Stories of Halloween

The Cat Came Back: Cleopatra

The crash of the plate on the kitchen tile startled him so badly that the TV dinner slipped from his grip and dropped onto his pants. Salisbury steak and macaroni and cheese spilled onto his trousers.

Jack cursed and bolted up into an unsure standing position. He grabbed his napkin and did the best he could to wipe the gravy and yellow cheese sauce off of his legs.

He hurried into the kitchen to see what had made the noise that had so rudely disturbed his peace. One of his green dinner plates had fallen off the drying rack and shattered into a hundred pieces. How the devil did that happen?

This was not a fine way to start his night. Priorities he thought to himself. He took his pants off right there in his kitchen. Inappropriate? Perhaps, but he needed to get them in the wash at once before the gravy and cheese sat in and stained them.

Folding them over his arm he walked into his laundry room and threw them in the washer. He carefully measured out the proper amount of detergent and added a capful of a stain fighting formula he had picked up at the grocery store the month prior. He then turned on the washer and let it run.

Muttering under his breath, he made his way back to the kitchen and the broken plate. It was very unlike him to put a plate, or any dish for that matter, onto the drying rack improperly. Normally he was a very careful man. Being careful had kept his little secret for the last thirty years.

His little secret being his affinity for killing cats, of course. One cat a week. At least. If there was a way to take the life from them he had done it. He had sliced them. He had diced them. He had bludgeoned them. He had strangled them. He had electrified them. He had burned them. He had skinned them. He had dismembered them. He had buried them alive. He had drowned them. He had injected them with various household chemicals that acted as poisons. He had practiced Accupuncture on them. He had even put one in the microwave.

If there was a way to kill a cat Jack had more than likely tried it. But his favorite way was a good, old fashioned strangling. Was there anything better than choking the life out of a stray? Not that Jack had found. A malicious little grin washed over his face as he thought of all the felines that he had rid the world of over the years.

It all started when he was ten. His aunt had brought her pet cat, Cleopatra, with her during her Thanksgiving holiday stop at their house. Cleopatra acted like she owned the place.

The filthy little creature lurked about the house and scratched on things that she wasn't supposed to. She pooped in the bark o mulch near the rhododendrons. She jumped up on the counter and ate right from the turkey. Oh how his father had fussed and fidgeted when the worthless animal did that.

The final straw for Jack was when he went into his bedroom and found Cleopatra chewing and scratching on his favorite knit stocking cap. The one with the long tassels that his mother has worked so hard on. The mischievous creature had frayed it beyond repair.

Young Jack shut his bedroom door and grabbed the Cleopatra by the back of her neck. He then began twisting until her neck snapped. The cat fought back. It had scratched his arms while he was twisting. Jack found the struggle exhilarating. He felt truly alive after the cat went limp.

Yes his arms burned and itched from the scratches, but what a small price to pay it was for that blissful feeling of exhilaration. A small price to pay indeed. He wore long sleeves, so that his parents wouldn't see the scratches. He stuffed Cleopatra into his backpack and told his parents that he was going on a nature hike to fight the boredom of the holiday.

Cleopatra's final resting place was a shallow hole in the woods that sat behind the park that was a few blocks from his home. He pleasures himself on the cat's grave before he left it there to rot. It was a ritual he competed after every kill from then on out.