The first night I heard it I was already trudging towards the front door, one arm shoved hastily into my jacket, when a raspy “mrowr?” made me freeze in my tracks. I turned to see him sitting on the bottom step of the stairwell, eyeing me with shining beacons, head cocked to the side in question of my strange behaviour. I double-checked the cat door (perpetually locked, a relic of my ex’s insistence that he be allowed to roam) and stood there for a moment in silence, thinking. I could have sworn I heard him outside, mrowring somewhere on the front lawn in his distinctive gravelly timbre.
When I heard him outside again the next night, my initial panic gave way to confusion as I rushed into the hallway and spotted him staring at the shuttered window, perched once more on the bottom of the stairs. He turned to meet my gaze as I descended towards him, eyeing him from head to toe: no flecks of dirt or wet patches of melting slush to indicate he had gotten out. The cat door was latched shut, and a shiver ran down my spine at that discovery. I lay alert in my bed for the next few hours, waiting for another odd sound to break the silence. None came.
Something was very wrong and I think my cat could sense it, too. The next night he slept on my bed, which he had never done before - even when my ex (whom he unmistakably preferred) occupied the same space. Some time around 11 PM, as I was starting to doze off, I heard it again and reached behind me for reassurance that he was still there. I tried to suppress the thoughts that were simmering in my brain, running his fur between my fingers as I drifted off to sleep.
Over the next week, the sounds persisted and my cat continued to sleep in my room. I told myself that one of the neighborhood cats liked taking evening walks (and also just so happened to sound like he chain-smoked cigarettes) to distract myself from the fact that I was extremely freaked out. I couldn’t bring myself to look out the window, so I tried my best to ignore it.
The longer this went on, the harder it was to ignore. The sound started changing in some very odd ways: at first, in the same deep cat-voice, I began to hear what sounded like words. Still only one a night, never more than two syllables, and always indistinguishable. Then, seventeen days into the ordeal, the pitch started changing, getting slightly higher every time. The night before I called the police, its position changed as well. I could have sworn I heard it coming from somewhere just below my window, asking an indistinguishable question in a familiar voice.
The next night it sounded so close to my window that I leapt off the bed, tossing my poor cat aside, before I had even processed what it said. Pressed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room, staring fearfully at the blinded window, I realized it called out my name.
In my ex’s voice.
Without a second thought, I was dialing 9-1-1 and trying to come up with a convincing lie: I heard someone sneaking around my property, and needed help. Being a small community with a relatively low crime rate, I didn’t have to wait for long. As the red-and-blue glow of the approaching police car illuminated my window, I could have sworn I saw the shadow of something move quickly out of sight.
The police officers told me they did a thorough search of my property, that there were no signs of trespassing, and scolded me for phoning 9-1-1 so haphazardly. One of them suggested that I buy a gun. I nodded politely, my mind still upstairs staring at the window, and sent them on their way, feeling more hopeless than ever.
At some point while they were talking to me, the cat got out.
I didn’t go looking for him; I was too scared. When I heard him meow at the front door the next night, I didn’t open it up for him. Nor the next night when the meow became more desperate, nor the night after that. Every morning he was gone and I knew it couldn’t have been him. On the fourth week of hearing the sounds, the fourth night after my cat got out, the sound of splintering wood shook me awake; something had crashed through the front door.
I ran downstairs, baseball bat in hand, and found a gaping hole where the cat door once stood. My cat was backed into the other end of the hallway, eyes as wide as planets and hair on end, bleeding from his skull. He chittered madly at the nonexistent cat door. In my panicked state I opted first to repair the hole, racing for my toolbox and trying not to imagine some monstrous figure pulling itself into the house on all fours. As I desperately pulled at loose floorboards and hammered whatever I could to the front door he attacked me, hissing and spitting as if to prevent me from sealing the door. His claws sank deep into my flesh, his eyes wild, his voice a deep, baritone scream.
I was running on pure adrenaline as I beat him to death.
It was 6 a.m. by the time I finished cleaning the hallway. My cat’s corpse was draining in the bathtub. I called in sick to work, and burned his body in the afternoon. I don’t know how the police weren’t called on me for the smell alone; it was enough to make me vomit. I told myself it was the smell of something evil being dispelled.
I spent the rest of the day lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what was happening to me. I didn’t know who I could turn to for help, or who would even believe me. I scarcely noticed as the sun began to set.
When I heard it whisper my name from my doorway, I completely lost it. Gripping the bat beside my bed tightly, I swung everywhere and anywhere I could reach. When the window shattered I took the opportunity to leap out, stumbling for several steps on the roof before crashing onto my lawn, shining with glass and blood.
I screamed as loud as I could, dragging myself inch by inch away from the house, hoping desperately that someone would hear or see me before it was too late.
There was a police officer standing in the middle of the road. He was staring at me. Every time I winked back into consciousness, he seemed to get closer.
The last things I remember hearing were screams and gunshots.
I woke up in the hospital this afternoon, but I know I’m not safe yet. Every sound I hear puts me on edge. Every voice in the hallway gives me an eerie sense of deja-vu. Every hour I’ve spent writing this has brought me closer to the inevitability of the night, and I don’t have the strength to fight back.
I just heard my cat outside.
It sounds like he’s hungry.