The Cat on Hemlock Avenue

"Turn left," the tinny voice of the GPS said unhelpfully. Greta banged her open palm against the side of the steering wheel. There was no left to take. The phone beeped as it redirected. Thunder cracked overhead and Greta ground her teeth until her jaw ached. 

"Take the next right onto Olive St," the GPS concluded as the rain began to pick up. Greta flipped on the windshield wipers and desperately hoped the storm didn't get worse. She hadn't seen the storm on the radar earlier, but with the weather, it was always luck of the draw. Unfortunately, Greta's luck was always short on the draw. 

Flipping her turn signal on, she took the next right onto Olive Street and immediately stopped. There were few streetlights on the outskirts of town, but the only one on this street flickered dismally. In the road sat a cat. Greta beeped her horn at the creature and the tabby cat turned its head. Greta felt the blood drain away from her body. 

"Continue on Olive Street for one quarter of a mile," the GPS added to this quiet panic as Greta processed the cat's face. It wasn't correct, even accounting for the dim and flickering light. Was that - it couldn't be bone, could it? No, it was a trick of the light, Greta concluded. She honked the horn again. Her tiny car only let out pathetic beeps that a toddler would make, but Greta hoped it would be enough to scare the creature. The cat stood up, but instead of crossing the road, the cat came towards her. 

"No, no, no, no," Greta muttered as she adjusted to reverse the car. The GPS beeped to redirect. She turned around to watch the road as she backed up and lightning cracked across the sky. She held the yelp of an animal and thunder boom, and she stopped the car, looking back forward again. She swallowed nervously. The cat was sitting on the front of her car, tail flicking from side to side, angrily. 

It was bone that she had seen. She could see all the little notches in the bone where the cat had gotten into fights and broken itself, healed itself, and gone right back to fighting. The muscles of the eyes were awful without skin and fur to cover them. 

"Go on! Shoo!" Greta shouted, clapping her hands. She hated the idea of hurting animals, but she changed gears and decided to drive forward as fast as she could. The GPS beeped, ignored. The cat ran across her roof, the skittering sounds of its feet sending a chill through Greta, but finally, she heard it leap off the back end of her car. She let out a sigh of relief, wondering how tired she had to be to see that, and focused on listening to her GPS again. 

It beeped as it redirected her, missing yet another turn. She groaned, thinking she would never deliver this package, get her twenty bucks, and go home. It was supposed to be an easy delivery and all it had gotten her was half an hour of being lost in the rain and a bone chillingly creepy cat. 

"Take the next right and your destination will be on the left. 4024 Hemlock Ave," the GPS helpfully chirped. Greta blinked, confused as she took the turn and parked her car. She had needed to take... a left, right? All those turns ago? Yet, the description of the house matched the one given to her for the delivery. It was an old building, potentially older than most of the town. Vining plants snaked their way up and down the brick walls. The iron wrought fencing looked menacing in the thunderstorm outside. Greta swallowed and took a deep breath. 

"It's just five minutes. You can do anything for five minutes," she repeated to herself as she grabbed the smallish package and turned the car off. The rain was worse than it appeared inside the car. It was blisteringly cold and Greta was sure she would have numb fingertips if she stayed out for longer than five minutes anyway. The gate to the house swung open at her approach. Huh, she thought, convenient place for a motion detector. 

In the doorway to the house stood a figure that had not been there moments before. Greta jumped, laughing a bit when she calmed down. 

"You gave me such a fright! Mr. Vio wanted to make sure you got this personally," Greta smiled, her winning customer service smile. The figure did not move to greet her in the rain, which Greta couldn't exactly blame them for. She strode up to the house, feeling a bit jumpy, but more comfortable than she'd been when driving. As she approached the figure finally, she realized how wrong the person was. 

The figure, the homeowner surely, was dressed in an all-black suit of cheap materials, worn to patches in certain places. That was not the part that gave Greta pause, however. It was the plague doctor mask they wore, genuine leather by the smell of it, the beak of it protruding from the thin figure grotesquely. Greta faltered a bit but smiled and reached out to give the figure the package in her hands. 

"Mr. Vio says it can't get wet, so I hope the rain didn't soak through the cardboard," she added as she waited for the figure to take the package from her. It didn't move. It hardly seemed to acknowledge her. A crack of lightning startled Greta so that she nearly dropped the package, and in the split second she blinked, the figure grabbed the package and disappeared into the house. Relieved to have delivered the package successfully, she fell to her knees. That was when the door creaked back open, just a midge. 

The cat from the road squeezed out between the door and the frame. It licked its lips once, twice, then opened its mouth. Greta did not look at the thing for more than a couple of seconds, but she could tell this creature was the one speaking, not some practical joke being played by the plague doctor fellow. 

"Greta, get out of here, you are overstaying your welcome," the cat said in a light, playfully masculine voice. Like a young man playing a game, the cat laughed slightly after, and then turned without fanfare, walking back into the house and shutting the door finally. Thunder boomed ominously in the distance, but the rain had cleared somewhat. Greta turned and raced back to her car. 

Once inside, she heard her phone vibrating with an incoming call. It was Mr. Vio. She slid her finger across the screen to answer it. 

"Mr. Vio! This friend of yours, quite strange, he answered the door in a plague doctor mask!" Greta laughed lightly and waited for Mr. Vio to respond. She knew the shopkeeper was strange, but hadn't realized how strange. Instead of gratitude over delivering the package, she received silence. The phone crackled when Mr. Vio finally spoke.

"Greta, darling, the GPS says you are in the middle of the woods! Are you okay? I know Hemlock Avenue can be quite tricky to find. Is the storm letting up there?" Mr. Vio finally asked in a rush, worry coloring his quiet posh accent. Greta chortled happily. 

"Mr. Vio, you wouldn't believe it! The GPS did find Hemlock Avenue, but in a completely different place than you initially told me. The package has been successfully delivered. Your friend has quite a strange cat," she added meditatively. Mr. Vio hummed over the phone. 

"A cat? That can't be correct. Sir Sebastian hasn't had a cat in years and years, a lovely little tabby cat, but he was quite devastated when the cat died and hasn't mustered the courage to get another since. Are you sure you found the right place, darling? I know storms can distort things," he said gently as Greta looked back towards the house. Only it wasn't a house any longer, the trees cluttering up the space that had once been taken by a home. The wind rustled the limbs of the trees, thick with leaves, and certainly, no space could have been taken by a home. The trees were too old, too large, to have ever been cleared for a house. Greta swallowed. 

"I see, Mr. Vio. In any case, the package has been delivered. I'll be back to collect my payment soon. Don't close up shop without me, Mr. Vio!" Greta added playfully, but a bit stern. Mr. Vio was prone to forgetting about his lone part-timer. The man chuckled over the phone. 

"I'll give Sir Sebastian a call to verify the package has been delivered, then I'll be here waiting for you and your payment will be here as well, not to worry, Greta my dear, not to worry," he clucked his tongue lightly and then hung up. Greta gripped her steering wheel and turned her GPS back on, directing herself back to the shop. The GPS beeped, re-directing her already. 

"Take the next right onto Starling Road," the tinny voice announced. Greta shook her head and took a left as she had come from that direction. The GPS re-directed again and Greta ignored it, looking back at the road she had just left. 

Except, there wasn't a road there at all, the curb not disturbed by previous construction, all a smooth line of concrete and the trees hit the side of the road just as well as they had covered the house's location. Beyond the tree line, Greta could see... well, she hoped she didn't see it, truthfully, but she thought she could make out the outline of a cat's skull. She turned back towards the road and followed the GPS, missing turns and all, all the way back to Mr. Vio's shop.