Here There Be Monsters

Phoebe unlocked the door to her apartment and let out a sigh of relief. She couldn’t shake the feeling of her skin crawling, and it made her feel dirty and chilled. As the door closed, Sheba came bounding out to her from the bedroom. It always comforted Phoebe when she saw the cat’s eyes in the dark, because they seemed to shine of their own accord, a bright green that saw everything at once. She flicked the light switch on and bent down to Sheba.

“Hello, baby,” she said with quiet joy. She put her hand under the cat’s chin and gave it a little rub. For a few moments Sheba enjoyed it, then suddenly the cat looked at Phoebe, pupils nothing but a sliver. The cat instantly pulled back, gave out a fear-filled hiss and growl, and swiped at Phoebe’s outstretched hand tearing a deep gash in her wrist.

“AAHHH! Goddamn it, Sheba! What the hell was that for?!”

But the cat had torn off back into the bedroom, leaving Phoebe to cradle her wrist alone in the hallway. She stomped to the kitchen and gently began cleaning the wound. When she was satisfied, Phoebe took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and went to the bedroom. As she entered, she looked around hesitantly to see where Sheba had gone. With a shrug, she went to the dresser and pulled out her bed clothes and headed to the shower. The pain of the cat gash had not overcome her feeling of being soiled, and she smiled as she looked in the mirror, knowing the cleansing rush of hot water.

Immediately, she noticed the bright green of the cat’s eyes under the bed in the mirror’s reflection. Their eyes locked, Phoebe heard the low growl begin in Sheba’s throat. But the growl quickly grew into a scream, and she shut the door with a slam, fearing the cat may actually attack her. With the mirror beginning to steam from the hot water in the shower, Phoebe took no notice of the dark shadow in the mirror’s reflection before turning away and climbing in the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, showered and no longer bleeding, Phoebe cautiously opened the door. All was silent, and she saw no sign of Sheba. She stepped slowly into the bedroom, trying to be as quiet as possible, but there was no sign of the cat. Letting out another sigh of relief, Phoebe went about turning on the television and getting her tablet ready to finish up a few loose ends from work. When she had left yesterday, Phoebe had left early so as to make the train on time for the Supernatural Sleepover, an all-night ghost hunt at an upstate cemetery. Now, she had to catch up to keep Daniel off of her back when she went back in the next day.

Phoebe chose the Discovery Channel as her background noise of choice tonight, then set her tablet on her footlocker, pulled a pillow underneath her, and settled in to complete her work. That was when she heard Sheba begin to go crazy in the living room and the kitchen. At first, she smiled at the cat’s playfulness. It didn’t take long, though, for the cat to sound like it was in danger. In fact, it sounded like a cat fight, but without a second cat.

“Sheba! Come in here, Sheba, and settle down!”

The one-cat cat fight continued, and Pheobe heard the tipping of a chair onto the floor. Then came the shattering of a glass, and a scream from Sheba that sounded almost human.

“Sheba!” she yelled, filled with both irritation and fear. And the apartment suddenly went quiet.

Phoebe was frozen, waiting for the chaos to begin again. Nothing…

Now that quiet had been restored, she quietly returned to her work, her forced distraction once again blinding her as a shadow fell about the bedroom. She was now focused on getting caught up for the morning, and not even dolphins being eaten by orcas was enough to tear her away. Nor was the obvious drop in the temperature of the room.

Phoebe finally recognized there was a problem when the screen of her tablet began to fog with her exhaled breath. Instant goosebumps popped up on her skin as she pulled her body tight together to maintain her body heat. Looking around, she became aware of somebody standing on the bed behind her. Noiselessly, she began to turn her head to see who the intruder was; but, she didn’t get far. Sheba screamed as she jumped on the footlocker, the tablet vibrating as the cat’s feet asked for too many functions to be done at once.

Phoebe turned her head back and found herself staring deep into Sheba’s eyes, shining brighter than they had ever done before. She knew that the light wasn’t a reflection, her cat’s eyes actually gave off light of their own!

“What the hell?” she said to the cat.

The cat let out another terrifying scream, and Phoebe screamed with her. But Sheba was not about to attack Phoebe, she was trying to warn her. Sheba never broke eye contact with Phoebe, and each scream was more insistent than the last. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was really just a moment, Phoebe understood what the cat was trying to tell her. She could almost hear the words Sheba was trying to say.

Roll out of the way! Roll out of the way!

And Phoebe rolled to her left as quickly as her petrified body would allow. Never taking her eyes off the cat, she saw the cat release its gaze with her, look to whatever was standing over them, and let out a roar that sounded like a lion. At the same time, Phoebe could see the light of Sheba’s eyes shoot out towards the enemy, and her voice became as a shock wave.

The entity let out a roar of its own, but one of pain. Phoebe looked toward that roar and saw a disfigured ghost in overalls, an old, rusty axe in its grasp. In an instant, the entity exploded in black, disappearing ash. The silence was deafening. Phoebe closed her eyes, trying to get a handle on herself. Then she felt the paws on her chest as Sheba jumped up. Opening her eyes, Phoebe saw the cat reaching her nose out. Phoebe nose-bumped the cat.

“Sheba, thank you,” she said in a breathy, relieved voice.