Meow

Meow

High above the city, Pastor Paul Morse of The Church of The Believers sat in his leather backed chair in his penthouse office and surveyed the view.

He ran his fingers through his middle aged, oily hair and smiled to himself at the view from his office.

He had just spent a week in the Bahamas as part of his ministry and after he had returned, he checked the financial reports and found that the ministry had raised double the amount from the previous month. 

Membership rolls indicated an increase in numbers but, it was down from the previous month.  His staff had told him that this was normal but the slow down disturbed him.  

At the morning meeting, he had given voice to his concerns to his subordinates in the ministry.  They all listened attentively, yet with eyes wide and mouths shut tightly to prevent any word of perceived dissention to be uttered.

“Ministry is the most important business in the world!  If there is a decline anywhere, it means something is wrong somewhere!

He paused for a moment, his eyes seeming to smolder as he took an inhale.

“Every empty space in the pew is being occupied by a demon!  Go and find what went wrong!”

“ Where's that outreach team?  Why aren't they here to give me a report?”

The others exchanged worried glances for a moment until Jennifer, Paul's executive aide broke the silence.

“Sir, the heads of the outreach team are at the Grayson Rd retreat right now.  They were to survey the renovations to the old house.”

Paul looked down for a moment, then sighed and looked back at the team.  “Thank you, Jennifer.” After a few minutes, the meeting broke up and Paul was alone in his office.

At that moment, he was startled to see a cat sitting on the ledge of window, looking at him. 

As he was musing about the cat there was a buzz on the intercom from his secretary. 

"Yes, Jennifer?"

"Yes, Pastor Morse.  Youth group minister Barry is here to see you and he wants to talk urgently."

"Barry?" He frowned and cocked his head to one side. 

"I just sent him to the retreat on Grayson Rd last week.  What is he doing back so early?"

The voice on the intercom cracked and said, "Don't know, sir.  Will you see him, sir?..kkkkkkmcccccccchhh"

"Time for an upgrade," Pastor Morse said to himself. 

"Yes, Jennifer, please send him in."

The door creaked open and a face peeked through the crack.  Barry was a 30 something youth leader, who was generally fit and was usually upbeat.  This time, Barry looked very pale and his mouse brown hair was greasy and unwashed.

Pastor Morse tried to take it all in and wondered if he had made mistake putting this man in a leadership position, not to mention in the church itself.  This was not a good look.  He gave Barry a plastic smile and invited him inside.

Barry took a seat in front of the desk and sat down, eyes darting around the room. 

"Well, it's good to see you, Barry.  I hope your retreat was restful," he began....

Barry looked back at the Pastor, briefly before looking around the room again, quivering slightly.  "It wasn't very restful... sorry to say.."

"Oh?"

Barry gulped and swallowed.  Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, catching a small glint of the afternoon light. 

"Pastor...,", he began swallowing again..."about that house..."

"Yes, what about it?",  Paul's brow furrowed.  "If there are some maintenance issues over there, just make a list of them and then run it by our property management department.  We do have a budget set aside for property maintenance.  There's no need to come to me for that sort of thing.  Even, Moses needed to delegate."

"It's not a maintenance issue, Pastor

"Okay........"

"It's a cat"

Paul waited a moment.  "A cat?"

Barry nodded his head vigorously

Paul put his hands on the desk and sighed.

"Barry, let's start from the beginning, okay?  Right now, you look as white as a sheet and the only clue you're giving me is a cat. "

"What happened, Barry?"

Barry began again.  "Well, I drove to the retreat house like you said.  I got in late that night and pretty much fell asleep as soon my head hit the pillow.

I woke up to a loud, yowling sound in the house.  My clock said it was after 2 am.

I got out of bed, turned on some lights and tried to find the source of the sound, but I couldn't and the yowling had stopped. 

I thought I had dreamed it, so I went back to bed."

Paul listened for a moment and opened his mouth to say about pest control, but Barry continued the story.

"The second night, I heard more and more yowling from two rooms in the house but I checked them and there were no cats anywhere.

I had some of the youth group over on Wednesday and they heard all the yowling and it creeped them out and I had to take them home!"

Barry sighed again looked to his right and jumped out of the chair suddenly and without saying another word, he left the room, slamming the door shut.

Pastor Morse sat back in his chair, his eyes wide and his mouth open.  He sat there for a few minutes and then got up and walked to the door.

Jennifer was not at her desk and the terminal was on screen saver mode.   He assumed that she had left for the day, so he decided that he would have to investigate the Grayson Rd retreat himself.

He had bought it from a woman who was selling it to pay for her mother's nursing home stay and he recalled that the woman was not easy to work with.  He even brought one of his faith healers to see if he could heal her brother's schizophrenia, but she wasn't impressed.

Still, he managed to get the property.  He had to pay more than he liked but he got it.

He made his way to the house that night after communicating with his family that he had to check out the retreat.

He arrived at the retreat house and pulled into the driveway.  The house itself was modest in size with a half acre of land surrounding it.  It was all brick, had 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms.  He had to have HVAC installed for it but that was a minor cost.  The house was perfect for the needs of the church.

He locked his Mercedes and unlocked the front door of the house and surveyed the front room.  To him, everything was in place.  The dining room had a hardwood floor and a large window where you could view the entire front yard of the property.

Paul turned to head for the hallway when he saw the cat.  It was a large tri-color cat with the usual yellow eyes and it sat in front of him just staring at him, it's tail waving slowly on the floor.

Paul opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, his cellphone rang.  He fished his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

"Hello?, Yes?"

"Pastor Morse?  It's Jennifer.  Sorry to bother you ,  I just wanted to let you know that Barry resigned and left the church."

Paul shook his head in frustration.  First, the youth pastor tells a weird ghost story about a cat and then he quits.

"Something else I noticed."

"Yes?"

"When Barry came, he kept looking around and kept muttering something about a cat."

The Pastor walked around the dining room while listening, shaking his head and rolling his eyesm

" Yes and I just saw the cat, myself but I don't understand what is scary about a cat!  I mean, it's just a cat!  So what?"

He looked towards the floor but the cat was gone.

"I know that the old woman had cats in the house.  The whole place smelled of cat urine.  It took about a month to clean it up!  Maybe this cat is just a straggler that got loose.

"But again,  I still don't see what the big deal is!"

The line went silent.  Paul looked at his phone and the call had ended.

He put phone back in his pocket and made his way to the bedrooms.  As he thought, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary.   Each room had a bed, a dresser, a night stand and a closet.    Nothing was out of place.  He was about to close the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall when he heard a loud yowling coming from the basement.

The basement was last on his list of the rooms he wanted to visit. He had planned to check the bedrooms on the main floor, then leave, but that yowling continued and he was determined to handle this issue.  Cats might be annoying, but they're certainly not demonic and even if they were, he would not be undone by a demonic cat.

As he descended the old wooden staircase, he tripped over something and stumbled down a few, but managed to regain his balance.  Shaking his head, he looked around the basement and saw the cat again, sitting on a cabinet,.it's yellow eyes wide and it's tilted slightly back.  Paul glared at it.

"You don't scare me, cat!  Though I may be in a lion's den, I am not afraid!"

The cat slowly cocked its head, keeping its eyes on it's prey. 

Paul walked around the basement being careful to watch the floor.  He laughed to himself, briefly as he walked towards the basement door that led to the back porch and opened it.

The porch was concrete as expected and it sort of reminded Paul of a secluded sepulchre.  He shook himself at the thought and looked up towards the darkening sky.  Rain began to fall and the thunder rumbled.

Paul turned back to the door and found it closed and locked.  The cat had perched itself on the windowsill on the inside, it's eyes open and with a hint of a twinkle and a smile.

"Demon!", Paul snarled fighting with the door as the rain started becoming a downpour, soaking him.

He hammered his meaty fists against the door, uselessly and screamed at the cat who just sat there on the sill contentedly waving it's tail. 

Paul left the porch and headed around and up the hill to his right to get the front door.  As he climbed the hill, the ground became soft and his left foot slipped and he fell down face first in the mud and slid down the hill coming to a rest right by the porch.

He lifted his head and wiped his eyes to clear them and saw the cat looking at him through a small window. 

Slowly, Paul got himself to a standing position and looked for another way up the hill.  He found it difficult to see through the rain, he managed to find some shelter under a dogwood tree in the yard. Once there, he reached for his cellphone and brought it out.  The impact of the fall had shattered the face.

He groaned and screamed while the lightning flashed across the sky.

“Nooo!!”, he screamed as he woke up

“Honey, are you okay?”. 

Paul’s breathing came out rough and ragged.  He panted for air as his wife stared at him in shock.

“Honey?”

He looked over to her and let out a deep exhale.

“Sorry, hon.” Paul said slowly. “Just a bad dream. That's all.  Bad dream.  I’ll be okay.”

“Okay, just don't scare me like that!”

He glanced at her direction and gave her a reassuring smile.  She was real.  His bed was real.  His home was real.  It was just a bad dream.

The morning afterwards,  Paul had a good night's sleep and woke up feeling refreshed.  

He went into the office as he normally did and did his daily routine.  

Around 3 pm, Barry the youth pastor came by the office for a visit.

“Ready, Pastor Paul?”

Paul looked up. “Ready? Ready for what?”

“Don't you remember? We were going over to see that property on Grayson Street?  I remember you said it would be a steal!”

Pastor Paul's face cleared and prepared to leave when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cat just outside the window looking at him.