Erika got up and moved softly across the floor. She was in thick pyjamas and barefoot. When she reached the landing and the top of the stairs, the streetlight on the road out front was shining through the glass front door and casting a sludgy orange glow through the landing and the hallway. There was another soft rustle in the kitchen downstairs, and the squeaking noise came again. As Erika moved down the stairs they creaked slightly, and she heard the noise in the kitchen stop.
George, she thought. It was George. Erika reached the bottom of the steps and hesitated, stepping down into the hallway. She skirted around the rectangle of orange light on the bare floorboards. She eased herself around the curved edge of the bannister, until she could see down the short piece of the hallway into the kitchen.
The soft padding sound came again, and in the dim light she saw something small flex and leap down from the kitchen counter, and land on the floorboards with a soft thud. The light shining in through the hall caught George’s eyes with a glint of green in the darkness.
Erika felt relief that it wasn’t an intruder and she smiled.
‘What are you doing, you little shit? It’s three in the morning,’ she whispered.
George gave a loud miaow, and then batted at the floor with his paws before leaping back up onto the counter. Erika heard a squeak and a rustle and then there was a loud crash and a tinkle of glass. It was a mouse, that little monkey had brought in a mouse, she thought. She loved George, but the thought of a half-dead mouse, or a very much alive mouse, vanishing into the floorboards gave her the shivers.
She hurried down the hall towards the kitchen and was about to switch on the light when she felt the broken glass under her feet. It was too late to stop and she blundered into the pile of broken shards, feeling an agonising pain as a piece sank into the bottom of her right foot.
Erika cried out and stepped back, but stood on another piece. She found the light and switched it on. George was on the counter in a goose-stepping frenzy, clubbing at a mouse with his paws, sending more of the takeaway chip papers and a mug clattering to the floor. There was a creaking sound from upstairs and then Igor’s footsteps thudded across the floor above.
‘Erika!’ he shouted. ‘Are you okay?’
George leapt on the mouse, disembowelling it with his claw, and at the same time flinging it up in the air. Blood spattered over the window and Erika, uncharacteristically for her, screamed. Igor came crashing downstairs, and emerged around the bannister running stark naked towards her. He had his phone torch lit.
‘What is it? Are you okay?’ he said.
‘Stop! Careful! There’s a broken beer bottle on the floor!’ said Erika, trying to limp out of the pool of green shards. George had now finished with the dead mouse and he jumped down and looked up at them both, giving a miaow, as if to say, what are you both looking at?
Igor shone his torch down on the floor, and Erika saw the blood, a rather large amount of it, amongst the shards of glass and pooling under her foot. He put out his hand.
‘Come on, let’s get you out of this, I’ll clean up the glass,’ he said.
Erika turned and hopped out from the shards of broken green glass with her cut foot off the ground. ‘Watch out for George, he could cut his paws,’ she said, leaning on Igor’s arm and looking back.
‘He’s okay. He’s a smart pussy,’ said Igor, as George leapt clean over the glass and padded along the hallway after them. The pain in Erika’s foot was searing, but she laughed.
‘What?’ said Igor.
‘Sorry. I’m being immature.’
‘Are you laughing because I said pussy?’
‘I don’t know anyone who calls a cat that, apart from an old lady,’ she said as he helped her hop down the hallway.
‘I’m glad you find me funny,’ he said with a smile.
‘And you, running with no clothes on,’ said Erika, laughing even more. She limped to the stairs and Igor helped her to sit on the bottom step. He stared at her, looking at her dissolving into hysterics with a curious look on his face, which made her laugh even more. ‘It’s tough when a woman laughs at you when you’re naked,’ he said.
‘I’m not laughing at you… It’s just a funny situation.’
George and Igor waited patiently as she laughed some more, and then she saw her foot. There was a nasty curved slash on the bottom of her instep, about four inches in length, which gaped wetly with blood. Now she could see it, she stopped laughing and the pain was even worse. She gripped his arm.