Kathy woke up and she wasn’t feeling very well. It was still somewhat dark outside and it looked as if it were going to rain. More than anything she wanted to just stay in bed and sleep, but she couldn’t afford to miss a day of work.

As she walked around the apartment getting ready to leave, she looked at her roomates, Jessie and Carol, both sound asleep. She envied them. But she had to go.

Carol came back home at night and locked the door after herself. Her roomates were making more noise than usual. She wondered what all the happy giggling was about… And came into the living room to find them playing with a cat.

- Whose cat is that, Kathy?

- I don’t know, I came home and it was here.

How did it get in here? Jessie said it could be because she left a window open when she left. Carol reprimanded her for leaving a window open, but after that she argued that it was not the way the cat had come in. They lived on the fifteenth floor, there was no way the cat could have climbed.

The next day was Saturday and they all had breakfast together.

- Maybe it’s the neighbor’s cat. Maybe It jumped off the window and was lucky enough to land in here instead of falling down to the ground.

- Good thing I left the window open, then.

But Carol didn’t believe this story. It was too strange to be true. It was a fat cat, did they think the wind could have blown the cat inside the apartment? Very unlikely. She felt uneasy about the presence of that cat.

And Kathy didn’t like the cat either. She didn’t like anything much these days. She was not feeling well.

- Where is your precious cat, anyway?

It was nowhere to be found.

Kathy spent the rest of the day in bed. Carol was worried about her, and Jessie spent half her time telling Kathy she shouldn’t work so much, and the other half looking for the cat.

- Give it up, Jessie. It must have jumped out the window again.

- No! I closed the windows specially so that it wouldn’t go away.

- Maybe it was a dream.

Jessie didn’t like this kind of joke.

Monday came and neither did the cat show up, nor Kathy’s health. Jessie and Carol both had to go out, so they hired a nurse to take care of Kathy, even though she insisted that she wasn’t all that sick and should probably be going to work anyway. Carol had to call Kathy’s work pretending to be her to tell them that she wasn’t going to go.

Kathy hated the nurse their friends got for her. She acted like Kathy was a five year old. She brought her candy to eat after taking the medicine. She played with stuffed animals to cheer her up. She told fairytales and she had the biggest smile on her face. Normally Kathy would like that about a person, but it was all the time and no matter how much Kathy told het to stop.

At one point, Kathy turned around in her bed and looked at the door to her room, which was half open. She thought there was a strange shadow behind the door, but after looking more carefully, she realised it was the cat. It had come back.

- Where have you been hiding?

- What? I’m right here.

- Not you, nurse. That thing. The cat.

And then Kathy regretted having said anything, because the nurse spent the rest of the day making her play with the cat.

- Stop chasing after it, Jessie. It’s making me crazy.

- We’re just playing! Don’t be so boring!

Jessie was thrilled the cat was back, but Carol was not.

- Maybe if it’s the neighbor’s cat, we should ask around the building if anyone is missing a cat. Or maybe put up a poster or something.

- Hey Kathy, are you feeling any better?

- Yes… A little. I am going to work tomorrow.

- No, you’re not.

Kathy sighed.

- We’ll discuss that in the morning.

Carol would be fast asleep when Kathy left in the morning, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

Carol wasn’t fast asleep. She had the cat in her arms and was talking to the nurse, who had just arrived, when Kathy woke up.

- No, no, not again!

But Carol wouldn’t let her leave. Kathy found it strange that Carol looked like she liked the cat now. Carol explained that she would leave it downstairs so that the owner could find it. That wouldn’t be a problem because Jessie was asleep.

The end of the day was approaching and Kathy, feeling completely healthy now, couldn’t stand lying in bed anymore, but the nurse wouldn’t let her get up. It was almost time for Carol and Jessie to come back home and Kathy begun to wonder why she felt she had to obey this nurse. She got up.

The smile disappeared from the nurse’s face for the first time in two whole days.

- You get back in bed.

Kathy was startled by this reaction, but she wouldn’t. She made some coffee and grabbed some books she had to read and sat on her desk to do so. She had a pencil in her hand to take notes.

The nurse complained very, very much. She was very angry. In the beginning Kathy talked back, claiming she didn’t even want her to be here, and she was all well now, so she didn’t have to stay in bed. But then she got tired of answering and chose to just work and ignore the complaints of the nurse, who was getting more and more angry by the minute.

Kathy was starting to get scared and looked at the watch to see how much time was left before her friends got back home. She didn’t want to be alone with this person anymore, now more than ever.

Then the nurse got violent. She jumped at Kathy who, by pure reflex, stuck her pencil in the nurse’s neck. The nurse jumped back and schrieked in pain. Kathy was very frightened by that, and at that moment Jessie and Carol came back and watched that scene.

- God, what have I done?

- Kathy, what the hell have you done??

The expression on the nurse’s face turned from pain to hatred. She stopped screaming, stared all three girls in the eyes, calmly removed the pencil that was still hanging half-broken from her neck, and punched Kathy, who was closest to her, so hard on the face that Kathy fell to the floor.

Jessie figured now it was okay to hit the nurse and Kathy probably had a good reason for attacking her with the pencil in the first place. But she wasn’t a strong person. Neither did the nurse look to be, but Jessie found that she had absolutely no chance against the nurse in that fist fight, and she too fell, almost losing consciouness.

But this gave Carol time to run to the kitchen and grab a knife. Without thinking twice she stabbed the nurse as many times as she could. The nurse fell. Dead.

The three looked at each other without knowing what to say. They had killed her, the nurse was dead. Knowing it was a stupid thing to do, they waited until the middle of the night, put the nurse’s body in Carol’s car, drove away and buried it somewhere far enough from their home.

As they drove back, Carol was driving, and Jessie was sitting beside her. Kathy was in the back seat. None of them were saying anything. Then the cat jumped onto Jessie’s lap.

- What is that thing doing here? I thought I left it on the street.

- You mean you did that on purpose? I thought it had run away!

- You two… we’ve killed a person. Is it really the time to discuss how did the cat get into the car if none of us brought it here?

And they agreed it was not. But they didn’t talk about the murder, either. The ride home was completely silent except for the eventual purring from the cat.

Saturday came again and Kathy, Carol and Jessie had managed pretty well to spend the rest of the week not mentioning what had happened. They orderer pizza for dinner so they were not surprised by the knock on the door.

Jessie was the one to open the door, but she was a very absent-minded person, so she was not the one to scream first. She didn’t realise who it was. But it was her, it was the nurse again, she looked a little different, she was a little paler, her hair a bit shorter, but it was her.

This time there was no friendly smile on her face. There was one of sarcasm. One that said, so you think you’ve gotten rid of me? Think again.

Jessie ran to her room and locked the door. Kathy and Carol both held the knives they had intended to cut the pizza and waited to see what was going to happen. They were prepared to defend themselves if they needed to.

And they did. Just like what had happened a few days before they wrestled with the woman and tried to hurt her with their knives, but she always got away from their attacks and eventually they didn’t have their knives anymore. Somehow she was holding them both down at the same time. While she was doing this she didn’t have how to hit the girls, but they couldn’t take much longer. Carol was being held by the neck and she was going to suffocate.

Jessie came silently out of her room. She took a plate from the table, it was the closest thing she could find. Just as Kathy’s looking at her warned the nurse that Jessie was standing behind her, she smashed the plate onto the nurse’s head as hard as she could, making her flinch and let go of the others. The plate also shattered.

A few more hits to the head with other heavy objects they could find made the nurse die once again.

- I thought we had buried her.

- We had.

- Maybe someone found her and helped her?

- But she was dead!

- Well maybe she wasn’t!

- She is now. Look at her. She even stinks. We have to get her out of here.

Kathy was right, the nurse really was dead this time. Not only her hair but also pieces of her skin and skull had fallen off from the blows to the head. There was a lot of blood and she did stink.

- I did not know we were so strong. Look at the damage we made.

And they buried her again in a different location.

It was getting hard not to talk about that but the week started and they tried to live it as normally as they could. On Tuesday, one of Carol’s friends had a birthday, and Carol had arranged for a surprise party in her house. She was in no mood for parties, but she couldn’t call it off without telling the reason. And that was something she could not think about.

So many people came. Carol greeted every one of them, and when it was time for the birthday girl to arrive, they all hid and turned off the lights and yelled "surprise" like they were supposed to.

So there were presents, and popcorn, and beer, and talking, and laughter, and eventually people started to go away. When the one before the last person was at the door saying goodbye to Carol, Kathy and Jessie looked at the last person who was left. She was holding a half-full glass and sitting on the couch staring at the wall like there was nothing inside her mind. She was not moving.

Carol closed the door and stood beside the other two. The three of them were looking at the last guest. Then the elevator could be heard taking the person who had just left down. Then, the nurse looked at them.

She looked quite a lot different now. She looked older and yet, younger. She looked like a younger person who had lived a worse life. Her hair was dirty and tangled, she had a few bruises on her face and her arms, and she was very pale.

It was the same thing once again. This time there was no sarcasm but only hatred in the nurse’s look. The weapons of choice this time were broken CD’s. They never thought those could kill people, but it was easier than they thought. And it did more damage than last time. Her body was broken into pieces, an arm here, a foot there. They collected the pieces. It was easier to transport her to a burying place this time.

It happened again the following day. This time her body broke into smaller pieces. They put her in a box, buried her again, came back home and went to sleep. There was nothing more to talk about anymore. They just hoped it would reach a point where it could not get any worse.

She was there when they woke up. She was no more than a teenager now but one who had just gone though a horrible time. She looked like she had been kidnapped and treated very badly. Her eyes showed anger with everything and a pure desire to do harm. She had little hair in her haid as if most of it had been torn off, and what little was left was covered with mud and blood. She had bruises, cuts, and swellings all over. A couple of fingernails were missing from her hand. Carol, Kathy and Jessie had taken to sleeping in the same room now from fear, so the three of them were in bed staring at what had once been a nurse, standing in the doorway staring at them like an animal ready to attack.

And she did. The girls were terrified because they were in bed, they had nothing to defend themselves with.

To their surprise, it was so easy this time. With fists and nails, they were able to kill that nurse very dead. The night before she had broken into little pieces, that morning she melted into something that could or could not be blood. And it was all over their beds.

Jessie could not move. She didn’t want that to be happening.

Carol and Kathy got up and started trying to figure out a way to clean up the mess.

- It’s moving.

After a few moments Jessie realised her friends had not heard her. So she spoke again, louder, or maybe she had only thought it the first time. She did not know. She was very hipnotized by the twirling, spiraling patterns that the strange fluid on their beds was starting to make.

- Kathy, Carol, look at this! It’s moving!

- Step away from it, Jessie!

And Jessie did. The three of them stood a few feet away from it and watched as it twirled and moved and gradually formed back into something that resembled a child. Even before the thing was formed it jumped at them but they killed it again. The fluid again was spilled all over the place, but this time it was more liquid, not so much like a paste as it had been before. It was still the color of blood.

- Here! Put it here!

- Why?

- Just do it! There is not much time!

They put all they could of the liquid into the cooking pan like Kathy was asking them to.

- What are you going to do with it?

- Throw it out the window.

- Don’t throw it all out of the same window!

It was a good idea. It was beginning to twirl and bubble already, so Kathy opened the living room window and threw some of it out. If killing her so many times hadn’t been enough, this probably wasn’t enough either, but it could buy her some time. She opened Carol’s window and threw some more of it out. She did the same at her own room.

She opened Jessie’s window and she stopped. The others couldn’t see what she was seeing but they assumed it was bad.

There was the cat. It was sitting on the windowsill on the outside. How long had it been there? Why was it on the outside?

It was facing the other way, so it couldn’t see Kathy. She was glad about this and stood very quiet to keep it that way.

The top of the cat’s head was red. This was not a black cat, it was gray, with some black hairs and some white ones. But the top of its head was now shining red as if someone had sprinkled some kind of bright red powder on it.

Jessie and Carol walked up behind her. Kathy signaled for them to be silent. But Jessie did let out a little expression of surprise to see the cat in that situation. It turned its head around. It saw them.

Before there was time for anything to happen, Kathy pushed the cat and watched it fall down from the fifteenth floor. She almost forgot to throw away the rest of the red liquid she had in the pan but Carol reminded her. She closed the window.

- How do we know it’s dead?

- Do we want it to be dead?

- Jessie!!

- I’m sorry! I don’t mean like I still like him! I mean like we don’t know what’s going on, how do we know what we want to happen?

- Let’s go make sure it’s dead.

They took the elevator to the ground floor. Just as soon as they were opening the door to outside the building to go look for the supposedly dead cat, they didn’t have to. There it was, walking very slowly towards them, its eyes very red. They were afraid of it, but it was just a cat. It was small.

Carol stepped on it. It meowed. Jessie let out a small scream. She still felt sorry for the cat somehow. Kathy looked at her like she might be next if she didn’t stop that. She stopped. She cooperated.

Kathy held the somewhat disoriented cat by its tail and ran towards the street. Carol and Jessie followed. Kathy threw the cat right in front of a very fast coming car and it was smashed under the car’s tires. The car bumped a little, maybe the driver felt something strange. But he didn’t have time to see the cat.

After it was dead and flattened and not able to move anymore, more cars passed over it. The girls watched this happen for a few minutes and then they left. Just a ran over cat on the street. Happened every day, no one would find it strange.

Two weeks passed. Nothing strange happened anymore. The first week the girls were afraid of their own shadows. Then they started to relax. They discarded the whole thing as a really bad, long lasting nightmare. It had not been a nightmare because life had gone on while the nightmare was going on. But there was nothing that made sense to think about it, so they didn’t want to think about it.

Kathy went to pick up Carol from work. It was not something she did all the time, but sometimes. Tonight the three of them were going out to dinner. They didn’t say anything, but it was sort of a celebration of two weeks without unexplained events.

Carol had mentioned on the phone that there might be a forth people joining them for dinner. Kathy promptly imagined it was a new boyfriend and volunteered to pick them up, she wanted to see this person before Jessie did. Curiosity always got the best of her.

So she walked into Carol’s office. She was sitting at her computer and saw her as she came in, and waved cheerfully. Other people were also working, walking around, doing things. It felt so nice to be around normal things again, Kathy thought. She was glad to be there.

There was a thing on top of Carol’s computer. Yet another cute little ornament? Kathy thought there were more of those on Carol’s work desk than actual work. But this one Kathy didn’t find cute. She couldn’t see really what it was, but it looked like some kind of small black furry ball.

Kathy came talking distance of Carol and said a happy "hi" and Carol replied in the same way. Carol had somewhat pink eyes. Maybe she was coming down with something. Kathy hoped she hadn’t been crying. She hoped the supposed new boyfriend hadn’t dumped her already.

Then the little black furry ball looked back at Kathy. It gave her goosebumps.

It was the exact same movement that cat had done the day she found it outside the wall with red stuff all over its head.

But this was a different cat. This was a kitten and it was black. As all cats do, it looked as if it was plotting something. On top of that, its eyes were red. They were completely red. Kathy couldn’t even tell what was iris and what was white. She noticed only gradually that the cat had this feature.

As she did, she felt increasingly scared. But she was frozen and could not scream. She looked at Carol with a worried expression on her face as if to say, "what is going on?" and Carol looked back at her as if to say, "don’t ask. Please don’t ask. It will all be all right if you just don’t ask." And Carol’s eyes looked more red than they had before. Maybe it was just her.

Their little wordless conversation was interrupted by a child’s giggle. Kathy looked back to see what it was and saw a blonde, chubby little girl running around the office, playing with office supplies. Children are so easily entertained.

Kathy looked back at Carol and the kitten and neither of them looked to have red eyes anymore. Carol looked a little happier. Kathy tried to look less worried.

- Kathy, this is my… cousin… Jenny. She’s the fourth person I mentioned earlier.

- You have a cousin?

- Yes, isn’t that… great? My brother just brought her here today and asked me to look after her for a few days. Well, actually he didn’t say how long it was going to be. He’s having some trouble with his wife. He felt it was best if Jenny didn’t stay home these days. She looks so happy. She doesn’t need to know about their problems.

- You have a brother?

Carol changed the subject.

- Jenny! Come here! This is auntie Kathy I was telling you about.

- Hi Kathy! Wow you look even prettier than Carol said you were!!

Kathy had no choice then but to enter the wonderful world of little girls. It didn’t matter what she was worried about.

- Oh is that so? You’re very pretty yourself. What have you got there?

- I was drawing! See, isn’t this nice??

Kathy couldn’t understand what it was. But Jenny was so happy.

- Yes, it’s very nice! What does it mean?

- It’s what I am going to be when I grow up. I am going to be a nurse!