When my boyfriend, Leon, and I were considering buying a cat, I spent alot of time reading things online. Like How-To stuff. I never owned a cat growing up because my mother had a pretty nasty allergy. I always wanted one.
There was this post, here on Reddit, I think, about how their cat ran away a week ago and they didn’t know what to do. Somebody told them to keep the search local, that cats usually don’t travel too far from home. They’re survivalists, naturally, and being survivalists, cats have an incredible sense of direction and just understanding in general. Have you ever seen those videos of blind cats walking around the house looking for their owners, rounding every corner and dodging every obstacle seamlessly? It’s really impressive, actually. Cats know home, basically.
Exactly one week ago, I was curled up on the couch, a warm mug of coffee settled in my grasp and my cat, Clementine, nestled under my knees. Leon was still sleeping. Sunlight was peeling in through thin curtains, warming Clementine and I perfectly. Suddenly, a knock. It sounds like the start to a bad thriller, I was gonna open the door and a cloak-wearing somebody was gonna hand me a mysterious invitation to a mysterious location. Instead, when I opened the door, I found nobody. Maybe a ding-dong-ditch, I assumed. Clementine’s not a runner, usually, but this day, she elegantly snuck between my feet and hopped off the porch, and before I could even process what had happened– Clementine made her way into the patch of tall-grass sitting beside our house, and was gone.
Clementine’s been our little girl for about three years now. We got her when she was just turning twelve weeks old, off of FB marketplace. The thing that intrigued me the most about her, when I first saw her, was her eyes. They were like two large, yellow moons bulging out her tiny kitten face. I also noticed that she has a very distinct meow, too. A high-pitched, drawn-out ‘reoooowwwwwwww’. So distinct I could probably recognize it, and those piercing eyes, during a hurricane.
The first day of her sudden dissappearance, I was devastated. I cried while shaking the treat-bag and walking up-and-down the street calling her name until my throat got sore. Leon drove around town and called out her name when he got home from work. We asked around– neighbors and local businesses. Nothing came up that first day. The second day we did the same thing, hoping maybe Clementine hadn’t heard the treat-bag the first day or maybe she was still exploring, to no response. Third day I elected to put up a post on Facebook, print posters at the local library and staple them to random trees and posts around town. The local gas station taped a poster to the door, so it was the first thing you’d see before walking in. ‘HAVE YOU SEEN ME?’ the posters said in bold letters at the top, above a photo of Clementine laying in the sunlight, full-moon eyes staring straight at you. No response.
Over the days, I lost hope. I reminded myself of that comment– the one about how cats are survivalists and they know home. I grew afraid that maybe Clementine’s idea of home is foggy– she can picture us and hear our voices and feel our love but the exterior of our home itself just comes as a foggy memory to her. I had searched everywhere but the tall-grass beside our house.
Right beside our house resides a practically never-ending field of tall-grass that’s almost the height of me. I stand at 5’3, for reference. This grass is a mere few inches shorter, still practically enveloping you when you step into it. I’ll tell you the truth– it freaks me out. That’s why I had been avoiding it. Cats have a good sense of direction and I didn’t feel like Clementine got lost in there, but Leon and everybody else insisted that anything was possible.
Leon was at work when I first stepped into the grass. A flashlight in my hand with my phone in the other, I gathered my courage and stepped inside. I called out her name as I navigated my way through the grass and my panic for about two hours with no response.
As the sun was going down, I realized I was probably pretty deep into the grass and I needed to get out before nightfall. I grabbed my phone and went to Google maps, hoping that it’d be able to point me in the direction of home, or a store, maybe, and that’s when I heard it.
Her meow. I told you I could recognize it in a hurricane. It was her’s.
It was like my instincts kicked in. I began running towards it’s echo, desperately calling her name out. My shoes were kicking up mud and the grass was brushing against my shoulders. I could barely see overhead the grass, I was struggling to hold myself, but I could still hear her. Another meow. Eventually my excitement turned to panic– she sounded scared. Why did she sound scared? Questions swarmed my head as I pushed my way through this grass, following my baby’s cries.
Night was approaching fast, and I know it wasn’t smart of me to run in the complete opposite direction, but if I had waited any longer, I knew something awful was going to happen. I could feel it. That certain dread. It was staining my bones. Eventually, I found an opening. Her meows were clearer than ever. I felt my heart bursting in my ribcage with excitement and physical strain and I pushed through the slightly parted grass into open-ness.
Only to be met with a house.
An abandoned house. Thick vines had completely overgrown the roof of the house, trapped the windows on the top floor underneath it’s long-winded maze. An old antique rocker sat idle on the porch. The house looked run-down. Old.. Sad, almost. Like an old memory. I wondered why, or how, Clementine would end up here. Another meow. It sounded like it came from inside. She could be stuck in there, I tried telling myself as I slowly made my way towards the porch.
As I slowly made my way onto the porch, I suddenly glanced behind me as another meow echoed from inside the house. I felt relief at seeing nothing behind me. This felt like the set-up to a bad horror, I was gonna open the door and a psycho murderer was going to be holding my Clementine in one hand and a bloody machete in the other. My entire body was telling me this wasn’t a good idea.
Instead, what I saw made me feel worse.
Upon opening the door, I found the house to be completely empty, except for a small radio sitting on the floor, which trembled slightly as the sound of Clementine’s meow emitted from it.
I was confused, and then scared, and then panicked as I practically dove off the porch and reached for my phone and called Leon. It was the only thing I thought to do in my panic.
Realization dawned on me in the passenger’s seat of Leon’s truck– and suddenly I started crying.
Somebody lured me there.