Pest Control - 15

Read part 14 - here

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Uma panicked, the approaching footsteps stood shuffling at the door and she could stand looking shocked no longer.

She’d have to hide, there was no time to jump out the kitchen window.

The door clicked open and someone walked in.

Uma bit on her bag to keep herself from crying out of fear, out of failure at seeing her plan fall apart as she crouched noiselessly in the kitchen sink cabinet barely fitting in, its wooden door refused to shut entirely opening a threadbare slit through which she could see the entrance of the kitchen.

An empty garbage bin pushed back to reclaim its space and its dank mustiness seemed exaggerated in the darkness.

This was not going according to her plans.

How did he come back so early? 

It must mean that he had called her while he was on his way back. 

Why didn’t Uma envisage any such contingency? 

She berated herself tearfully, shoving her face in the tatty cloth bag hoping to wake up from the nightmare but there was nothing except the dripping muggy smell of the cabinet and a sharp gas like stench which she silently exhaled to keep her sobs quiet.

The gas. She had forgotten to turn it off.

She’d lost her nerve and her senses and sat hidden in a place that was effectively a gas chamber.

Now, this was getting out of hand. 

She wasn’t here to die, in fact, her sole reason to plan a death was so that she could live free. 

Is this what they call Karma?

Any moment now a cigarette would get lit and she’d turn to cinders, Uma surmised that she was more prone to a certain death in these circumstances.

There was no time to think, she’d die if she didn’t turn off the gas.

Uma resented herself that moment. Her inability to think, to act and even now she hesitated to leave her hiding place.

She’d recognize that sound anywhere, the unmistakable scraping screech his feet made on the floor when he walked. It sounded like someone was dragging their feet on a sandy blackboard, it aggravated her so and Uma could only shut tight her eyes to keep herself from blacking those memories that came associated with the way his feet shuffled on the floor and right now the vexatious sound crept closer.

He was coming into the kitchen.

Uma could see through the slight slit of the cabinet door that stayed open on account of her knee getting in the way.

The bastard

His repulsive almost disfigured uncouth mien consoled her. Time had been justly unkind to him but not nearly enough because he wasn’t dead.

He held an unlit cigarette in one hand a teacup in another which he proceeded to knock back in one big gulp and winced hideously after swallowing.

He sniffed as he entered, holding what looked like a mouldy unwashed bathing towel to his nose and lunged towards the gas stove. He’d disappeared from her line of vision but the sound of knobs assured Uma that he’d turned off the gas.

A wordless exhale. Now all Uma had to do was wait for him to sleep so she could escape.

The phone was vibrating in her pocket but she couldn’t access it given her contorted state and a scream rang through the house.

‘You bitch pick up the phone. I’ll ruin you, I’ll make your useless husband watch. Pick up, pick up, pick up’

His shrill screech reverberated through Uma who was burning with absurd indignation. 

She’d have crushed his neck if it was between her hands. The nails dug hard in the soft flesh of her palms as she closed her shaking fist tight with demented anger. 

Uma drowned the unsettling background howls of a deranged man’s grisly threats flung into the air all the while her phone vibrated with calming thoughts of how she proposed to kill.

She wondered if it wouldn’t be fun to break his bones and watch him snivel and beg for mercy, or maybe she’d want to plunge a knife in every part of his body and kick him to death while he bled.

Her elaborate fantasies were fast approaching reality, the surreal quality of this situation manacled with her painful crouch and the putrid stench of the sink’s underbelly bolstered her confidence and the house suddenly grew silent.

Her phone had stopped vibrating, the insufferable shrieks had dialled down to hushed incoherent abuses and the song of running water made itself heard.

It was the unmistakable sound of a shower followed by the closing of a door nearby. 

Definitely the bathroom door, and so Uma quietly crept out. 

All she had to do was sneak out the front door because an escape from the window was definitely time-consuming

Inaudible like the critters in the kitchen Uma walked out of the kitchen and stood face to face with a man about to light a cigarette.

Uma tasted her heart. It had caught in her throat and saw the door behind him which was only a few strides away.