The Ones from the Shadows
Warning: horror!
Happy Halloween!
He called this one the Brainless Beauty.
Giving the ghosts ridiculous names helped a bit. A bit. If Mistoffelees could convince himself to laugh at them, maybe they wouldn't leave him feeling sick and weak every time they visited. The Brainless Beauty was his second-to-least favourite of the bunch. They were clearly upping their ante.
"I missed you, Mistoffelees dearrrr…." she purred, stretched her thin, tattered, and translucent body on the bed, between Mistoffelees and Munkustrap. The tabby slept on, oblivious to the torment happening right beside him. It was useless to wake him; he couldn't see, hear, or smell the ghosts, couldn't do anything to help him, so Mistoffelees figured he might as well sleep.
"There's no point in this," Mistoffelees said. He tried to look relaxed and bored, though he clutched the blanket so hard his paws hurt. His heart beat thunderously in his ears. "I won't follow you."
"You're so tense," she sighed. "Imagine, just for a moment, being able to relax. Do you remember what it's like to feel peace?"
"I don't feel peace because of you rotten bastards."
She laughed, a low smoky laugh. Mistoffelees called her the Brainless Beauty not because of her lack of intelligence—she was, in fact, quite good with words and knew every button to press to horrify him—but because of her appearance. Every ghost that appeared to him was frozen in a snapshot of the manner in which they'd died. This queen had once-beautiful caramel fur that had been torn out in clumps and splattered with blood; the source of the blood was a deep chasm on the left side of her skull, where the bone had been crushed by blunt force. The hole was so deep that one could fit their entire paw in there. When she leaned in just right, which she often did, Mistoffelees could see what was left of her brain. There wasn't much.
"I can't be very interesting to you," Mistoffelees said, swallowing against the ever-present nausea. "Do you really think I'd be a good addition to your… your group, if I'm fighting you so hard?"
"Your body fights," Brainless Beauty said. She ran a finger along the edge of her shattered skull, like a seductress running a finger along a plunging neckline. The blood and brain matter caking the bone and ruined fur looked perpetually fresh. "And your body is holding you back. The tricks you do, the child's magic? All whispers, compared to the powerful bellow you could produce if you shed your body and let your spirit be free with us."
"I can't let my powers be used for evil."
Brainless laughed harshly. She pulled her bloodied and brain matter-covered hand from her skull and flipped her body over, so that she lay on top of Mistoffelees, rocking her intangible hips as though they were mating. He shivered; the ghost had no physical weight, but her body felt as though it were crushing his soul. "Good and evil are concepts so infantile, like explaining the sun and moon to an ant. With us, you would be amazing. Mighty. Beyond the scope of anything you can imagine here in the flesh world. You would be free, powerful… at peace."
Brainless Beauty slipped her bloodied finger into her mouth and sucked. Mistoffelees quivered in revulsion, but kept his eyes open, defiant. "No."
"As you wish," she grinned. Floating closer, she laid a cold mockery of a kiss on his cheek, then dissipated back into the shadows.
The moment she was gone, Mistoffelees pitched forward and vomited on the bed, sobbing long and deep. The noise woke Munkustrap; he regarded his sad, traumatized mate with kind eyes. He was too kind, dammit. He shouldn't have to deal with this too.
"Again?"
Mistoffelees could only nod, sobbing as Munkustrap gathered him in his arms.
It began near the end of winter. The leaves were now starting to turn to gold. The ghosts were clear about what they wanted: Mistoffelees' physical body was like a prison for an untapped reserve of power. If he followed them, he could have access to that power. In exchange for helping him unleash it, Mistoffelees would share this power with these creatures of the spirit world.
They started coming through the mirrors and through glass in the windows. There was something about the reflective surface, the distortion of reality, that also served as a distortion in the link between the spirit world and the flesh world. The ghosts would seep in through mirrors and windows and cajole and purr and beckon to Mistoffelees. He broke all the windows and threw out the mirrors, confusing Munkustrap. They were interested in Mistoffelees, not his mate, and had no reason to make themselves visible.
Next, they came in through fire. Candles, campfires, lanterns, the tiniest of flames was enough for a portal. The ghosts that came through the fire were insistent, violent, threatening. They didn't like being told no. Mistoffelees developed a phobia of fire, and spent nights shivering instead of curling up to a fire for warmth.
Finally, they started to come from the only place Mistoffelees could not avoid: the shadows. Shadows were tricky to begin with; they were the only places in the world where the Everlasting Cat's view was blocked, and so the darkened areas could not remain under her protection. For a while, Mistoffelees would only sleep outside under the blazing sun, plastered to the ground to avoid casting a shadow. He'd had to stop after nearly killing himself from heatstroke. He couldn't risk dying; if he died, they could take him.
So now they came through the shadows. Mistoffelees abandoned any hope of avoiding them. He slept in his bed and with his mate and went about his life, though with every passing day and every visit from insistent, vicious ghosts, Mistoffelees grew more and more gaunt, skittish, depressed.
All the tabby could do was hold and comfort Mistoffelees after a visit. Even if he didn't believe these ghosts were really tormenting him, he had the decency to pretend to believe, and that was good enough for now.
The very first time, when the ghosts came in through the mirrors and windows, they asked politely. They were sweet and nice-looking toms and queens, pale and ethereal in their ghost forms. They left Mistoffelees chilled to the core, but they didn't frighten him.
Then he insisted he wasn't going to follow them, and started breaking mirrors and glass. The ghosts that came through the flames were vicious, often screaming at him, threatening him. They were frightening to the eye; bloody, wounded, deformed.
The ghosts that came through the shadows were the worst. They seduced, they manipulated. Their charming words were at odds with the bodily horrors they'd received in death. They were the ones, Mistoffelees feared, who would eventually break him, and convince him to follow. His resolve was weakening.
When he crawled into bed that night, he kept crawling until he was deep inside Munkustrap's embrace, holding on for dear life.
"It's going to be okay," the tabby whispered, rubbing his back. "I'm here."
I wish it made a difference, Mistoffelees thought despondently. "Do you believe me, Munk? About what's happening to me?"
The rubbing didn't falter, but it took Munkustrap a second to answer. "Of course I do. If you say you see ghosts, then I believe you."
"This must be hard on you."
"I think it's harder on you, love."
At that, Mistoffelees bolted upright and grabbed the tabby, kissing him fiercely. "I love you. I love you so much… and I don't know what's going to happen tonight."
Brainless Beauty kept talking about being at peace. Peace, even obtained in such a horrible manner, was beginning to sound appealing to Mistoffelees. The previous visit was from a ghost he'd named Crawly McBlind, an elderly brown tom whose eyes had been ripped out and whose lower body had been crushed and partly-decomposed. He didn't like that ghost either, though Brainless Beauty was worse. The second-worst of them all. He had a distinct feeling he knew who was going to visit him tonight. He was so tired, so beaten, that he had no clue if he was going to wake up next to Munkustrap tomorrow.
"We'll get through it," Munkustrap was saying. "We'll get through it together."
Mistoffelees nodded grimly.
As he'd predicted, soon after Munkustrap fell asleep, the worst ghost soon came crawling through the shadows. He didn't have a funny name for it; there was no way to soften the sight of this one, no way to make its taunting jabs any less horrifying.
It giggled and floated onto the foot of the bed. Mistoffelees called it the Flayed Kitten, because there was really no other way to describe it. It couldn't have been more than a few months old, and would have looked small and innocent if it still had skin. Muscle and tissue gleamed in the shallow light of the den as it padded up the blankets, leaving wet, bloody pawprints behind.
"I missed you!" it chirped. "Do you want to come play with us?"
"Get away," Mistoffelees whispered harshly. "Get away, get away, get away…"
"But I missed you!" It floated up the blanket, until it was standing on Mistoffelees' chest. It purred wetly and rubbed its skinless head on the tux's shoulder. "If you came with me, we could play together every day! You could teach me so many fun things."
Mistoffelees made a sound between a sob and a gag. "No. Get… away."
The Flayed Kitten pouted. "That's not nice. Do you really mean that?"
"I do."
"You won't come play with me?"
The nausea was rising again. "No!"
"All right," it sighed. With a sudden, chilling air of maturity in its lidless eyes, it sat on its haunches and looked at the tux with pity. "You've made yourself perfectly clear. We won't ask again."
"You… won't?"
"Not after tonight. Not if you say no. But…" The Flayed Kitten's voice went sing-song. "You'll be pu-nished…"
Mistoffelees laughed bitterly. "There is nothing… nothing in this world you can do to punish me beyond what you've already done."
"You've made your choice." The Flayed Kitten leapt to its paws, stretched with a small purr, and turned to float back towards the shadows, dripping blood as it went. "You've made your choice and you'll be pu-nished…"
It sank back into the shadow portal. Mistoffelees sat in bed for the rest of the night, alternatively looking towards the shadows, and towards Munkustrap's sleeping form. It was over.
Until the next night.
Mistoffelees kissed his mate good night and went to sleep, undisturbed by ghosts for the better part of the night. It was almost too good to be true.
Until a cry woke him.
It wasn't a ghost, however. It was Munkustrap, curled into a frantic little ball against the headboard, eyes wide with terror. "What are you… what are you?"
"Munk-"
"WHAT DOES IT WANT FROM ME!?"
There was nothing Mistoffelees could see. The tabby jerked as though avoid a blow, swiping out with shaking claws towards the unseen attacker. All of a sudden he slapped at his leg and pressed a paw to his mouth, stifling a shriek.
So this is how it looked to him, Mistoffelees thought sadly. He sat on the bed next to Munkustrap's flailing form. "I don't know!" the tabby screamed. "Why are you asking me!?"
There was nothing to be done but wait it out. He wondered who'd come crawling out of the shadows tonight. Not one of the kind-looking ghosts; maybe the Brainless Beauty, or the tom with the stake through his throat. He hoped it wasn't the Flayed Kitten.
You'll be pu-nished…
"I can't-!"
Munkustrap's body relaxed, but not really. His body contracted and vomit spurted through the fingers of the paw still covering his mouth. He was trembling, whimpering, out of his mind with terror, and Mistoffelees knew the look all too well.
He gathered Munkustrap's rigid body into his arms, sighing darkly into the short striped headfur, and looked into the shadows at the corner of the room.
"You win."