What the Cat Brought Back Read online

  “Hey, there’s nothing oogey about Scream. That girl’s a survivor. Sometimes survival is oogey.”

  “Great. Good for her. Still don’t want to watch her get terrorized.”

  “We will‌—‌again‌—‌agree to disagree on our views of the horror genre. Anyway, while I was re-watching Chucky, there was some screaming in the movie, you know?”

  I crossed my arms. “I can imagine.”

  “But the screaming made this”‌—‌she scooped her outstretched palms towards the doodad‌—‌”move.”

  My face screwed up. Was she pranking me?

  “No‌—‌serious‌—‌it buzzed in the Tupperware‌—‌scared the crap out of me! I thought it was my phone at first, but it wasn’t buzzing my ring pattern. It kept going as long as there was screaming.”

  I glanced at the screen through slitted eyes, reading to shut them all the way if there was something gory onscreen. But it was only the blurred still of someone falling.

  I turned back to my roomie. “Is it doing it now?”

  “Well‌…‌after it happened the first time, I paused the movie and it stopped. I looked for an ‘off’ switch on it, but there isn’t one, duh. Thought I was being stupid. I put it down on the table and pressed ‘play’, and it did it again‌…‌”

  “Did what? Tell me exactly‌—‌DON’T‌…‌turn that on.”

  “Eeh‌…‌” She brushed her green hair back from her face and took the knitting needle from her mouth. “It, like‌…‌shivered. I paused the movie again, fast-forwarded it to a different part‌—‌just people talking‌—‌nothing. Which made me think maybe it was the screams that did it.

  “So I pulled up YouTube on the tablet, played it a vid of people screaming on a roller coaster‌—‌nothing. I tried the scene from Chucky again and it worked.”

  I uncrossed my arms and leaned over the golden capsule. It looked out of place on our chipped consignment-store table.

  I really ought to spray paint it‌—‌but I pushed the thought out of my mind.

  She held her hand over the remote. “You sure you don’t want me to show you?”

  “NO!” I said. Her scary movies were bad enough without this little wrinkle.

  Roomie looked up at me. The metal of her nose stud caught the light shining through the cheap blinds, winking like a star.

  “I don’t think you should keep it in the box, Roomie,” she said. “We should get rid of it. That thing’s‌…‌”

  She tapped it with the knitting needle. Unlike when she’d hit it with her nail, this time the capsule rang like a bell‌—‌a low crystalline sound that was soft, but somehow unsettling. It trembled on the table.

  “Do you see‌—‌” I stopped when I saw the look on Roomie’s face. She was turning the same color green as her hair. “Are you‌—‌”

  But I didn’t get a chance to ask if she was all right. She clamped her hands over her mouth and fled the room, towards the entry hall.

  I ran after her, but her name died on my lips when she took a hard left into the bathroom. I heard a coughing, then a splash. I stood awkwardly in the hall listening to her vomit, wishing I wasn’t listening to her, but not wanting to abandon her either. She hadn’t shut the door so every sound was disgustingly clear.

  I stood confused a second later when I heard the sink running. Shouldn’t there have been a flush?

  The sink stopped and Roomie stepped out into the hall. Her green bangs were pasted to her clammy forehead, but her skin’s normal color was returning.

  “Sorry‌…‌didn’t make the porcelain throne in time.” She shut the door behind her. Then took a double take at me.

  “Are YOU okay?”

  “Fine‌—‌why?”

  She pointed at my shirt.

  I looked down. An elongated smear of blood had somehow appeared down the front of my white button-down shirt.

  “Crap. This shirt was expensive!” Now what was I going to wear to interviews?

  Then I touched my upper lip. I checked my finger. Blood. A nosebleed?

  Roomie ducked back into the bathroom and popped back out with a handful of toilet paper. I grabbed the proffered wad, stuffed some up my sniffer, then pinched the bridge of my nose.

  The capsule hadn’t caused it. Had it?

  “We’ll stuff it in a sock and hide in the attic. Maybe tape a warning on it,” I said.

  I put my palm to my forehead. Roomie stepped forward, reaching for me.

  “What’s wrong? Headache?”

  My head was starting to pound, but I couldn’t let her know that. She’d want to take me to a doctor and neither one of us could pay for that. An Etsy store and a patchwork of temp jobs might keep a roof over our heads, but there never seemed to be enough left over for health insurance, even with the new government scheme.

  “No, I’m fine, I’m just gonna‌…‌lie down a while.”

  I turned and began trudging for the stairs.

  “You don’t feel like your head’s gonna explode, do you?”

  “No!” Maybe an Imitrex would take care of this. “But could you bring me a Coke?” Two Imitrex and a Coke‌—‌my go-to migraine treatment. It’d wipe me out for the rest of the night, but hopefully I’d be back at work tomorrow. Even if this headache didn’t feel like my usual migraines. In fact, it was already starting to fade.

  I was at the doorway to my room when Roomie tapped me on the shoulder. The drink was in her hand. “If you get an aneurysm and die, I’ll kill you,” she said, handing it over.

  “Rent’s in my top drawer,” I said, taking it from her.

  “Not funny.”

  “I already feel better.”

  She gave me a stern look.

  “If I need anything, I’ll knock on the wall.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah. Just‌…‌Stay out of the living room for a while.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice. I’m the one who’s seen all the horror flicks, remember?”

  “Thanks, Roomie.”

  “No prob, Roomie.”

  * * *

  The sound of a jet‌—‌or a helicopter‌—‌woke me up. I’d grown up in this city, was used to the almost otherworldly noises aircraft made as they shot through the sky above, noises that sounded like the howl of trains blended with deep Chinese gongs. I lay atop my grey comforter, listening to tonight’s sound fade until the barely perceptible tick of my watch on my wrist was the only thing I could hear.

  I groaned, thinking of my wrinkled interview clothes, and then my stained white shirt. Cold water and soap, I’d scrub it with that first, then Stain Stick it and hope for the best.

  I opened my eyes. The streetlamp out front was on, its faint glow reaching around to my corner of the house. How late was it?

  Now my stomach rumbled. I sighed. My heart said mac and cheese but my brain said dry whole-grain toast. Were there any English muffins left over?

  I changed into yoga pants, a floral T-shirt, then scuffed on my favorite terry-cloth flip flop slippers. I trudged downstairs, Imitrex making me move at a slug’s pace.

  In the kitchen, I looked down where Magpie usually sat, but there was no cat, only fourthmeal crustifying in his dish. He wasn’t in his kitty condo, either. Where is he?

  I glanced at the digital clock over the kitchen stove. Ten o’clock, normally my bedtime.

  “Welcome back,” said Roomie. She sat at the kitchen counter on a barstool, plastic bags from Gwen’s World of Parties on one side, six fully-built cactus-shaped cardboard centerpieces on the other.

  “Oh, Roomie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get stuck working on all these.”

  The party was at the end of the week. A potluck; we’d provide the burgers and grill, the neighbors would bring the sides. We figured with enough decorations, the neighbors wouldn’t guess at our financial plight, hence a run to Gwen’s that broke my budget for eating out for the month. I hoped it would be worth it.

  Roomie stopped sliding the tabs in
to her cactus. The look she was giving me stopped me cold.

  “Magnum dropped something else off. Feels bad in your hands.”

  “Come on! You’re‌—‌I think those horror shows‌—‌”

  Her jaw tightened. I took a step back. I’d never seen her like this before.

  “I know fantasy from reality,” she said. Then, returning her attention back to the cactus, “I think we should burn it. If it can be burned.”

  I scoffed. But then I studied her. Though her hair was color-matched to Green Apple Kool-Aid, it was always smooth and well-kempt‌…‌unless she was stressed out. Then she finger-combed it and pulled on it until it couldn’t help but be full of flyaways.

  Right now it was heading towards rat’s nest territory.

  Roomie and I were an odd couple‌—‌me pushing forty and still single, her a twenty-something arts and crafterpreneur, both with thin wallets, but we’d connected instantly, like sisters instead of strangers-turned-housemates. So even if I wasn’t convinced of the sinister nature of the objects Magpie had brought us, I was convinced that Mal was convinced. And I couldn’t laugh at that. Heaven knew she’d already been laughed at enough in her life.

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll take a look.”

  “Coffee table,” she muttered.

  The TV was off. Her yarn menagerie had disappeared and the coffee table was clear of its usual clutter. All that was left on top was a crumpled ball of waxy paper, a grey-brown color that reminded me of fast-food hamburger wrappings.

  I could see why Magpie had thought it a treasure‌—‌we’d had ourselves a few great games of paw-soccer in the wooden-floored hallway, using crumpled up resume drafts of mine.

  Roomie said it felt bad in her hands.

  I picked it up, held it loosely in my palm.

  Hm. It maybe felt a little warmer than expected, but it didn’t hurt or anything.

  Now that the paper wad was in my hand, I could tell there was writing on it.

  Cardboard rustled in the kitchen. Another cactus down.

  Moving slowly, I pulled out the corners and brushed it smooth with my other hand.

  It looks like a poem, was my first thought. The words were in a tall narrow column down one side of the page, but it wasn’t English letters. Or Russian. It had the swirly look of Arabic, except every line connected, and there weren’t any dots‌…‌

  I looked down at my fingertips. They were beginning to feel cool. I brushed the tips of one hand together.

  No, not cold. Tingly, like pins and needles, but sharper‌…‌

  In the time it took me to think the thought, the sensation had blasted up my other arm, into the elbow.

  “Ow. Owowowowow!”

  I shook my hand to fling the paper away, but my fingers were frozen, pinched around the scrap of paper.

  I jumped up and down like I was on fire. That’s what both arms were beginning to feel like. I let out a breathless scream, a pained exhale less than a drawn-out aaaah!, weak and diminishing. I swallowed, felt my throat lock up, like the machinery governing my body had forgotten how to reset, how to swallow.

  My chest buzzed.

  “Roomie?” Mal asked me from the kitchen.

  Now the pain was up in my ears, like an electric carving knife jammed against my jaw so it jittered.

  I’m imagining this, I’m imagining this. It felt like something sharp was pressing into my ear‌…‌

  “ROOMIE?”

  If I closed my eyes, the illusion would have been complete. But if I shut my eyes now, would I be able to open them ever again?

  I stared at the paper, unable to speak, unable to look away from the marks.

  “ROOMIE!”

  Something fuzzy and thick‌—‌but heavy‌—‌chopped my wrist. My fingers flew open. The nail-in-my-ear sensation vanished, and I finished swallowing.

  By the time the paper fluttered to the floor, the pins and needles had receded back into the very tips of my fingers, under the nail beds.

  I turned to Roomie, her hands encased in a pair of green oven mitts.

  “Do you‌—‌what language‌—‌”

  “I didn’t look. And don’t want to.”

  “We could”‌—‌I dug for my phone‌—‌”take a photo of it, post it, post it‌—‌someone has to know what it is!”

  The mitts swatted my hands away from my phone pockets.

  “No‌—‌who knows what would happen if masses of people saw it‌—‌don’t you remember‌…‌oh, no, you wouldn’t have‌—‌” She shook her head.

  “Remember what?”

  “The movie The Ring. Did you see it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It had a cursed videotape in it. The curse spread by people watching it. An idea virus. The only way to win was to not watch it in the first place.”

  “So you think the paper’s cursed?”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Maybe it’s just Satan’s grocery list! But if it did that to you just by holding it, I don’t want it out in the wild. It needs to be destroyed.”

  “Shredder?”

  She licked her lips. “Doesn’t that stuff get recycled?”

  I shivered at the thought of it spreading to other items. Coffee cups, napkins‌…‌I didn’t even want to look at it, now that I had let it go. It was like filth. Dangerous filth.

  “OK. So we burn it. But I’m not putting it in the barbeque.”

  “Hail, no,” she said. I gave a wan smile. Normally her Will Smith impression had me in stitches.

  I closed my eyes, thinking and enjoying the normal functioning of my body, how I could breathe without fear. Or the overwhelming sense of dread.

  Then I turned my thoughts over to the problem at hand. Burn something. Containment sans contamination.

  I opened my eyes and went in the kitchen.

  After some digging, I came back with an empty Smuckers jar and a lid.

  “Idunno,” said Roomie. “We gotta seal the jar, so won’t the fire eat up all the oxygen in it? What if it doesn’t burn all the way?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if we can just burn the words it’ll be OK. I know you said it felt wrong in your hands, but‌…‌it didn’t hurt you, did it? I think the words are the bad part.”

  “It’s all bad,” she said. But she turned towards the garage. “I’ll get the lighter fluid.”

  * * *

  We stood on the patio. Moths battered themselves against the porch light, making gentle tapping noises. While she was in the garage, Roomie took our car-washing bucket and brought it out with the lighter fluid. I’d filled the bucket with water from the garden hose. The jam jar stood empty next to it, the lighter fluid next to it. Roomie held up the book of matches.

  After a look at one another, she put on the oven mitt and went back inside the house.

  She came back out with the paper clenched between the glove’s thumb and mitten.

  She stuffed her be-mittened hand as far down the glass jar as it would go, then released her thumb. The paper fell to the bottom with the same rustle you’d expect from wax paper.

  I picked up the lighter fluid, gave it a quick shake. Almost empty. Hope it’d do the job.

  Once Roomie extracted the oven mitt, I doused the paper with the remaining fire juice.

  “Crap,” I said again. The fluid was less soaking into the paper than beading upon it. Maybe it was more like wax paper than I’d thought.

  “Can’t stop now,” said Roomie. “Drown it.”

  “It’s almost gone.”

  “Then use it up.”

  I squeezed the bottle into the jar until it wheezed, empty. Only one good squeeze. A thimbleful of liquid made a small pool at the bottom of the jar. It’d have to be enough.

  I put on the mitt and held the jar above the bucket of water. Roomie picked up the lid in her hand and prepared to strike the match in the other.

  I hope this works.

  Fsszt.

  She dropped the match in and clamped the lid
on at the same moment. The fire raced up the paper, sudden heat already leaking through to the mitt. I clenched my jaw and held the jar steady.

  “Hot‌—‌hot‌—‌” she said, but screwed the lid on tight.

  We set the jar in the water. It floated for a second, then listed over, hitting the side of the bucket with a clunk.

  Roomie held up the oven mitt that had held the paper.

  “Trash it?”

  “Trash it.”

  I kept an eye on the jar while she went back inside. The fire was out, but the paper had already melted into a blackened ball of goo. It had hardly taken seconds.

  Roomie came back out, flinching as a moth fluttered into her face.

  “Pfft!” She shook her head, batting it away. When she recovered, she said, “I scooped Magnum’s box and threw the mitt in there before I wrapped it up. Nobody’ll want it now, even if they find it.”

  “Good.” Magpie’s leavings were double-bagged‌—‌I doubted anyone would ever find that mitt again.

  Roomie peered into the jar. “Melty and unusable. Just like I like my evil artifacts.”

  The joke gave me permission to sigh, fully feel the relief. “Glad that’s over,” I said.

  She grinned. “Right?”

  But the grin was already sliding off her face. There was a rustling in the bushes behind me. We turned to look.

  Magpie bounded to our feet. Something dangled from his mouth.

  Even before he dropped it at my feet, my stomach turned with dread.

  I stooped down. Magpie squalled, turned in a circle. It wasn’t his usual, “Look, Monkeys! I have brought you real food!” keen. It was more like the anxious yowl he used to tell me something was wrong, like when he batted his favorite catnip birdie too far under the sofa, or the time Roomie had propped up her crafting tubs against his tree, making it inaccessible to him. He’d been asking me to fix it.

  I waited for Roomie to ask me what it was, but she only watched in silence. Magpie circled again.

  It was the size of a rat but‌…‌it wasn’t one.

  What I thought was patchy black fur on a sunburned, hairless body was actually burnt, scabbed-over sores. The body shape was wrong for a rat, too. There was no tail. And the knobs down its back, the shape of its legs and arms‌—‌it was a little too much like people‌—‌but besides the size, the double big toes on it‌—‌two on each foot‌—‌told me it was not a person. Its visage might have given us a definitive clue to its species, but the head had been bitten off.