Next to Godliness

Feline fever

       It was early in the morning, not early enough that it was still dark, but it was definitely cold. Your blanket wrapped around you perfectly, keeping you protected from the mean air that would nip at your toes. You shifted to lay on your back attempting to wake up from possibly the most comfortable night's sleep you've had in a long time, something about the difference in the temperatures inside your blanket and out, were complete heaven. Sadly enough, all of that was about to come crashing down. You basked in the comfort of your bed, and suddenly like a slap in the face; you remembered... "Shit!" You whispered under your breath, quickly you turned around to face your night stand. The alarm clock stood still, blinking at you. '8:00' It read, the flashing of the numbered inconvenience felt like it was screaming at you. You slowly forced yourself to peel out of bed, and there you stood. Disappointed, and oddly refreshed. You stretched your body out as an effort to waking yourself up, and made your way downstairs to the bathroom.

       With clean teeth, and freshly applied deodorant, you climbed into your work clothes and stepped into your tennis shoes. You opened the bathroom door only to see Connor barely awake, and watching tv on your couch.
"Mornin' sis." a scratchy greeting forced it's way out of his mouth.
"Good morning." you yawned and responded, surprised that Connor was even awake this early. "What are you doing up already?"
"Oh you know, the usual." He scoffed sarcastically and laid back even further.
"Right.." You chuckled back at him. His eyes were red, his nasty feet were hanging out of the blanket, and his ratty hair was going out in every direction. Eventually he realized that you were laughing at him, he sat himself upright, and adjusted his hair back to normalcy. Honestly the normalcy of his hair wasn't much of a difference compare to how it was just now, but still better.
"Is there any coffee?" He croaked out groggily, and turned to look at you.
"No, but I was just about to make some." you sighed and made your way into the kitchen.
"Sweet." Connor smiled and turned back to face the tv.

      "What is that smell?" You looked away from your coffee machine and asked Connor.
"Look, I know you told me not to smoke that in the house but-."
"No not that you dumbass, it smells different." You walked around the kitchen and the living room to see if it was coming from somewhere specifically.
"I don't know," connor shrugged, "just open a window or something."
"Yeah, that's probably smart." You bent down and opened the window closest to you. "Oh my god," you practically dry heaved as soon as the window lifted from the wall, "it's coming from outside."
"hmm." Connor laid back down, he wasn't one to really investigate, or even care about most things. Ignoring your unhelpful older brother, you decided it was up to you to find out what the smell is. You grabbed your backpack, your little flip phone, and walked out the door.
"Bye!" Connor shouted before the door closed the behind you. You just flipped him off through the window, and figured that would suffice as your goodbye until you got back.

       You started walking down your normal path to work. You weren't going to work right now but figured you could investigate productively, and at least head in that direction. You tried to walk towards the smell, but it felt like it was surrounding. It was hard to try and sniff it out without puking, but curiosity got the best of you. You walked closer to the smell and peeked down by the beach; strangely enough there was a crowd of people lined up by the shore. You pushed your way through the sandy ground and caught up with the crowd of civilians, searching for clues or anyone you knew really.
"Y/N!" Sheriff Hassan calmly waved you towards him. Without a second thought you quickly trailed over. In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to pay more attention to the smell rather than who you would talk to, but you got pretty easily distracted. Suddenly as you stepped closer, you heard a crunch. The horrid smell from before, now filled the air around you. You pulled your foot back up slightly, and looked down only to find out what the smell had been coming from.

Uncontrollably your foot jerked away, and your whole body bent as the coffee you had drank earlier pushed itself back out. Lying below you, with a fresh imprint of your tennis shoes, was a slimy, wet, dead cat. the cats fur was matted down, and slightly grey from the mixture of sand and water. It's mouth hung wide open and the eyes blankly stared out in front of it. Plus it was now covered in mysterious chunks, and your morning coffee. Watching in horror the sherif shook his head and caught up to you, along with your new recently stomped and deceased friend.

       "Yeah, uh, I was going to warn you... Dead cats." He gestured toward the cat and tossed you a rag.
"Thanks," you nodded in response for the handkerchief, "I hadn't noticed." You scoffed as you wiped your bloodied shoe on the sand below you.
"They just showed up all over the beach this morning, the Flynn's called me freaked out." The sheriff explained with his hands on his hips.
"Yeah so bet, I could smell it from my house." You looked out at the rows filled with rotting cat corpses, all aligned with the shore of the beach. There was easily at least a hundred of them, covering the ground around you. Each and every one of them had an open wound around their neck, but there was no blood seen anywhere.
"I'm surprised the whole town can't smell it, it's like there's more dead cats than people on this island." Sherif Hassan snarked back, he was probably right, there wasn't a very large population here.
"I wouldn't doubt it," you smiled slightly , "I have to start heading to work now, but let me know if there's anything I can do to help."
"Will do." He waved at you as you walked toward the grocery store and away from the sea of cat corpses, quickly he turned around and got back to work. In reality you didn't have to get to work for at least another 20 minutes, but you just wanted to get as far away from the smell as possible.