Funk-N-Fiction

Today we welcome back a returning Halloween Flash Fiction author, Deborah Blake, to share another adorable holiday story from her Catskills Pet Rescue Mystery series world. And be sure to check for her contest after the story!

An Unexpected Halloween Treat
A Catskills Pet Rescue Mystery Short Short Story
By Deborah Blake

Kari Stuart was putting the final touches on her Halloween decorations, which were minimal at best, with the dubious assistance of her seven-month-old kitten Queenie, and her dog Fred, a mid-sized mutt of questionable parentage and occasional issues with personal space. At the moment, he was standing on her sneaker-clad foot, both upper paws on her thigh as he tried to bite the end of the strand of purple stars she was hanging by the front door. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, if Queenie hadn’t been perched on Kari’s shoulder, trying to do the same thing.

“Thank goodness you two don’t care,” she muttered at the two orange cats draped over the couch inside, fast asleep. Kari nudged Fred away with her other foot while grabbing Queenie to put her back down on the ground. “Cut it out,” she said, not without some amusement. “I’m lousy enough at this without your help.”

Inside, her cell phone gave the cheery ring that meant an incoming call from one of Kari’s favorites, so she stuck a pushpin through the final star and went back inside. She’d been late getting her few decorations up because things had been unusually busy at Serenity Sanctuary, the pet rescue she’d bought not too long ago and spent most of her time renovating since then. Halloween was only three days away at this point, but her best friend Suz had been scolding her for not getting into the spirit of things, so Kari had promised to at least do something. Since her house was within viewing distance of the sanctuary building, she didn’t want to look like a complete party pooper.

The caller ID on her phone said Sara Hanover, and Kari gave Queenie, who had followed her back inside, a quizzical look. Sara was a retired teacher who was one of the staunchest volunteers at the shelter, and also a good friend. But she rarely called in the evenings, and they’d only seen each other a couple of hours ago at work.

“Hi Sara,” Kari said, shoving gigantic Westley to the side so she could sit down on the couch. He didn’t bother to open his eyes as he shifted to be closer to his brother Robert. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if you could spare a few minutes to come over to my house,” Sara said, a little hesitantly. Considering that she’d survived over forty years of teaching nineth grade English (including to both Kari and Suz), it wasn’t typical for her to sound anything but decisive. “If I’m not interrupting anything important, that is.”

Kari glanced at the pile of orange pumpkin cut-outs she had no desire to put up. “Not at all. I finished eating half an hour ago. What’s up?”

“It’s about a cat,” Sara said. “I’m pretty sure it’s a stray. I’ve seen it hanging around for a week or so, and I’ve asked most of my neighbors, and no one knows who it belongs to. Normally I’d wait and see if it sticks around, but well, it’s black. And with it being so close to Halloween, well…”

Ah. Kari understood what Sara was so reluctant to put into words. People tended to be superstitious about black cats as it was—they were often the last to be adopted, no matter how sweet they were. But at Halloween, sometimes horrible things happened to black cats, to the point where some shelters wouldn’t let them be adopted at that time of the year. No wonder Sara was worried about a stray wandering around with no one to watch out for it.

“I’ll be right there with a Havahart trap,” Kari said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch it. If it does belong to someone, it might have a chip that can tell us who owns it.”

***

Naturally, Queenie insisted on going along, and as usual, Kari argued with her and lost. So the two of them showed up on the doorstep of Sara’s Victorian ten minutes later, complete with a trap and some food to bait it with. Sara was waiting for them on the stately house’s front porch, seated on a cushioned loveseat with a cup of tea, an extra cup, and a thermos.

“I see you brought a helper,” Sara said, not bothering to cover her smile. She was used to the kitten’s stubborn insistence on going almost everywhere Kari went. “Thanks so much for coming.”

“And I see you’re prepared for company,” Kari said, nodding at the extra cup, and the small dish full of tuna next to it. “Is that for Queenie or for your visitor?”

Sara pointed at a bowl set out at the corner of the porch. “I’ve been trying to tempt my visitor all evening,” she said. “He or she hasn’t shown up yet. This is for Queenie.” She put it down in front of the loveseat, but instead of eating, the kitten stared out into the night. At six PM at the end of October, it was already dark out, but the porch lamps cast a mellow light over the nearby surroundings, and streetlights made the neighborhood seem cozy and friendly, despite the proliferation of ghoulish Halloween decorations that made Kari’s attempts seem even more pathetic.

The front door opened on silent hinges and Sara’s husband Dave came out carrying a plate of cookies. “Any luck yet?” he asked. Like Sara, he didn’t look like he was in his seventies, although his gray hair didn’t have a snazzy turquoise streak like that in his wife’s.

Sara shook her head and reached for a cookie, but Kari, who had been following the kitten’s gaze, help up a hand for silence.

“Look,” she said, pointing toward the far end of the porch. A sleek panther of a cat with bright green eyes stepped cautiously into the pool of light, its fur gleaming like black silk. It stopped between two huge carved pumpkins, glancing between the bowl of tuna and the people by the door, as if uncertain of its next move.

“That is a stunning cat,” Kari breathed. “It looks like a female, although it’s hard to say for sure.”

“What’s wrong with its ear?” Dave asked in a whisper. “Do you think it was in a fight?”

Kari peered into the shadows, and she and Sara said at the same time, “TNR.”

“What?” Dave asked. “Is that some kind of disease?”

Sara laughed quietly. “No, TNR stands for trap-neuter-release. It’s when stray cats are captured and neutered, and then released back into whatever area they came from. It’s normal to clip the tip of an ear to show they’ve been fixed, so they aren’t accidentally picked up again. It seems cruel, I know, but it doesn’t hurt the cat, and it prevents them from being operated on unnecessarily later.”

The black cat seemed to sense they were talking about her and took one step backward.

Sara glanced at Kari. “Do you think she’s feral? It will be pretty hard to catch her if she is.”

Before Kari could answer, Queenie scooted away from the trio and walked towards the strange cat, meowing as she went, as though she was trying to start up a conversation.

“Queenie, come back here,” Kari hissed, making a futile grab at the small kitten. Queenie was so accustomed to other cats at the shelter, Kari was afraid she might not realize that this unknown element might not be friendly. But Kari should have known better. As the kitten reached the black cat, who looked like a larger reflection of her, they touched noses and the new cat meowed back.

“Huh,” Dave said. “Maybe not feral after all. But if it has that ear tip thing, does that mean it doesn’t belong to anyone?” He looked sad at the thought, although probably not sad enough to let Sara bring in one more animal.

“Well, people do adopt cats that have been TNR-ed, sometimes,” Kari said. “And she looks pretty healthy. But she’s not wearing a collar. Let’s see just how friendly she is, and hope I don’t scare her off. We can always put the trap out overnight if she’s too timid to come to me.”

She picked up Queenie’s abandoned plate of tuna and took a few slow steps towards the cat. “Hey, sweetie,” she said in a low voice. “Do you want to take a ride in a car to a nice shelter?”

The black cat looked at her, green eyes unblinking, and Queenie walked over and rubbed against Kari’s legs, as if to say, “This one’s okay, really.” The cat took a few steps forward, almost close enough for Kari to touch her, then turned around and sauntered away. Not running, but definitely not taking the bait, either.

“Drat,” Kari said under her breath, and then a little louder, “Queenie, no!” as her kitten followed the stranger off the porch and into the yard. “Darn that little monkey!” She took off after the two felines, Sara and Dave not far behind.

The big black cat and the small black kitten strolled rapidly through three neighbor’s yards before slowing down enough for the group of humans to catch up without alarming them. The house they stopped in front of had even more Halloween decorations that the surrounding homes, all with a specific theme. There were large cut-outs of black cats with arched backs, small statues of cats next to witches with pointy hats and real-life brooms, and even a huge blow-up animatronic black cat with eyes that glowed the same color green as the cat they’d been following.

“Wow,” Kari said. “I’ve clearly been doing this decorating thing wrong.” She was so impressed, she even stopped worrying about Queenie for a minute.

Sara gave a muted chuckle. “I don’t know the people who live here. They just moved in a few weeks ago. But they’re clearly our kind of folks.”

The door to the house opened and a woman with long curly red hair stepped out. She was wearing a black tee shirt with the outline of a witch on it, and a flowing black skirt, and looked to be about thirty. She peered at the small group of people gathered in her yard and said in a friendly but slightly confused voice, “Hi, can I help you?”

“Hi,” Sara said, stepping forward. “We didn’t mean to intrude. I’m Sara, and this is my husband, Dave. We live a few houses down. My friend Kari here came over to help us try and catch a stray cat who has been hanging around. She runs the Serenity Sanctuary, and I work there.”

“Oh, sure,” the woman said, flipping her hair behind her shoulders. “I’ve actually been meaning to stop in there. I’m Stella. My wife Lucy and I just moved in, and we’ve been thinking of getting a cat, but we’ve been too busy unpacking to get around to it yet.”

The black cat and Queenie came out of the darkness and Queenie meowed loudly. The larger cat stared at Stella, who stared back.

“Oh my, what a gorgeous cat,” she said. “And what an adorable kitten.”

“The kitten is mine,” Kari said. “Her name is Queenie, short for Queen Nefertiti. The other one is the stray we’re trying to catch. We were worried about her being out on—”

Before she could finish the sentence, the black cat strolled up the stairs, head-butted Stella’s legs, and walked into the house. Through the window, Kari could see her settle onto the couch as if she owned it.

Stella laughed. “I guess you don’t have to worry anymore. And I don’t have to go to the shelter. It looks like my cat found me.”

“Universe’s Cat Distribution System!” Kari and Sara said together. Dave looked confused, and Queenie just looked smug.

“Best Halloween treat I’ve ever gotten,” Stella said with a grin. “Happy holidays!”

Deborah is offering up a giveaway of a signed book in the Catskills Pet Rescue Mystery series (winner’s choice). USA only, alas, due to shipping costs.

To enter… leave us a comment to let us know if YOU decorate for Halloween. A little? A lot? Not at all? If you have any non-human family, do they help? LOL

Contest starts today, and goes through midnight (Pacific US time) on November 3rd. Our winners will be chosen from all eligible entries on November 4th and notified, and then announced in our wrap-up post.

Good luck & Happy Reading!!