HORROR FICTION: My Cats - By Lorne Bennett (Magic Art)

TWISTED READ HORROR

Flash Fiction · Psychological Horror

In the dim glow of flickering street lights, the old property squatted in its own decay — the shabby ranch house and its ADU, a crumbling shack swallowed by overgrown weeds. The landlord, a weary man named Ellis, had always been too soft-hearted for his own good. He'd fed the strays that wandered the grounds, even funded their trap-neuter-release program out of his own pocket. They were community cats: belonging to no one, yet cared for by all. But then there was Grey Wolf.

Grey Wolf was a ghost of a man. His weathered features were etched deep with the lines of a life drowned in bottles, joints, and hallucinogenic hazes — pot, tobacco, alcohol, LSD. He wore his addictions like badges, boasting about them in rambling YouTube live streams to a handful of morbidly curious viewers. He'd rented the ADU for a pittance until the day he vanished north to Oregon, chasing hippie dreams with stoner friends, leaving the cats, the rent, and the mildew behind.

Ellis evicted him. But Grey Wolf slithered back like smoke through cracks, claiming visitation rights to the cats. The cats weren't his — everyone knew that. They were sleek shadows that roamed freely, rubbing against legs for scraps. But Grey Wolf saw ownership in their indifferent gazes. In his videos, he'd corner them, his grimy hands stroking with a heavy, insistent pressure that made fur bristle and tails lash. "They love it," he'd slur into the camera, eyes glassy from whatever high had gripped him. "We used to sleep together, me and my babies, curled up nice and tight." The words hung there, cringeworthy and laced with something darker — something that made viewers shift uncomfortably in their chairs.

A few cats tolerated it, purring under his touch like ignorant souls drawn by pilfered treats to the edge of an abyss. Others fled. But he'd pursue, dropping curses and cooing promises that sounded more like threats. One night, during a live stream rage after Ellis suggested he simply take the cats if they were truly his, Grey Wolf's face twisted into a mask of fury. "Are you going to force me?" he snarled, a knife glinting in the frame as he mimed the motion across his own throat. "Because I'll slit theirs first." The chat exploded. Some laughed it off as junky bluster. Others reported it. But nothing was done. And Ellis — Ellis just kept indulging the man. We're like divorced parents, he'd mutter to himself, granting Grey Wolf access as if the cats were shared-custody children. Whether it was pity or fear, no one could say.

But the cats knew.

At first it was subtle — the way they'd skitter near the ADU at dusk, eyes reflecting Grey Wolf's approaching silhouette. Then the scratches appeared on Ellis's door, faint at first, like pleas. One by one, the cats vanished from their usual haunts, only to reappear in Grey Wolf's videos, listless and hollow-eyed. He claimed they chose him. In the footage, they curled around his filthy sleeping bag in the woods where he now camped. "We sleep deep," he'd whisper, stroking harder, his hands leaving bruises hidden under fur.

Ellis found the first body on his porch. A tabby, throat neatly slit, eyes wide in eternal accusation. No blood. Just a clean cut, as if done with loving precision. The police dismissed it as wildlife. But that night, Ellis heard purring outside his window. Peering out, he saw them — the remaining cats lined up in the moonlight like drugged garden gnomes, still and watching. And there in the shadows, Grey Wolf grinned, his voice a low murmur carried on the wind.

Visitation time.

By morning, Ellis had disappeared. The property stood silent except for the soft tread of paws and the faint smell of mildew drifting from the open ADU door.

Grey Wolf's channel went live one last time. The camera panned slowly over a circle of lifeless furred bodies arranged around him like sleeping companions. He sat cross-legged at the center, one hand resting on a still tabby's head, stroking slower now — almost gently. His voice cracked as he leaned toward the lens.

"We're together now. No more visitation. No more doors between us. Just sleeping deep, like I always wanted." He exhaled something that might have been a sob, or a laugh. "My babies. My whole damn world."

The stream cut to black.

Story by Magic · Edited and polished by Lorne Bennett with AI assistance (Grok X)

Originally presented as spoken word video content

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