There's a fine line between a wild time and a flat line.

“So we are keeping her?” Jared asked he was referring to the cat I found a day ago lying in the alleyway. She was coiled up in his lap sleeping peacefully. He stroked her soft fur careful around her cuts, and looked over at me.

“I think she wouldn’t be any trouble, she could fix the buildings rat problem. Plus, I mean look how fond she is of you.” I chuckled the cat opened one purple eye and looked up at me.
Jared picked the cat up and gently sat her back down on the floor. I watched him attempt to go to the restroom alone, but naturally the cat followed him to every spot in the apartment we shared. When she nudged the bathroom door open with her nose and slipped inside. A few seconds later Jared let out a loud groan and I laughed knowingly why.

Jared is not my boyfriend, nor is he gay, we are just very loyal friends. He was very charismatic and we hardly ever fight. His chestnut hair is usually left untamed, and I have always been jealous of those icy blue eyes of his. He has a way of peering into ones soul with them. And can get away with most anything with them, perhaps that’s why he is such a good actor.

Jared emerged from the bathroom, the cat was following close behind. “Well I have a bachelor party to attend and I’m running late.” He leaned down and picked up the cat, and shoved her into my chest.

“Take her, please!” He exclaimed.

I agree she probably would follow him out the door if I didn’t have a hold of her. I rubbed between her ears, she seemed to like that a lot. “Who would have thought your first groupie would be a cat!”

Jared laughed sarcastically as he left the apartment “Very funny, I’ll see you when I get home.”

I looked down at the feline, and her ears cocked back watching Jared leave. “Awh!” I cooed stroking her lovingly. “Don’t worry he’ll be back in the morning. How about I fix you something to eat?”

A little pink tongue slipped across her black lips indicating what I could only assume as a ‘yes please!’

Wait… Do cats have lips? I pondered that thought while I sat her on the kitchen counter.

She sauntered over to a leftover bowl of shredded chicken I found in the icebox and sat out for her. It was no doubt leftovers from the Mexican food Jared and I ate on his birthday, three days ago.

She poked her tiny paw at the chicken and then looked at me suspiciously. “Go on!” I told her. She kept her purple eyes on me and lowered her face into the bowl. At first she gave the chicken a lick for taste, and then the next second she was inhaling it. Clearly she was very hungry, and she was only satisfied after she ate a few leftover fish sticks, a slice of ham, then a can of Vienna sausages and half a bag of popcorn she found stuffed somewhere underneath my couch.

I told myself to scold Jared for that one.

After all that food she finally curled up at the foot of my bed, licked her paws and fell asleep. I slipped into bed as well and before I fell asleep I looked down at the sleeping cat. And I was brought back to when I was in the alley. Jared of coarse didn’t believe me when I told him how I scared off three big, scary men with metal canes.

Realization hit me, now I can fully understand how unbelievable that sounded. I’m sure those guys killed men twice my size one on one. Why were all three of them frightened of me alone?

My first thought was …Am I that ugly?

Before I knew it I drifted off to sleep and even though I wasn’t awake physically my brain was still processing things. In my dream I was back at the alleyway watching the men running away. Then my mind fast-forwarded to the moment I was at the end of the alley cradling the cat in my arms that’s the moment I caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye.

My brain slowed down and this time I got a better look at what it was. It was like a black fog coming down the street toward me, and then it stopped abruptly a few yards away.

Glowing yellow eyes studied me from within the cloud, and suddenly I could hear whispering. A female and a male talking back, and forth but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were talking to fast, and their voices echoed like they were in a auditorium.

Then the cloud dispelled into the street was clean of any fog what so ever, and the voices faded with it.

My head snapped the other direction. All of a sudden I was back in my bedroom staring at the neon red numbers on my radio alarm clock that was going off. I swung my arm over and smacked it a couple times to shut it up.

Then I rolled back over and attempted falling back asleep. But my mouth was dry and It occurred to me I probably wouldn’t fall back to sleep unless I got up and got a glass of cold water. So I forced myself to get up and staggered my way into the kitchen.

There while I was filling up a glass of water the memories of the dream crept back to me.

What was that cloud?... Was that really what I had seen out of the corner of my eye?

I sipped my water contemplating it, and shook my head. Nah... That was just my imagination playing tricks on me. I do have to say that the dream was quite real to me though. That might be why I believed it for a second. Of coarse dreams aren’t real.

A faint sound of scratching was coming from the living room area. I ignored it really, until I heard the cat in there hissing and howling at something. That’s when I rushed to the living room to find out what was going on.

The cat had one of the many rats in the apartment building cornered by our television center. The rat was on its hind legs and was snapping at her with its ugly jaw. She hissed and swat at it with her paw and her long sharp nails were extended.

For anyone who didn’t know rats frighten me. They disgust me with their little eyes and long whiskery noses. They claw things up and smell awful!

So.. I let her handle him.

She swung her paw at him again and the rat clamped down on it. It made her yelp and flail her paw around, but he held on for as long as he could. Finally she flung him lose and he went flying into my television screen, there he bounced off and scattered underneath a ripped corner of our living room floor.

I’ll admit I screamed a couple times during the ordeal. But the cat seemed pretty brave she even laid there waiting for him at that gap in our carpet.

At least now we knew how they were getting into our apartment. Maybe I can have Jared fix that little problem when he gets home. After all that excitement I went back to bed for a couple more hours. Then I woke up around eight, with out the help of my alarm clock or pesky rats. The smell of coffee brewing let me know that Jared was home again.

I got dressed and walked into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee, and after that I went into the living room to join Jared. He was staring at the cat, which was still staring at the gap in our carpet.

“Why has the cat been staring at the carpet all morning?” Jared asked sipping his coffee. I sipped my coffee and chuckled “She’s waiting for a rat to come out. She got in a fight with one last night and it ran and hid underneath our carpet.”

“So that’s where they’re coming from.” He said. “Guess I should do something about that then.”

“I was hoping you could,” I flashed him a cheesy smile. “I would super appreciate it!”

Jared laughed “Alright let me go fetch a knife,” He stood up and went to his room,

“For what?” I questioned.

He came back out a few minutes later with a pocketknife, and walked over to the cat. He knelt down beside where she was staring and slipped the knife into the gap. The cat and I watched him pull the knife up, cutting the carpet a little. Then he did it again, and again until he cut about two feet worth of our carpet up.

Jared gasped, “Hey Amy, come check this out!”

I came over and sat next to him to see what he was so excited about. What I could see was what looked like a hole that someone plainly chewed through the wood to make. That wasn’t all that surprising to me. But when he cut another couple inches of carpet I started to see what he was so astonished over.

There was a door under our carpet.

The rats had chewed through a wooden door under our carpet!