Chloe vs. The Raccoon

Through the fuzzy darkness, Chloe strained her eyes to see the clock. 2:36 am. Damnit, she thought. Maybe it's too hot in here. The entire bed felt too warm, her body heat having transferred over the course of the past few hours. Tearing the bed clothes off of her legs, she cursed that raccoon intrusion incident that forced her to shut her windows every night since then.

[Back in the Spring, Chloe had made the mistake of leaving her bedroom window open, which was located on the fire escape. This being Chinatown, not only was her apartment not furnished with an oven, but it also lacked window screens. She never saw the thing, but evidence of the raccoon was everywhere when she returned home late one night. Sooty footprints betrayed its run of every square foot in her apartment... it trekked across the white bedspread, overturned the bookcase, splashed around in the toilet, then rummaged around the papers on her desk before going on its merry way back out the window.]

Aside from the uncomfortable temperature, something else weighed on Chloe's mind. Jenkins. It was one of those names that's common in theory but rare in practice. She couldn't shake the memory of the events earlier that day at the cemetery, and, feeling that there must be some depth to the story, she resolved to look into the matter more thoroughly in the morning.

It's so damn hot. Then, Chloe remembered an old trick. Flipping the pillow over, her cheek met its cool underbelly, and she fell asleep.