Cat Nap

Nobody knew what was happening. First came reports of large wild cats being seen in the city and this was quickly followed by reports of missing people. No bodies were found but everyone believed that the cats were responsible. With the number of sightings on the rise, people were advised to to stay in there home as the authorities handled the situation.

Of course some people, mostly the gun toting redneck demographic, believed they had to take matters into their own hands and that it would be really neat to shoot themselves a cat. My family was part of this group and as such I was expected to pick up a gun and shoot myself a cat.

At the age of 14 I was the youngest of five siblings and what my grandmother called the black sheep. I was a quiet person and very bookish, unlike the rest of my family. It was often assumed, mostly by my grandmother, that there had been a mix up at the hospital. More than once had I over heard her giving my mom flack about not giving birth to me "naturally" at home instead of that "chop house". The truth was my parent had been across town when my mom had gone into labour and if it hadn't been for the much closer hospital I probably would have been dead because of complications at birth.

Regardless of my origins, when my family, in other words my grandmother, decided they had to go do there part and get themselves each a new cat skin rug a rifle was trusted into my hands, showing that I was expected to do the same. Knowing it was useless to argue, I began to check over my gun like I had been shown many times before and than headed out to the family pick up. I usually tried to sit in the cab as any sane person would but I also knew that this time there was no way I could get in under the radar and climbed in the back with my siblings.

My grandmother, at some point during her illustrious career as a not so law abiding citizen, had gotten her hands on a police scanner and quickly overheard a report of a cat being spotted in the local shopping center. Pulling into the parking lot of the shopping center we could see that no police had yet to make the scene and that a hand full of people had taking to looting in the panic. My family quickly jumped out of the pick up and head into the building, guns at the ready.

Many shelves were empty and only a few people ran about with arms and carts full of merchandise they probably weren't intending to pay for. My grandmother instructed everyone to split up and "holler if you see a cat." I took a deep breath and picked an aisle. I walked almost to the far end of the store, nothing. I turned left and headed towards the back of the building. When I was almost to the back I turned right down a short aisle with empty low shelves. When I got to the end I turned and froze.

Over the low shelves I saw in the next aisle the cat. He was massive, probably standing three feet at the shoulder and maybe eight feet long, tail not withstanding. His fur was red with an orange underbelly. He was up on his hind legs sniffing at something on a high shelf. Dropping my gun, thankfully I was the only person in my family to understand the use of the safety, I yelled in terror. Not thinking I tried to bolt back down the aisle I had just come from.

The cat quickly cut me off and advanced. Without a gun I had a snowball's chance in hell of defending myself. When the cat was within a foot of me it suddenly stood on it's hind legs and grabbed my arm with it's front paws. My mind tried to register this. The cat had just grabbed my arm as though it had hands.

I blinked and suddenly it wasn't a cat but a boy about my age. He was a little taller than me with short and messy dark blonde hair. He was trying to pull my arm to his mouth, he was trying to bite me. I resisted and tried to pull my arm away from him. "No, no," I uttered under my breath as I pulled away with all my might. I felt a sudden surge and my fear turned to anger.

"No!" I now yelled and retched my arm away, "Get away from me!" I growled at the boy. A look of dejection passed over the boy's face before he turned and ran. My legs felt weak and I dropped to the floor. I managed to crawl onto a ground level shelf and saw several people run past me before I passed out.