Now My Cat is Talking

A short horror story about cats and malevolent Egyptian sprits.

A week after I got back from my trip to Egypt, my cat, Richard, started talking to me.

“Hello, Ivan,” he said, after I walked into the apartment after work.

“Hi Richard,” I said. Then I realized what had just happened, though, and I dropped my laptop on the floor. “Did you just talk?”

“I did.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’m not sure.”

Richard and I sat on the couch and tried to figure out what had happened. I’d recently returned from a work trip to Cairo. While walking through Khan el-Khalili bazaar, a wooden statue caught my attention. The statue was a foot tall and depicted a mummified man standing with his arms crossed over his chest. The wood felt unexpectedly heavy in my hands, almost warm despite the cool air. The detail in the man's face was incredible. I could even see the small wrinkles around his eyes. He almost looked real.

I asked the vendor how much the statue cost. I worried he’d say hundreds, but when told me he only wanted twenty U.S. dollars, I bought the statue and took it home as a souvenir. I put it on my TV stand, next to my TV.

“I’ve felt strange ever since you brought the statue home,” Richard said.

“Do you think it has something to do with why you can talk now?”

“I’ve always had thoughts but when you brought this statue home, I started thinking in English. I’ve never thought in English before. I never wanted to speak, either, but now I do.”

“The person who sold me the statue said it was an Ushebti statue. He said they’re usually found in tombs, but this statue had been carved by a local. It was art, not a piece of history.”

I picked up the statue and looked at it more closely. The wood felt oily. I noticed tiny cracks running the wood, too, like veins, and layers of light and dark red coloring that shifted in the light. Maybe the statue was much older than I’d thought it was.

It took a while for me to get used to Richard being able to talk, but once I got over the shock of it, I enjoyed our conversations. I didn’t have any friends. Usually, after work, I’d just go home and play videos games or watch TV. I still did that, but now I had someone else to talk to. Richard would ask me all kinds of questions about the world, and I’d do my best to answer him.

“Why do dogs hate us so much?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never really thought about it. I guess they just do.”

“And if I eat this pizza, I’ll get sick?”

“Your stomach wasn’t made for it. Cats need to eat raw meat.”

At first, Richard seemed happy to spend time with me, too. As the weeks went on, though, he became irritated by my behavior, and he started criticizing me.

“Why don’t we go out for a walk?” he asked.

“I’m tired. I don’t feel like walking.

“Every day you come home, and you sit on the couch. You never do anything. You’re so lazy.” Another time, I ordered pizza two nights in a row, and Richard gave me a look of pure disgust.

“How can you eat like this?” he asked.

“I don’t feel like cooking.”

“Then order a salad. Order anything healthy for once.”

I began to resent Richard. I went out of my way to avoid him. Instead of coming home after work, I took his advice and started going to the gym. I lost nearly twenty pounds.

Richard started going out more, too. Each morning, before I left for work, he’d ask me to open the window. He’d spend the day exploring Chicago, not coming home until much later that night. Sometimes not until the next day.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Learning about the world,” he said.

The way he was acting made me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know exactly what it was. If it was how he talked, or how he reacted to me. He didn’t just seem resentful anymore. He seemed hateful. He seemed like he wanted to hurt me and hurt other people in the world, too. It was like he felt better than all of us, and the rest of us needed to be brought up to his standards.

In my free time, I started to research Ushebti statues. I learned that the Ushebti were magical servant statues buried with the dead. They awaken in the afterlife and perform work on behalf of the deceased, stepping in like their clone.

I tried talking to Richard about what the statue might be doing to him, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He just mocked me.

“You think this statue has somehow possessed me?” he asked.

“Cats don’t just start talking. Something is going on.”

“Did you ever think maybe I’m just smarter than other cats?”

“You’re talking, Richard. You’re reading Plato and Aristotle and Livy’s History of Rome. That’s not normal.”

I decided to try an experiment. One night, while Richard was gone, I took the statue down to my car. When Richard came home later that night, he was furious. He immediately woke me up, jumping on my bed and hissing my face.

“Where is it?” he yelled.

“I threw it out.”

“Then go get it.”

“Or what?”

“I’ll make you regret it.”

He’d never threatened me before. I’d believe his threat, too. He’d do whatever he could to hurt me.

I got the statue from my car and put it back beside my TV again. From then on, though, I kept my distance from Richard. Truthfully, I was scared of him. I had no idea what he was capable of.

“The people in this city are so boring,” he told me. “Every day, I’ve been watching them do the same things, again and again. No ambition, no dreams, nothing. Just millions of people, wasting away, wasting their lives.”

I’d finally had enough of him. “And what are you doing with your life?” I asked. “If ambition is so important to you, maybe you should go live somewhere else.”

“Are you kicking me out?”

“I think we’d both be happier if you didn’t live together anymore.”

Richard agreed.

I offered to help him move. Wherever he wanted to go, I’d find a way to get him there. He thanked me, but then he asked for some time to think about what he wanted to do next.

It was that same night, the nightmares started.

I dreamt I was lying in my bed when two, rotten arms reached up through my bedsheets and dragged me downward, through the bed and into an ocean of black water.

I flailed my limbs, struggling to breath, as I sank deeper and deeper.

I sensed other things around me, watching me. Not people. Something else. Sprits. Demons.

Their yellows eyes lit up the darkness.

I woke in my bed, covered in cold sweat, my heart beating painfully fast. Richard sat at the edge of my bed, watching me with the same yellow eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I heard you scream. I came to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine.”

I wasn’t fine, though. I was even more frightened than before. I was desperate for help, too. What if whatever had taken a control of Richard’s mind really wanted control of me?

During my research into the Ushebti statue, I came across the profile of a professor of at the University of Chicago, Dr. Chen, an expert in Egyptology. I reached out to her by email, explaining what happened and attaching a video of Richard talking to me.

Dr. Chen agreed to meet me for coffee on the university campus. She arrived at the café with her hair tied in a ponytail, her eyes very visibly strained, and her hands smeared with blue ink.

“You swear that video is real?” she asked. “It isn’t AI or photoshop or something like that?”

“It’s 100% real. My cat can talk. He’s been talking to me ever since I brought that statue home. His behavior has changed, too. At first, he was kind friendly. Now, though, he acts like he wants me dead.”

“If what you say is true, I believe the Ushebti statue you brought home from Egypt had a spirit trapped inside of it.”

“A spirit?”

She nods. “Wealthy people were buried with hundreds of these statues. The dead person’s spirit was supposed to bring these statues to life to perform work on their behalf. Maybe that’s what happened. Whoever was buried with that statue, their soul has awakened it to accomplish something here.”

“What would this spirit want?”

“Power and wealth, possibly. Religious favor. Legacy and memory.” She sipped her coffee and thought for a moment. “If the statue has caused this problem, though, maybe destroying this statue would fix it.”

“How do I destroy it?”

“That’s not really my area of expertise, but if I were you, I would burn it. Don’t put out the fire until every bit of the statue has turned to ash.”

“And you’re sure that would help?”

“No, but I don’t know what else you can do.”

On my way home from the university, I stopped at store and bought an axe, a lighter, and some lighter fluid. I hid everything in the trunk of car, so Richard wouldn’t see it.

At home, Richard sat in the windowsill in the living room, flicking his tail. He seemed to know something was wrong.

“Why didn’t you go to work today?” he asked.

“I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Then why didn’t you stay home?”

“I had a few errands to run. It was just a fever.”

I tried walking to my room, but Richard jumped in front of me.

“You smell different. Someone’s perfume. Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody. Just a few cashiers. Maybe it’s one of their perfumes you’re smelling.”

“Maybe.”

I walked around him, sat on my bed, and turned on my bedroom TV. Every now then, I’d look at the door. I could see Richard paws moving as he paced back and forth.

“Are you staying home tonight, too?” I asked him

“It’s a little cold tonight.”

“Have you thought anymore about where you’d like to live next?”

“I have a few ideas. I’ll let you know soon.”

Later, I opened my door a crack. I didn’t seem him. I hoped he was sleeping.

I tiptoed towards the TV and then picked up the Ushebti statue.

Richard lunged at me, hissing. “Don’t you dare touch it!”

His claws dug into my face, ripping the skin. I grabbed onto him and threw him back onto the couch. Then I picked up the statue and ran out of my apartment, slamming the door shut behind me.

“You’ll regret this!” he screamed.

I ran downstairs and got into my car. I could feel the blood dripping down my cheeks. Thank God he hadn’t clawed my eyes.

Where can I burn this statue? I wondered. There’s on going back now.

I drove around aimlessly for an hour, but then I headed toward Chicago’s south side and parked in an alleyway next to an empty, graffiti-covered warehouse.

I looked around and didn’t see anyone else.

I got out of the car and opened the trunk.

In the distance, someone screamed, and I spun around. I was still alone, though. Nothing but buildings and shadows. The smoke from the smokestacks twisting through the sky.

I took out the axe and the lighter fluid. I swung the axe down on the statue, cutting it in half.

Lightning flashed across the sky. In the distance, police sirens wailed.

I covered the two broken pieces of the statue with lighter fluid and set them on fire.

As soon as the flames lit up, the silence was ripped apart by a terrible scream. Rain began pouring from the sky.

My hands shook as I covered the flames with my jacket, protecting the flames until they’d grown large enough that the rain could no longer stop the statue from burning.

I watched as the wood turned to ash and then as the wind blew the ashes away. That awful statue was gone forever.

Please be over, I hoped. Please let Richard be okay.

The rain began falling harder. I got back in my car and drove back home with my windshield wipers squeaking loudly against the glass.

Inside my apartment, all the lights were off.

I turned the lights on. In front of the TV, blood was splattered on the carpet from where Richard had cut me.

Finally, I saw him. He jumped off the couch and meowed.

“Richard?” I asked. “Are you ok?”

He meows again.

I got on my knees. He walked towards me, and I pet his head.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He sat, purring. I looked at his eyes. His eyes looked less yellow, too.

“I love you, Richard,” I said.

He walked to his water bowl and licked his water.

It was finally over.

I sat on the couch and turned on the TV. Richard jumped on my lap, and I started petting him again while he purred. But then, suddenly, icy fingers grabbed onto my shoulders. Before I could turn to see who it was, I was violently dragged backwards over the couch, my shins slamming into the coffee table. I clawed at the carpet as I was pulled across the floor and into the bedroom.

“Help!” I screamed.

The bedroom door slammed shut behind me. In the darkness, whatever had grabbed me, threw me onto the bed. Two yellows eyes appeared in front of my face.

“You pathetic little man,” it hissed.

I pressed its cold hands into my chest. My heart froze. The bed turned to water, and then I began to fall through that same, cold black water again.

“Let go of me!” I yelled, and I tried to fight my way back to the surface before I drowned.

Then I heard Richard scratching at the door, trying to get in. The sound cut through the nightmare. Suddenly I could feel my bed beneath me again. I was gasping, soaked in sweat, but breathing air instead of that horrible water.

I went to the door and opened it. Richard looked up at me and meowed.

The apartment lights began flicker. I picked up Richard and carried him downstairs to my car. I drove around in circles the rest of the night, afraid to go back home.

“Have you been back to the apartment?” Dr. Chen asked me.

“Richard and I stayed at a hotel for the next week,” I said, “but then I started to run out of money, so we went home. Our first night there after what happened was a little frightening, but the apartment seems normal now.”

“You haven’t noticed anything strange?”

“Every now and then when I’m sleeping, I’ll wake up to a loud noise, but I think it’s just my imagination. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I imagined this whole thing.”

“But you have the videos.”

“Those have changed, too. Look at this.” I take out my phone and play one of the videos for her. Richard looks at the camera and meows. “You heard him talking before, right?”

“I did.”

“Well, whatever proof I had is gone.”

“And Richard hasn’t talked since you destroyed the statue?”

“He hasn’t said a word.”

“Then destroying the statue must have worked.”

After saying goodbye to Dr. Chen, I drove home and ordered a pizza for dinner. Richard and I sat together on the couch, watching TV. He looked up at me, and I pet his head.

I’m happy things are back to normal now. But at night, while Richard sits at the edge of my bed, I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking about, and how much of who he was before is still him. Sometimes, I wish I could get rid of him, but he’s my cat. He’s been my cat for seven years.

I can’t just abandon him.

I couldn’t live with myself.