Where had it come from? I paused, trying to hear over my heart pounding in my throat. My entire body pulsed.
Hucka, hucka, wheeeeeze, hork.
Oh, shit.
The sound had come from my left. I ran like I’d never run before, heedless of my safety in the dangerous maze of the dining room, dodging chairs left and right with desperation born of experience. My little toe made contact with a chair leg and bugled pain up the nerves of my foot and ankle.
On soft, padded paws, the culprit walked by me, holding her tail disdainfully in the air. She didn’t so much as acknowledge my presence. Instead, she came to a stop by her food dish and preened, tongue rasping through her fur, still ignoring me.
“Real nice, Sasquatch.”
I scurried around the room, seeking the offensive pile of hair, vomit, and bile. It had to be here somewhere. The sound she’d produced was not one that left a dry, clean floor in its wake. Any second now, I’d feel the warm, wet, chunky squish of cat vomit between my toes, soaking my sock faster than a sponge in a rain puddle. I steeled my stomach for the inevitable task of soaking up hot bodily fluids with a paltry paper towel. This time I wouldn’t gag.
But as I searched, confusion rattled me, and I grew dizzy with panic and puzzlement. No vomit under the chairs or the table, on the cat tree, or on top of the table. The plants appeared safe. Nothing stood out on the stairs. Grimacing, I bent down and felt along the carpeting that lined the steps, waiting for the thick fluidity of the bile to web its way between my fingers.
Still nothing.
Did she swallow it back down?
A whiff of cat-vomit smell, that raw mix of fish and intestines, drifted by, but disappeared before I could follow it to the guilty pile.
I turned and shot a glare at the stupid, majestic beast. Her charcoal-colored fur shone smooth and velvety in the light streaming through the dining room windows. She glanced at me once then proceeded to eat daintily from her dish. The gentle crunch of her teeth sinking through the pellets sent the odor of meat and whatever else cat food contained drifting around the room, gradually replacing the foul stench of her horks and hairball-fueled vomiting.
After looking around one last time, I returned to my chair and restarted my TV show where I’d left off. My heart returned to a normal pace, and my breath calmed.
False alarm.
Damn cat.
From the next room came the delicate lapping of water then her clicking claws on the wood, and she leapt up onto the back of my chair, causing it to shift slightly under her weight. Her purrs vibrated through the thick cloth, and she butted my head with hers, urging me to pet her. I massaged her head and scratched her neck until she’d had enough, at which point she nipped my hand and jumped off the chair, disappearing to nap elsewhere in private. Fed, watered, and petted, she wouldn’t show herself again for hours.
Or so I thought.
About twenty minutes later, I heard her approaching. She sounded weird, almost like she was rolling across the floor. And the liquid sploot sounding intermittently told me she’d somehow gotten wet. Sometimes she drank from the toilet, but she’d never fallen in. Then again, as graceful as cats were supposed to be, I’d seen this little diva slip and trip in a variety of ways, always standing up immediately and acting like she’d meant to do it.
More concerned about the mess she must be making than her state of wetness, I stood up, but only halfheartedly. My eyes remained on the television screen, where experts discussed a famous serial killer and his methods. Horrified, yet fascinated, I couldn’t take my eyes off the crime scene photos that flashed between snippets of talk. The things a person could do with a can opener and a hairbrush were absolutely terrifying and disturbing.
I stepped in something wet and went ass over teakettle, right foot flying into the air, left foot sliding backward. I landed in a split and pain tore up my legs, radiating out along my thighs. Adding insult to injury, the goo on the floor was soaking through my jeans.
I groaned, gripping my groin and rolling to the side to put both legs in front of me. Studying the moisture, I discovered it was a slime trail, grotesque in its viscosity. It looked like something Slimer would have left behind, only yellow and brown instead of green. Mixed into the slime were chunks of what appeared to be cat food, along with elongated rolls of charcoal-gray fur.
No healthy cat could possibly produce this much stomach purge and still be okay. Maybe she’d eaten something bad. I looked around for her, but she wasn’t in the room. My fall must have scared her off, though I’d been too busy shrieking profanity to hear her scamper away.
Wincing, I stood up. The cold air hit my sopping wet crotch, and I shuddered at the unpleasant sensation that dripped down my legs. I limped around the room, peeking under the end tables, but Sasquatch was nowhere to be found. Tracking along the same path I’d followed earlier when seeking the furball, I checked every nook and cranny, careful to avoid the slime trail.
When I got to the cat tree, a muffled merowp sounded from within. A peek inside revealed one curious, half-lidded amber eye. She unfurled herself, came partway out of the hidey-hole, and stretched as far as she could, ears pulling back with the intensity of the movement. Then she yawned, turned around, and retreated into the hole, her back to me.
Reaching in, I touched the fur on her back then petted along her spine down to the tip of her tail. A quick scritch of her head and shoulders left her purring, but gave no evidence of slime or vomit. I rubbed her chest and scratched just beneath her chin. The purring stopped when I pushed forward and ran a hand over her belly. The energy she saved from not purring instantly transferred to her tail, which whipped around in irritation. It was amazing how much ire a cat could express with one part of the body, a tail dancing around like an irate cobra.
I straightened. Huh. She seemed fine, and her fur was dry. Not even a trace of dampness on her chin. The cat tree was also dry.
As I stood there, something else dawned on me. The slime trail hadn’t even gone to the tree. How had I not noticed that before? Instead, it diverted around the kitchen table and into the bathroom.
I hadn’t checked there for the hairball.
Tiptoeing around the sludge path, I approached the bathroom door. It stood slightly ajar. A ray of light fell through the crack, casting a narrow beam of illumination across the sink and cabinet and leaving the rest of the bathroom in shadow. The slime trail disappeared under the door. It wouldn’t be the first time Sasquatch shut a door. But for this scenario to happen, she’d have had to vomit on the way in, nudge the door mostly closed, then manage to squeeze out through the crack. Even the most agile of felines—and agile, she wasn’t—would have trouble pulling that off. Also her paws should have gotten wet. And in fact, there were no wet pawprints at all, in either direction.
Something had made this trail, and I didn’t think it was Sasquatch.
Standing as far back as possible while still within reach of the door, I used two fingers to push at it. The cheap wood caught on a bundle of cat fur dreadlock, so I gave it another shove and the door swung open. This allowed more light in, but I still saw nothing other than the sludge. Once more I reached out, this time to turn on the light. My hand moved out of my sight, groping in the air for the switch. I leaned in farther, shoulder now inside the doorway, arm extended as far as it would go.
Goosebumps crawled up my arm.
As I flipped the switch, something soft and dry touched my skin.
I jerked my arm back, expecting… well, I don’t know what I expected.
That was when I looked down and got my first glimpse of the horrid cat sploot on the bathroom floor—if indeed the throw-up had originated from inside a cat. It was the foulest thing I’d ever seen. Oozing across the tiles were half-digested cat food pellets in a thick, slimy bile that looked like squashed jellyfish, only yellow, and a thin bit of red string. Plus what appeared to be blood. Fear for Sasquatch resurged, but the stupid cat had been fine and in her hidey-hole just a moment earlier.
On a whim, I stepped into the bathroom, careful to avoid the gut-splosion, and followed the stream of semi-fluids that disappeared behind the toilet. Furred strands of something lay beside the mostly white porcelain of the toilet pedestal. I squinted to make out what exactly lurked behind the toilet tank, in that shadowy crevice rarely touched by hands or sponges.
I leaned closer.
A gray-furred tendril shot out and wrapped itself around my leg.
Another one came for my face, dripping even as it flew through the air.
I threw myself backward and my head and shoulder slammed into the wall. The appendage just missed my face with a wet splat and rebounded. Bits of caustic stomach juice splashed onto my cheek. At the same time, something wet and heavy landed on the floor, sending out a wave of putrid cat-gut-rot stench in its wake. A large mass emerged from behind the toilet. Multiple furred filaments spidered out from its center. It was using its hold on my leg to pull itself toward me.
I turned to run, yanking at the trapped leg. There was a small amount of give, but not enough. I grabbed the door frame and tried to haul myself out. Disgust filled me as the moisture from the clinging appendage seeped through my jeans to my skin, a sick warmth added to the already cold dampness.
Another tendril snared my thigh. Now both legs were caught. I pulled with all my might, but couldn’t breach the doorway. The protrusions continued to seek out my body and limbs, twining around my torso, legs, and arms. The granddaddy of all fur-tendrils reached my throat, and the strong smell of damp cat food and stagnant intestinal juices hit me. The cold, wet strand felt like a thick band of steel wool. I couldn’t move my arms to pull at it or try to loosen it.
To my horror, the coils maneuvered my body, turning me against my will, stocking feet easily sliding around on the linoleum. My gaze fell on the mirror, my reflection revealing what looked like a steel wool-encased mummy. Only my face was free.
A loop shot around my forehead. Viscous fluids leaked down into my eyes, causing them to burn. I blinked frantically to clear my vision, but the world only blurred more. The tendril pulled my head forward so that I was forced to look down to the floor and the amorphous blob that awaited me—a matted mess of fur and smooshed-together chunks of cat food, plus what might have been a bit of intestine.
The creature squelched with every movement, a thick, wet sound that made me want to vomit. Only fear of my own puke becoming animated like this glorified hairball kept my gorge at bay.
As I tried to focus on the vomit monster, from the corner of my eye I made out another approaching tendril. This one came for me with slow, dreadful purpose.
It inched forward.
It touched my mouth.
The combination of vomit odor and the sensation of slime against my lips caused my gorge to rise again. I clamped down my jaw and squeezed my lips together with all my might.
Unfazed, the creature used the tip of the tendril to pry at my lips. I gagged and murbled out a close-mouthed yell that turned into a scream that vibrated up through my sinuses. It continued to wriggle against my lips, a sensation that defied explanation, like being tickled with a gelatin-coated hair sponge, but grosser. It smelled like cat breath magnified a thousand times. My nasal passages burned.
I fought to keep my mouth closed, but the creature pried its way in. Like a soggy, slimy invading army, its tendril staunchly marched across my tongue and down my throat, suffocating me even as the flavor of rotten cat food and the intense acidic taste of stomach acid coated my taste buds. Tears flooded from my eyes, clearing some of the glutinous muck from my vision.
Fully down my throat now, the appendage expanded inside my intestines. I felt like my guts would explode. By some miracle, I freed a hand from the matted cat fur and grabbed the clammy, mucus-coated tendril, pulling as hard as I could. But my hand kept slipping, lubricated by the abominable goo, and the tendril continued burrowing deeper into my body.
I strained against my binds, struggling to breathe past the thing blocking my airway. It abraded my mouth, lips, and chin. My panic ramped up, causing my heart to pound all the harder. I had no idea how this thing had come to be, but knowing its origin wouldn’t matter if it killed me.
My other hand broke free, and I grasped the tendril with both fists now, squeezing as hard as I could to keep my grip. Smaller filaments wrapped around my wrists and yanked, but I resisted their efforts, determined to save my life and pull this putrid thing out of my body.
A merowp sounded from somewhere below.
Sasquatch rubbed against my leg, headbutting it. I tried to make a sound of warning, but couldn’t. I felt several more rubs, then Sasquatch let out a questioning burr. Yes, you dumb cat, your hairball is killing me.
Then came the unmistakable sound of her eating.
Had a tendril not already been feeling around in my digestive system, I surely would have barfed.
Blocking out, to the best of my ability, the sounds of Sasquatch’s gobbling—wanting but not wanting to know if she was, oh god, consuming the monster hairball—I made progress, slowly pulling the abomination out of my mouth. I could feel it scratching its way up inside my chest now, free of my stomach. My nose ran with my own mucus mingled with hairball ooze. It felt as if I were breathing through liquid, blowing bubbles through my nostrils. Any second now I would suffocate. All while my cat ate her own sentient vomit.
I fell to my knees, barely feeling the wet squish as I landed on some portion of the creature. I could feel myself weakening. The monstrosity took advantage of my slackening grip and renewed its journey into my intestines.
Closing my eyes, I gathered the last of my strength and pulled, working the tendril, hand over hand. No way in hell would I die this way.
It came all the way up, the tip tickling its way past my tonsils before gliding out of my mouth. I threw it down with a splat and flailed at the abhorrent entity, kicking it aside and writhing to get away. Sasquatch made a disgruntled chirp and scampered off. The cabinet below the sink was just within reach. I flung open the door and pulled out the bleach and enzyme cleaner. Tendrils grabbed for the smooth bottles, but failed to find purchase. I managed to pop the top off of each and douse the hairball with the two liquids.
The protuberances withdrew immediately. Still holding the bottles, I struggled to my feet and drenched every bit of the creature I could get to. It writhed and shook, arching away from me. Emptying first one bottle, then the other, I threw them down and scrambled into the hallway, slamming the door shut and leaving the thing to dissolve in silence on the other side.
Sliding down the wall, I swiped at my eyes, getting the last of the goo out of them. Sasquatch sat in the hallway, grooming herself, her giant eyes fixed on me in silent threat.
“Oh, no you don’t.” My voice came out in a rasp, throat aching at the effort. I stood up and grabbed her, running to the back door to toss her gently onto the porch. “Go eat some grass and throw up outside. Then maybe I’ll let you back in.”
I limped to the kitchen sink to wash my mouth out with soap, then swallowed down a bunch of vinegar. It stung, which gave me a certain sense of peace. I’d have swallowed bleach if it wouldn’t kill me, but vinegar would have to do. Every trace of that thing must be eradicated.
Through the screen door, I heard Sasquatch.
Horka, horka, horka, blap.