Only the Black Cat Knows

*Trigger warning: sexual and physical violence*

Alice is pretty sure she’s dying. Her hair started falling out in clumps three days ago. She hasn’t been able to get warm in almost a week. In the mirror she looks pale with an almost blue undertone. Cloudy white rings appeared around her irises. Yesterday, she bumped into her coffee table and the skin on her shin literally sloughed off as if it were tissue paper. No blood poured out of the wound like she expected–it just slowly oozed out in dark purple beads. 

And the smell.

No matter how much she showers, puts on deodorant, or sprays perfume, Alice can’t get rid of the smell. The odor is pungent and has stuck itself to all of her furniture–even with the windows open and the AC on full blast. She hasn’t been able to sleep because the smell has permeated her bed and pillows, despite having washed all of the sheets and pillowcases three times. 

At first Alice was embarrassed by the smell and the haggard way she looked. She thought it was some bug that would work itself out in a few days. But now she is worried. She is getting worse, not better. Alice finds her phone on the kitchen counter. It has twelve missed calls from her mom. When did her mom call her? Alice couldn’t remember her phone ever buzzing in the past few days. She picks up her phone and calls her mom.

“Alice? Hello? Oh thank god Alice where are you? Why haven’t you been answering?” Her mom sounds like she’s almost in tears.

“Mom? What are you talking about? I’ve been home.” Alice responds, confused. 

Silence sits between them except for the faint background buzzing of the phone call. “Hello? Alice? Are you there?” Her mom asks, sounding desperate. 

“Yeah, mom, I’m here.” Alice says impatiently.

“Hello? Hello?!” Her mom starts to shout into the phone. Alice keeps shouting that she’s there into the phone, even checking to make sure she’s not on mute, but her mom doesn’t seem to hear her. Alice hears her mom start sobbing into the phone and Alice hangs up. When she re-dials her mom again, the phone doesn’t ring. The call won’t go through. Alice tries again. And again. And again. Nothing. When she looks at her phone again, the screen is black. Tapping the screen with frustration does nothing to make it light up. Holding the power button does nothing. Completely dead. While charging. Great.

Alice eventually gives up. She grabs her coat and heads out her front door. As she makes her way to her car she notices a sparkle out of the corner of her eye. Moving towards the sparkle, she realizes that it’s broken glass scattered in front of her living room window. Not just in front of her window–it is her living room window. The window is completely shattered with barely any glass remaining in the pane. How did she not notice that? How long has it been like that?

She hurries to her car now. Alice needs to see a doctor. There are gaps in her memory from the past few days. The last thing she can remember from before she started getting sick was going out for Holly’s birthday. They were bar-hopping and…

Alice turns the key in the ignition and the engine flops. She tries again. Nothing. This car is only a year old. She’s never had any problems with this car. And now it won’t even start. Cursing under her breath, Alice gets back out of her car and starts making plans in her head. It’ll probably take her half an hour or so to get into town. She could probably get to Holly or Sam and get them to bring her to an urgent care. 

She suddenly has a flash of something in her mind–images of a guy’s lips with dark brown stubble overlying an angular jawline. Music fills her ears, a harsh insistent beat pounding against her skull. She can smell the man’s cologne mixing with the alcohol of their co-mingling breaths. His teeth gently graze her neck as he kisses it while they sway together with the music.

Meowwwwww. 

A loud screech pulls Alice out of her thoughts. Her head whips back and forth to try and locate the sound. Behind her car is a slender black cat with bright green eyes. It’s staring directly at her. It lets out another meowwwww and looks at her expectantly. Slowly, Alice accosts the cat, crouching low and carefully offering her hand. After two sniffs the black cat rubs against Alice’s hand and happily accepts some scritches. Just as quickly, the cat bolts away, putting a good five feet or so between it and Alice. Alice sighs and stands up, starting to turn around to continue her trek into town when the cat mewls again. Alice glances over her shoulder but keeps walking away. The cat mewls louder this time and Alice completely turns around to look at it. 

“What is it?” She asks in that playful tone people often do with pets. The cat chirps in response and turns away from Alice. It goes another few feet before turning around to look at Alice and meowing again, as if beckoning her to follow. So Alice follows. 

As the void cat leads her into town, Alice realizes it must be early morning given the sparsity of cars. The occasional jogger briefly passes by without a word, but no one else seems to be out. The cat makes a sharp turn down an alleyway, leading her behind stores and restaurants and bars that are quiet and probably closed. She accidentally steps in a puddle and a chill runs through her as she feels the liquid soak into her foot. 

Another flash of her dancing with the lights strobing around her and her skin slicked with sweat. The taste of booze is hot on her breath. Her head feels dizzy and light and she feels like she could dance forever. That guy has his hands on her waist and her lips are on his again. “You wanna come home with me?” she slurs against his ear and he nods, pulling her toward the back exit. 

In the alleyway he slams her against the brick wall and aggressively starts kissing her, his hands exploring and tugging at her clothes. She laughs a little against him when she feels her bracelet snap off her wrist. He doesn’t seem to notice and keeps kissing her. 

Alice blinks, realizing that she and the cat were now behind the club she had been at on the night of Holly’s birthday. The dumpster adjacent to the back exit reeks of alcohol and rotted food. A rat scurries by and the cat swats at it, but doesn’t otherwise give chase. Instead he sits on his haunches and meows again, staring directly at Alice. She kneels down and offers her hand for it to sniff. Seeming comfortable enough, Alice starts stroking the cat on its head and it purrs. Suddenly, the cat lightly bites Alice on the thumb. “Ow! What was that for?” Alice asks, cradling her thumb and looking at the cat accusingly. 

The cat gives a small meow in response and looks at her expectantly. That’s when she notices the objects on the floor to the side of the cat. It’s a string with beads along its length with some free beads scattered nearby. The beads and string are covered in dirt and filth, making them a gray-brown with hints of an underlying orange and blue alternating pattern. 

It’s her bracelet. 

They hailed a cab to head back to her place. She barely remembers the drive because of how all over each other they were. He looked at her with his dark brown eyes like he was hungry and she was his meal ticket. She remembers having the vague thought of not having let her friends know she was leaving and that she didn’t say a final happy birthday to Holly.

As she reaches towards the beads, the cat meows softly and stands up, blocking her hand from the beads. It swiftly moves past her, back the way they came, and meows again. She stands up from her crouch, which is a struggle with how stiff her legs feel, but she starts following the cat again. 

After all of the stir the cat caused to get her to follow it out here, it leads her back to her house and sits right in front of her door. Shaking her head in disbelief, she lets the cat into her house and watches it curiously. Does this cat belong to anyone? Should she be worried about fleas? 

The cat heads into her living room toward the loose glass littered all over the floor from the broken window. She crosses the room in three large steps to prevent the cat from stepping on the glass–

They barely made it to the couch and he was on top of her and kissing her and then he was… choking her. At first she thought it was his thing–she’d done it a couple times, didn’t mind it–but his grip tightened. She grabbed at his wrist, trying to signal he was pushing too hard and rasping “Stop stop stop” but he kept going. Her vision started going dark around the edges and she was vaguely aware of her right hand groping along the adjacent coffee table looking for something, anything to throw at the guy. 

Her fingertips brushed a glass cup. She hooked it in her hand and with as much force as she could muster she smashed it against the side of his head. He cried out and his hands loosened just enough for her to push him back so she could roll off the couch and away from him. Blood was oozing down the side of his face now and he glared at her. She could taste a drop of his blood on her trembling lips. 

She stopped in place and stared at the couch. Dark brown stains were splattered along one edge. The coffee table was pushed out away from the couch. Smaller shards of glass were sprinkled on the couch. 

“Stay away from me!” she started to scream, hoping one of her elderly neighbors would be awake at this hour. He stalked toward her before she could finish getting out the sentence and practically threw Alice into the living room window. The sound was deafening as it shattered around her. She felt pricks in her scalp and along her shoulders, arms, and back as glass got caught on clothes and skin. Alice’s head throbbed and distantly she realized the glass had put a gash in the side of her head. Dully she started to remember that she needed to yell again or run or do something–but the man grabbed Alice again and dragged her away from the window, his hand over her mouth. She kicked and thrashed; her yells were muffled against his palm. 

The black cat led Alice around the back of the couch toward the hall. More blood stains painted a path. The cat lessened the gap between it and Alice so that it could stand beside her ankles. The fur on its back raised and its tail puffed up. 

Alice broke free of his grip again and started to run when she felt searing hot pain pierce through her back and into her chest. Simultaneously she could feel cold and hot in her chest. Immediately, Alice felt all of her breath suck out of her as if a vacuum had been put to her mouth. No matter how much Alice heaved and gasped, she couldn’t get in a breath. The back of her shirt felt warm and wet despite a sense of cold creeping into her fingertips. 

Then the man removed the knife he’d plunged into Alice’s back and the force of it brought her tumbling to the ground. He raised it again and Alice squeezed her eyes shut.

The cat stopped walking with Alice, its haunches still raised. On the floor amidst the glass shards and blood was Alice. Her body lay cold and dead and rotting and no one knew but a little black cat.