The cat stranger was up in her tree again.

This was the fourth week it had appeared. It had always come on Wednesdays before, so Lillie was surprised to suddenly find it staring at her on a Saturday night. Then again, it hadn't come last Wednesday.

There were various reasons she called it the cat stranger, but the main reason was that its eyes glowed yellow. And when she thought of glowing yellow eyes she immediately thought of those cats in horror movies that scare the innocent girl that goes up into the haunted attic right before she gets offed. That got her thinking about serial killers and so she thought perhaps it was a killer. Some creepy killer with glowing yellow eyes. Funny enough, it didn't especially scare her (although she locked her window every night after it appeared) because it didn't seem terribly dangerous. Sometimes she even fantasized that it was her guardian angel watching over her.

From a tree branch outside her bedroom window.

Okay, so maybe the guardian angel idea was a stretch. But that's why it was a fantasy, right?

Okay, so maybe she should have called the police the first night it appeared. But what if it really was an awful cat beast, and it devoured them? Her house would forever be known as 'that place where the cat beast devoured those cops'. And that would just be awful. The house would never sell. Or at the very least they'd have to chop the tree down, and she liked that tree. Even if it did invite creepy stalkers to climb up and stare at her.

But that's what curtains were for, right? Although, for some perverse reason she'd keep the curtains open during the night, before she went to bed and finally felt the urge to close them, removing herself from the view of brilliant yellow eyes.

Tonight, it stared at her with a strange intensity that hadn't been present before. The look was so unnerving that she felt compelled to close her curtains early. It usually stayed all night, so she planned on checking later to see if those eyes were still as passionate. She never left the house after it came, so she settled with the films she had on hand and had a little Kubrick-fest, watching the Shining and then Dr. Strangelove. By the time she was finished it was already midnight.

She had completely forgotten about the cat stranger. It was only after she brushed her teeth, put on her pjs and settled into her bed that she remembered.

The curtains were still closed.

Well, of course they were. She had closed them herself, and no one but her had been in her house since a few hours ago. She scared herself thinking about it. But the curtains hung there, still, looming. She felt the frightful urge to open them.

Scooting out of her bed, she tiptoed toward the hidden window. She thought about opening them slowly, but that frightened her too much, so she decided to pull them open fast and all at once.

Two very close glowing yellow eyes stared back at her through the window pane.

She screamed and pulled the curtains shut.

That's what curtains are for, right?