Jumping Over My Grave

“Can’t believe he’s gone.”

“I can,” I said. “The man was well over sixty but drank like a college student on a bender and smoked half a pack a day.”

Then I sighed. That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. It’s just…I did miss him already, yeah. But more than that, I was just surprised.

Here we were – that being myself and my sister, Tamara – outside Hector Campbell’s old house. The old Scotsman had passed away a few days ago, and then yesterday his notary contacted me about his will. The man didn’t have much, a worn-down house and a pittance in savings, yet it was all mine now. I knew I was the closest thing he had to a friend, but seriously…it hit me out of the blue.

“It’s kinda weird, what he asked you. Do you think…?”

“Never mind that,” I waved Tamara’s worries off and approached the door with key in hand. “Let’s take a look inside first.”

The door didn’t creak so much as it shrieked on its rusty hinges. Hector hadn’t been the best at upkeep even before his timely demise, but I suppose that’s why he let me come over and take care of him.

“The place is barely standing.”

“Ain’t that bad, just needs a little-“ But I was cut off as we heard a racket suddenly start up inside. Something glass or maybe porcelain crashed and shattered from the direction of the kitchen.

“Thought you were the only one with a key,” said Tamara, taking a step down the porch.

“Me too. Squatters, maybe…hey! Anyone there?”

“Shh! Don’t let them know we’re here!”

“Yeah, too late for that.” I stepped inside, really wishing I’d brought something a little heftier than a pocket knife. But I flicked that open and hit the switch, turning the foyer lights on. There was a staircase leading up to the second floor, but my eyes were focused on the doorway right beyond it which led into the kitchen.

Still I heard something making hell in there, knocking over things and…scratching. Now that I was getting closer, I could definitely hear scratching against wood.

Pocket knife out, I jumped into the kitchen in hopes of catching whatever it was unaware….and ended up spooking a black cat. It hissed and darted away deeper into the house, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen with a bunch of shattered plates and a couple knocked over stools.

“What the heck?” Well, that was a bit…jeez, I just felt silly now standing here. I pocketed the knife and called out:

“Hey, it’s fine, was just a cat.”

“Hector had a cat?” I heard Tamara call back from the porch.

“No! I, no, what are you doing? Just get in here!” Why the heck was I trying to have a conversation with her from here? Stop being a scaredy-cat, heh.

She didn’t seem too sure of the place when she did finally enter, glancing around the corners like there might be something else hidden inside.

“It was just a cat, chill. Must’ve snuck in since the house’s been empty a few days.”

“A cat, huh? Alright, I’ll relax…sure made a mess of this room.”

“Yeah, no kidding. Was probably looking for food,” I said, really taking it in now. It was surprising that something that small could cause this much destruction. Bits of shattered mugs were strewn here or there, and it looked like it’d been using one of the sink cabinet’s as a scratching post. That was the scratching I heard, then. Odd, though.

“Hm. This looks a bit weird,” I knelt down and ran a hand over the wood. The marks were surprisingly deep but there weren’t actually lot of them, like the beast was working at the same spot over and over. That seemed odd, but also it wasn’t like I knew a lot about cat behavior. I was a dog person through and through, just like the rest of our family.

“What is it?”

“It kinda looks like that cat was trying to claw its way through here,” I opened the door, but there wasn’t anything in there that I hadn’t already been expected. Certainly nothing that would interest a cat, just some plumping work that connected to the sink.

“Weird. So anyway, we touring the rest of the house? You got a long night tonight at the wake.”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

That was Hector’s…I don’t know, condition? Request? That he’d put in the will. The house was mine to keep, so was the money, but I had to go sit at his wake and watch over him the entire time. That was pretty much the exact wording, too. Which was weird, but…a house of my own? In today’s housing market? It didn’t bare a second thought.

I could finally leave the apartment Tamara and I were sharing while we were going to college. Plus, this was closer to campus, and big enough I might even consider letting her move in too (on the condition she start paying rent to me, obviously).

But…something about that cat was bothering me. “Hah, maybe it was a cat-sith.”

“A what?” Tamara had posted up in the doorway with her arms crossed, all to eager to get this over with.

“Oh…” I’d actually been saying that more to myself than her, but whatever. “Old Scottish folktale Hector told me back when I’d used to come by more often. It’s a black cat with a spot of white on its chest that haunts the highlands and steals people’s souls.”

“Spooky stuff.”

“Yeah, sure. It was scarier when Hector would tell the story. Almost seemed like he believed in it,” I sighed. I did miss him, more than I wanted to admit. “Hardly matters, that cat didn’t have any white in its fur.” Or at least I didn’t think it did, but it had bolted pretty fast so I hadn’t gotten a good look.

Whatever. I pushed it from my mind and we went about our business inspecting the house. It would need some serious work, no doubt about that, but it was in better shape that I expected. With the money he’d left, it wouldn’t be a problem renovating it. In fact, I might even have some cash left over when it was all said and done.

Tamara kept mentioning how spooky it was until I told her she could move in – and once she wheedled her way into the master bedroom on the second floor, she was noticeably more excited by the idea.

That settled it, I just had to go watch over Hector one final night, see him off at his funeral tomorrow morning, and then we could start renovating. In a way, I feel that’s what he would want. No blubbering over him, there’s work to do.

*

I’d never been to a wake before, but if this was what they were all like, they were boring things. You sat there staring at the coffin set up in the middle of the room. Sometimes people stopped by but usually didn’t stay long. Sometimes they asked you how you knew the deceased, but what was there for me to say except, “I don’t know, I grew up in the neighborhood, my parents made me help him out since he was old, and after moving away, we stayed in touch.”

The entirety of our relationship summed up in a way that took less than a minute to say.

And then everybody left but I remained. That was the deal forced on me, I guess. Stand vigil the whole night, stare at this box that contains the corpse of your dead friend. As mind-numbing as it was morbid.

As the hours went by, I started to doze off. Even the uncomfortable metal folding chair digging into my spine couldn’t keep me awake forever. The last guest had left a few hours ago and now there wouldn’t be a soul to disturb us until the morning.

Or so I figured. It must’ve been three o’clock when I felt something move in the room with me.

I tried not to move but only cracked my eyes open a smidge to look around. Was it my imagination? A dream I didn’t remember having spilling into the waking world? I was willing to write it off as nothing more than that when I felt it again. I didn’t hear it or see it, but I felt it, a presence hiding in the room with me.

The electric lights buzzing overhead had dimmed, casting pools of shadow in deep crevasses across the room provided by the funeral home. Anything could be hiding in the largest of them – a person, perhaps. A monster…

A cat, I realized, as my eyes adjusted to the dark. I had to squint and catch it in the corner of my eye, but I was fairly certain it was a cat…cat-shaped, at the least. Nearly as big as a dog, with a spot of much lighter-colored fur standing out on its chest. The rest of it was black as ink, blending in with the darkness like it was woven from it.

It was watching me just as I was watching it, its green eyes seeming as though they were glowing. Two beacons through the dark, searching for prey. The beacons swept from me to across the coffin, and the cat stalked its way over to the resting body of Hector Campbell.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I was hit by this sensation that if I moved, something very bad would happen. So I didn’t, I sat there and watched the cat, pretending to be asleep.

And…nothing really happened. The cat stood beside the casket stand for a good ten minutes while I waited there. Then, it jumped atop the closed lid, sniffed it a few times, and jumped down and wandered off. I sat there a while longing in wait, but it didn’t return.

In the morning, we lowered Hector into the ground, and Tamara picked me up to go check out the house again.

It only hit me what had happened when we went into the kitchen and found the cabinet drawer splintered open. Something had clawed its way through and torn up one of the floorboards. There was nothing there, not anymore.

But I could hear Hector’s voice, spinning a tale from the highlands he hadn’t seen in quite some time. A story of a black at that stole souls, all it needed to do was jump over the body before it was interred.

A silly ghost story from a lonely old man, I told myself at the time, and I put it out from my mind while we worked on the house.

But now I’m sitting in my bedroom upstairs, listening to something scratch at the door.

“You let it steal me,” the voice of Hector taunts me from outside the door, and the scratching continues. “You let it steal me.”