This story originally appeared in From a Cat’s View: An Anthology of Stories Told by Cats

Night crept into the cemetery earlier than in the rest of town, and dawn came later than usual.

Perhaps the mountains to either side snatched up the sun in late afternoon and held it ransom until long after breakfast. Or maybe Nature, lover of all things atmospheric, decided a glorified skeleton farm was too unsettling a place on which to bestow so many hours of daylight. Gothic iron fences and chipped granite angels looked best in twilight, after all, especially when the fog blew in from the river to wind around the gravestones like tulle.

Whatever the reason, geology or spookiness, cemetery nights were longer, and people avoided cemeteries at night. As if ghosts and ghoulies only worked the late shift, and the daylight would protect them from invisible echoes of the past and the dark things that hovered at the corners of their eyes.

Nonsense. It was the same superstitious thinking that made otherwise rational people toss spilt salt over their shoulder and say their prayers at night. But if they believed the nonsense protected them—and kept them from admitting they were nothing but helpless specks of carbon and water floating in an infinite void of evil that wanted to steal their souls and wear their faces like Halloween masks—so what? If a little nonsense keeps society from falling apart, more power to them.

But cats know better. (Continue Reading…)

The first sign of trouble came from the panda enclosure. Speak Now Zoo’s headliner attraction spent most of her time munching bamboo and sleeping. Occasionally, she’d climb a tree. Never in Laura’s ten-year tenure as proprietress had Mindy, the Giant Panda, actually acknowledged the onlookers who paid to speak to her through the universal translation app.

So why was she now uttering string after string of gibberish? (Continue Reading…)