Deleted Stories: Cat Sitting

Sandra hated cats. They’d always made her skin crawl and yet she’d agreed, rather foolishly, to look after her Sister, Katy’s cat, Bellamy, while Katy was away in Marbella with her new fiancee Bill.

Her sister had always been cat mad. Just one quick glance around her apartment could tell you that this woman was obsessed with cats. There were pictures of them everywhere; cat posters; cat cards; cat fridge magnets; cat mugs; even stuffed beanie baby cats.

Sandra was a dog person, for sure and not in an obsessive way. She didn’t even own a dog but they seemed warm and loving.

Not like her Sister’s cat. There was nothing warm and loving about Bellamy. From the moment they’d first made eye contact it’d seemed hostile towards her.

“Cats are very sensitive”, her sister had told her, “If you feel fear then the cat can sense that. You’ve just got to relax”.

“I can’t relax with that thing stalking about. A dog is a pet but that thing is a wild animal and it’s like I’ve invaded its territory or something”, she’d complained to her Sister.

“Just don’t forget to feed it, alright?”, her Sister had said, before pulling the door of her apartment shut and driving off to the airport with Bill in his big sports car; driving off and leaving her alone with that thing.

And then, the nightmare began. She’d gone to bed about nine o’clock, after taking a shower. Switched off all the lights in her sisters apartment and turned off the radio, got into her pyjamas and lain in bed for almost a half hour, listening to the clock on the wall ticking and then fallen asleep but, not long after, she’d woken up again only not completely. It was like her mind was awake and her eyes were open and she could hear her own breathing in the darkness; feel her chest rising and falling under her duvet, but she couldn’t move her body. Her arms and legs had gone all numb,
like her brain was disconnected from them.

Then she heard a sound. What was that? Was that the door of the room opening, ever so slowly? And then, a soft padding sort of sound near the foot of her bed.

Oh god?! Was there someone in the room? Maybe someone else who had a key to her Sister’s apartment? Why couldn’t she move? Then she could feel something touching her feet; moving over her legs, slowly; a warm, furry body with tiny feet and sharp prickling claws and then she could guess what it was and she heard it purring ontop of her.

“Sounds like, what d’you call it, sleep paralysis”, said her sister, speaking to her from her hotel in Marbella, the next day, “That’s all. I heard about it on TV once. You think you’re awake and you can’t move but, like, really you’re dreaming”.

Sandra had expected this sort of response from her Sister. Katy had never been on her side ever. She’d always taken someone else’s side, even when they were little girls.
“Well, I’ve never had sleep paralysis before”, she argued.

“Maybe you’re just worried about something”, said her sister, “Or, maybe my cat is trying to steal your soul”.

“What?!”, said Sandra, really quite shocked.

“Joking. I’m just joking”, said her sister, laughing. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few days and, in the meantime, why don’t you make friends with my cat. Get to know her. She’s really not that bad”.

“Right”, said Sandra, scepticaly, looking out of the corner of her eye at the sleek, black creature yawning and stretching in the next room.

Sandra replaced the reciever. She’d forgotten to ask Katy about Marbella or her Fiancé but she couldn’t think about any of that. All she could think about was the cat.

That night, she pushed her sisters old wardrobe, the one they’d inherited when Auntie Beatrice died, up against the bedroom door. There was no way she was letting that thing get in again.

She felt safer sleeping then; knowing the door was barred. She could hear the cat, she thought, scratching against the outside of the door. “Good”, she thought, “As long as I can hear you out there, I know you’re not in here with me”, then, tired just from worrying all day, she fell asleep.

But then it happened again. Her eyes opened the same as the night before and she could see and hear everything in her room and the lamplight streaming through a roller blind across her face and the sound of cars rushing by on the wet road outside
but she couldn’t move, not one muscle in her whole body, not even her mouth to scream and, all of a sudden, she heard a voice from inside her head or perhaps from the darkness of the room. She couldn’t tell wether it was male or female but it was an old voice; old and shrill and evil.

“While the cat’s away”, it said, filling her head with its horrible cackling, “The hag will prey”.

Then she saw it, that horror, getting closer to her, looming over her; an old woman; a hag in a black dress with a sinister, horrible smile upon her face and no eyes.

Outside of the door, she could still hear the cat screaming and scratching, ever more wildly and she knew then that it had only been entering her room to protect her, the way it must have protected her sleeping sister, against the thing in her room.

But now it couldn’t get in and she was at the mercy of the laughing hag and she wanted so much to scream as that hideous face got closer and its laughter ever louder.

But something else was growing louder too. Outside the bedroom door, there suddenly seemed to be, not just one cat scratching and screeching, but dozens and then she heard a crashing noise near to her bed; like the sound of everything, clothes and coathangers, falling out of her sisters wardrobe as it was pushed over and then the room was full of cats; black cats and white cats; tortoiseshell cats and ginger toms,
even skinny siamese and fluffy persian cats; cats from all over the neighbourhood who had heard her Sister’s cat screaming for help.

She didn’t see them all at first. She only heard the little tidal wave of their screeching and hissing but then they started leaping onto the bed, covering her over in their furry, warm bodies and she saw Bellamy,standing upon her chest, arch his back and raise his hackles; baring his teeth; hissing and screaming at the hag who suddenly withdrew and vanished back into the gloom.

And, for once, cats didn’t make Sandra’s flesh creep; infact, she’d never been happier in all her life, to see a cat.