It was dark when Emily came through the door. The dancing tawny ghosts of ember wrought their shadows along the lines of the hard wood floors. Thick strong legs holding them tied permanently to the hearth of the fireplace in the living room.
	Emily had been out in the yard handing out candy to the neighborhood children for all Hallows Eve. It was nearing midnight, and she could feel the fatigue of a long and stressful day dragging her deep down into the comfort of an oversized recliner in the corner near the writing desk.
	For a moment, there was darkness, and there within the placid sound of a cat mewing for a cup of cool milk. Emily’s cat Dantom had paddled his way into the living room from the kitchen, making barely a sound as he went from the floor to her chair in a vertical leap.
	“Good boy, Dantom.” She called out, stroking his silky white fur down along the contours of his head.

Emily lived in a large house, you see, for her husband was ridiculously wealthy. So it came as a surprise to everyone in the area when he was killed suddenly of a massive heart attack in his prime and found dead in the kitchen the next morning, leaving his fortune to his widow and their cat Dantom.
	Dantom purred loudly as he was lovingly stroked by his Master, who, upon hearing his cries of hunger, had gotten up and gone into the kitchen to fetch her cat a bowl of cream.
	Only the finest for Dantom, her late husband would call out, He’s a special cat, every time she had gone to give him regular cat food or milk. Protesting that dairy is not good for cats despite all the myths.
	The heavy whipping cream spilled over the sides of the bowl a little as Emily lost her train of thought to memories of her husband. And as the nostalgic feeling took her over, she recalled how she was so tired, and decided that it was best to turn in for the night.
	A single meow from the kitchen was heard as she walked up the stairs and into the long hallway that reached to her bed room.

Without taking a shower, and without even undressing much, Emily sank into the feather bed that her husband had bought them when they moved into the house so many years ago.
	And has Emily breathed in the scent of the bed with a long dragged out sigh, her mind began to retrace the features of her late husbands face. It had been almost a year since he died, the anniversary being only in a few days.
	It was just after Halloween when her Husband Thomas died. He’d been getting check ups regularly and there was no sign or warnings from doctors.
	The law suit was worth almost a ten million dollars and nearly eight months of court battles. Malpractice was called, licenses were lost. But in the end, the only thing that mattered was that Thomas was gone.
	“Dantom?” Emily called out. In the darkness there was a creeping sound that came from the door. The fluffy white tabby must have been done with his cream and had come to bed.
	“Dantom, is that you?” Another creep… Or was it... A heavy foot fall? Emily couldn’t tell in this darkness. She meant to reach for the lamp, but instead knocked the large wooden clock off her bed stand, breaking it’s restraints and releasing the alarm sound that it calls out when wound properly.

It was the only sound that the neighbors reported hearing, the constant drown of an alarm bell ringing endless into the night. Not a single scream, not a single cry for help, accompanied by the gentle rustling of the wind through the pine swept hallows of the country.
	Emily was dead. Found in the kitchen clutching in her hand a bowl of spilled cream, having suffered a massive heart attack just like her husband did a year prior.
	With no living family, and no children, and both holders of the massive fortune Thomas had acquired found dead, the only thing left for the lawyers to do was read the will of Thomas upon the death of his wife.
	To those who read this. Upon the unfortunate Death of all living relatives. I Thomas Aquinas hereby leave all fortunes and possessions to my son, Dantom.