A good person

The hinges whined like they had last night as another palm rapped at Marie’s door.

Was it her again? she wondered.

It was the morning, and Marie was less tired, less groggy, more Christian.

She hoped it was the woman who had begged her to open. A familiar face reassuring her that it was a beverage she cleaned off her stoop, not blood, that the shriek she heard was the kind that girls trade at Saturday matinees, not real.

And it was late, she had told herself, too late to get involved in some domestic dispute—especially not Winona’s. Maybe in her younger days she would have offered coffee and pound cake, but it’s not the younger days; her arthritic hands struggled to sew, and her raw knees barely allowed her to change the dial on the television set.

No. No, she couldn’t open the door to that recluse from down the street.

And there was the howling…

The banging grew more aggressive: a man’s hand. A husband’s hand.

“May I help you, Jonas?” she asked the fist through a locked screen door.

“Have you seen Winona, by any chance?” his cold eyes undermined the tremble in his voice.

“No. No, I haven’t,” she began to close the inner door. “You should check with the sheriff.”

Something howled in the distance. But a short distance, like a coyote scavenging in her backyard.

“You getting married?” Jonas asked.

“I’m Catholic, and I’m widowed.”

“It’s just…the dress.” Jonas pointed to the unhemmed white gown pinned to her mannequin.

“I help out the girls at the shop from time to time. Makes me feel like I’m working again.”

“Is that the kind of person you are?” Jonas rhythmically tapped unkempt nails on thin glass. “Someone who helps others?”

Winona’s words echoed through guilt and time: “I could only restrain it for so long…please.”

“I’m sorry,” Marie had lied after her evening prayers, “I just took my medication…”

Something howled again as the sun beat down on an unworried man, as a piece of Winona’s shirt clung to a broken branch and waved in the morning breeze.

It howled from inside the house.

“Do you hear that?” Marie asked.

Jonas pressed a filthy ear against the glass. “I do. I do.”

“I’ve kept you safe,” Winona had screamed. “I’ve kept this neighborhood safe.”

“You’re keeping me up, that’s what you’re doing. Goodnight!”

A thump had come before the silence.

Maybe she just fell. Maybe…

The howl was now behind her, its presence tickling the seed pearls she’d sewn into the ivory bodice. Marie couldn’t bring herself to turn around.

Jonas whistled. “I think you’re gonna wanna let me in, ma’am.”

I’m a good person, she thought. I was just scared.

Her half-crippled fingers unlatched the lock.

The howl surrounded her.

“What is it? What’s inside my house?”

“We don’t need names,” Jonas’ face said as his hand ripped it from a deformed skeleton. “Only skin to walk.”

Marie shrieked and heard a howl.