Reanimated Ruin (Hearts In Horror #1)
Chapter One - Cat
CHAPTER ONE
Cat
I’VE ALWAYS LIKED the dark. Ever since I can remember, I’ve spent my days waiting for the sun to go down. There’s something comforting in the silence. When it feels like the entire world has gone to sleep, finally giving you a moment to yourself. I lived for nights spent alone in my room, staying up way too late. Putting off sleep because I knew as soon as that damned blazing ball in the sky came back up, it was back to searching for shadows and making myself small enough to hide in them.
I guess that must come hand in hand in feeling like you’ve spent your entire life searching for somewhere you belong. When you feel as though the place that you call home is anything but. I’ve spent every minute since I turned eighteen trying to save up anything that I could to get away. To simply have a place of my own where I can live freely and now that’s been taken from me.
It feels poetic, slinking down this street under the cover of darkness now. Nighttime had always been my haven. It was a security blanket of comfort after long days spent trying to make myself as unseen as possible. Nothing was more reliable than the surety of its return and promise of release from the cage that the daytime restrained me in. It felt fitting, finally becoming the big bad wolf myself and having my old friend here to witness it.
A year of my life, which feels like time wasted now with nothing to show for it. I took a shitty job in a shitty strip club because a coworker at my last job promised I’d make soooooo much money and it’d be so worth it. While she wasn’t wrong about the money aspect, the jury’s back with a verdict: it wasn’t worth it. While I was saving a decent amount of money, dealing with the regular customers had me questioning my choice daily.
Every time I pulled into the parking lot for my shift, I would get a gut feeling that working there would end poorly. I got past it by chalking it up to my fear of what would happen if my parents found out I was working there. While I had enough money saved to at least afford a crappy one-bedroom apartment if I got kicked out, I knew that if they found out, they’d never let me see Rhiannon again. Then it all would have been for nothing.
I spent months shoving that thought into the back of my mind. How would they find out? They don’t care about me enough to put any thought into how I’m spending my days. After the time and energy fed into their four-year-old daughter, Rhiannon, there’s none left for me. My parents spend every single minute of every single day micromanaging her schedule, making sure it’s chock-full of extracurricular activities so she doesn’t have a spare second to turn out like me.
They’ve told me time and time again that they don’t know where they went so wrong with me. If you ask me, it all started when I was forced into a life with them as my parents. My father was so concerned with how I affected his image that he was terrified of me becoming my own person, instead trying to shape me into a little carbon copy of him.
My mother has always simply lived in his shadow. Where he prefers her, seen and not heard. She’s just another person for him to boss around and mold as he sees fit. If you don’t fit into the cast with ease, he has no problem using a bit of force.
While I’m walking down the street, lost in my thoughts of how I’ve gotten to this very moment in my life, my phone went off in my pocket. Almost as if he could sense me dwelling on my hatred for him, my father’s number lit the screen. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
I paused to answer as three military-looking helicopters flew over my head, flying low in a triangle formation in the direction of downtown Rotlington. I waited for them to pass, then answered the call reluctantly and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the voice on the other end.
“Kitty Cat!” I heard squealed through the speaker, Rhiannon’s nickname for me. “Dad said I can call, are you here yet? Mom got s’mores and we bring Candyland! Can we play when you here?”
“I’ll be on my way soon, lovebug,” I replied. “I just have to make a stop on the way up. I’ll make sure I text Dad’s phone the very second I’m on my way so you can get the board all set up.”
All my stuff for the cabin was already packed in my car so I could leave from here. I’d parked it a ways down the street. I didn’t want to park too close to my destination, but I also couldn’t be too far if I wanted to make a quick getaway.
“Okidokee Kitty Cat-a-chokey,” she giggled. “Can I sleep in you bed tonight, pretty please?”
Every time we went up to our cabin by the lake she’d beg to sleep in my room with me. With the place surrounded by miles of woods and wildlife, there were plenty of things going bump in the night to justify her fear. I never fought it because I loved having her close, they don’t stay little forever and with her being four going on fourteen I suspected the day she felt herself too cool to cuddle was right around the corner.
Also, I’ve already been deprived of so many precious moments we should have shared, I’ll never miss the chance to sneak a few in. Before I could answer her, I heard my father’s voice in the background.
“Alright, say your goodbyes. Give me the phone. I want to talk to your sister.”
I truly didn’t understand his talent for sucking the fun out of any room he enters.
“Okay Dad. See you soon Cat, love you,” she said with a little less excitement in her voice than she had before.
Again, I didn’t get the chance to respond before I heard the phone shuffling from her hands. Him taking it from her while she still held it up to her ear, no doubt. The thought of it made my already simmering blood come to a boil.
“Hello, Catherine Marie. Are you almost here or have you not even left yet?” My father’s accusatory tone comes over the speaker as if he’s already assumed I’m going to be late.
“No, I’m not. I just have one stop to make before heading out. I told you I had work today, but I’d be there by ten o’clock at the latest. It’s seven thirty now, I have a half an hour before I need to be on the road. It should only take me a little under two hours to get there.” I replied.
“Do you truly expect me and your mother to allow Rhiannon to stay up that late just to wait on you?” He asked me and I could already sense his temper rising. I guess I clocked what he’d be mad at me for this time wrong, but it still just felt like he was picking a fight.
“Well, no, not really. I expected that she’d already be in bed by the time I got there. I told you before I left for work earlier today what time I’d be there. You knew it was going to be late. Why would you even have her call me and let her get her hopes up that we’d be able to hangout tonight when I got there?”
“With your sister’s, your mother’s and my own busy schedule, do you really expect me to now keep track of yours? You’re an adult Catherine. If you can’t manage to prioritize family time, that is not my fault. You knew what time we’d be coming to the cabin today. If you wanted to spend time with your sister before bedtime, you would have made it a mission to do so. Do not blame me for you disappointing your sister.” He gritted out, completely missing the point I was trying to make and twisting it in his favor.
I wasn’t even mad that Rhi was going to be in bed when I got there. I just simply didn’t understand why he would sit there and listen to her get excited about my arrival only to crush her joy. I don’t even believe the bit about not being expected to keep track of my schedule. He was the one who asked me this morning what time I’d be there, it just felt like a setup to paint me as the bad guy in her eyes. Any chance he could take to try to poison her against me, he would.
“I’m not trying to blame you, Dad. All I’m trying to say is I don’t expect her to be up when I get there. I’m not trying to start an argument. Can you please just tell her I promise to play Candyland and whatever else she wants to do all day tomorrow?” I asked.
“Sure,” I doubted he actually would, just agreeing to pacify me. “Remember to not stomp around like an elephant when you get here. Your mother and I will be in bed as well, we need to be up bright and early for church tomorrow morning. If you wake up your sister, there will be hell to pay. She can be a terror to get to go back to sleep. Especially if she realizes you’re here. Think of someone other than yourself for a change.”
Then click, he hung up on me.
What he didn’t realize is rarely did I ever think about myself when it came to the reasoning behind doing what I did lately. Even as I walk down the street getting closer to my destination, it wasn’t my safety I was thinking of, certainly not as I got ready to do what I was about to.
The only motivation on my mind was getting Rhi away from the monster that walked around with a human face and called himself our father. That’s why I was saving up, to get a good lawyer and take custody of her, then never look back. She may not have been old enough for him to be violent with yet, but the day would come just as surely as mine did.
I’d always been afraid of him for as long as I could remember. What I can’t remember is the first time I witnessed him hit my mom or even how many times it’s happened since. I do recall the first time he hit me, though. I’d gotten a call home when I was ten years old, I had mouthed off to my teacher when she told me and friend to stop talking during a lesson. You know how kids are at that age, testing boundaries to see how much they can get away with.
I didn’t even cuss! With a father as devout as mine was, it was something I didn’t even dare do at the time. All the same, he was waiting for me when I got off the bus. Furious that I’d disrespect my elders, I was just a child and I was to be taught my place. I wish I could say it was the first and only time but that day was like a glass shattering. You could never get it to look like it was once did and attempting to patch the pieces back together would only leave you bloodied.
In trying to run away from one monster, though, I inadvertently walked right into the claws of another. No matter where or how careful I was, it seemed like I had a knack for stumbling right into the den of these creatures. I’d been born into one, in high school I’d been tricked into another, then finally what I vowed to be the last two weeks ago.
While obviously being in the occupation of adult entertainment comes with its risks, there was no preparing me for what was to happen. For the first six months, I worked there with little to no problems besides the occasional sloppy drunk customer. Then Harry started coming in.
He was an average looking middle-aged man, somewhere in his forties if I had to guess. He didn’t dress up like most of the men who came here, instead of the fancier clothing he opted for jeans and a hoodie. Harry didn’t look dirty per se, but I definitely wouldn’t classify him as clean. He just had a look about him that said he didn’t really care about his general appearance and tended to lack in the hygiene department.
There was something about him that just didn’t sit right. Maybe it was his hair. I’d never understood why some men were in such denial of that fact that they’re balding. To add insult to injury, what hair he did have, was tied in a measly little ponytail at the base of his neck.
The first couple times he came in, he just lurked in the back and sipped his drink. Honestly, I barely even noticed him other than feeling the occasional tingle down my spine. As if walking through the woods and a predator was watching me from just beyond the tree line, but when I’d turn to face him, he’d look away. I was more occupied with the people who were there to spend money anyway.
Then he must have finally mustered up the nerve to approach me and asked for a private dance. At first, I was a little apprehensive because I had heard some girls backstage talking about how creepy he was, how he just sat there quietly staring. I just wrote it off as a little social anxiety. I mean, most of the regulars aren’t in here because they’re good with women. I ended up going against my gut feeling and doing it anyway. After all, I wasn’t in a position to be turning down money.
That night started a domino effect that if I had just listened to myself for once, I could have avoided. Stupid fucking me though. I never do. Maybe tonight could be the start of a new me. A rebirth. Either that or I would get caught, go to jail for the rest of my life and never see Rhiannon again. Either way, after tonight I vowed to myself I would start listening to my gut and never let anyone take advantage of me ever again.