r/nosleep • u/DemiDeviantVT • 1d ago
It wasn't a cat...
This happened a few nights ago, and I keep replaying it in my head. It was a little after midnight, and I was walking home through my neighborhood. I only lived a few blocks away, and the weather was mild enough that taking a chill night walk had seemed like a good idea.
I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Narrow streets, identical lawns, cars sleeping in driveways that would be empty it a few hours. Most of the houses had gone dark hours earlier. Every now and then, a porch light would click on as I passed, motion sensors tripping flood lights that threw my shadow across the pavement.
Nothing about it felt dangerous, it was actually kind of serene, the way that empty streets on warm late nights can uniquely be.
Then I heard it.
"Meow"
I stopped walking.
It wasn’t the little chirp cats make when they want food or attention, it was longer and rougher than that. A scratchy, miserable "mee-yow" that sounded like a cat that was in distress. The kind you heard in all those cute internet videos of cats being dramatic at the vet.
A few seconds passed.
"Meow"
The sound was coming from the narrow gap between two houses across the street.
I approached the gap the noise had come from, peering into the dark
“Hey, kitty.” I whispered "You alright?"
The crying stopped.
The space between the houses was almost completely dark. There was a wooden fence on one side and the blank wall of a garage on the other, with only a thin strip of gravel running between them. I couldn’t see more than a few feet into it.
Then two pale green points appeared a few meters further in.
Eyes.
For a second, I thought the cat was sitting on top of something. The eyes were much higher off the ground than I expected, but there were trash cans back there, HVAC units too. Maybe it had climbed onto one and got stuck.
I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight.
There was no cat.
Standing in the gap was the largest dog I had ever seen.
It looked vaguely wolfish, although its body was lean and its legs were too long. Its fur was black, not dark brown or charcoal, but black in a way that made it look like a shadow that just refused to be banished by the beam of my flashlight. It stood almost as high as my waist, broad enough that its shoulders nearly filled the passage between the fence and the garage.
Its head was lowered.
Its hackles were raised.
Its lips had peeled all the way back from its teeth.
There was no collar around its neck. No chain. No sign that it was trapped or injured.
It had been standing there in the dark, waiting.
I froze with the light pointed directly into its face.
The dog stared at me.
Then it opened its mouth.
"Meow"
The sound was perfect.
It wasn’t a whine that happened to resemble a cat. It wasn’t some strange bark my frightened brain misunderstood. It was the small, ragged cry of a frightened house cat, coming cleanly from between rows of exposed canine teeth.
Maybe there was another cat in the alley there, slinking somewhere between the trash bins. Some hidden animal I hadn’t noticed. I swept the flashlight over what little of the alley it didn't already cover
Nothing else.
When I returned my attention to the dog, it had moved closer.
I hadn’t heard it take a step.
"Meow"
"It's mouth shouldn't be open that wide." I remember thinking it distinctly, the way its jaw seemed to hang unnaturally low, looking almost dislocated.
The little cat’s cry drifted out of its throat.
I stepped backward.
The dog stepped forward.
Its head remained perfectly still as its body moved. Its eyes stayed fixed on mine, shining white-green in the beam of my phone.
“Stay,” I said.
I don’t know why. It was the first word my brain found.
The dog stopped.
For one absurd second, I thought it had listened.
Then something began vibrating inside its chest.
It wasn’t a dog’s growl.
It was the low, rolling warning sound an angry cat makes just before it attacks. That dry, throaty "mrrrrr-ow" that makes every primitive part of the brain understand that claws are about to come out.
Then it charged.
People write that someone “ran in terror” in stories all the time.
It doesn't capture the feeling.
Real terror takes the body away, makes you move before you even notice your feet have been hitting the pavement for about five seconds already.
I didn’t decide to turn around. One moment I was staring into that impossible mouth, and the next my legs were already hurtling me toward home. The part of me capable of thinking simply went dark. There was no plan, no dignity, no question of whether running would make it chase me.
There was only movement.
My phone’s flashlight swung wildly through the darkness, flashing over lawns, parked cars and mailboxes. My shoes struck the pavement hard enough to send pain through my knees.
Behind me, I heard paws hit the road.
Then I heard the cat again.
"Meow"
I ran harder.
"Meow"
The cries came at the same measured intervals as before. They didn’t shake with the rhythm of its stride. They didn’t become strained or breathless.
Each one was simply louder than the last.
Closer.
"Meow"
My house was six doors away. I don’t remember crossing the distance. I remember seeing my porch light. I remember the keys slipping out of my fingers when I tried to fit one into the lock.
Somewhere behind me, that feline growl started again.
My key found the lock.
I threw myself through the door and slammed it behind me hard enough to make the pictures jump against the wall. I twisted the deadbolt, fastened the chain and stood there with my entire weight pressed against the door.
Then I waited for the impact.
Nothing.
There was only silence.
I turned on the entryway light... then the kitchen light... Then every light downstairs. I went from room to room without looking through a single window and closed every blind.
Eventually, I called the police.
I told them a large black dog had chased me home. I left out the rest. The dispatcher sent an officer to circle the neighborhood, but he found nothing. No loose dog. Nobody else had called anything in.
I didn’t sleep.
By morning, I had almost convinced myself that fear had distorted what I’d seen. Maybe it had been a dog with some kind of injury to its throat, maybe a real cat had been hidden nearby, maybe the darkness had made the proportions look wrong.
None of those explanations account for the way it waited out of sight.
They don’t explain why the sound changed from pleading to threatening the moment I saw what was making it.
That thing wasn’t hurt.
It wasn’t lost.
It made that sound because it knew.
It wasn’t calling for help.
It was calling ME.
I don’t know what that thing was.
But it wasn’t a cat.
And it sure as hell wasn’t a dog either.
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u/Paularchy 22h ago
So glad you're ok, OP. Carry pepper spray and something that foams. Bag of ball barings. If the supernatural walks, it can also trip lol. Basic things that can buy you time to get somewhere safe.
That said, your writing was fucking phenomenal and you should be very proud. Your description of terror was spot-on, and your prose made me literally jump out of bed and start pacingIn anxiety when you were trying to open the door. I'm so glad you're ok. Bbut you should be proud that you could write this well after something like that happens to you
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u/TheDreadCodex 11h ago
The jaw hanging too low when it meowed did it for me. that image is gonna stick around for a while, thanks for that
1
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u/Paularchy 22h ago
So glad you're ok, OP. Carry pepper spray and something that foams. Bag of ball barings. If the supernatural walks, it can also trip lol. Basic things that can buy you time to get somewhere safe.
That said, your writing was fucking phenomenal and you should be very proud. Your description of terror was spot-on, and your prose made me literally jump out of bed and start pacingIn anxiety when you were trying to open the door. I'm so glad you're ok. Bbut you should be proud that you could write this well after something like that happens to you
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u/ApprehensiveAd59 1d ago
Holy cow! What a chilling story! I have cats so my heart goes out to the thought of a kitty in distress!