He woke up on a sunny morning—a Monday to be specific. He opened his eyes ruefully and made his way downstairs. Toast and tea would be his breakfast, and maybe a quick read of the news too. He removed two slices of fluffy white bread, not remembering when he bought the loaf. The two pieces slid into the toaster easily enough, and John pushed the catch down to heat them up to deliciousness. He picked up the morning newspaper outside his door, freshly delivered today. He read the front articles, seeing how the world was fairing. It wasn't fairing too good by the look of things.
When is this dreadful war going to end? he thought.
As he was flicking the pages, he noticed his neighbor outside, watering the plants: Miss Eversteen. He waved politely at her, and she waved back with a golden smile. As he was looking to her house, he noticed something odd; something that was nothing particular in strangeness, but somehow it rubbed John the wrong way. A black cat was staring at him in the window. He squinted at the lovely creature and turned away. He looked again and noticed that it wasn't blinking. He waited and waited for it to move but it didn't. With a loud spring, the bread popped up from the toaster, making John almost jump from his skin. He chuckled to himself and went back to his kitchen. He tucked into the jam and buttered toast with a side of milky tea. A scrumptious dish fitting for the king of England.
I should get ready for work.
Clocking out at 5:00 P.M. was a wondrous life. Getting home to read a book in bed was even better. Opening the front door, John hung his coat on the rack, got into his pajamas, and settled down into bed. It was only early but working as a tread maker was tiring work, and it took John a while to fall asleep nowadays. On occasion, he would have the most awful nightmares. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a great night sleep.
He lay there, reading attentively, the air from outside slowly seeping in through the open window nicely; a cool breeze on a fresh night.
A few hours of reading later, he noticed he was still not weary, and he was not going to be getting much sleep at all. He stepped outside for a walk. His joints were stiff, so he needed to work them out a bit. But as he passed Miss Eversteen's house, he noticed something again. He looked back at the house, and moved his eyes up. The same cat was still sitting in the same exact position. John blinked a few times, trying to make out if he was or wasn’t seeing things. It was hard to make out, but it was the cat for definite, still sitting there, the same black thing.
Impossible, he thought. Come to think of it, was it there the day previous? Nocturnal in nature, why was the pesky creature up so early? And not blinking either . . .
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe the animal sat there quite a lot. But it was unusual. The longer he looked, the longer the cat didn't move. And it went on and on for some time. He couldn't see the cat move a muscle. It was absolutely still. He squinted, unable to see a glow in the cat’s eyes, or even the eyelids to see any sign of a blink.
The worry infested John like the plague. He needed to know why the creature was being so inanimate.
He went to see his neighbor later on in the evening. He knocked on Eversteen's door, waiting for an answer. Nobody did. He called her name. No answer. Worried for her health, he entered the domicile.
“Julia?” he called out at a low volume. The lights were on, the radio too.
John’s head filled with dreary implications as to Miss Eversteen's whereabouts, leading him to be even more determined to search the house.
“Hello?” he shouted this time.
Again, no answer.
He moved to the stairs and made his ascent. He checked every room to his right. The bathroom was empty, her bedroom was there, with the light turned off, but no one inside the bed. He then checked the one room to the left, expecting the cat to run from the room quickly, but it did not. He opened the door and saw the silhouette of its body. He moved closer, heart beginning to elevate queerly.
He moved one foot in front of the other carefully as to not disturb the animal. When he reached the window, he touched the cat’s soft fur, but instead felt thin stiffness. It felt disturbing to the fingertips, and he immediately pulled his hand away. John moved his hand back again reluctantly and felt again. He grasped the object, and picked it up with ease. He looked down to his hand.
Cardboard, he realized. It was a cardboard cutout, like you’d see in a supermarket.
It was perplexing and stupefying at the same time to see a cat painted onto a piece of cardboard. Decoration, perhaps?
He dropped it to the ground. It lightly swayed to the floor and lay flat down. John turned and left the house. He didn't know whether to be worried or amused. Eversteen would always mention how fussy her cat was. He couldn't recall the name, but he could indeed remember her mentioning that fact. This worried John to the point of paranoia. His neighbor was somebody strange. A spy maybe, or a crazed individual.
He hopped into his four-wheeler automobile and drove out of sight. He couldn't bring himself to turn and look back. Something about what he saw shook him to his bones, and he couldn't tell why. He didn't remember ever questioning this before, but how did he not notice?
Red and blue lights flashed in his rear-view mirror. He cursed under his breath and pulled over. A policeman stepped out from his own automobile and went on over to John’s side of the vehicle.
“Hello John,” Police Constable Partison said. “Out for a late-night stroll are we?”
“Oh I am sorry Harry, I had a bit of a fright is all.”
“Going at a speed like that will get somebody killed. What’s the hurry?”
“No hurry. I do apologize, I should be getting back.” A droplet of sweat rolled down John’s head as he made his excuses.
“Are you all right? You seem distressed.”
“No bother here, old chap. I’m right as rain.”
“Right . . .” Harry said, removing his hat and inspecting it. “If you’ll give me a moment John, I’ll just radio the chief inspector and see about all this.”
“Absolutely,” John said.
After an awful long time, John was still in his vehicle. He was shaking. He wanted the interaction to be over and to be away from the officer.
He stepped from the vehicle and said, “Harry, I—”
Harry stepped from his police car and raised a flat palm. “John, if you could please remain seated, I shall be with you shortly.”
“Yes, no bother. I’d just like to apologize again and be on my way.”
“Get back in your vehicle now!” he shouted loudly.
John stepped back, stunned, and looked to the gun that the officer was very quick to take out. The pistol was shaped oddly, with a long thin barrel.
The policeman took a few steps forward and tripped on the uneven gravel. He fell to one knee and stumbled to get back up. John took the opportunity with lighting fast speed by grasping the pistol and wrestling it from the policeman’s hand.
He felt the weight of the gun. He didn't want it to be true, but he had to know. He shot the ground near Harry. Smoke bellowed from the barrel in a quick flash.
Blanks.
He tossed the pistol to the floor and ran back to his car. The policeman was still struggling to stand on his feet, so John left him behind, throwing caution to the wind. He pushed his foot all the way down and went whizzing forward. No houses were now in sight, no stores or powerlines either. He kept going and going for what felt like hours. Until, a loud pop was heard, and the wheel spun uncontrollably. He tried to steady himself, but to no use. Eventually, he stopped spinning. He abandoned his car, stepping out on the gravel road, with rolling green hills and a few trees scattered around. John looked back at the tires. They were wrecked, with large rips and tears in the tracks. Nothing on the road could have caused that. He took off running in a random direction. He ran farther. Then, he kept on running and running . . . until . . .
He hit a wall.
He hit a solid wall. It was painted with chilling realism. John's heart caught in his throat. Rage, confusion, and fright all formed into one. He kicked, and kicked again, and kicked again, again, again, again until the wall in front had a hole in it; the size of small child’s head. He squeezed in forcefully, with terrible pains, widening the hole to the size of his body. A corridor stretched to his left and right with hundreds of doors reaching as far as the eye could see. He started to panic so intensely that it felt as if his head were to implode. In a split second, three men with white lab coats were surrounding him, coming from different doors. They tried to grab him and restrain him, but John punched and kicked and bit. Anything he could do to know the truth. It didn’t feel like this was the first time.
He fought the three of them back, but another mysterious lab-coat-wearing man joined the fray, and then another one, and then another one, until it was too much, and he was being dragged away by too many to count. He screamed and balled for them to give him some context, but they just kept on marching and pulling farther in—farther away. The next thing he knew, he was pushed into one of the rooms and strapped to a chair with leather restraints. John howled until his throat ached and struggled so much that his hands and feet began to fizz with pins and needles. One of the men entered the room, alone, and approached John with a tape recorder.
“Test subject twenty-six, test twelve, report: failure, incident twelve. Initiating test thirteen,” he said in a funny accent, brandishing a syringe with strange liquid contained in it. No matter how much John struggled, the syringe went in anyway. The man moved away from him, as another goon entered the room.
“Sir? Report?” he asked.
“S, S, F, F, F, F,” he said in an out of breath tone. “For the love of all, fix the damned machine, start from scrap if you must.”
John's vision slowly blurred as their words became inaudible.
He woke up on a sunny morning, a Tuesday to be specific.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a great night’s sleep. But now, he was fully rested.
Miss Eversteen was watering her plants. He waved and she waved back with a golden smile.
As he was looking to her house, he noticed something odd; something that was nothing particular in strangeness, but somehow it rubbed John the wrong way. A black cat was staring at him in the window. He squinted at the lovely creature. It blinked at him pleasantly and retreated back into the house.