I know most of you won’t believe this and I find it all hard to believe myself.
I’m not sure if this is a “chicken or the egg” situation and if having a cat keeps these things away or owning a cat makes these things more likely to come around. Regardless, I’ve seen them too many times now to ever live somewhere without sharing my home with a pet cat.
MY STORY:
The first time I saw one was when I was 14. I had never experienced anything paranormal before then (that I could remember). It was a Saturday night and I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching Toonami when the PG-13 animes would air. That should give you an idea of how old I am. My guess at the exact time is based on the show I remember watching when this happened. It was Gundam Seed (one of my favorites as a kid) which I remember airing at 12 or 12:30.
I was curled up in a blanket with my childhood cat “Cookie” lying next to me. The rest of the lights in the house were off and my mom was asleep, so the only light other than the TV was the lamp sitting next to me on the end table.
Opposite the couch was the wall where the TV and its stand was, as well as the doorway leading into the kitchen. If you walked through, the actual kitchen extends to the right with the hallway leading to the bedrooms immediately to your left. So if you’re sitting on the couch, you can see through the kitchen doorway into the very beginning of the hallway.
About halfway through Gundam, I felt Cookie get up and watched her leave the living room and walk down the hall. That was the direction of her litter box and where I assumed she was going. But within a few minutes I instead heard the familiar sounds of “night zoomies”. This wasn’t unusual, since she did this a lot in the middle of the night. And I was usually the only one who heard her, because I stayed up late and slept with my bedroom door open.
Initially, I didn’t think much of it until I started to notice she was meowing too. The fact that she was meowing wasn’t the unusually. It was the way she was meowing that caught my attention. It’s hard to explain, but with how much her pitch, tone, and the individual “meow noises” changed, I could swear it was like she was talking to someone.
This went on for about 10 minutes until Gundam had ended and my curiosity got the better of me. I got up from the couch, walked into the kitchen to look down the hall. All the while, she continued to make her intricate meows. When I could finally see down the hallway, I froze.
At the end of the hallway was the door leading into our spare bedroom with Cookie sitting at the entrance, meowing into the darkness. And just beyond the doorway where the light didn’t reach was a pair of faint white lights hovering in the air like eyes.
At first I didn’t believe what I was seeing. But even as my eyes adjusted, the tiny lights persisted, accompanied by the black silhouette of a large humanoid frame. It stood there, alternating glances between me, Cookie, and my mom’s room. But every time the creature tried to move, Cookie would nonchalantly just stand up and move in its way. Each time this happened, I would see the creature jerk backwards in what looked like a panic, fleeing my cat.
I’m not sure how long it took me to come to my senses, but I eventually remembered I was right next to the light switch in the hallway. After a minute to summon up the courage, I slowly reached over to flip the switch and the second the light pierced the dark room, the creature was gone. No evidence it had ever been there other than Cookie still standing guard in front of the door. In that funny way cats do when they don’t understand why their owners did something, she turned her head toward me and made that “trilling” noise. Although I was in full blown panic mode, she was completely calm. She just looked at me as if to say, “Oh hey, what’s up? Did you need something? I’m on guard duty tonight.”
For the next TWO months, I would hear Cookie engage in her midnight tussle with the thing, keeping it trapped in the spare bedroom, occasionally being startled by Cookie coming to sleep with me after her guard shift was over.
About four months later we had someone stay the night and I could barely contain my anxiety. It was my grandmother (who I call Gran). I almost confessed what I’d seen and what I’d been hearing this whole time to my mom for fear that my grandmother would be in danger if she slept in that room. The only reason I didn’t was because the entire time Gran was visiting, Cookie refused to let the door be shut. She would stand in the way if someone tried and if she was pushed aside, she would scratch and thump the door all night until it was finally open again. My Gran has asthma and was never very fond of cats. My whole life growing up, Gran intentionally avoided Cookie when she visited and shooed her away if she got too close. But that week, Cookie slept in the bedroom with my Gran every night she was over at our house.
My Gran left 4 nights later without incident.
This confirmed to me that Cookie was in fact keeping that thing away. I assume her presence kept the creature pinned in the spare bedroom closet, unable to leave and hurt anyone.
From then on, the nights when Cookie would battle with the thing became less frequent, but never stopped.
I’m now in my 30s and own 2 cats. Lil’ Racer (a black short hair) and Jam (an orange tabby). They are best little buddies and occasionally I will hear them get the zoomies in the middle of the night. I’ve only gotten up to investigate a few times. And MOST of the time, it’s nothing but them releasing pent up energy. But a few times, I’ve seen something. It’s always the same two white dots hovering in the darkest corner of the house or lurking in the shadows of an empty room. Their “bodies” don’t always look the same, though.
Sometimes they’re human shaped, sometimes completely amorphous and asymmetric. Sometimes they’re hulking masses, sometimes just thin stick-like appendages protruding from a torso barely the width of a tree branch. But they always scare me shitless and I’ve never tried to get a better look at them for fear that my already terrible sleep habits will get worse.
Some nights, I’ll wake up to the sounds of my cats talking to the creatures. That’s the only thing I can imagine they’re doing. Meowing in distinct patterns and tones as I assume, they trash talk the cowardly things.
I have no idea what plans or intentions lie behind those tiny white dots, and I’m positive I don’t want to know. But what I do know is: as afraid as I DEFINITELY am of them, they are far more afraid of my furry companions.
A quick side note, and this may seem dumb but I’ve started calling these things “creepers”.
I’ve played Minecraft since it first came out. For anyone who doesn’t know, there’s a mob (creatures other than the player) in the game called a creeper. In the game, these mobs appear when it’s dark (like all Minecraft mobs), move slowly and silently towards players, and when close enough, explode. Often times, the only warning you’ll get is a hissing noise like a stick of dynamite and then the creeper explodes.
One of the funniest mechanics in the game (in my opinion) is that one of the sure fire ways to keep creepers away is to keep cats around your base. That’s because creepers are terrified of cats. They don’t just avoid them, they will jump in fright and flee from the little fur balls, and will not move any closer to the player unless they move away from the cat. This is why I call these things “creepers”.