The Cure

All the kids in the neighborhood would watch old Timbor as he walked out to get his mail. Most of the children said he was a warlock or a vampire. Those that didn’t believe in such rubbish still had a feeling some sort of black magic kept him alive.

Timothy Briarrott wasn’t a vampire or a warlock…what Timbor turned out to be, was a murderer.

Ol’ Timbor was probably one of the greatest murderers that no one ever knew. The thing was…even he didn’t know. In 1996 Timbor developed Alzheimer’s, but he had no family, no one to notice he was slipping away. And the people that did notice didn’t care.

The first one was Mrs. Honeycutt, and well, why shouldn’t it have been her? She took the last Christmas ham down at Friar’s Grocery. Timbor had always had a ham on Christmas day. His wife Elizabeth used to cook it for him…after she passed he just did it himself. He could never cook it as well as she could, but it was tradition.

It seems Timbor could remember tradition…and routine, but he couldn’t remember how his dear Pam had made the Christmas ham.

He followed Mrs. Honeycutt home. “I’ll show Bunnybutt not to take my ham,” he whispered to himself. He was seventy six but he still had some fight in him. He parked across the street and watched her juggle the groceries out of her Buick. He wanted a cigarette; he never could remember starting smoking, but his ’77 Vega had plenty of burns in the seat to assure him that his habit had been a long time running.

His neighbor had made a sign for his dashboard that had his address with a note ‘you live here.’ When his friend made his dash sign, he tried to convince Tim to go into a retirement home. But that notion has long passed and been forgotten.

Laura Honeycutt had left the front door open as she was taking in the milk, bread, and Timbor’s ham. As he stepped into the house he could hear her humming and talking to her cats in the kitchen. Laura and his wife, Janet used to play bridge together, and he would drop her off here. He had only entered the house once before. Laura was a widow that kept her house spotless… waiting for that next visit from her grandchildren.

The couch no longer had a plastic cover… how is it so easy for him to remember those things when he had a hard time remembering his middle name?

He heard the cellar door open. He peaked around the corner into the kitchen and saw Laura start her decent to the basement. There was only one cat…where are all her cats? Maybe she only had one all along. He didn’t think so because he could see where they had begun to claw the linoleum floor.

She finally disappeared completely down the stairs, the whole time talking to her cat, Mr. Fairweather. What a dumb name for a cat.

“You know, Mr. Fairweather, Jill is stopping by in the morning to take you to the vet! Mommy can’t keep your toenails trimmed anymore like I used to.”

Timbor whispered as he picked up the cat. “Hello Mr. Fairweather, I’m Mr. Fairweather.” That wasn’t right.

“So Mr. Fair… well…hello there Mr. Briarrott,” Laura looked up, startled, at Timbor standing at the top of the stairs. “What are you doing here? Did you get lost again?” she started climbing the stairs toward him. She knew he was getting senile; she tried to take care of him when she could, baking him bread every now and again. She had nearly made it to the top of the staircase when Timbor spoke.

“You took my ham.”

Mrs. Honeycutt stopped, “What’s that?”

“My ham…you took it, if you wanted to have a Christmas dinner for your snot grandkids, cook this, bitch!”

Timbor threw the cat at her. Fairweather screamed as he tried to find a place to grasp. His front claws found their home as the sunk in to Mrs. Honeycutt’s neck.

Gravity then played its role in her demise. As the cat fell, the claws opened a wide slash on her collar as crimson sprayed on the cellar wall. Laura’s eyes were a perfect painting of terror. She grabbed the cat as she fell backwards. When she stumbled back she grabbed for the handrail…missing as Mr. Fairweather fell to the stairs. She tumbled back. It all played like a movie to Timbor. Even when the loud pop echoed from her neck that finally silenced her screams. Timbor only watched. He took pride in the fact the tub of lard had crushed her cat on the way down.

Quiet justice he thought. Her soulless eyes looked back up the set of steps seemingly asking Ol’ Timbor…why?

A dark red halo arched out from her head. Her color had already started to fade as Timbor left the house.

He forgot the ham.

He sat in his car, thinking about the cat…Mr. Fairweather. He was looking down, fingering one of the cigarette burns. He missed Emily; it’s hard to lose a wife after forty-seven years. He peered out his cracked windshield. Where was he now? He remembered this place. He used to bring Elise here to play bridge. Why did he come here? Hmm, the Honeycutt’s, that was their name. He used to joke with his wife, and he would ask if she was going over to the Bunnybutts for her game.

It looks like someone had left the front door open.

“Hello?” Tim called from the front porch.