She reaches down and picks it up causing her nail to scrape against the rough stone. The paper reads, “Yes, Nancy, most cats.”
She stands up. No one is around. The sound of the wind is the only thing she can hear. She turns her head and sees Lily glaring at her. It is as if Lily is asking Nancy why she would dare to answer the door. It is Lily’s house after all. Nancy is a mere human.
A shudder worms its way into Nancy’s shoulders. She shakes it off and takes a deep breath, letting the smell of grass filter through her senses. “Lily, this is my house too.”
Lily hisses, spine arching upwards. Still bristling, she saunters away.
Nancy takes one last glance outside. There is still no one. It is as if she is alone on the planet with her pissed off cat.
***
That night, the usual sound of cars driving by is absent. Nancy fails to hear any people outside her window.
The only thing she can hear is claws yet again being filed against her door. Normally, some other sound drowns them out. But tonight, it feels like the sound is inside her brain.
Nancy wraps her soft blanket tighter around herself. She buries her nose into the edge and smells the fabric softener. It is the same one she had bought back when she was in college. Her boyfriend had explained why his clothes were so soft and had shown her what brand he used.
Now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t heard from him today. Not an unusual occurrence. They are both busy enough that days sometime pass before they even have time for a phone call.
Somehow, though, today feels different.
The scratching gets louder. The door rattles against the frame from the force
Nancy’s teeth chatter. The clacking sound of her teeth is the only other noise she can hear. She welcomes it as it fills her ears and tries to reach a volume higher that the scratching.
Meow.
Nancy ducks her head under the covers. She raises her shoulders up to cover her ears. She tightens her grip on the inside of her blanket.
Meowooooow.
Nancy bites her blanket. It tastes soapy. She swallows. Her throat burns. It must be in her head.
Everything must be in her head.
Everyone must need to be at work early.
There must be construction on the roads.
Lily just hates closed doors. She hates them like most cats hate them.
The scratching stops. Nancy hears paws touch the ground. Claws make a popping sound as they move against the carpet.
Nancy wonders if it’s over. She wonders if it has all been a dream and she has yet to adopt Lily. Or if in reality, Lily is sleeping in her lap like a good kitty and this is all just a horrifying nightmare.
She squeezes her eyes shut and hopes for the return to reality. But it doesn’t come. This is her life.
Perhaps tomorrow she can take a trip. Ask her neighbor to watch Lily and just leave. Forever maybe.
The thought brings a newfound excitement and allows Nancy to relax her eyes. She smiles as she begins to drift off to sleep.
Just as she is about to be engulfed in peacefulness, she hears claws again. They tug at the carpet before scraping at the door.
Nancy swallows. She throws her blanket off, unable to take the heat for another moment. With her teeth gritted, Nancy stands up and walks to her door.
She crosses her arms, feeling the stark contrast of her burning arms with her ice-cold fingertips. She curls her fingers into her arms. She is essentially just pinching herself. It’s another way to wake herself up from this nightmare.
She stands in that position so long that her feet start to tingle and her knees begin to feel stiff. She lifts one foot up and looks down. There is a dent in her carpet. She puts her foot back down.
She turns around and walks back to her bed. The scratching will not stop. For once, there seems to be no way to end it. As Nancy lies down in her bed, she glances at the clock. It’s four in the morning.
Her brain feels so foggy it has lost the ability to find a rational solution. Nancy is all but convinced that she will die in her room listening to the sound of cat claws scratching against her door.
She pulls her knees up to her chest and throws her arm across her calves.
At some point, the sound of scratching seems to lull her to sleep. A fitful, sweaty sleep.
She wakes up with a headache pulsing in the bridge of her nose. Nancy looks up at the clock. It’s been three hours and the scratching is still happening.
She wants coffee, but the thought of leaving her room makes her nauseous.
Meow.
Did that happen while she was asleep or does Lily just know that Nancy is awake now?
“Go away. Please just go away.” Nancy grips her sheet. Tears fill her eyes and slide down her face. They land on the bed, leaving a wet spot where her cheek sits.
Meow. Meow. Meoooooow.
Nancy shoots straight up. Where is the car playing loud rap music that always passes by at this time?
Lily hisses. Nancy isn’t sure if it was directed at her door or not.
Nancy looks at the door. She hears a shriek of pain.
Most cats don’t make those kinds of noises.
There’s a knock on the window. The bed creaks as Nancy stands up. Adrenaline is the only thing that drives her to the window. She pulls the curtain back.
Morning sun hits her eyes. She squints at the note taped to the outside of her window. This one too reads, “Yes, Nancy, most cats.”
The door creaks open. Nancy turns her head. A man with a knife is standing in her doorway.
Blood runs down his leg and onto the carpet. Large gashes can be seen through the rips in his jeans. He’s smirking. He has the face of someone who has achieved all they have ever wanted and has had fun doing it.
Rawrrrr.
Lily jumps onto the man. She sinks her teeth into the area with the deepest gashes.
The man grits his teeth and looks down at Lily. “Stupid cat. Everyone within a fifty-mile radius is a rotting corpse and I get stopped by the cat that was supposed to be my scapegoat.”
Nancy gasps, cold air stinging her teeth. She really did have a reason to be scared. She just wasn’t quite right about what was after her.
Nancy takes the opportunity of the murderer being distracted to grab her phone from her side table. She runs her finger over it.
She chucks it into the air. It smacks the murderer in the head. As it falls to the ground, he looks at her. His eyes are wide with anger. “I am so close to ruling the world.”
He reaches down and grabs Lily by the scruff of her neck. He throws her onto the ground. She makes the same sound as a squeaky toy.
Nancy feels anger course through her body. Nobody gets to treat her cat like that.
The murderer twirls his knife around. It glints in the lights. The dried blood on the knife seems to become darker in comparison to the bright light shining on the rest of the blade.
“Now I’ll kill you. And then I can kill every cat in this area.” He smirks again. “Or maybe every cat in the world.”
Lily jumps six feet into the air and onto the man’s head. She digs her claws into his scalp. He reaches up and tries to pry her off, but she has a firm grip on him.
Nancy has never seen that look in Lily’s eyes before and she’s not sure if it’s actually comforting.
Blood drips from the murderer’s hair and onto the carpet. Every time he tries to pry Lily off, Nancy knows it must hurt worse as Lily’s claws tug at his skin. But maybe there’s a small part of Nancy that feels okay with it. This man has murdered hundreds of people.
She sinks to the ground as she realizes that everyone she loves is dead.
She is left with little time to dwell on it as she hears another hiss. She looks up just as the man’s body falls to the ground. She doesn’t care to look at him and see the details of his dead body.
As she stands up, scratching noises come from all sides of her house.
Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow.
Meow.
Nancy walks back over to her window and once again peels back the curtain.
Hundreds of cats are clawing at the exterior of her house. A dead body lies in a pile of its own blood. Blood that is being soaked up by the grass and licked up by a few cats.
Did the man lying dead on Nancy’s floor kill all those people or did the cats outside her house kill all those people?
Nancy turns around and looks at Lily. Her body is draped across the ground. Her stomach is just barely rising and falling. Her eyes are closed.
Nancy walks over to her. She reaches over the dead body and scoops up Lily.
“You would never kill me, right, Lily?” she asked as she cradles Lily’s limp body to her chest.
“Meow.”
It’s weak and broken, but it’s there.
Lily has never let Nancy hold her. It may have taken almost dying for them and hundreds of other people dying, but they may have finally had a breakthrough.
***
It is a few days later when Nancy is sitting in her living room. She had contacted the police from the neighboring town the day of the murder and they had collected all the evidence they had needed. She had allowed all the homeless cats into her own home.
She no longer hides in the bathroom when she is scratched. She has seen what they can do and she takes it as an odd compliment that they would merely break the first few layers of her skin.
Lily jumps onto her lap. Nancy scratches behind Lily’s ear and she purrs. Lily rubs her head against Nancy’s stomach.
Nancy can feel the low vibrations Lily creates. It’s a feeling she had only ever experienced before when Lily was a kitten. It’s nice to have things back to the way they used to be.
Stupid human.
Nancy looks down at the hundreds of cats in her living room. It must have been one of them, right? She is supposed to be the only person within miles.
But most cats don’t talk.
Nancy feels claws dig into her skin. Not the skin of her arm or her leg, but the skin of her stomach. It's a sharp, biting pain, unlike anything she has ever experienced before.
Most cats don’t try to kill their owners.
Is she the owner?
They outnumber her one to a few hundred.
Is she the only human to have ever been on the planet?
No. She remembers speaking with the police only a few days ago. But maybe that was all a dream. Nancy begins to question reality. Not just reality, but her own reality.
She feels dizzy. The only tactile sensation she is aware of is a warm, wet liquid surrounding her. It flows along her body and onto the couch.
Stupid human.
We rule the world.
It does not belong to you.
Cats meow. They don’t talk. Or is it that cats talk and humans are their silent pets? She can’t remember.
Most humans are owned by cats.
Most humans don’t speak.
Most humans allow cats to order them around.
Most humans will be killed by cats.
This is Nancy’s new reality. She feels clammy now. Fur from her owner’s sticks to her wet clothing. Whether it is wet from blood or sweat, Nancy has no idea.
The only thing she knows at that moment is that she is like most humans.
She tries to take a deep breath only to find that everything feels too heavy. Her owners are sitting on her. They have such large numbers that they are crushing her lungs with their weight.
Her heart is beating slowly. She wonders if it is because she is at peace. Have her owners just done her a favor?
One more human gone.
We will be victorious.
The world has always belonged to us.
Nancy finds herself trying to nod. Of course, everything belongs to them. Who in their right mind would question such a concrete fact?
Nancy coughs. Blood splatters onto her tongue. She swallows. A familiar burning creeps its way into her throat. For a moment, she remembers. Lily is her pet. She has brought hundreds of murders into her house and allowed them to kill her while she sits back and encourages them.
She coughs again. Artificial panic fills her. Nancy’s heartbeat hasn’t increased and there is no adrenaline. But a thought itches its way through the haze: she has to get help. She has to save herself and everyone else.
She can’t move though. Her limbs won’t cooperate. She can’t even see anything. It’s just the idea that this isn’t right. She is a human being and she is the owner of a cat.
She has a boyfriend. She has three best friends. She has two wonderful parents that taught her how to be a good person. She has a degree in Physics.
None of this is right. She shouldn’t be dying like this.
Meow.
Could it have all been a dream? How far back did it go?
The last thought that crosses Nancy’s mind before she dies is how excited she is to see what her life is really like. It must be wonderful.
THE END.
INDEBTED TO THE BLUES by Jovan Jones
Brown Sugar’s was a jazz and blues club located on 2nd and West Florida Street in the Walker’s Point neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The club opened six days a week from six in the evening to five in the morning. It was closed on Sundays. The patrons were colorful characters, and the music was an eclectic array of joyful jazz and sorrowful blues. Some customers were local dock and factory workers, businessman; the typical working stiff in dire need of a break from routine. The majority of Brown Sugar’s regulars were street hustlers: ladies of leisure, gamblers, pimps, con men, and dope peddlers. Those were the ingredients for a blues club; people filled with sorrow, distorted dreams, and harsh realities. The musicians were empathetic ministers of life preaching the blues to an aggrieved congregation.
A honey hued woman sang in a melancholic tempo on stage. The piano player shut his eyes to capture the sound without the interruption of his sight. His fingers tickled the piano keys. Each note attuned to the woman’s rhythm. Her soulful voice was laden with rue. She sang through a gleamy white smile. It was the kind of smile paraded on the face of someone holding back the pain of their heart, but failing to completely hide it. Her eyes were glazed. She swayed to the sultry tune of the saxophone like a snake being charmed by an Indian playing the pungi. Her red silk dress hugged her curvaceous body. The audience whistled and shouted their approval, like the congregation shouts, “Amen!” in a Pentecostal church. Lynette Dupree had become a favorite at Brown Sugar’s.
“Sing it baby,” a man in a red and white brimmed hat shouted from his table. He was sharp in his tailor fitted eggshell white three-piece suit. He was accompanied by three women. Two voluptuous blondes sat on each side. One had a soft round face adorned with sea green eyes, a wide mouth, and full lips. Her lambent white silk dress fit loose on her thick boned frame. The other blonde had a gelled finger wave. She had the posture of a woman with class; straight backed with an heir of regality. There was something vicious about her grey-blue eyes; emotionless stones of observation searching for a victim of her beauty. The third woman had mahogany skin with long black hair straightened to the middle of her back. Her lips were like oily chocolate candies. She was ornamented in a black and white pinstriped suit. A silver and black cigarette holder was gripped between her fingertips. Her eyes were a peanut butter brown that had a mystical gaze through the smoke she blew from her nose. She watched the blues songstress with care; digesting every motion and tune like a flavorful meal—soul food.
I need somebody to love me back, oh baby
Desires got me strung out over no good fools
It’s my own fault, yeah maybe
I want love, but can’t escape the blues
The audience applauded at the conclusion of the song. “Thank you ladies and gentleman. The band and I will see you in fifteen,” Lynette addressed the crowd into the microphone. Her gaze redirected to the classy woman in the pinstriped suit as she stepped down from the stage.
“You
got a good thing going here, Lynette,” the woman in the suit said.
“How did you find me?”
She laughed, “I know you didn’t forget about ole’ Caroline.”
Lynette couldn’t forget about Caroline, because from the first time they met, the woman had permanently occupied her thoughts. Lynette first met Caroline Delaroche in her hometown of Cleveland, Mississippi. She was seventeen and struggling to make a living singing by night at juke joints, while providing services of the flesh to the local Sheriff whenever requested. Lynette was singing at Mattie’s, a juke joint just off of Highway 61one night when Caroline strolled in.
She sported a black pencil skirt, with heels, and a black long sleeved turtleneck. She wore a gold nugget ring on her left pinky finger, and a pearl necklace. Her hair was gelled back into a tight wavy ponytail. Caroline’s eyes looked like a panther’s in the dim shack of a club. The patrons stared in wonder. They didn’t see women like her come into Mattie’s very often. In fact, they never saw a woman in the town like her, period. The bartender acknowledged her. He tipped his straw hat and donned a smile. His ragged grill looked like piano keys.
“What can I get ya?” he asked.
“Tom Collins,” she said.
“Comin up, but ah, I ain’t got no bitters.”
“Dig it. Let me get a triple whiskey on the rocks. Top me off with a tablespoon of sugar.”
“I knowz a mane can tighten ya up fa cheap now.”
“I’m not a junkie, baby,” she knew he assumed because of the request for the sugar. “I happen to like it sweet.”
The young woman sang atop the rickety stage. Caroline watched. Her disposition was cool. The songstress thanked the audience for their applause. A couple of admirers were jockeying for her attention. Caroline walked toward them. Her beautiful eyes possessed a menacing glare.
“Excuse me gentleman, I have business with this young lady,” Caroline said.
“Well, I ane neva seent you roun cheyre befo,” one of the men spoke. He wore black slacks, a grey long sleeved shirt, suspenders, and scuffed brown boots.
“That’s because I’m not from around here. Now if you gentleman will excuse me I’d like to converse privately with the lady,” Caroline spoke in a hurried tone.
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