A little about me first-- I'm just a normal, average guy. I grew up in a rural town and had a generally pleasant upbringing. I graduated college about 2 years ago with a degree in Computer Science. I went to a small school in my hometown, and got really good grades. Since my town is so rural, I really couldn't find a job locally so I decided to leave my parents and friends behind and move to find a job. I was lucky enough to find a decent paying IT job in Florida. I love the heat, so it worked out perfectly.
About three months after moving, I met a girl—we'll call her Leah. I should have known how things would go from the start, but I was blinded by her good looks and incredible body. She was a student at a large state university nearby. And boy did she like to drink! It wasn't long after we started dating that I realized she was using alcohol as a way to deal with a ton of emotional problems. 'Crazy Bitch' is sort of my type though, so this actually made me fall for her even more. I was, in fact, devastated when she left me for another dude about 5 months in.
That's when things took a turn for the worse. I began drinking pretty heavily myself after the break-up. Most of my time was spent alone in my apartment downing cases of beer or bottles of Jack Daniels. I was severely (and stupidly) depressed over this girl and honestly don't know how I managed to keep my job. Lucky for me, my boss admired my work ethic and got tired of me showing up to work hungover as hell. He got me the help I needed and pulled me out of my funk.
After a couple of months, I was still pretty lonely, but at least I wasn't drinking as heavily. My job was going great, I was paying off my student loans and I'd even managed to make friends who weren't raging alcoholic college kids. I had no reason to be unhappy, but it's pretty difficult to be in a new state by yourself, you know?
One day I came home after a particularly long day at work. I had found a nice house about 20 minutes outside of town that I loved. My closest neighbor was about 2 miles down the road and there were pine trees on either side of the house that provided me much needed tranquility. That's why it surprised me that on this particular day I heard the tiniest sound nearby as I was unlocking my front door:
Mew
I paused because at first I thought there must be something in the woods, even though it sounded close, but then I heard it again. And something brushed against the leg of my pants.
Mew
She purred harder when I opened a can of tuna and put it in a saucer on my kitchen floor. I settled in my recliner to watch some TV and it wasn't long before she was asleep in my lap. The next few weeks passed and I got used to having her around. I bought a few cat toys, food, and a litter box and she settled into my house nicely. Part of me hoped that whoever tied the green ribbon around her neck wouldn’t show up. She helped with my loneliness, considerably.
Weeks turned into months and soon the kitten was full grown. She was certainly very friendly and even greeted me at the door whenever I came home. While I was certainly happy to have the company, I started to notice that things were off about her. For one thing, she was big. Though she started small, she quickly grew into one of the largest cats I'd ever seen. Not the fat kind, either. Muscular. I joked to my friends that she must be using my weights while I was at work.
She was also a little…clingy. I'd heard most cats didn't like strangers, but my Kitty was downright hostile. While she tolerated my male friends, the female ones were always greeted with a hiss and swat. I wrote it off as crazy cat behavior. Besides, it's not like I had ladies lined up at the door or anything.
In fact, my bed was pretty empty except for Kitty. She had this weird habit of lying on my pillow during the night. I would wake up and she'd be gently stroking my face with her paw while purring madly. I'd never owned a cat before but I had heard several oddball things about these 'strange, reclusive roommates who poop in a box.' When I'd wake up being lightly stroked by a cat's paw, I'd just chalk it up to that.
Then one night, something really strange happened. I hadn't been sleeping well for a few nights—fall was turning into winter and my sinuses were especially dry. I just assumed it was the change in seasons but now I'm not so sure. That night, I woke up around 12 AM and kitty was sitting on my chest, staring into my eyes.
I could hardly breathe from the weight of her. It was as if she were using her paws to constrict my heartbeat. Her nose and mouth were in front of mine and I could hear a slight hiiisssss as she inhaled the breath that I exhaled. I was startled at first but before I could blink, she was off my chest and purring softly beside me. I thought I must've been dreaming. When I first woke up, I thought I'd noticed something sinister and vaguely human in her eyes. Though I was shaken, I got up to get a glass of water. By the time I got back to my bed, I figured the whole incident was just some sinus related hallucination. Besides, Kitty had been sleeping in the house with me for months now. If something were off about her, wouldn't I have noticed it earlier?
It was around November and pretty soon the holidays came and went. I left Kitty home alone with an auto-feeder and extra litter box when I went to visit my family over Christmas. She didn't even seem to have missed me when I returned from the week-long visit. Cats. Amirite!?
I spent New Year's Eve with my boss at a party with a few friends from work. It's there that I met Jenna.
She was, hands down, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. She had the most gorgeous, white-blonde hair and the clearest blue eyes. And her smile—it lit up the room. I was smitten almost as soon as I lay eyes on her. Not only was she gorgeous, but smart, too. She had graduated from the same university my ex had attended and was now a post-doctoral fellow. I chatted her up all night and we really hit it off. We shared our first kiss that night, at midnight.
Over the next few months, Jenna and I became closer and closer. We started spending a lot of time together. My office was close to campus so we'd often meet for lunch or….other things. We'd go on little dates on the weekends, too. Needless to say I started falling for her pretty hard. The good news was, I was pretty sure she felt the same way.
She'd been to my house, so of course she'd met Kitty. Like I mentioned, Kitty wasn't friendly to strangers, especially women, but she took an instant liking to Jenna. The three of us would cuddle up on the couch during the winter drinking hot cocoa and watching old movies. Jenna was a huge fan of Robert Mitchum, who happens to be one of my favorite actors. We would spend many nights, just the three of us, watching movies like 'Out of the Past' and 'The Night of the Hunter.'
At this point, everything that happened becomes kind of blur. All I know is...
You know, I'm not really sure what I know. But maybe somebody here can help me figure it out.
It was a night like any other; sometime in mid-March, but unseasonably cool for Florida in spring. I remember that Jenna had stayed the night (she had been staying with me a lot, actually) but that we had gone to bed early. She was having some terrible sinus issues, probably brought on by the change in seasons.
I awoke around midnight from a terrible nightmare. I startled myself awake and lay in the dark, slowly letting my eyes adjust to the dim light. It was then I saw Kitty.
She sat on Jenna's chest as my beautiful girl struggled to breathe. The cat straddled her chest as she took sharp intakes of breath. Kitty's nose and face were pressed tightly to the lips I had kissed so often as of late.
The worst part was the cat's eyes. They glowed with an eerie, green light that shone like emerald fires from the pits of hell. I was terrified! What in the name of God was going on?!
I rose with a start and knocked the cat off of my lover's chest. Tiny rosebuds of blood appeared across her nightgown from claws that had been deeply embedded in her chest, yet she did not stir. The cat on the other hand, was a different story.
I set about sealing the cat door with duct tape and also put a large piece of furniture in front of it, just for good measure. I still was unclear on what had brought this on but there was no way that creature would be allowed back in my house!
Jenna had not stirred during the entire ordeal. When I tried to wake her, she would hardly raise her head from the pillow. I attempted to clean the wounds on her chest the best I could. They weren't nearly as deep as I thought but were odd, nevertheless. The claw marks had formed a V shape with the point ending right above her heart. They were so deep, they almost looked like scars. Afterwards, I checked the door again before settling back to bed. I decided it was best to get some rest and sort out exactly what had happened in the morning.
I awoke again at 3:13 in the morning. The first thing I noticed was that the house was freezing. The next thing I noticed was that Jenna was gone.
I jumped out of bed and flipped on the light. I screamed her name but she did not answer. I frantically began searching the house. I noticed the front door was wide open.
I ran into the yard again, screaming, 'Jenna!' but no answer came. I ran back inside to grab a flashlight and shined it into the surrounding woods. It was then that I saw them.
Eyes stared at me through the trees and darkness. Green, yellow, red—all glowing with the same hellish glow that had shone through Kitty's eyes. They burned through the night, all of them watching me. It was then that the cacophony of growls and meows started. Just the memory of it sends chills rushing down my spine!
I hurried back inside to call the police. By the time they arrived, the yowling had stopped and there were no signs of the eyes lurking in the darkness. They searched the woods, but not a trace of Jenna could be found.
"Did you have a fight? Could she have simply left?' they asked. I answered that we hadn't and that there was no reason that she should just disappear. I didn't tell them about the incident with the cat or the eyes in the dark. I probably should have, but I was afraid of sounding like a raving lunatic.
A few weeks went by but Jenna never returned. She had no family to speak of and at times I felt like the only person searching was me. The police theorized that she suffered from sleepwalking disorder and had perhaps wondered deep into the woods and then fallen into a retaining pond. 'Alligators are vicious creatures,' they said. The thought made my blood run cold. But what other explanation was there?
My worry started to get the best of me and I started drinking again. My boss noticed, but there was nothing that could drag me out of this pit of despair. How could I have let such an unholy creature into my house? How could I have fallen asleep that night instead of protecting the woman that I was beginning to fall in love with?
One day, after a particularly bad day at work, made worse by my perpetual hangover, I came home ready for some hair of the dog. As I unlocked the door, I was surprised to hear the tiniest sound nearby and a brush against my leg.
Mew
There was a kitten at my feet. Her white-blonde fur complimented the green ribbon around her neck. And she stared up at me with the most hauntingly familiar, clear, blue eyes.
Sketch Credit: mrsensitive.com
Happy Halloween, everybody.
Recommended links:
The original post on r/nosleep is here. Give me an upvote :D
Wow. Freaky!
ReplyDelete-Dee
Thanks. That's what I was going fo :D
Delete