We live in an old farmhouse (when we’re not living in a Freightliner) that sits on just enough property to make it seem like we’re out in the boonies. Truth be known, we’re about ten minutes from three different cities, and a stone’s throw from a huge Air Force base, but the 150-odd acres surrounding us keeps the feeling of isolation intact.
The animals (two dogs, three cats) are always happy to see me, and usually make an enormous effort to do something completely disturbing while I’m here to let me know they missed me.
I’ll have to say it’s usually the cats — one in particular, who I believe is an evil spirit trapped in a fur bearing body — who do the most messed-up things to me. I’m pretty sure he has an agenda to terrify the crap out of me by putting gross things in my bed while I’m sleeping.
Let me state here that the same cat, when my husband is home, does nothing but lay his furry butt on the couch, staring disdainfully at the human with facial hair, and yowling for food. He has never once woken my husband up with a disemboweled, dying animal in his maw. He does this so no one will believe me when I tell them about his latest attack.
Late last night, after watching a marathon of “A Haunting,” I wanted cookies but was afraid to go down the dark stairwell to get them. (Side note: extremely bad idea to watch “A Haunting” hour after hour when you’re alone in a house that’s 200 years old.) I cursed myself for not planning better and putting the cookies in my nightstand when it was still daylight, and decided to go to sleep.
Four seconds after I closed my eyes, I heard something scrabbling around in the stairwell. It sounded like papery skin being dragged across the carpet, and I immediately conjured up images of forlorn spirits walking up the stairs to eat my face off. I rolled over and covered my head with the blanket, because everyone knows ghosts aren’t smart enough to pull the covers down, and if they can’t find your face, they can’t eat it off. Just as I settled in, the cat leaped on to the bed and dropped a clove of garlic on me. He was supremely satisfied with himself — he’d sensed my terror and confusion immediately. I couldn’t imagine where he found an intact clove of garlic, or why he would drop it on me. I put the garlic on the nightstand, wishing it was cookies, and went to sleep.
In the wee hours of the morning, just as I reached REM sleep, I was awakened by a high-pitched sonic scream. Being that the cat has dropped a bat in my bed before, I knew immediately what it was and leaped out of bed before he could place it gently in my hair. Of course, he had lain the mortally wounded animal on the floor, precisely where I was leaping to. I narrowly avoided squishing a bat in death throes. The cat dashed out from under the bed, defending his kill, and streaked off into the dark, haunted stairwell with the screaming, eviscerated bat in his mouth. This whole story is absolutely true. You can’t make this stuff up.
I’m spending the day looking for where the bats enter our home, and wondering where my cat got a clove of garlic. It’s not like I have anything else to do.