Killer dinner party
It started with seven envelopes. It ended in death. This is how it happened.
Lenore wrote seven letters, each perfect and prim, each gilded in gold leaf, signed with swooping calligraphy, and sealed with a cyan-grey wax pressed into a stylized bat shape. The letters in question were invitations to a dinner party Lenore was hosting in her large victorian style home. But this wasn’t any dinner, you see Lenore favors having friends over on special occasions, and Halloween is certainly one of those occasions. And so four were invited to dine with her at midnight Halloween night.
At 10 PM people started to come around. First to arrive was Maako, a cyan kabo, with a fish-like tail, and orange and cream leopard-spot markings on his flank, his head topped with messy orange hair.
“Welcome my friend!” Lenore greeted, Lenore herself is a multicolored kabo, with the pattern of small bats dotting her fur and two messy buns topping her head, slightly hiding her wispy pale yellow ears that match her tail. She wore a black veil over her face, whether this was a feeble attempt at a costume or just her style is uncertain. Maako was early enough that he helped Lenore cook their dinner. After Maako, Magna arrived, seething with anger. “Why is your party so dang late?!” He screeched when Lenore opened the door for him. The grey kabos hair was messy as if he just woke up. huffing he went inside and waited in the living room for others to arrive, and complaining aimlessly. After about ten minutes or so, the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of two kabos. Trout, a blue spotty kabo, with long floppy ears, and Brianna a demonic-looking kabo, with beautiful long dark hair. They joined Magna in the living room, to Magna’s annoyance, as they chatted up a storm. After the pair, a dark kabo with rainbow markings down their back named Fraktel. Fraktel entered the house with finger guns ablaze, once again to Magna’s downfall who was once again complaining. Shortly after Fraktel indie entered saying “hi” to everyone then dropping off cookies in the kitchen. Their pelt the color of coffee with cream markings, and blue heir swept to the side of their face. After Indie, as if summoned by the cookies, a knock at the door sounded. Nonari waved as Lenore opened the door for him, and then dashed for the cookies. His grey pelt and yellow horns and tail were barely a blur with how fast he got there, happily munching on a chocolate chip cookie, his ears perking up with happiness.
After a minute of everyone mingling, Lenore clapped her paws together to get everyone’s attention. With a smile, she said “hello everyone! I hope you’ve taken the time to get familiar! This is everyone, so let’s sit down for dinner, shall we? Go ahead and-” before she could finish her sentence a knock at the door drew everyone’s attention. “..strange, I swear this is everyone” Lenore murmured, heading over to, and opening the door. There floating on their back was a strange red kabo, with one eye.
“Hello there, heard you had a fun dinner party, thought id let myself in, your welcome.” they gently landed back on the ground and strolled into the house.
“Um, ok, I guess you can join us..?” Lenore said confused “anyway, as I was saying, we have a small menu to choose from, you all have assigned seats, um.. What’s your name?” she turned to the red kabo who was already taking a seat at the far end of the table.
“Oh me? My name is Cherri, I’ll be sitting here.” Cherri said, sitting down and leaning back. “You don’t mind, do you? Of course not!” Lenore was trying to bite down her protests to Cherri leaning back in her chair but somehow kept quiet.
“Anyway, take your seats!” she said cheerfully heading back into the kitchen, to grab food. The seating arrangement went like this: on one end was Cherri, to her left sat Brianna, and to her left trout. On Cherri’s other side was indie, and next to them Nonarie, who was thanking them for the cookies. Next to trout was a very grump Magna muttering “I wish we could get this over so I can rest”. Then on Nonaries other side was Fraktel, and squished on the other end was Maako and Lenore.
When Lenore returned she was carrying two silver platers, one with a lovely roasted chicken, stuffed with cinnamon apples, and a lighter stuffing made from the fall harvest, on a bed of steamed vegetables. The other platter had a fancy chicken mushroom pasta, topped with parsley, and a cashew nut white sauce. Both platters had immaculate plating and were freshly steaming and filling the large dining room with warm aromas. “I have sparkling cider chilling on the patio, and other drinks in the kitchen, just ask and I can fetch you drinks.” she said, gently placing the platers on the table, and sitting down with a smile. “Feel free to eat friends!”
Soon plates were being passed around, at some point mashed potatoes and garlic bread arrived at the table, and everyone was plated up. Cherri had taken a fair chunk of the pasta, multiple slices of garlic bread, and mashed potatoes, she seemed to have taken some of the apples from the chicken. Maako’s plate almost mirrored hers, but with a proper amount of food for the plate and no apples. Indie had only taken vegetables from the chicken platter and a slice of garlic bread, while Magna’s plate was a mound of chicken and half-drowned in gravy. Indie appeared to be lecturing him about the “poor innocent bird that gave its life for his pleasure” but Magna was ignoring her. Fraktel also took part of the chicken and sliced the whole thing so anyone else could easily take pieces, they also filled the rest of their plate with mashed potatoes, and sat next to their plate was a cup of lemonade. Nonari took the chicken after Indie, thanking them for cutting it, taking a few thicker slices, and mashed potatoes.
“Hey, I’m going to go make some tea. I’ll be right back” he said, politely excusing himself. Brianna took pasta, taking a deep sniff and giving a small sigh at the smell
“Oh! This smells so good! Thank you so much Lenore!” trout, on the other hand, got a bit of both, as well as a slice of garlic bread. Lenore kindly waited for everyone to get their food before she took a few slices of chicken and a small amount of pasta, at some point, she had acquired a glass of deep red wine.
Cherri seemed to notice Lenore’s drink and piped up “hey you! you got any coffee? Or caffeinated teas?”
Lenore blinked in an annoyed way “well, yes. I can go prepare you some black coffee. If anyone else wants any, ill be making a pot.” at this Magna raised his hand, his mouth currently occupied with chewing. “Very well, I will pour two cups.”
It took a good 20 minutes to get everyone settled and happy with what they had, and two fresh baskets of garlic bread later an audible sigh went through Lenore, and just as she finally sat down to eat the lights flickered off. A piercing shout rippled the silence followed by two loud thuds. “Help! Help! It’s too dark!!” Fraktel shouted, as the sounds of shuffling filled the room.
“Hey! What’s going on!” Makko said loudly, and as he did the lights flicked back on, just as suddenly as they shut off. And then a horrified yell surprised everyone. Down on the floor lay Fraktel, and on top of the small kabo, the unmoving form of Nonari, a deep crimson pool spreading around the two. Chaos ensued. People were panicking, Trout had gagged, as he picked up the strong stench of blood, and it was sure to say everyone had lost their appetite. Fraktel was a sobbing mess and frozen in place in fear, while Indie tried to comfort them from a fair distance away.
“Everyone into the living room. NOW.” Lenore yelled over the chaos, pointing towards the living room, and padding over to help Frakel up, guiding them into the room. “Okay. we need to talk this over” she said once everyone was gathered. “Clearly someone here killed our dear friend Nonarie, and I intend to find out who.”
“Well, that sucks.” Cherri said almost nonchalantly, drawing a glare from Indie, who was trying not to cry, but a few lose tears were rolling down their cheeks.
“That’s not very helpful, Cherri.” Brianna said, the slightest tremor in their voice, as they stood as close to trout as they could. “One of our friends is dead, are you even concerned? Your probably the one who killed him! That’s why!” they said pointing their finger accusingly to Cherri who just scoffed.
“You think I’d do that? Psh I was enjoying my pasta! Leave me be!” Cherri said with a glare “hey, your the one accusing me, what are you trying to cover up, huh?”
“H-hey hey, let’s not f-fight!” Fraktel said in between sobs, their fur was tinged a deep crimson from blood, and it was clearly still very frightening to them.
“Fraktel is right. One of us killed Nonari, fighting will get us nowhere, we need to figure out what happened when the lights went out.” Maako said, walking up behind Fraktel, petting their head slightly to calm them down. “Let’s start off with Cherri, you are the most obvious suspect. What did you do when the lights went out?” as he said this everyone turned to Cherri.
“Really? Way to pin it on me! As I said, I was enjoying my pasta, I continued to eat. I heard Fraktel yelling, but whatever, my food is more important than that.” Cherri said, and then shooting a glare at Trout. “What about him? You’ve been awfully quiet there, Trout.”
“What?!” trout yelled “are you serious? Why would I kill Nonari? I heard Fraktel yell and heard Magna get up from his seat. I assumed he was getting up to help Fraktel so I didn’t mind much!” he pointed at Magna, who was sulking in the corner.
“Magna, what do you have to tell us?” Lenore asked in a kind voice, knowing that raising her voice would scare Fraktel more than they already were.
“I got up to turn on the lights…” Magna grumbled. “I thought maybe somehow the light got turned off, and I know that Fraktel is afraid of the dark… I think I heard Indie get up when I was walking past.” he looked down at his paws. “ask them. I have nothing to do with this.”
“So you’re blaming me? Of course. Look I know we aren’t on good terms, but I’m not a murderer Magna! I didn’t mean to break your CD, okay you can stop being angry! And yes, I did get up, I was checking on Fraktel. As I reached down to help them I felt something slick, so when the lights came on I screamed.” they held up a paw, to show that it was slick with blood.
“I’ve heard enough. I know who it is.” Maako said. “It’s clearly- uh-” just as he was about to speak, he started coughing, crimson liquid coming up with each cough. He tried to scream but was coughing up so much blood it never came out. He collapsed within seconds, this time it was trout who freaked out.
“What! Come on! Who is it!” he yelled, obviously freaked out. “He was just about to say who it was! This isn’t fair!”
“I think I do know who it is.” Lenore said.
Who do you think the killer is?