Frozen Mice

"Morning."

He looked up, slightly bewildered. People at the bus stop rarely wished him good morning. Most of them were too caught up in thoughts of commuting or business matters to waste time on pleasantries. But there she was, a slender creature appearing to be in her late twenties, shaking droplets of water out of her black umbrella and settling onto the scuffed bench a few feet away.

"Hello," he answered.

"Beautiful weather, isn't it?"

He listened to the icy patters of sleet pounding down on the roof of the bus stop and tested her voice for traces of sarcasm. But she was smiling earnestly.

"Yes, I suppose so," he replied uncertainly.

She chuckled. "No, you don't. You were just trying to answer politely."

He smiled, slightly surprised. "Yes, actually. I guess I was."

She snugged her scarf up around her neck. "I knew it. But I meant what I said. I love rainy days like this. Would you like to know why?"

He nodded hesitantly.

"Because very few people like days like these. Most people loathe them, or at least prefer others over them." She shook her head. "It's quite foolish."

"Well, they can be uncomfortable at times."

She scoffed. "Only if you're not prepared. If you were going to fight a lion and only chose to arm yourself with a toothpick, wouldn't that be foolish?"

"Going out to fight a lion isn't exactly the smartest thing to do in the first place, ma'am," he pointed out.

Her eyes narrowed. "Only if you're unprepared."

He sat up straight in the bench. The woman was staring intensely at him, her flat brown eyes scrutinizing his ruddy face. He had a sudden notion that the woman might have actually fought a lion and felt the repercussions of being caught woefully off guard.

The bus stop was unusually vacant, its sole occupants being the middle-aged man and the woman with the umbrella. The street also felt abandoned; an occasional car spluttered past, but not nearly as many as usual. Gusts of sleet pummeled the sides of the bus stop relentlessly. The man shivered and buried his chin in his collar.

"Cold?"

The man shot a half-hearted glance at the woman, wondering why she was asking and wishing slightly that she would stop speaking to him.

"No."

Something very much like sparks sifted through her irises. "You're lying."

A slight wave of annoyance rinsed through the man's chest. "Why does it matter?"

Her dark eyes somehow managed to grow even wider than they already were. "Do you know that when people say that, it is nearly always their way of admitting their own untruths?"

She watched him shift awkwardly on the bench, then turned her attention to her umbrella. They were both silent for a minute or so; he checked his watch intermittently and inwardly berated himself for arriving at the bus stop too early.

"But, I suppose you might not be lying," the woman mused suddenly, speaking softly enough that he wasn't sure whether she was talking to him or herself. "There are other things that make a person shiver."

He didn't look at her. Perhaps if he pretended he couldn't hear her, she would stop speaking. But she continued, her voice taking on a distinct mistiness.

"Sometimes people shiver when they wake up from a deep sleep. But I don't think you've been sleeping very recently, so that's not likely. Sometimes people shiver out of pleasure, but I don't think that's it, either. If anything, you're uncomfortable."

He kept his eyes rooted on the damp asphalt, hoping she would stop talking. But she went on.

"So, if you're not shivering because you're chilly, then there's only one other possible reason for you to shiver. Fear. You're obviously afraid of something. Perhaps you're afraid of me."

He jerked his head towards her and answered indignantly. "I am not."

Her lips twisted wryly. "Well, it's either that or the cold. I happen to be a fairly frightening woman." She gestured up at her bushy hair, her pungently red lips, her forehead that was just beginning to show the faintest traces of age. "So it must be me."

"I'm not afraid of you," he spat.

She tilted her head.

"I am," she answered.

Her answer was unexpected. It startled him, and he ripped his eyes from hers and quickly resumed staring at the road. The wind gusted angrily against the bus stop. His eyes flickered to his watch again. Where was the bus?

"How is your cat doing?"

A trickle of something resembling nausea wormed in his stomach; dots of sweat broke out on his neck.

"How did you know I have a cat?"

Her slender fingers reached out and plucked a single hair from the shoulder of his jacket. She tilted her head again and laughed, a high trickling chortle that made the small of his back feel abnormally cold.

"Oh," he mumbled.

Her voice grew misty again. "I used to have a cat; I got him when I was about eight years old. His name was Horatio. He was a very good cat. I remember the day I got him from the pet store."

The street was entirely empty now. The wind subsided slightly, as if someone wanted to listen to the woman's story and had told the weather to turn its volume down a few notches.

"They had kittens in a display in the front window: the cutest, fluffiest little dears. When I saw them, I had to have one. I persuaded my mother to buy one for me as an early Christmas present, and when she gave in, we went to the pet shop the next day and I picked out my favorite.

"While she was up at the counter paying for the kitten, I wandered off. I ended up where they kept the mice and hamsters and other small pets in aquariums with wire tops. There was a large freezer unit with a glass front along one wall.

"The white mice were adorable; I amused myself by watching their whiskers. They wiggled. I watched them play for a few moments, but then I heard my mother call me. So I started walking back up to the front, and on my way there, I glanced into the freezer."

Her eyes were watering slightly; what little color had been in her face was draining out.

"And there were mice in there, too. But these were baby mice. Mice with no hair, packaged in plastic bags and all lumped against each other. Frozen solid. Their faces were wrinkled and screwed-up, like they'd smelled something very bad. Something horrible."

The man's stomach was writhing, but he couldn't stop listening. He wanted to get up and rush out of the bus stop, but he stayed glued to the bench instead, his fingernails digging into his knees.

"I started screaming. My mother ran back to see what was wrong, but by then I'd flung open the door to the freezer and started pulling out the packages of mice. I screeched that the mice were going to die, that they needed to breathe, that they were going to freeze.

"My mother tried to calm me down, but when she tried to take the mice out of my hands, the plastic bags ripped and the mice tumbled out. They made clattering sounds on the floor and skittered everywhere, into the corners and underneath the shelves. A cat that lived in the pet store scampered out, picked up a mouse, and ran off with it.

"By then, I was screaming bloody murder. I ran towards the cashier, who'd rushed up from the front to see what was wrong, and tried to get at his throat. I told him he was going to jail, that couldn't he see that he'd killed the mice, that they were just babies and that he was a monster.

"My mother pulled me off of him and dragged me out of the store. She managed to grab Horatio on the way out, and we went home. She kept trying to explain to me that the mice were food for snakes and reptiles, that that's what they'd been raised for, but I wouldn't be comforted."

The wind had resumed again; freezing rain was spattering down. The woman's hands fluttered to her neck and fidgeted with her scarf.

"The only thing that calmed me down was Horatio. I wouldn't let him out of my sight for at least a month. Even when I was sleeping, I kept him next to me. I had the most horrible dreams for a long time after that, dreams that Horatio was inside a very cold place and that he was wailing for me to let him out. I dreamed of his face pushed against plastic, clawing and gasping for air and shivering all at the same time."

"The dream would end with my mother calling me down for dinner, and when I'd get to the kitchen, I would smell something delicious. And when I'd ask my mother what it was, she'd smile and open the oven door, and it would be Horatio."

The man was staring at the woman in disbelief. A bitter taste was flooding the back of his throat, and the tips of his toes were tingling. He flinched when the bus careened up to the bus stop, its metal doors rolling up with an abrasive grating sound.

"That's your bus," she said politely. She stood up when he did; he was shuddering without realizing it.

Just as he was about to get on the bus, she walked up beside him, brought her face close to his, and whispered:

"Cold?"