Dash is a good cat
Dash had me convinced that our house was haunted. Dash is my cat, a good cat. He’s a green-eyed calico, a real hurricane of a feline, terror to Blue Jay and water bug alike. Since Dash was always moving, it was especially jarring when he started freezing at random times and staring into empty rooms. After a few days of the random staring, I started noticing other little...oddities around the house.
Dash and I live in a one-story rancher in the ‘burbs. It’s an older house but in decent condition. So I couldn’t think of a logical explanation once the noises started. At first it was thumping. I would wake up in the middle of the night to a sound like someone running.
Dash was always awake on the foot of my bed.
“Just the house settling, Dash,” I whispered.
Dash looked back at me like he was thinking, ‘Lucy, don’t be dense.’
The drafts came not long after the nightly noises. Then the smell. God, the smell. It was like someone had tipped a dumpster into a swimming pool and left the filth to float for weeks. I buckled and eventually called my mom, who convinced me to have a priest come through to bless the house. That settled things down for a few days until last night when I was awoken by pounding directly next to my bed. I screamed and Dash jumped down from his spot on my pillow, landing on the floorboards then hissing at the site of the noise.
Dash sprinted out of my bedroom, apparently fed up with whatever phenomenon we were experiencing and looking to sort it out himself. My fear dissolved in an instant and I ran out after my cat. I must have left the kitchen window cracked before bed because I was just in time to see Dash’s snapping tail slip outside.
“Wait,” I yelled, rifling through the junk drawer for a flashlight.
It was chilly outside but I barely noticed when I saw that the small metal door opening into my crawl space was open. My gut told me that Dash was under the house though my yellow belly tried to talk me out of it. I wasn’t going to leave my cat alone in the dark, though, so I crawled in.
I immediately felt powerful arms wrap around my throat cutting off my air.
“Finally came to visit me? I’ve been knocking for a week,” a raspy voice growled into my ear.
I couldn’t reply, couldn’t fight back, couldn’t even think. Every ounce of me shrieked out for air. Something small and fast flashed past my shoulder. The vice around my throat released and I sucked in a breath. There was a terrible struggle going on behind me: screaming, snapping, hissing.
“My throat,” I heard a man yell, that raspy voice. “Get off my-”
Silence. Then a familiar warmth nestled my cheek, a rough tongue licking at my temple.
Dash is a good cat.
