Scenes from a Horror Film

**WARNING** this post contains content that some readers may find disturbing. Read at your own risk.

Do you ever feel like you're living a scene from a movie? And even after it's over, it seems like it couldn't have really happened? Like it must have been a movie? And you can actually almost see yourself from the outside, like you're watching the movie?

*********************************

Like when you come home at night, and you're gathering some items from the car to bring in while your husband goes inside, and then he comes back out and yells to you that the dogs were in the house?

And you're confused, and you're like "What do you mean the dogs were in the house? How'd they get in?", and you actually chuckle, because it's not like your dogs grew opposable thumbs the two hours you were gone.

But he yells back "I don't know, but all three dogs were in the house".

And you shake your head and walk toward the house, confused, puzzled at how this could have happened, when all at once that confusion just doesn't matter any more and the how doesn't matter any more as the realization of what this really means sinks in.

It means that your cat-agressive dog has been loose in the house, unsupervised. With the cats.

 You push thru the front door and drop the items you'd gathered from the car on the floor and scream to your husband "Where are my cats?!?"And he looks at you and says plainly "I don't know"

And then you begin hyper-ventilating, and repeating over and over again "where are my cats? where are my cats? where are my cats?" and you nearly collapse on the floor, but do manage to get your feet under you in time to stumble to the garbage can to vomit.

And by this time your husband has locked the dogs in the laundry room, and informed you that the back door was wide open when he came in, and that you need to get it together to find the cats, because you're the only one they'll come to, and they could be fine, they could be hiding in the house, or could be outside somewhere, but you have to find them, because you are the one they trust.

And you remember that your male cat, when he got out at your old house, would hide under your deck, so you go out the back door, and look around, and down the steps, and around to the front of the deck so you can bend down to look under it.

And then you see an unusual... shape... a few feet away.

And you don't want to look, but it could be anything, and you have to get it together because you have a responsibility to these cats to find them. They could be fine. Or they could be injured, and need help. So you cannot not look.

But it's really dark out, living out in the country like you do, and so you have to take a few steps closer, and still your eyes are struggling to adjust, and then you see...

And you hear yourself let out a wail as you stumble a few feet away, and then you sink onto the snowy ground and you know you are yelling something, but you don't know what.

But your husband does hear you and comes running out the back door and yells "What?!?" and you look up at him, and point to the lifeless body of your female cat, your daughter's kitten, as you cry out "They killed her!"

And he says "You have to get up. You have to find the other cat". And you know he's right, so that's it, you're composed, you're on a mission.

You meet your husband on the deck. He hugs you. He asks if you want him to bury her. You tell him yes, but make sure it's somewhere the dogs can't dig her up. He tells you to check the spare room for the male cat, because that's the room the cat-aggressive dog walked out of when he came in.

Then you walk past him to go inside, and you see it for the first time. How you didn't see it before, you don't know, but there it is.

Blood.

On the floor of your fireplace room, just a few feet from the back door.

It happened in the house.

You pause for only a second before moving thru the house, calling out to your male cat.

You push open the door to the spare room, and there he is, sitting, frozen, staring at you wide-eyed, filthy, having just crawled out of a vent in the floor.

As you go to move toward him, he moves toward the vent. He's still scared terrified.

You leave him alone, shutting the door so you'll know where he is and he can feel some security.

You go back to the deck to find your husband, walking past the blood once again.

You can barely see him, he's so far away, almost in the woods. With a shovel in his hand.

You stare at him, frozen at the scene. He yells to you "Did you find him?!?"

At first it's all you can do is to nod, then you yell back "He's okay, I think he's okay"

And then, now that your mission is complete, and your adrenalin is beginning to subside, the emotions come flooding back, and you collapse in the snow on the back deck, sobbing so hard you can't breathe, your chest hurts.

You're not there long, as your  husband comes as soon as he finishes his task, and pulls you up from the snow, he gives you a light hug, then turns to direct you in the house, telling you to find your cat, go hold your cat.

You go, pointing to the blood as you walk past it once again and mumble something about how you really need him to take care of that please.

And the rest of the night is spent in shock and mourning, over-reaching grief, confusion, disgust, sadness, and... heartache.

The kind of heartache where your chest actually hurts.

Not only because your beloved pet has died...

    ... but also because you now have to explain to your two-year-old that her cat is gone, forever.
    ... and because you know that this night sealed the fate on at least one of your dogs


*********************************

My God, I wish I didn't know that scene either. Lord, do I wish that.