Lurking shadows - 1

Mita sat staring at his cat, waiting for the large feline to come and eat a snack out of her hand but the cat clearly wasn’t interested.

   She didn’t know how long it would be before her boyfriend’s cat befriended her but it didn’t look she’d made any progress with Pink. A name Mita thought most inaccurate since the large cat was a muddy mixture of black and orange, but one decidedly doesn’t critique a lovers cat, no matter how ugly the puss.

Pink gruffly meowed, breaking Mita’s reverie, almost guessing her negative assessment of the cat and stretched, before staring right past her, a gesture Mita found most infuriating and eerie.

‘He looks right past me’ she complained to Anek who wasn’t paying attention to her, instead was holding the cat like a baby in his arms rubbing behind Pink’s ear who in turn emanated a delighted purr.

‘See!’ she exclaimed. He never does that around me.

She watched Anek leave for work the next morning through a window.

The rains had been most determined and unappeasable. Some areas downtown had flooded and roads fared poorly with massive traffic jams owing to the rigorous rainfalls and Mita felt lonely inside the large house.

She had quit her job before moving in with Anek and it was after a very long time that she had absolutely nothing to do. Each day, she realized, involved a lot of looking forward to and it wasn’t something she had prepared herself for.

The house, however, was beautiful. It wasn’t large, she’d heard the landlord say as much apologetically when they were house hunting but it was enough. In fact, it was a lot bigger than her previous house which her memories had shrunk to the size of blank space, but as far as she could recall it had offered nothing in terms of looking forward to..perhaps that’s why she didn’t know what one could do in a house this big.

Pink meowed in the background. ‘Do you want more food?’ Mita asked exasperated and upon hearing no reply she made towards the pantry where Anek kept cans of cat food.

The house, spacious as it was looked unkempt from the unpacked boxes wobbly stacked. She sighed and tried to evenly balance them to look a little less lopsided.

She’d unpack soon, she’d decided; the house also needed a bit of cleaning up and that would happen too..soon! Mita uncertainly resolved.

It was quite clear to Mita that Pink had taken an immediate dislike to her because not once would the ugly cat look her in the face. She didn’t know what cats were supposed to be like since Pink was her first cat encounter but the disdain it seemed was mutual.

She caught Pink staring. Once again not at her, but at something right beside her. Mita hated these moments where she felt so foolishly frightened of a cat's absurd glare. Each time she’d timidly roll her eyes to the side where the cat stared to ensure she was alone and every time she’d find herself breaking into a sweat, shaking with worry. 

She berated herself for being so cowardly and idiotic as she slowly moved her head to the side where Pink stared to find nothing.

It rained harder that night and the bed smelled of damp. How was Anek able to snore through that musty stench? Mita buried her face in the pillow to keep from the damp odour but it had begun living inside the bed. 

She checked the disappointing week-long weather forecast on her phone and recoiled as the fan almost seemed to spray the wet smell in her direction. These bedsheets need changing.

It was almost past midnight and Pink silently climbed on the bed.

He contently licked himself for a while and sat facing the wall behind the bed. It was dark in the room but Mita had been awake for some time now and wisps of light from the world out lit up the musty bedroom with the glow of a fading candle.

She lay on her side watching Anek calmly snore and the cat who had until now been quietly sitting somewhere near Anek’s feet walked in her vision.

Pink looked alert. He often looked this way when he’d noticed something moving. Mita’s heart turned to ice as she felt herself growing cold because the cat stared at a wall behind her head looking ready to attack.

Mita lay on her side facing Anek, unable to move, looking at the cat who now crouched in the space between them, unflinching in his decision. 

He was definitely staring, his pupils subtly darting while glued to the wall, trying to fixedly follow the movements of something that was moving behind her. 

Is there something moving on the wall?

‘There’s nothing’ Mita murmured to herself. Shaking under her sheets, her fingertips turning to icicles. ‘There’s nothing.’ she spoke aloud, hoping for Anek to wake up. 

The cat’s eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated with a knowledge Mita didn’t wish to investigate. 

In her heart she knew there was nothing. The curses boiling up on her tongue again. She was a foolish coward afraid of a cat’s glare.

Her soul suddenly determined, she collected her resolve in a large breath, inhaling the disgusting damp, Mita threw back her sheets and sat up to look behind her at the wall. 

There was nothing.

She turned on the small lamp beside her bed and the room was rife with smell and snores.

‘there’s nothing’ Mita quietly screamed. ‘I hate you’ she growled at the cat.

The bedside lamp was a broken thing covered in dust. Its neck was rusted and the cord was almost frayed. 

A piece of someone else’s belonging. Probably left by the previous owner and not once had Mita realized the importance of this light-giving instrument.

The yellow glow brought back the warmth which only moments ago had deserted Mita’s spooked limbs.

She was breathing steadily now. ‘I’m such an idiot’ she smiled. Each moment a new relief bringing her back to life. The sharp inhales of funky damp momentarily ransacked her respite but she felt so elated at the moment that she decided to turn everything around.

‘I will clean this entire place tomorrow and unpack’ she whispered to the cat. ‘I want to do it’ Mita smiled and looked behind Pink at Anek to find his side of the bed empty.

The room grew cold.

Pink was standing and staring right past Mita.

Please don't do this Pink!

The yellow glow of the lamp darkened as a shadow formed on the wall in front of her. Pink’s eyes were dilated.

She was pinned to her bed. Her limbs and torso bound to the soft mattress. Streaks of wet hair clung to Mita’s face and the damp stench swilled around her, rising in invisible tendrils, wrapping its unforgiving funk under her nose.

Her throat almost split open with an effort to scream, but her voice had been put on mute. She strained with an effort to break free from her confines.

‘Let me go. Free me! Anek. Help me’ Mita’s voice came out in soft gurgles 

‘let me go!!’ with a final effort of residual strength, she broke away and sat shaking on her bed.

Rain lashed against the window as sunshine stabbed dark clouds to pry them open briefly.

Mita was awake. 

It was raining harder than last night.