount of trepidation was stirring but she kept her composure and purpose.

"What the hell happened?" she quietly asked herself.

"Ask your friend," a man's voice with a country twain answered.

"Mort?" she called out.

He presented himself at the top of the staircase. He menacingly placed his hands in his pockets while securing his focus on her.

"Mort we need to talk," she asserted.

"Bout what?"

"Why are you talking like that?"

"Like what? This is how I talk," he made his way slowly down the stairs, each step creaking as he approached closer and closer.

"We-" she stumbled on her words. His stare emitted an ungodly disturbance, "we need to talk about Claire," she cautiously backed away, not enough for him to notice.

"Claire?" he smirked, "the girl who spent all her time with me before her 'friend' came along and messed it all up," she furrowed her eyebrows and stared at him.

"How did I mess it up?"

"You went ahead and ran your stupid mouth about something you don't know a g**damn thing about," he reached the bottom of the stairs and Elise was turning her head continuously to try and locate the door knob.

He walked until he had her pinned up against the front door. Right where he wanted her. Her breath was heavy and her heartbeat could be audible to Mort at this point. She snapped her neck back and forth in attempt for his face not to be directly in hers. Her hands desperately gliding up and down and back and forth across the door for the knob.

"It seems you know too much for your own good," he spoke in a breathy tone, stinging Elise' nose with the potent aroma of freshly smoked cigarettes and alcohol.

Elise set free one of her wandering arms and slapped him across the face, but unfortunately didn't provide enough to escape. Mort restrained her arms against the wall with a heavy and belligerent grasp. Giving her no hope of setting her wrists lose.

"Doesn't do any good to struggle, does it?" he growled in her face.

"Let me f*cking go!" she screamed as kneed him in the groin as painfully as she could.

He roared in pain, unintentionally allowing her to wiggle out of his clutch.

She hadn't even made it 1 foot away before he struck her on her head with his fist and drug her across the porch to the backyard. Nails raking against the moistened wood and finger tips miserably probing for any object she could hold on to to prevent her from being heaved into her despairing hopelessness.