Pet Cat

The Pet Cat is a scary story about a girl who moves to a new village and finds out she has a crazy old woman as a neighbor.

A few months ago, my parents moved to a small village and I had to attend a new school. The house next door to ours was owned by a crazy old woman. She spent her days sitting all alone on a bench in front of the house and muttering to herself under her breath.

One day, when I was walking by, I noticed that she seemed to be petting something that was sitting in her lap. At first, I thought it was a cat, but when I took a closer look, I realized there was nothing there. She was just holding her hand above her knees and stroking thin air.

Perhaps she had a pet cat or a dog once, I thought, and it died and in her disordered mind, she thinks it’s still there. I felt sorry for the old woman and with a sigh, I continued on my way.

Then, one night, when I was sleeping soundly in my bed, something strange happened. I woke up to feel something hairy lying by my side. It gave me a fright and I jumped off the bed. Just then, I noticed a shadow moving out of the corner of my eye. It went across the floor and out the door.

I was startled, but when I calmed down, I realized it was probably just some stray cat or dog that had wandered into the house.

That was when I happened to glance out my bedroom wndow and saw the crazy old woman next door. She was standing on the sidewalk, under the street light. Her long, grey hair was hanging loose and fluttering in the wind. Her eyes were wide and she was looking directly at me.

I was so scared that I jumped back from the window. Then, the woman turned and went back inside her house.

It took me a long time to calm down, but eventually, I went back to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep, I remembered something that struck me as odd. When I saw the shadow of the stray cat or dog running out of my room… it didn’t really seem as if it was running… it seemed more like it was rolling across the floor to the door.

The next morning, when I woke up, I got dressed and went downstairs to eat breakfast. On my way to school that morning, I passed by the old woman’s house again. As usual, she was sitting there on the bench, muttering to herself and stroking something invisible in her lap.

When I passed by, I distinctly heard her say, “What were you doing? Why did you run away from me last night? Look how you scared that girl!”

I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and it made me shiver. It was all I could do not to start running.

At school, I decided to ask my friends about the old woman. No one really knew anything, except that she had been released from a mental hospital about ten years ago. They said she had a history of mental problems and that was why everyone kept away from her. Since her release, all she did was sit all day on the bench outside her home.

A few days later, mhy father struck up a conversation with an old man who had lived in the village all his life. When my father asked him about the old woman, he had a very chilling story to tell.

He said that the old woman had spent over 30 years of her life in a mental institution. When she was young, she had been married and she and her husband had lived together in the same house.

According to him, she suspected for years that her husband was cheating on her, but he always denied it. Then, one night, she caught him with another woman. She hacked him to death with an axe and cut off his head.

When the police came, she was sitting on the bench in front of her house with an insane grin on her face. The severed head of her husband was in her lap and she was talking to it and stroking it gently.