It was Monday June 19th, 12:01 a.m. When Jon woke up with his stomach biting and growling. He was starved; the one thing on his mind was a savory midnight snack. Well, with how hungry he was it would be more like a midnight feast. He threw his comforter off of his body and hopped onto the floor. He quickly jumped back onto the bed when his feet hit the floor. For some reason, the floor felt as if it were burning.
"What the hell?"
He wondered what could possibly explain this phenomenon. Jon considered for a moment that maybe he was just in a really weird dream, that the boiling floor was just a figment of his imagination. His stabbing stomach quickly proved that theory to be wrong.
"Well... it is summer, I guess. Maybe this is just some global warming thing."
John reached down to the floor and grabbed the slippers next to his nightstand. Luckily, these padded his feet enough from the heat to make the ground walkable. He headed into his kitchen to see what delectable delight there was to devour. Even the air in the kitchen felt hot. He was relieved when he opened the fridge and was blasted with a wave of cold air. He smiled to himself when he saw his leftover lasagna from the night before. It was his late great grandmother's recipe. To him, nothing in the world compared. She was fresh off the boat from Italy, and had magical hands when it came to food. Now, his wasn't nearly as good as hers, but by god was it close enough.
Jon walked over to the couch and sat down next to his sleeping dog Odie. He made a chchch sound to delicately wake the dog up and threw him a small piece of the lasagna. Odie snatched it and ran into the next room to devour it. Jon let out a chuckle and turned on the TV. His joy abruptly ended when he saw the screen. There, in bold letters, he saw on the news "HUNDREDS DEAD OVERNIGHT!" His stomach dropped, what was this? John turned up the volume on the TV.
"For the past nine mondays there have been hundreds of unexplained deaths. Entire families go to bed and the next morning nothing but their bones are found. The bones that are found are miraculously completely clean, there is not a speck of flesh or blood found on them. From in-home cameras we're able to estimate it happens sometime after midnight, as all of the camera outages we've tried to recover midnight is the time it goes completely black. Police departments everywhere have said they have no clue how these deaths are occuring. Please, lock your doors and be vigilant."
Just then he was interrupted by a pained whimpering sound.
"Odie?"
He cried out for his dog, but there was no response. He crept through the halls, trying to be as delicate as possible. After what he saw on the TV, he was paranoid that even the slightest noise would get him killed. He walked into his bedroom when he saw the most horrific sight. Odie's bones lay on the floor in front of him. He felt as if he were in a museum looking at a dinosaur exhibit. The bones lay there perfectly cleaned and arranged. He slowly backed up when he heard a creak from the hallway. He ran into the closet and held his breath. Slowly, a giant beast crept into the room. It was cat-like in appearance. It walked on all fours, it was fuzzy and orange with brown stripes, it had whiskers, triangle ears, and a long snout, but there was so much off about it. Its legs dragged as it walked, it was about ten feet in height, its teeth were long and sharp, frothy white foam dripped from its mouth, its eyes were a bright red, its body was engorged with fat, and it had claws the size of a butcher's knife.
"Jooooooooooooon," it said in a deep growling voice. "Where are youuuuuuuuuu? I'm so hungry, perhaps you could feed me."
What was this this thing, how did it know Jon's name, how did it get into his house, and how the fuck did it do that to Odie? All of these questions raced through his mind. His lungs started to burn and his vision was getting spotty. He was holding his breath in for too long, he needed to breathe. The creature circled the room and started to head out when Jon finally let his breath out as it stepped over the threshold. In a moment, the creature ran to the closet door and pried it off.
"Well, hello there friend. I've enjoyed our little game of hide and seek but unfortunately you've lost."
It's laugh rattled the room. In a quick moment, Jon grabbed a coat hanger and jammed it in the creature's eye. It screamed so loud his ears started to ring. While it ripped the hanger out Jon made a run for it. He ran to his front door and tried desperately to run out when he discovered the door wouldn't open. He looked out the windows and everything was pitch black. He couldn't even see the faint glow of the moon. He heard furious thumps quickly approaching and had to think fast. If he couldn't escape, his only hope was to fight. He bolted to the kitchen and grabbed two of his biggest knives. One in each hand, he stood ready for the beast to approach. It didn't take long for the beast to catch up to him. Its eye was bloody, but somehow healed. The hanger... it did nothing. How was that possible, how has it healed already?
"My oh my Jon, what do you have there? What do you plan on doing with those?"
Jon clenched his hands around the knives and grit his teeth. He was terrified and shaking, but he did his best to stand strong and appear as menacing as he could.
"Go to hell!"
He screamed that as he ran and stabbed the beast. One knife went through its skull and the other through its heart. The beast wailed in agony and fell to the ground. It lay there unmoving bleeding out. Jon kicked it to ensure its death and let out a sigh of relief once it remained still. He did it, he beat the beast. He avenged Odie. He avenged the hundreds of people that had died. He fell to his knees and wept. All of this was horrible, so so horrible. A rumble came out from in front of him.
"No... please... no..."
The rumble became louder, and soon a laugh followed it.
"Don't you get it, Jon? I can't go to hell, we're already there."
"What?"
Jon lifted up his head towards the beast who was slowly rising.
"I am hell, I am glutton, I am sin. I am Garfield. With me I bring the burning fury of the world, ready to devour all of you pathetic mortals. You pollute the earth with your filth and betray your fellow man with your selfish desires. For every one good deed done by a mortal, there are a hundred horrid actions done. I am here to rectify gods pathetic mistake and eradicate every last one of you."
The beast now stood tall, fully healed from its wounds. He had tears in his eyes, he had never been more scared.
"It's over oh my god it's over I'm dead I'm so dead"
He repeated the same thing in his head over and over again as the beast got closer, when he noticed there was an opening. He ducked and sprinted underneath the beast's legs and ran for his life. He ended up running down the stairs and shoving himself into his basement closet. He was trapped. It was only a matter of time until the beast would find him. What was he going to do? He couldn't escape the house and he couldn't fight the beast. He felt hopeless until he noticed something in the corner of his eye. A box of rat poison sat on the shelf next to him. If he couldn't kill Garfield from the outside, maybe he could from the inside, but how would he get him to ingest it? He thought for a moment until the sad reality dawned on him. There was no escaping Garfield's wrath. He will find Jon, and he will eat him. This was an inescapable truth. However, if Jon eats the entire box of rat poison, and then Garfield eats him, maybe he too will be poisoned. Maybe Jon's death can mean something, maybe, just maybe, he can save others. The beast's footsteps grew louder as Jon shoveled the fistfuls of poison into his mouth.
"This will work. It has to," he thought as he heard the closet door behind him creak open.
