A/N: ...I still get a little creeped out when I read this, and I'm the one who wrote it. Btw, I love cats. I wrote this for Halloween, so I needed something stereotypical that would freak people out. Enjoy

10/24/12

Here Kitty, Kitty

Ricky and Miranda Malum had been married for seven pleasant years. All the while, they had been looking for the perfect house. They had found a few that they could afford, but none felt right. They didn't feel at home in any of them. One day, while driving home from work, Ricky saw a sign on the main road for a house that was for sale and decided to check it out. It was an old log cabin in need of repairs, but it had a certain special aurora surrounding it. He hurried home to the one room apartment he and his wife had been living in, and picked up Miranda to take her to see the place. She could tell from his excitement that this just might be the one.

Miranda loved the little two-story cabin just as much as Ricky did. It was in a small neighborhood, just a few blocks off of the main road. The small of woods just behind the house gave it that country feel while still being close to the city and Ricky's job.

A few days later, the log cabin was theirs. Soon after, Ricky began the repairs on the outside while Miranda worked her decorating magic on the inside. Only one month later, they stood back and looked at the finished product. White paint for the siding; trimmed in blue and a new roof over the deck styled front porch. The place looked great. They were finally home.

All was fine for the first few years they lived in the house. The neighbors were friendly enough, and had even thrown a little get together to welcome them to the neighborhood. Then, one day, a tattered up Russian blue cat appeared in the front yard. Ricky told it to shoo, but the cat ignored him. It was a sleek, old tom cat, considering the white tufts of fur surrounding his ears and mouth. With his piercing green eyes, the Russian cat was sitting on his haunches under the oak tree in the front yard, staring at Ricky as he sat on the front porch, reading his newspaper. Ricky got an eerie feeling from the cat. After all, when a Russian blue crossed your path, your family was either destined to be cursed forever or blessed with great fortune. These types of cats were quite rare to be out on the streets, so where did this one come from? Why was it here?

Ricky didn't blame Miranda, but she is the one who started it all by feeding the grey menace. She would throw scraps out for him, which Ricky didn't mind because she would have thrown them away anyhow. Big Boy, as she called him, would gobble them up as if he hadn't eaten in weeks, but he seemed healthy and strong. Not one bone showed through his muscular physique.

Ricky loved sitting out on the porch watching the neighbors go by and waving to them while enjoying the fresh air. The cool breezes of spring and fall were wondrous and even the summers weren't so bad thanks to the shade cast by the oak tree. The winters could be a little harsh, but even that didn't deter him from sitting outside watching the children play in the snow. They would build snowmen and have snowball fights; ride their sleds down the hill, barely missing the trees at the bottom where the road turned sharply. The kids had one or two days of sledding before the plows would come through and clear the road.

Every time Ricky would come outside to enjoy his cigars or read his newspaper, Big Boy would sit under the tree and stare at him; stare with those green eyes, and it wasn't a pleasant look. It was an I'm going to get rid of you kind of look. It became quite unnerving for Ricky after a while, but Miranda thought he was being silly. It was just a cat, after all. Ricky understood Miranda's feelings because Big Boy's expression would change whenever she was around. His expression would become soft and loving when directed at her.

Soon, one cat became two, then three, they just kept coming. Scraps were no longer enough to feed the darned things, and Miranda had to start buying food for them. That wasn't what bothered Ricky. What bothered him was the fact that they all would sit under the oak tree and watch him. It got to the point where there were so many of them he started to actually fear for his safety. He felt as though they were plotting his death as they stared at him.

Ten, fifteen, then twenty, it seemed as if a new one would show up every day. Miranda is right, they're just cats, he thought. There were cats of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Even the kittens that were supposed to be cute and adorable would sit with the others and watch his every move. Miranda felt that Ricky was being paranoid, but she didn't see them looking at him with those horrid cat eyes as they rubbed against her legs. She didn't notice them edging toward him as he walked to the car. It was him they didn't like; him that they seemed to want out of the picture.

It was then when things started to happen. Ricky came out one morning, tripped over a toy truck that had been left on the steps, and broke his arm as he tried to catch his fall. Miranda suspected one of the neighborhood kids had left it there, but he knew it was those darned cats.

After the incident, and against Miranda's wishes, Ricky began to set traps for the cats. He was determined to rid his yard of the horrid beasts. A week went by and not one trap had been sprung. The cats were far too smart for that. Desperate to get rid of the cats, Ricky put out poison for them. He would mix it in with their food after Miranda went back into the house after feeding them, but they wouldn't go near it.

A few weeks later, the temperature dropped well below the freezing mark. Miranda filled the cat's water bowls with fresh water before she went to bed. The next morning, Ricky came out to go to work and almost broke his neck as he slipped on the ice patch right in front of the door. It had to be a deliberate act, and of course Ricky blamed the cats.

"Todd, those cats are going to kill me," Ricky told his coworker one day at work.

"C'mon Ricky, you sound seriously paranoid about those cats. It's not like they're going to come and get you. What are they going to do, knead you to death?" Todd laughed.

"Well, you aren't there; you don't see the way they look at me."

"Can you explain to me how they could ever kill you?"

"I don't know, Todd, it's just a feeling I have. You know things aren't the same between me and Miranda, either. She thinks I'm going crazy. She always sides with the cats over me, over my feelings."

"She's not the only one, Ricky. You aren't sounding like a sane man to me either. Why don't you try to get rid of them if they're bothering you so much?"

"Believe me, I've tried. Traps, poison, I've tried everything. They won't fall for any of it."

"What about animal control?"

"I thought of that as well, but Miranda said she would kick me out if I tried. She has fallen in love with them. She gives those darn cats more attention than she does me."

Ricky went to bed early after an unusually trying day at work. He woke up shivering and noticed that the window had been left open. He got up to close it and tripped over something, causing him to fall to the ground. It was a cat. They had torn the screen and climbed in through the window. It wasn't just one, they were all there. They began to claw and scratch him as he tried to make it to the door by crawling along the hardwood floor. He felt the cats biting him as he tried to throw them off, but there were too many of them. They were tearing at his flesh and biting into his neck while he struggled to get out of the onset attack. Ricky thought he was about to pass out from lack of blood when- BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

He awoke in a sweat as he looked around for the beasts. Realizing they weren't there, he settled back in bed and turned off his alarm. It had been a nightmare, but it had seemed so real. Miranda couldn't hold back a giggle as Ricky related the dream to her. He didn't find it the least bit funny and was still a little shaken as he went to take a shower.

After a couple of weeks of no incidents from the cats, Ricky noticed that they seemed to have a different look about them as he left for work one morning. It was almost as if they were smiling. He thought that perhaps they were instituting some kind of a truce with him; maybe they were finally starting to like him, or at least tolerate him. After all that had happened, he would be glad to end the hostilities with the cats. It had become a war he felt he couldn't win.

Ricky didn't think any more of it as he started the car and headed down the steep hill that made such a great sledding hill in the winter for the children. Nearing the bottom of the hill where the road turned sharply, Ricky went to use his brakes and realized nothing was happening. He hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. It was impossible for him to miss the line of trees that began the vast of woods at the bottom of the hill. On impact with the tree, his head hit the windshield and went through far enough for it to be severed from his body. Blood spattered the car as his head rolled across the hood and came to rest in a pile of leaves under a tall pine tree.

An investigation into the accident revealed that the brake lines seemed to have been chewed, not cut, so it had been ruled an accident. Miranda dutifully mourned the loss of her husband, but she had the cats to comfort her. She and the cats lived very well on the insurance money she had received from Ricky's death.

Miranda threw away the rest of the roll of brake line she had bought from the auto parts store. Every day, she would fill a bit of the line with cat food and hide it under the porch steps. The cats had learned very quickly to chew though the rubber line to get to the food. All she had to do the night before the accident was rub a little bit of cat food on the car's brake line, and the cats, well, they took care of the rest.