Stories To Tell In The Dark

Story #1 The Missing Cat

Every week I go to the drugstore and buy gum.

I went to the drugstore this week and saw a skinny black cat. I'm not one to be paranoid about bad luck, but I still felt uneasy for some reason. I bought my gum and when I left the cat was gone. On my walk home I saw a paper stapled to a telephone pole.

"Missing Cat" it said with bold print at the top. There was a picture of a black cat in the middle of the paper. The cat almost looked like it was grinning in a way that made my stomach turn. I swear it's the same cat. What I found strange was at the bottom there was "Beware". There was no information on the owners, no reward for finding it. I was definitely creeped out, but what could I do?

Once I got home I sat on the couch and turned on my radio. I flipped through the channels until one I had never heard before stopped me. "Missing Cat. Beware. Beware the Missing Cat" said a static voice. It repeated it multiple times until it all turned to static. I shut the radio off. Why would the radio make news of a missing cat. It made no sense. Could it all be the same cat? I laid down on the couch and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

It must of been late at night when I woke up to my radio on static. Half awake I tried to shut it off but accidentally turned the channel knob. Again I heard "Missing Cat. Beware the missing cat" in the same static voice. I sat up immediatley. The channel wasn't the same channel as the one that played the same thing last time. I turned to the next channel. The next channel played music, but it kept going in and out of static, and during the static you could hear "Beware" repeated over and over and over. The next channel was the same. And the next. And the next. I was so sick of it I threw the radio at the ground. Finally the noise stopped. My eyes turned to the window. Yellow eyes. Yellow cat eyes peering into my window. Could it be? Then I saw the grin. The same grin as in the picture. I got up and the cat jumped off the window so I shut the curtains. I went to bed and tried to go to sleep but the image of the cat kept replaying in my mind.

At some point I must have fallen asleep because I wake up at about 7 am. Things seem to be normal, I haven't seen the cat again. A week goes by fairly normal. I barely even think about the cat and all that happened-until I go to the drug store again to get gum. There are at least 10 fliers posted on the store windows with the same missing cat sign "Missing Cat. Beware". They all have the same picture of the grinning cat. I go inside anyway. I get my gum and walk up to the clerk. "Say, you haven't seen that missing cat, have ya?" The clerk says.

"I wish I hadn't. Why doesn't anyone shut up about this cat?" I say.

"Well, beware, you hear?" The clerk takes my gum.

"Why? What's wrong with it?" I say as I pay.

The clerk puts my gum in a bag and hands it to me. "Have a nice day!"

"But you didn't answer my question" I say. He grins at me which seems familiar in an unsettling way. I decide I don't need the answer anyway.

I walk home. More signs of the missing cat are posted on nearly every telephone pole. When I walk up to my house, there it is.

The skinny black cat.

The yellow eyes.

The grin.

What chills me even more is my radio, still broken, next to the cat.

The radio plays static and a voice forever repeating "Beware."

~

"Sheriff Pennington, we have a call for a disturbance on 164 Welling Way"

"On my way to the site now" I say.

I turn onto Welling Way. I stop in front of house 164.

A mutilated body lays on the front step. I call for an ambulance over the radio, but I can't get through and there is static. But through the static I can just make out a voice that says "Your next."

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Authors Note: This is the first of hopefully many more short horror stories. Please leave suggestions of what you would like them to be about.