This isn't my best work, I know that, but with a lack of a Beta reader (or at least one that checks her email more often) I've got no feedback on this one. Still, I think it's creepy. Just less than polished. I hope you enjoy it anyway. My 2011 Halloween one-shot, Catspaw.

I don't know what drove me to do it, exactly. It's not as though I had any sort of lingering grudge against him. He was the greatest guy I'd ever met, and my confidante besides. We were just walking together, in the middle of the night. I was capping the Thermos, he was commenting on how easy the ghosts were getting lately, and I blinked. Next thing I knew, my hands are covered in blood and his body's ice cold and in several pieces.

It's a good thing that cats can't talk, whether living or dead. Otherwise the big black one that was watching me murder my best friend could've caused problems.

It was huge, more of a panther than a house cat, and it was looking at me with these huge amber eyes. I didn't like it very much. I would've turned on it next if I wasn't so busy panicking over the fact that Danny was dead at my feet (had been for a while, actually) and it was my fault. Apparently. Those hours were nothing but a sickeningly red blur.

I crawled over to the biggest piece of him, his head and most of his torso. The rest were scattered along the street. I was too horrified to really register it then, but I do remember seeing something resembling a severed hand half a block down and a leg with no foot lodged halfway through a window. I don't know what I was thinking when I leaned down to put two shaking fingers against his neck. Maybe I subconsciously wanted him alive to actually feel the fact that most of his body was a gory mess that painted Amity Park red. I felt nothing. And, likely waking the entire town with my scream, I passed out. Those amber eyes were the last thing I saw.

The next morning I woke up in my bed. Not on the street, in the hospital, or even in a jail cell like I halfway expected. I was in my own bed, in my own manor, to the sound of my mother telling me to get up and get ready for school ("But not in those horrible black rags, for goodness' sake, Samantha, you know how much I hate them on you").

Funny, I thought she said that yesterday, ran briefly through my head before the full connotations of yesterday came like lightning and I had to muffle my automatic scream into my pillow. And again when I saw my hands still covered in blood. I blanked out for a space of time ("Oh, God, Danny, Danny's dead, Danny's dead, I killed him, I killed him, he's dead, he's in pieces, I tore him to pieces oh God") and opened my eyes to see myself walking beside Tucker on our way to school. And when Danny flew above us to spin gracefully and land beside me, I screamed nearly as loudly as I had the night before.

Danny and Tucker were both understandably alarmed, save for the fact that no, I didn't understand how Danny was alive when I woke up with his blood on my hands and how in hell was he holding me when his arms were supposed to be twenty feet apart in various states of butchery? But my mouth was, of course, occupied with screaming myself blue. I eventually stopped screaming and stared at Danny in bewildered disbelief before I jumped in his arms and cried on his shoulders. I don't know what I moaned through my tears, though I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it made me do it, I didn't mean to popped through at some point ("It? What it? I killed Danny, not some it") before I passed out yet again.

Funny how I didn't notice that cat sitting beside Danny's knee until the last minute.

Maybe I should've counted my blessings, though. Because the next time I opened my eyes, the damned thing was right there. I once again muffled my scream in a pillow, noting distantly that it was white instead of purple ("Where am I? Why am I here? What is this cat doing following me and Danny, oh God, Danny where's Danny?"), and I tried to crawl away from the thing before realizing I couldn't move. I was completely paralyzed and could only watch as the cat came closer and closer. And then I blinked.

"Sam?"

I twisted around, suddenly able to move again, to see Danny staring at me with concern. I looked back at the foot of the bed, even though I knew that the cat wouldn't be there anymore. I was right. Danny and I were the only ones there.

"Sam? Sam, are you alright?" Danny asked, voice laced with the concern as his eyes held. "What are you staring at?"

I blinked once more and tried to calm my breathing before I spoke. "N-Nothing, Danny. I just..." I took another wary glance at the last place I saw the wretched thing. "I just... thought I saw something."

Danny grew pale and a weary look crossed his face. "That cat again?"

What? I straightened and couldn't keep the shock off my face. How did he-?

"Sam, listen to me very carefully," Danny said very slowly. I got the vague impression that he'd said this many times before. "There is no cat. It's only your mind playing tricks on you after what happened."

"What happened?" I repeated before I could stop myself. Danny's face grew slightly paler before he continued.

"This imaginary cat isn't to blame for what happened. Everything was just a sick freak accident, alright?" Danny looked to be pleading now, as though begging me to remember ("Accident? What accident? Nothing that's happened was an accident, I killed you on purpose, Danny, even if I don't remember it - oh God, Danny, please forgive me, please please please-").

"Sam!"

"Yes?" I replied, opening my eyes though I didn't remember closing them. Danny looked utterly desperate now. He reached over to me and took me by the shoulders, as though to root me in one spot.

"Please, don't phase out again! It wasn't your fault, alright? No one is to blame for Tucker's death, okay?"

"What!" I wrenched away from him at those words. Danny's face now had a look of startled dread. "Tucker's... Tucker's dead? He's dead?"

"Oh, no, you've forgotten again..."

"Forgotten what?" I asked, my voice full of furious disbelief. "I think I would remember hearing about one of my best friends being dead!"

"No, you wouldn't, Sam," Danny said, his face weary again. "You wouldn't. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I-!" I paused as I noticed the look in his eyes. He was telling the truth. Whatever happened, Danny was being completely honest with me. My anger melted. "I remember screaming in the street," I said slowly. "I saw you and I panicked. I screamed and then I collapsed."

"And then what?"

"And then here," I replied, annoyance leaking into my voice slightly. Danny's face closed up and his eyes grew somewhat hard. I was startled at the sudden transformation, but I didn't get the chance to say anything before he spoke again.

"You never collapsed, Sam," he said. "After you cried in my shoulder for a while, you stood back up and acted like nothing happened. Tucker and I tried to get answers but you had no clue what we were talking about. You simply walked ahead of us towards the school. We didn't know what to make of it, so we followed you. The day went on as normal, though the two of us were worried about you the entire time."

I knew my confusion was visible, but I didn't much care. What on earth was Danny even talking about? I didn't remember any of this... What else didn't I remember? Were we in a hospital? I felt my gaze lose focus as my panic steadily grew. How did I get here? How long has it been since I blacked out? What did that cat have to do with anything? I was so lost in my questions that I nearly missed what Danny said next.

"... and the next thing we knew, the axe had cleaved Tucker's head completely in two."

"... what?" I whispered, thinking ("Hoping, praying") that I'd heard wrong.

But Danny gave no indication that he'd heard me. "All you did after the fact was say that a cat had done it, that a cat had caused it, and you wouldn't stop. Of course, no one could prove it since the cat doesn't exist, so it was labeled a freak accident. But you still wouldn't stop and you've been here in the Scarlet Abbey Mental Institution for the past six years."

I could only stare as Danny finished his story with a piteous but understanding look on his face. And that cat sat in his lap with a look of complete indifference.

I didn't even bother to scream that time. I just closed my eyes and waited for the white room to stop spinning.

It did, eventually. Still, I took no chances and kept my eyes closed. It was only a lifetime later that I heard my name called by a familiar voice that I opened my eyes again.

Tucker's sea green eyes met mine with a measure of concern, and I swallowed the scream of surprise and the urge to hug him like a thick, dry pill. I swiftly looked him up and down and, as a test to see if this was real ("I'm not sure of what real is anymore, but if Tucker and Danny are both alive, I'll take this strange madness any day"), I whispered, "Tucker? Is that you?"

Tucker frowned in confusion. "Of course, it's me. Who else would it be? Sam, are you alright?"

I opened my mouth. I think I meant to say, "Of course I am, now that I know that I'm not insane and you're not dead," but then I felt something rub my leg. I looked down and saw something black and furry looking up at me with a piercing amber eye ("Only one eye? I thought it had two, though I'll congratulate whoever gouged out the other one"). My eyes widened and I looked up at Tucker in panic. His eyes reflected the same panic ("Why is he so scared? Can he see this thing too?") before he pushed me bodily down onto the ground.

I smacked my head on the concrete, but I didn't feel anything. Instead I heard a strangled yell and a sickening slicing thud somewhere above me. Tucker fell beside me not two seconds later, with an axe through his head and me with no earthly clue about where it came from.

It certainly didn't stop me from screaming this time, though. Especially when I saw that one-eyed cat leap casually over Tucker's cooling body and walk towards me. Even though I was paralyzed with shock and fear, I managed to black out before it managed to touch me.

I opened my eyes to a dark and cloudy sky. I was standing up again, somehow ("How long did I black out this time? Is Tucker dead? Is Danny? Am I?"), and I watched as the Thermos in my hand shook and rattled with an as-of-yet unknown ghost's rage. I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped before spinning around to see a smiling Danny.

His grin was completely unmoved even as blindingly white rings appeared to replace Phantom with Fenton. "That was great, Sam! I gotta admit, I was a little worried about your coming out here so late, but I think we make a great team, don't you?"

I stared in confusion. "What are you talking about?" I murmured, trying to make sense of what was going on. Where were we? What time was it? What day was it?

Danny's smile slowly slid off his face as it morphed into a frown of confusion. "W-what do you mean? Don't you remember catching the ghost?"

"Ghost? What gho-?"

Meow...!

I cut off as my eyes widened in dread. I stood stock still as Danny's curiosity got the better of him. He turned to look behind him and saw that wretched cat standing much too innocently in the mouth of the alleyway we were standing in. It had only the one amber eye, still, but this time there was a noose around its neck. Any satisfaction I could've gotten from the sight was dampened by two things. One was that the noose wasn't attached to anything, and in fact seemed to have been burnt at the end. The second was that Danny was picking it up and scratching behind the ears. I could only look on in horror.

"Hey, little guy. Where'd you come from?" Danny was cooing to it, completely oblivious to me. The cat was purring, it's remaining eye closed in seeming satisfaction. Danny glanced up at me distractedly before turning his attention to the noose. "Poor thing's pretty roughed up. I wonder what happened to it?" He reached around to pull the noose from around the demon's neck, but as soon as he touched it, my vision turned red again. I blinked, knowing even before I did so what I would see.

Blood. On my hands, in the street, splattering windows, staining my clothes, everything around me was blood. I swallowed the bile that filled my throat at the sight of Danny exactly the way he was before - ice cold and in multiple pieces.

I looked down at my side, where the cat was sitting calmly, cleaning its fur. As if it felt my gaze, it paused in it's task and looked up, as though inviting me to say something.

My voice held no inflection as I forced out one word: "Why?"

The cat, of course, gave no answer. It still doesn't. I don't know how long it's been since the cycle started. Years, days, hours...

As much as I hate the cat, I've come to know it as my only constant. Not a companion, no - Pluto ("I don't why I call it that, but it fits for some reason") is the cause for everything. I'm extremely desensitized to the deaths of my friends and family now, since Pluto's had me covered in all their blood at some point. Danny's, most often. And even though I've seen the entire scene of nearly everyone's death by now, I still don't know how I managed to rip Danny apart like that. I'm not sure I want to know.

I don't have a reason for why Pluto chose me as his toy. I just know that I'm a tool for him to use ("I just now thought of it - a catspaw is person used as a tool. If that was supposed to be a joke, it's not all that funny").

One day, though, it'll be that cat's blood that covers my hands. Even if it's only for a minute before the world flips upside down again, that cat will be dead by my hands.

Just watch.