them running out of the garage. Then he saw the smoke and called 911. It turned out they were fumigating the house so the cats were in the garage.”
“Erin said we can come over to the cat house,” Mica told Eric. “Do you want to come?”
She knew Erin had a crush on him.
“Not today though,” Erin said, wishing she could stop herself from blushing.
“What about Halloween?” Mica suggested.
Halloween was just around the corner.
“He probably already has plans. We do,” Noah said, shooting Mica and Erin a look that amounted to please don’t ruin Halloween by letting this dumb jock tag along.
Noah didn’t like Eric; Erin assumed because he was jealous of him. Every girl in the world was in love with Eric. He played semi-professional hockey, and unlike most of the boys in school, had an actual man’s body. His brown, shaggy hair was always perfectly messy, and maybe because he worked outside, he always had a tan. Noah, on the other hand, looked like the Scandinavian Die Hard villain. He was pale, blonde, and skinny in that tall guy kind of way. His haircut was too short and kind of dorky. He wasn’t bad looking, but girls didn’t like him. No one was sure if he liked girls.
The Halloween plans Noah referred to was the revue cinema’s midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They went every year in costume. It was a pretty nerdy tradition, and Erin was almost hoping Eric already had plans so he wouldn’t know about it.
“No plans that I can’t blow off for an actual haunted house,” Eric said. “I’ll see you Halloween.”
Erin went to the cat house after school. The old mansion seemed scarier now that she was on her own. She was relieved when she opened the front door and saw that Barnabas was there waiting for her. She scratched the black cat behind his ear. The thirty-six other cats were still nowhere to be seen.
“I guess it’s just me and you again, Barnabas.”
Barnabas smashed his head into Erin’s leg and purred. She went through the list of things she had to do. She followed Barnabas to the kitchen, where she replaced the cat dishes from the morning with clean dishes of water and wet and dry cat food. Barnabas ate a little while she did. Then she followed Barnabas to replace the cat dishes in the conservatory, guessing there were too many cats for them all to eat together.
It was a while before Erin realized that she was following Barnabas. She wasn’t even looking at the list anymore. He seemed to know where everything was and what she had to do. She followed Barnabas to clean each of the many litter boxes stashed throughout the house. She followed him to the cupboard, where the vacuum was kept. (Erin was supposed to vacuum once a week. She thought she might as well get it over with.) Surprisingly, Barnabas wasn’t bothered by the noise, and hung out with her while she vacuumed. She followed him to the foyer, where she was supposed to leave out saucers of milk once in a while as a treat. Finally, she followed Barnabas up the mammoth staircase to the second floor.
“Where are we going?” she asked, unaware of anything else she was supposed to do.
Erin followed the cat to the very end of the upstairs hallway. Barnabas sat in front of the closed bedroom door at the end of the hall and looked up at her.
“What is it, kitty?”
Barnabas scratched at the door. Erin tried opening it, but it was locked. Barnabas continued to look up at her expectantly.
“It’s locked. Wait a minute, you don’t speak English, do you? This house is turning me into a crazy cat lady,” Erin said, joking with herself, because she was actually pretty unnerved. “Come on Barnabas. Come sit with me while I do my homework. I’m scared to be alone.”
As Erin picked Barnabas up and headed back toward the stairs, he stiffened, looking back over her shoulder at the locked door. She scratched under his chin, and he relaxed, purring, into her arms.
It was starting to get dark. After turning on all the downstairs lights, Erin sat down in the dinning room and opened her history textbook. Barnabas lay on the table across her knapsack. The living room might have been more comfortable, but it was too creepy with all the furniture draped in white sheets. Erin wished she had something else besides homework to distract her, but for some reason her cell phone only got reception in the conservatory (which was unfurnished) and the house didn’t even have a TV. At six o’clock, Erin said good bye to Barnabas and left.
Erin went to the cat house before and after school everyday. Every time, Barnabas scratched at the locked door. More than once, she heard footsteps upstairs, but when she went upstairs, no one was there. Doors opened and closed by themselves. Erin tried to tell herself that it was just the other thirty-six cats she never saw; that it would have been even stranger if that many cats didn’t make any noise. She just wished the noises she heard sounded more like cats, and less like a person.
Then something strange happened which couldn’t be attributed to the cats. When Erin arrived at the house on the weekend, she heard classical music playing. The music was coming from the radio in the kitchen. Erin turned the radio off, but when she returned that afternoon, the music was playing again, only this time; it was the living room radio that was on.
By the time Halloween rolled around, Erin was convinced that the old mansion was haunted. Though she was relieved that she wasn’t going to have to be there by herself on Halloween, she wasn’t exactly up for entertaining at the cat house anymore either. Not wanting to sound crazy, Erin had downplayed how freaked out she was, and now it was too late to cancel their Halloween plans; she and Mica were meeting Eric and Noah at the cat house.
Erin got into Mica’s car, yanking down her skirt as far as it would go. Still planning to go to The Rocky Horror Picture Show later, she and Mica had changed into their costumes after school. Dressed as Magenta from the movie, Erin was wearing a black mini dress, with a white doily pinned to it as a maid’s apron, and Mica’s black stripper boots. For a girl of average height, Mica had weirdly large feet and her boots actually fit Erin. Usually, Erin was too self-conscious to wear heels because they made her taller than most boys, but Halloween was the one time she didn’t mind feeling like a monstrous freak. Mica and Noah always went as Janet and Brad from the movie. Mica would wear her bra and her mother’s slip, and Noah (who always dressed like Brad) would wear glasses. Erin could tell from the Ouija board in the backseat of her car that Mica was planning on them having some spooky fun.
It was a short drive to the cat house. When they arrived, Eric was already there, waiting for them on the front porch. He was wearing a hockey jersey, which wasn’t exactly an imaginative costume, but he looked good in it.
“I brought you girls Cinnamon Schnapps,” he said, holding up a bottle.
“Thank you. That will pair nicely with the candy I brought,” Mica said, holding up the family size bag of candy she had brought.
“That is a lot of candy.”
“What if kids come?”
“What kids would trick-or-treat here?” Erin asked.
The front door creaked ominously as she opened it. Weirdly, Barnabas wasn’t there to greet her. When Noah let himself in a moment later, the sound of the door opening again practically gave her a heart attack.
“Hi,” Noah said, as Erin turned on the lights.
“Wow,” Mica breathed, looking around. “This place is huge.”
“Where are the cats?” Eric asked.
“They hide.”
“There’s one,” Noah said.
“There you are,” Erin smiled, relaxing a little. Barnabas was perched on top of the large wooden wardrobe in the hall, looking down at them. “Careful, he might jump on you.”
“What?” Mica asked, alarmed, and narrowing her eyes at Barnabas, said, “You stay away from me, cat.”
Mica set down the huge bag of candy and Ouija board on the large, round table in the foyer and took off her coat. Erin took off her coat, and then tried to coax Barnabas down from the wardrobe as she hung up their coats in it. When she turned around, she realized E
ric was staring. Noah smirked. He had seen Erin and Mica wear less tons of times, and generally regarded them with as much interest as house plants.
“You look good,” Eric said.
“Thanks,” Erin said, self-consciously tugging her skirt down.
Erin had cleaned all of the litter boxes that morning but still had to feed the cats. Mica, Noah, and Eric followed her around as she did so.
“You’ve really never seen any of the other cats?” Eric asked.
“No.”
“That works for me,” Mica said, eyeing Barnabas. “That one’s creepy enough as it is.”
Barnabas was following them, but at a distance. When they settled down in the living room, Barnabas watched them from on top of a bookcase. Erin pulled the white sheets off of the sofa and coffee table, balling them up, and putting them down on an armchair. She groaned inwardly when Mica turned out all of the lights, except for one dim floor lamp next to the sofa. The floor lamp had a red, silk shade and cast a bloody glow over the coffee table, as Mica set up the Ouija board on it.
“Wait, let’s not play yet,” Erin said.
They casually talked about ghosts and the people they knew who had seen one, as they took turns taking swigs from the bottle of Cinnamon Schnapps. Mica passed around the candy. By the time Mica said they should ask the Ouija board if the house was haunted, Erin was already feeling a little warm and buzzed from the Schnapps, and