The Cat Theory

My Neighbors' Cult

I don't particularly like to read, and I definitely don't like to write. This isn't a story, this is a documentary of my life ending. I don't care if you don't read this, because it's mostly for the police, but now is your only chance, because I guarantee this manuscript is going to be classified soon after my death.

Why? Because I already know how I'm going to die. I already know who my murderer is going to be. I could tell you right now. In fact, I'm going to. And after I die, the police will find this manuscript somewhere, anywhere, and mount a full scale investigation. Of course, I will turn out to be completely correct, and everybody who laughed at me will cry and wish to have me back, if only to tell me that I was right all along.

But I'll be dead.

I'll be dead because my neighbor's cat is trying to kill me.

Go ahead and laugh. I don't care.

Go ahead and scoff and tell me I'm being paranoid, but you'll be sorry when my mutilated corpse shows up in some dumpster somewhere. You'll be sorry when the cat is taken away to protective custody. And you'll be even sorrier when it turns out that all of my theories are correct.

Let's start at the beginning, because I know that the police are going to need a lot of help to justify the death penalty for a cat. 'Oh, but it's so fluffy!' 'It's so cute!' people will say. Wrong. It is not cute. It has a dark soul and a twisted mind. Do not be thrown off by the fact that its name is Sunshine. That is a mask for the gloom of its heart.

The first thing you must understand about the cat is that it is never anywhere by coincidence. This is because its every movement is orchestrated by my neighbor's cult. How do I know they're in a cult? It's simple.

I first met the neighbors a couple of days after they moved in. I'm not sure if I've mentioned, but they are definitely a cult. Before the cult, I had an elderly man in the house next door. I have no complaints about him at all, he was sweet and came over for dinner every week with probably the best homemade ice cream I've ever tasted. But, he lived all alone in a rather large house and eventually decided it was best to move out. Before he moved, he mentioned to me that the new neighbors had a boy my age, and a girl my brother's age. This was a big deal, because it meant more summer friends, specifically more space to play manhunt.

Anyways, I decided to start off on the right foot. I saw them out in their lawn one morning and ran out in my pajamas. I smiled and shook hands with them and introduced myself. I saw the boy who looked about my age lurking in the background, but when I tried to engage him in conversation, he ignored me. Not shyly, he just straight up ignored me. Also lurking in the background was a fat orange cat, who looked rather spooked. I chalked it up to catching them off guard, and resolved to start better later that day.

So, I baked a pumpkin pie, and put it nicely on an attractive platter. Then, I took it over to the house, and rung the doorbell. I took my brother to show that we were a non-threatening family. It didn't make a difference. Somebody stepped in front of the door and took the cookies quickly. When we made it obvious we weren't leaving, the cat came to the door and sat there until we got uncomfortable.

There was also at least 5 cars in the driveway, and lots more people milling about the house. I left without being invited in.

Though I knew something was off, I didn't realize that it was a cult until that night.

That night, I was home alone. I didn't think much of it until a car pulled up my driveway. It was about the time my brother was supposed to be home from basketball, so I flipped on the lights and waved.

It was not my brother.

It was a strange woman who I did not recognize.

I quickly flipped off the lights, but the damage had been done. The woman got out of his car, and began walking to my front door. At this time, more than 6 vehicles began to clog up my driveway. Folks, I thought I was about to get murdered. I did what any sane person would do. I deadbolted the door and called my mother.

"Mom?"

"What?"

"I'm about to get murdered."

"By who?" A brief pause. I could hear footsteps. "Dear God, tell me you haven't been chugging cough syrup."

I could feel the world closing in around me as the lady got closer to the door and my mom kept saying words on the phone.

"Okay, I've got to go now, honey. Have fun!"

The lady came up to the door and looked through the glass at me. I did the only thing that I thought was reasonable at the time- I grabbed an umbrella to use as a club, and threw open the door to bash the lady's head in. But before I could land the crushing blow, she saw the murderous glint in my eyes and stepped back, leaving me swinging at air.

The thing is, I was expecting to make contact and so I had put my whole weight into my swing. So when she evaded me with ninja-like techniques, my balance was thrown off. I plummeted to the ground and had to drop the umbrella to save myself from a full-on face plant. This left me defenseless on the ground, forced to listen to the man monologue as I reviewed my options.

"Hi there. Um, I hope I'm not interrupting, but I was wondering if you knew where the meeting is? It should be around here, have you-"

I saw only one way out. To plead for my life. "Please don't murder me. I have so much left to live for and if you kill me my mom would definitely sue!"

The other vehicles didn't seem terribly bothered by the fact that I was about to be brutally slaughtered. They seemed kind of put out at the inconvenience of having to wait for my blood to spill in order to get to their meeting. While I was slowly army crawling back into my house, I saw a flash of orange before dead bolted the door. I flipped off the lights and played dead, processing what I'd just seen. Eventually, the people left, and I saw them go next door, closely followed by the cat.

The next thing I knew, there was a strange chanting coming from their lawn. I quickly identified some of the lyrics being about worshipping, and some being about the cat. If you're a little slow on the uptake, I'll draw the logical conclusion for you. My neighbors are clearly a cat worshipping cult.

As the year progressed, they proceeded to do many aggravating things, including but not limited to not bringing me homemade ice cream, creepily stalking around their lawn and chanting late at night, sending their cat to attempt to kill me, and refusing my invitations to come over for dinner.

Now you might be thinking: So why does the cat want to kill you? You'd think that the cat has a pretty good life leading the cult and would probably just want to use its limited life span to eat fish and lord over its subjects. That's what I thought too. But its motivation to kill me stems from one thing: my perceptiveness. If I was just another civilian, it wouldn't have to kill me. But I'm onto it, and so to keep its cult and their shady activities a secret, it has to off me.

Good. Now that this has been established I can tell the story about how the cat tried to kill me. (To clarify, this is the most recent story of the time the cat tried to kill me. There are many others).