Blackwood's Tomcat

I'm sure all of you are familiar with that old superstition of black cats crossing your path being bad luck. For the majority of my lifetime, I would've dismissed that as complete and utter nonsense. An old wive's tale or something passed down from generations just to keep mundane people scared of mundane things. I ended up changing my mind on a still and lonely night while walking down a winding street bordered by a skeletal woodland in late October. Going for walks late at night had become a must for me at this point and about the only time I felt at ease with myself. There was just something about the silence and stillness and being utterly alone with my thoughts that had become a balm for my troubled mind. See, I had been plagued by nightmares recently. Nightmares so shocking, depraved, and disturbing that every time I woke up gasping and drenched in sweat from one, I questioned my own sanity afterward. And they were so vivid that they would play in my head rent-free for the majority of my days upon awakening. And the weirdest thing was, they were nightmares about things I didn't even believe in. Ghosts, demons, witches, werewolves, vampires and any other cliche you could think of all pranced around in my dreams at night as if they took over my brain completely while I was asleep. Naturally, I could never bring myself to tell anybody about these nightmares. I figured it was bad enough that I was questioning my own sanity without forcing others to do the same by revealing the hidden contents of my twisted subconscious. So, walking when no one else was around was my way of dealing with it. And it really did work. Or at the very least, it was a peaceful half an hour or so. Anyway, back to that still and lonely night in late October. This night was just chilly enough to still be pleasant for a fairly long walk. Plus, autumn was definitely my favorite season. I'd always found it immensely satisfying to watch all the leaves change to their bright reds and yellows and to feel and hear them crunch under my feet as I walked through piles of them on the road or sidewalk. That crunching sensation was the exact thing I was focusing on during my walk. Focusing on the rhythm of the leaves crunching kept my whirling thoughts in order. This was all very calming until an overwhelming sensation of dread accosted me out of the blue. I felt as though I couldn't get a single breath of air in and my whole body felt unnaturally warm. Sweat started to bead on my forehead and trickle down my face and as I looked down at my hands I noticed they were shaking uncontrollably. I immediately started taking deep, slow breaths to calm myself down. Now, I've always had pretty strong gut feelings and these had served me quite well on many occasions. I started to take stock of my surroundings to the most precise and accurate degree that I could manage. At first, I noticed nothing amiss other than a repeated refrain in my mind of: "there's something or someone following you." I could only see the wooded path behind me and no rustling or stirring of any kind among the trees. Looking ahead of me, I did notice that somebody's porch light was flickering. It had flickered exactly three times and then stopped. Given my previous state of panic, I did find this a little eerie at first but I attributed it to a faulty bulb and continued on my walk. As I continued onward, it suddenly occurred to me that the shadows cast by the wooded path behind me seemed to lengthen and expand. I turned around and at first I didn't notice anything at all strange yet again. As my eyes adjusted though, I did convince myself that I saw a long, black shadow slip quickly behind a tree. The speed at which this shadow moved was extremely uncanny and highly unsettling. There in a blink, gone in a flash. "That must have been what's been following you this whole time" a panicked voice in my head whispered to me then. The more rational voice in my mind quickly took over and simply stated that the night and my sleep-deprived brain were playing tricks on me. No more, no less. As I turned to face the direction I was heading in again, I realized that I was coming upon the house that had the flickering porch light. This realization gave me a slight twinge of anxiety again. My main sensation though, was a strong and overwhelming curiosity and so I pressed onward. I was now standing in front of the house and decided to observe it in great detail. My first impression of it was that it was actually pretty quaint and cozy-looking. The house was bordered by two slightly overgrown hedges on either side. There was a cobbled stone pathway leading to the front door and a small garden with what appeared to be roses filling it. The paint job of the house was entirely black. Which did strike me as a little odd, but I tried not to judge a book by its cover. Or a house by its paint job. Upon closer inspection, the quaintness of the house quickly faded. First, the hedges were far more outgrown than I had originally thought, almost a tangled jungle. And, looking closer at the garden, I realized that all the roses were withered and dead. I then began to wonder if the house was even inhabited at all? A strange and unsettling noise coming from inside the house soon answered this question for me. I heard a soft, high-pitched giggling coming from behind the door. The giggling sounded innocent enough, and yet it gave rise to many questions and left me with a sense of dread deep in the pit of my stomach. I decided that it would be best to just head back home at that point. Back to my shabby, one-room apartment where the nightmares hid in dark corners. I was on my way to do just that when a rustle from the hedges behind me directed my attention back to that pitch-black house. And out from the hedges stepped a cat blacker than that house and darker than night herself, even when her sky has no stars. The cat's eyes seemed to glow an eerie, pulsing green and as he looked at me, it seemed more as though he were looking right through me, right into the very depths of my soul where even the very bold or very foolish dared not go. This magnificent and almost ethereal being started to slowly and methodically pad towards me on silent paws, like a moving shadow detaching itself from the surrounding night with only two sharp, bright points of guiding light, akin to the light of glowing stars in a blackened sky. And as he strode closer to me, I was struck by the sheer size and stature of the beast. Not only was he at least a foot taller than any other tomcat I'd ever seen, but he was built like a mini-panther with scores of lean muscle rippling beneath his pelt with each smooth and purposeful step he took. And his bearing was entirely regal and completely self-assured, as he strolled right in front of me with the air of an emperor come to check on one of the peasants that dared enter his domain. I noticed that despite his elegance, he was not without some wear and tear. There was a sizable nick in his left ear and a livid, white scar spanning the bridge of his nose. It would appear to me that this tom was indeed a brawler. Something unexplainable came over me then, and I had the sudden urge to take this tomcat home with me and keep him as a pet. As I reached my hands out to try and pick him up, a sudden flash of white claws greeted me and a sharp, stinging pain spanning my right forearm followed shortly afterwards. I turned away then, grumbling in pain and clutching my arm tightly against my chest. I stole a glance behind me, and the tomcat had utterly and abruptly disappeared. It was as if he had never been there at all. I decided in that moment that there was something very wrong with that house and whoever or whatever lived in it, and it was time that I return to my own and never return to this one. As I started the wary and excruciating walk back, I could see droplets of blood spattering the ground below me with each step I took. And my arm was burning with such a fire that it left me dizzy and nauseous the whole way there. The only thought going through my head was "Why won't this goddam burning stop?" until I finally reached my front door and collapsed inside. As I approached my bed and slipped beneath the covers, drenched in sweat and with increasingly blurred vision, I had one of the strangest dreams I'd ever experienced. Whether to call it a nightmare, I'm not even entirely sure, but it went as follows: I was running through a forest in the dead of night and relishing every moment of it. My senses were incredibly sharp and I heard every rustle of every leaf and the floor pounding beneath my feet. My view of this forest was fairly low to the ground, so it appeared as though I must have been running on all fours for reasons I could not even begin to fathom. I had been chasing a rat through this forest for what seemed like hours and had finally caught up with it, it's beady eyes turning toward me in fear before I snatched it up with, strangely, what looked like a furry black paw and glistening claws protruding from it and plopped it into my mouth with a sharp crunch. This dream was so vivid that I distinctly remember almost being able to taste the furry, helpless creature as it slid down my gullet. Needless to say, I haven't been the same since. In fact, my dreams have only grown weirder since then and I often find myself with an overwhelming desire to go back to that house and the cat who seemingly did this to me. Whether I will or not still remains to be seen.