LJ Idol Entry #7 - Bupkis

The Obliging Wardrobe
by Rabid1st
A bit of original fiction
Rating: E for Everyone
Beta Babe: keswindhover
Summary: This is something of a humor infused fairy-tale.

On a balmy evening in late summer, Belinda Collins, age 5, was eaten by a Lesser Horned Bandersnatch. The snapping, salivating horror burst out of an old wardrobe and devoured every scrap of her, right down to the illuminated patches on her Tinkerbell pajamas. A tragedy, of course, but it wasn’t an entirely unexpected occurrence. Belinda had, in fact, been expecting the monster (and dreading her demise) ever since her family had moved in to their creepy new home on Grimshaw Lane. The wardrobe had simply obliged.

Belinda’s sister, Becca, age 7, saw it happen. A sensible child, she hadn’t been expecting a monster to leap out of the wardrobe, and so she had survived to tell the tale. She tried in vain to explain what she’d witnessed, first to her parents, and then to the police, and finally, inevitably, to a series of psychiatrists. Nobody would listen or believe. Previously regarded as quite promising by her parents, Becca became a source of embarrassment to them, even as the missing Belinda became sanctified in memory.

Her father thought it might be best to move away from the house that had brought them so much grief, but Becca’s mother wouldn't hear of it. She hoped for the return of her vanished angel.

“What if she comes home and we aren’t here?”

“She’s never coming home,” Becca said, exasperation sharpening her tone. “She’s been eaten.”

“Take your medicine,” her father said. “And stop upsetting your mother.”

Becca took her medicine and, eventually, stopped telling her upsetting tale. She kept to her room, for the most part, keeping an eye on the obliging wardrobe. With daily practice, she schooled her mind to always expect the best. Clean sheets. Pretty dresses. Fluffy kittens. Satchels of cash.

By the time her parents died, Becca was as much a fixture in the Grimshaw Lane house as the wardrobe. She grew quite set in her ways. And if those ways were strange, the townspeople made allowances. Though they worried about her from time to time and wondered if something ought to be done about her weird and isolating lifestyle. Becca remained relentlessly untroubled by the expectations of others. She lived simply with half a dozen fluffy cats. Her life wasn't lonely from her perspective. She belonged to a book group, regularly attended church and kept a prize-winning garden. She never wanted for anything. The wardrobe always provided.

Until, one day on the far side of eighty-five, Becca thought she heard her sister calling to her. She went upstairs to her bedroom and pressed an ear against the wardrobe door. Surely, that was Belinda’s voice, she thought. And just for a second, before she opened the door, she had the slightest expectation of visiting her sister in heaven.

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“Vanished,” Officer Ted Taylor said, while searching the Grimshaw Lane house later that month. “Just like her sister.”

“People don’t vanish, Ted,” Louisa Garza, his long suffering partner, countered. “She’s dropped dead somewhere. Her mind was starting to go, you know.”

Garza could smell something rotten, figuratively and quite literally, in the musty old home. She followed her nose up the stairs, dreading what she might find. There was sure to be a decomposing body up there, beside the bed or in the bath. She pushed open doors one after another, peering into rooms and closets, until she reached the obliging wardrobe. The stench of death nearly overwhelmed her as she moved closer to it.

Garza hated this part of her job. She knew exactly what she would see when she opened the wardrobe. Old lady Collins would be long dead, curled up in that tiny space. The poor, poor woman, trapped and dying alone, Garza thought as she reached a hand toward the door. But before she could turn the latch, one of Becca Collin’s abandoned cats leaped down on her. Louisa Garza reeled backward, catching the cat, but losing her balance. Her heel tangled in a throw rug. She gave a small yelp as she staggered to one side.

“You all right there?” Ted asked, laughing as he came into the room.

“Stupid cat,” Garza snarled.

Gently dropping the tabby to the floor, she straightened to see Ted reaching for the wardrobe handle. Before she could formulate a proper expectation of what was to come, he’d opened the door. The scent of decay evaporated in a puff of lavender and vanilla spice.

“Just as I thought,” Ted said, staring into the bare cupboard, “bupkis.

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This is my entry for LJ Idol Round 7. Find All Entries For This Topic HERE!