Familiar Spirit

She tried to sit up, but the cat was much too big. It had not been nearly so large when it was outside, she thought confusedly. She hadn’t realized what an enormous animal it was. And heavy. She could hardly breathe with the weight of it.

She tried to move her arms, to knock the cat aside, but her arms seemed paralyzed, as did her legs. She tried to arch her back and dislodge the cat that way, but she simply was not strong enough. She could only move up and down slightly, ineffectually, until she was drenched with sweat and heaving with effort, and the cat purred on, undisturbed. It seemed to grow heavier by the minute, or perhaps her exertions made it harder for her to breathe. The pressure in her chest was becoming painful.

The cat looked down at her complacently. A demonic intelligence stared out of those disturbingly brilliant eyes. The eyes—of course, the eyes! She remembered now that it was the eyes she had to beware of—the pressure on her chest was unimportant, perhaps even an illusion. But it might kill her with its eyes if she wasn’t careful.

Making a tremendous effort, Sarah turned her head to one side.

Instantly, there was only darkness.

The weight had vanished from her chest, and the sound of purring lingered only in echo. She felt weak and sore when she breathed in, but she could move again.

Slowly, Sarah sat up. She heard a noise on the roof and knew the cat was out there, still prowling.

She sighed, enjoying the relief of breathing freely. Only a dream. She put her hand out for the lamp on the end table. But instead of cool metal, her groping fingers met warm fur.

Sarah cried out, snatching her hand back, and jumped to her feet. Her heart pounded furiously and she could not think, but she forced herself to move through the blackness to the front door, where her fingers found the light switch. When the ceiling light came on she saw, sitting on the couch in the precise spot where she had just been, the calico cat with huge yellow eyes. It stared at her, unblinking.

Sarah stared back. This was no dream. She was awake this time, and the cat was in the house.

Well, she would make it go out again. She looked around for something useful, wishing for heavy gloves, a net, a weapon. But all she saw was the television set, pillows, her shoes, books. She took up a heavy volume—The Poetry of the Victorian Period—and hefted it warningly, watching the cat for some sign that it might attack.

The cat began to clean itself, one leg cocked and tongue lapping neatly at its nether parts, for all the world like any ordinary cat.

But it was now, while the cat appeared to be so ordinary and self-absorbed, that Sarah felt it stalking her. She felt as if it were patting gently around the edges of her mind, seeking her weaknesses, pawing through her thoughts. The sense of invasion was so powerful that for a moment Sarah thought she would be ill.

Sarah shook with the effort of controlling herself, but managed to hold her ground. She thought hatred and refusal, hurling her thoughts like weapons at the cat-thing. She was determined, this time, to do more than merely hold out against the invader. She would not merely survive; she would triumph. She wanted to defeat this thing that threatened her, to destroy it, to send it back to whatever hell had let it loose.

It left her mind so suddenly that Sarah gasped, feeling as if a cold wind had swept through her. Then she became aware of a new danger. There was someone else in the house.

She caught just a glimpse of him, a man standing in the next room. Almost before she had time to be afraid, Sarah had recognized him. Brian stepped towards her, out of darkness into the light. He was smiling diffidently and gazing at her with a look she recognized, intense, direct, and loving.

“Brian,” she said, amazed. She felt happiness like a slow, steady warmth, filling her. Everything was going to be all right.

But Brian was no longer there.

Startled, Sarah jerked her head around, facing the couch again. The cat, too, had vanished. Was she dreaming?

The light went out. But there was something wrong with the darkness, Sarah realized. It was absolute. The window glass might have turned to rock, letting no light pass through—there should have been at least a yellow glow from the streetlamp on the corner, not this muffling, all-­embracing dark. Then, in front of her, Sarah saw two small yellow lights flash and begin to glow. They might have been eyes, she thought: two glowing cat eyes without the face.

At that thought, she turned her eyes aside, afraid to look directly into the light. She backed away, but not far, crippled by the terrible fear that the darkness would swallow her like a gigantic mouth. She wrapped her arms around herself and held on tight, hoping she would be safe if she kept still.