Charlie

My father had two loves: whiskey and violence. Meanwhile, my mother huddled herself away in prescription pills and excuses. Excuses why she could never leave him, and excuses why she needed more medications. I say these things factually, no malice for either of them in my heart. In the end, maybe he did care more for her than I thought, because when he found her body, dead from an apparent overdose, he drank himself into a stupor, put his Smith and Wesson 442 to his head, and joined her. At least, this is the story etched together by the police and relayed to me. They didn't believe my mother's overdose to be intentional and, truth be told, neither do I. It's more likely that she didn't care either way. Maybe being alive and dying had become such vagaries to her that it simply didn't matter to her anymore, much in the way a drunk stops caring how much they've already drunk, only looking forward to the next one and the one after. They died almost ten years ago, and the day of their funeral, after burying them both, listening to the preacher of the only church they had ever attended tell bald-faced lies about the qualities of their character, was the day I met Charlie.

Charlie is… was my cat. I found him outside my apartment building when I came home that night. My grandparents hosted a wake at their home in Stillwater, but after a brief time there I took my leave and headed back to my apartment in Tulsa. I hated the condolences, but more than that I hated the pained look on my grandmother’s face. Watching her daughter go through so much, trying over and over to help, and being turned away each time. I was walking up the stairs to my third-floor apartment, thoughts a million miles away when I heard a soft mewling coming from the top of the stoop. As I crested the stairs, there sat Charlie. He was just a kitten, small and scared, alone. I’d like to think I wouldn’t normally take in a stray animal, but I haven’t had occasion to do so again. Looking back, I should have thrown that tiny, pathetic creature from the balcony, letting it splatter on the concrete below and saving myself from the events of the last decade. But you know what they say about hindsight. Instead, I slowly approached him, picked him up, and felt happiness wash through me. It was as though that entire, shitty day was a boat that had set sail long ago and crossed the horizon, never to be seen again.

Life with Charlie was like that. He had a way of making you forget your troubles, just by spending time with him. We’d sit on the couch, me playing video games, Charlie rubbing his orange head on my hands, wanting my attention. Some nights we’d sit around and watch B horror movies, Charlie in my lap, pepperoni pizza in my hand. I loved that little guy with all my heart at the time.

The first thing I noticed that was off about Charlie was his diet. Not owning a cat before, the only thing I could think to feed him that first night was canned tuna. He loved it, ate it greedily, never leaving a speck in his dish. However, when I bought him actual cat food, he wouldn’t eat it. He’d snub it, wet or dry, no matter how I tried to mask it. I thought maybe it was because I couldn’t afford to buy the high-end stuff like Blue Buffalo, or maybe he was just a picky eater. Now I know better.

As Charlie got older, his hunger for both food and attention grew. He’d eat seven, sometimes eight cans of tuna a day, easy. He also started getting into the habit of trashing the apartment when I'd leave for extended periods, staining the carpet with urine and cat shit as though he were saving it for the moment I’d leave. It was intermittent at first but became so frequent that I began putting down newspaper over each and every square inch of carpet in the apartment, only to come back and find that Charlie had ripped that very same up and still done his business on the floor. And he never did this on the tiled flooring in the kitchen or bathroom. It seemed purposeful, like he wanted me to regret leaving him, like he wanted me angry and frustrated on purpose. Still, the moment I pet Charlie, or he rubbed against me, it was as though nothing had happened. It was all no big deal, something to worry about tomorrow.

This went on for years, with us eventually moving from the apartment to a rent house in the suburb of Broken Arrow. I hadn’t gotten my deposit back for the apartment, obviously, but I had landed an accounts-payable gig at a local oil company downtown, and my manager let our department work from home most of the time, only going to the office to mail checks to the dying number of businesses would only accept them as payment. This let me stay at home with Charlie and keep his damage to a minimum. The little rent house, where I still live, where I’ll likely die, is two bedrooms, one bath, with tile in the kitchen and bathroom, while the bedrooms and living room sport vinyl-plank flooring. A lifesaver for my trips to the grocery store and any errands I might have to run. It was nice, and I was looking forward to finally being able to invite people over to my place without fear of that awful, pervasive cat smell.

I had started chatting with a local guy via Grindr shortly after moving in. I had made a promise to myself to start putting myself out there when I felt I had my own financial stability, and I felt that the rent house and new job were the landmarks I needed to see that I had finally arrived at that point. His name was Jacob, and he was such a sweetheart. We had great conversations, talked a lot about video games, his love of the Alien franchise, my love of the Scream franchise, and our shared love of all things pasta. Eventually, we decided to go for a date to see if we clicked as well in person. I was nervous, of course. Hell, I hadn’t dated in years, meaningless hook-ups aside, and had no clue what to expect. We decided on a rooftop dinner at El Guapo in downtown Tulsa. It was late spring, and the sun had set, leaving the air comfortably cool. The Tulsa skyline towered around us, and the enchiladas were delicious. We left the restaurant, opting to keep the date going by taking a walk. Our chemistry was every bit as good in person as it had been through text, and, against my better judgment, I asked him if he’d like to come back to my place. To my mutual delight and dread, he said he would.

When I opened the door, the landscape of my home had become a nightmare. The couch, the curtains, the throw pillows… all of them were shredded. Foam and filling coated the floors, loose cloth scattered everywhere. The stench of urine and shit filled the air and I had to hold my nose before entering, and on the couch, amidst the chaos, sat Charlie, his eyes fixed in accusation. I couldn't believe it and apparently, neither could Jacob. He was polite, but understandably changed his mind about coming in, and promised to reach out to as he left. He wouldn’t, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was lucky to have shut the doors to the bedrooms and the bathroom. Who knows what Charlie would have done if they had been open? Would I even have had a bed to sleep in that night? I was furious. I slammed the door, a flush creeping into my cheeks as I marched to the couch, screaming at Charlie, asking him what his fucking problem was. All the while he sat stone-still, eyes following me, admonishing my absence. I reached the couch, reaching out to grab Charlie, to throw him out of the house, to never let that awful, evil little creature back into my home or my life. As my hand neared him, though, he bit me. If this were any other cat, you’d think that this would have sealed his fate, but with Charlie… no, with Charlie it turned out to be the opposite.

The moment his fangs broke my skin, bone rending into my flesh, I felt my fury wash away, relaxed contentment taking its place. Suddenly nothing mattered, not the disastrous end of an otherwise wonderful date, not the destruction of the house, and especially not the punishment of a certain cat.

From that night forward everything changed. Charlie began eating less, and with less fervor. Conversely, he started to get bigger. Not like he was gaining weight, but he just started increasing in size. One day I walked into the living room after getting a shower to find him sitting on the couch, his skin looking stretched over his body, patches of fur missing on his back and torso. His coat had lost its luster and if he hadn’t been staring directly at me, sitting straight up, I might have mistaken him for dead. I decided to take him to the vet. I threw on some shorts and a t-shirt, grabbed the keys to my Prius, and moved to pick Charlie up. He, of course, bit me. That feeling washed over me again, nauseating and delightful at the same time. Charlie is fine, I thought, he’s perfectly okay, it’s just some bald spots from stress, that’s all. Charlie didn’t let go of my finger, he was chewing on it now, but that’s okay because it didn’t hurt at all. It was just fine.

By the time Charlie had let me go that day, he had eaten the pinky and ring fingers of my left hand, leaving the wounds inexplicably closed. I didn’t realize this until I woke up that night, bleary-eyed and confused. I went to wipe the sleep from my eyes, and then I saw mangled remains that had once been the digits of my hand, now little more than stumps. Now, I could feel pain, dull and aching, the pain of an abscessed tooth, right under my skin. I got up slowly, assessing my surroundings, realizing I was still in the living room, but now it was dark, the only light that illuminated the room was from the solitary window and was obscured by curtains, blurring the edges of everything in my vision. I had to get out, get to a hospital, a doctor, I had to get somewhere other than in my house with Charlie. I felt for the keys in my pocket: still there. I started toward the door, head aching, body sore, hand throbbing in pain. Something skittered from the dark corner of the room, fast and indiscernible, coming to a stop between me and the front door. It had to be Charlie. It was much bigger than he was and faster, but what else could it be?

I was frozen in place, my instincts telling me to run, and fear melding my feet to the floor. Think, goddamnit, think! Where can I go? How can I leave? The back door! Of course! The kitchen was on my left and the door was on the far wall. If I could move fast enough… A chittering noise came from the dark before me, a series of clicks that trilled in the black, starting low, working their way to a piercing crescendo. I lunged for the back door, but I was too slow. No, more aptly, the thing was too fast. Now it stood before me, illuminated in the light of the streetlamp shining through the kitchen window, and horror and fear gripped me anew. The incandescent light revealed a creature that seemed to have come from inside of Charlie, and still had bits of him attached in various places: an ear on its head, fur on its back, three of Charlie’s legs still dangling from its cool-gray body. What I could make out, what was discernable from that slanted pillar of light, were four, new legs, much too large to have been the legs of a cat. They were bent in angles in two spots, giving them the shape of a spider's leg, but at the ends of them, there were what I initially thought were paws, with five large, black talons protruding from each digit, each bent in two angles of their own, though I couldn’t see if they had joints because the light wasn’t bright enough and because I quickly busied myself with an alternate plan.

I ran for my bedroom, in the opposite direction, I could hear the Charlie-thing skittering after me, but I managed to make it into the room, slamming the door and locking it quickly. I fell back on my bed, staring at the door, hearing the thing scratch and scratch and scratch at it, trying to get in, its keening noises rich with need and hunger. This went on for… twenty minutes, I think? I don’t actually know. The only real clock I owned was my cellphone, and I had left it in the bathroom that morning. I was too concerned with Charlie and in my rush, forgot to grab it.

At some point, the noises stopped entirely. I was rifling through my bedside table looking for something to numb the pain in my hand that had grown steadily worse when I realized the only noises I heard were my own. I stopped as well, listening to the silence, hand throbbing. I was getting nauseous, my skull felt like it was filled with liquid, and I was on the verge of vomiting, but I managed to stay absolutely still. Then I heard the noise again, but the rhythm was different. Instead of the insistent scratching that had filled the air previously, there was now a taptaptap sound of claws on metal. I tried to figure out where it could possibly be, tried to make a plan to defend myself, but the noise felt as though it came from everywhere. I grabbed the bedside lamp that sat on the table with my good hand, raising it up and in front of me, chamber my elbow in anticipation of the attack. The tapping grew louder and all too late I realized it wasn’t coming from all around me, but from above me, from the air duct. The thing had been above me that whole time, trying to remove the duct cover, quietly at first, but then… what? Abandoning stealth for strength? Was it intelligent enough to reason that out for itself? There was no time to consider this, the vent cover quickly became nothing more than ragged and bent metal. I ran for the door, turned the know, heard the cover fall to the ground with a harsh clang, pushed hard on the door, and… remembered I had locked it. I fumbled for the doorknob lock, turned it, and burst from the room just as the creature bit my calf. I felt euphoria and relief as I fell to the ground. The pain, nausea were both gone in an instant, replaced with calm and warmth.

This was maybe a week ago? I don’t remember what day exactly. My head is foggy, and my body is racked by waves of pain. I’ve been in and since that night, coming to consciousness like leaping forward in time. Once, I awoke to the sound of crunching bones to find the thing eating my foot. It was perfectly okay, though. I felt at peace, as though the consumption of my extremities was the most natural thing in the world. When I woke today, the creature was sitting upright, knees tucked to its chest, its exoskeleton now strangely fleshy and growing pinker the longer I looked at it. I think it’s… digesting. I have no legs now, just stumps above where my knees used to be. I tried to crawl toward the front door, then the back, but each time I do, the things eyes, no longer the eyes of a cat, but eyes so curiously like my own, flit to life and send me a silent warning.

So, now I’m here, in my bedroom again. I managed to get the door shut, but I didn’t bother to lock it. What’s the point? I know it’s going to eat the rest of me. Become me, just like it became Charlie. Maybe it had always been Charlie. No sense dwelling on it now. I’m just thankful to have left my laptop in my bag on the floor in my room, where I’m writing this now. I’m at peace with this end, I just want the pain to stop. I wasn’t looking for death, but when it finds me, I think that will be okay. I hurt so much and just want something to make that hurt go away. I’m writing all this to send in an email to everyone I know, so you'll know the truth about what happened to me. I’m passed wanting to be saved. I think whatever toxin is in Charlie’s bite is similar to opioids, and even now I feel like I’m dying without the bliss of Charlie’s bit. I’m ready for the end, but I need you all to know when you see me again, if you see me again… that’s not me. It’s Charlie.