Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (the ebook reader .txt) 📕

qualities about her that he found most inexplicable – and maddening. He was a big believer in looking back at one’s past, to try to learn from one’s mistakes in order to become a better person. Without introspection, people continued to follow the same destructive patterns of behavior they always fell into. How was that any way to live a life?

He’d contemplated breaking up with Lori from time to time. Logically, she wasn’t a good match for him and vice versa, but despite this – or maybe in a weird way because of it – he felt a powerful draw to her that he couldn’t explain or deny. He supposed logic didn’t mean dick when it came to matters of the heart. A cliché, maybe, but that didn’t make it any less true.

He wished Lori were here with him now. Even if they only sat quietly and watched the rain fall, her presence would be a great comfort to him.

He found it ironic that at work he’d run hundreds of medical tests for physicians. Nothing on the level of CT scans, of course. Just basic blood panels mostly. He wondered how many people had gotten bad news from their doctors because of test results he’d sent over. Had some of those results basically been a death sentence? He didn’t know, but he thought it likely.

Still gazing out of the window, he watched a white Jeep Cherokee SUV enter the parking lot and pull into an empty space next to his vehicle. A pair of women got out, the driver swinging her door open so violently that it smacked hard into the Corolla’s passenger-side door.

“Goddamnit!”

Justin jumped up from his seat and rushed toward the door. His server called out to him – Probably thinks I’m trying to skip out on the check, he thought – but he ignored her. He was in the grip of a white-hot rage that had come upon him suddenly and without warning. Some of it was due to the amount of alcohol he’d had on an empty stomach, but much of it was a reaction to the news he’d received from his doctor. He’d lost control of his body, control of his life. He was not going to sit by and watch some careless stranger put a dent in his goddamned car and not do something about it. He had to prove there were still some things in this world that he could stand up to, that he didn’t have to roll over and accept like a whipped dog.

He was already shouting when he plunged out into the rain.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can’t just—”

His words died in his throat and he stopped and stared at the two women. He hadn’t fully registered their appearances when they’d first gotten out of the SUV, but now he did, and he had no idea what to make of them. Both women had been dry when they’d gotten out of their vehicle, but neither carried an umbrella, and they were quickly getting soaked. But that wasn’t what he found so strange about them. Their clothes were covered with dark reddish-brown stains that looked like blood – a lot of it. They looked like they’d gotten caught in a slaughterhouse explosion. The rain, heavy as it was, wasn’t doing much to wash the stains from their clothes. The older woman wore her long gray hair in a braid, which hung down her back. The braid swayed back and forth idly, and it made Justin think of the way a horse’s tail swishes lazily as it fends off flies. The younger woman had tufts of fur growing in scattered patches on her skin, her eyes were amber and shaped like a cat’s, and when she opened her mouth, she revealed upper and lower incisors, the teeth long and sharp.

“Meow,” she said, then grinned.

Justin forgot about the dent in his car door. All he wanted was to go back into the bar, find a table where he couldn’t see the window, and hope these two women wouldn’t follow him inside. He started to back away from them, but before he could get very far, the younger woman rushed toward him and grabbed hold of his left arm. He felt claws extend from her fingers and sink into his flesh. Not deep, but far enough to hurt. He reflexively tried to pull away, and she pressed the claws in deeper. He cried out in pain, and he looked at his arm, saw blood welling from the points where her claws were embedded in him, the rain washing it away even as it left his body.

The woman gave him a lazy, contented smile and made a fluttering thrum in her throat. Was she purring?

The older woman stepped closer to him. He saw no sign of sanity in her eyes, only glittering madness. That complete lack of rationality was more terrifying to him than the younger woman’s catlike features. Even though his arm would become little more than shredded meat if he yanked it free from the younger woman’s cat claws, he almost did it, so afraid was he of the insanity that peered at him through the older woman’s eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

The older woman’s voice held no indication of insanity, though. It was calm, almost soothing. “I’m Melinda, and my friend with the extremely sharp claws is Katie. We’ve been sent to collect you.”

Justin had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

“Sent by who?”

Melinda frowned as if the question had caught her off guard.

“I’m…not sure,” she admitted. Her smile faltered for a moment, but returned full force. “I just know we were supposed to come here and fetch you.”

“I don’t want to go with you.” He’d meant this to come out as a strong statement of defiance, but instead it came out as a frightened, pleading whine.

“She’s not talking to you,” Katie said.

Katie, he thought. Katie-Cat. Here, Katie-Katie-Katie!

With her free hand, Katie tapped a clawed index