Demon in the Roses

     I flew down the hall on feet made of fury. There was another cat on our property again. Tardzilla and Captain Apathy weren't having any of it; whatever moron feline had decided to encroach on our territory was to be set upon and taught a lesson about trespassing. I found them twisting and weaving in a dance of hatred at the door. The open door.

     I crept up slowly, trying my best to startle a few felines as possible. Unfortunately, I made a wrong step and my fearless defenders bolted for the couch. Did I say fearless? I mean cowardly. I was in sight of the door by the time this happened, but all I caught of the intruder was a flash of white. White is a common color for cats, right? Tardzilla is half-white, after all.

     If I wanted this to end now, I'd have to charge out there and risk that other cat's life by running it across the street and making it think twice about fucking with my house (cats). So I hunted around for a flashlight and shoved my feet into a pair of shoes. I could have gone barefoot; the gravel behind the house hasn't killed my bare feet yet, despite its pointy, malicious attempts, but the point was no longer stealth. It was to make as damn much noise as possible without waking the neighbors to give that cat something to think about the next time it looked at my house.

     However, because it was two in the morning and dark out, I erred toward loud stealth, taking small carefully thought out steps to get around the back of the house. Where was that damn cat? Normally they got cocky and waited about halfway around the back of the house. I swung my flashlight beam around, finding nothing in mom's raised tulip bed, or the irises, or near the truck. Then I found hell incarnate hiding under the roses.

     It was horrifying to behold. My flashlight caused its eyes to glow with a hellish quality that seemed to promise that I would be at its mercy in seconds. It was hunched, wrinkled, malformed; like a chinchilla made of spiders covered in fur harvested from baby foxes and sewn together with thread made from baby seal leather. And it was staring right at me, not just at me, it was staring me in the eye.

     My heart stopped in shock before remembering that it was supposed to keep my blood circulating, after which it ran faster and hard, its footfalls pounding in my ears. I resisted the urge to scream bloody murder, knowing that if I did, my life would be forfeit. I couldn't get help, I was on my own, and I had to find a way out of this.

     The way I see it now, I had two options. I could have waited the three hours it would take for the sun to rise, thereby ensuring that this creature was banished indefinitely to whatever hellish niche it crawled out of and preventing it from preying on some other unsuspecting teenager. Or I could find a way to extricate myself from the situation, heroics be damned, and run like hell back into my house, to my room, and under the covers of my bed where I could cry myself to sleep knowing that I'd just witnessed evil far greater than anything man has yet to imagine, Chinhella. I couldn't think, I didn't even know there was a second option outside of running for my life and hoping that it didn't have friends waiting for me to be herded into their grasp where they'd promptly devour my flesh as I writhed in agony, still alive. Obviously, I chose to run.

     Maintain eye contact, I told myself, forcing my feet to move in small increments to take my back the way I'd come. Chinhella didn't seem to notice my attempt to escape. He was too busy staring at me with those windows to the very fires of hell he called eyes. Eventually I rounded the corner of the house, I was mere yards from safety now, and I broke into a sprint, caring little for the gravel, the possibility of spider webs in my face. All I cared about was making it to the sliding glass door, getting on the other side of it, and sliding the thing into the fucking closed position to protect me a mine from the evil lurking in our shrubberies.

     Somehow, I made it, sliding the glass door back in place just in time to feel, more than see, my nemesis slam into the door with killing intent. I was safe, wasn't I? It couldn't get through a double-paned glass door, right?

     It disappeared after that, returning to its hellhole, I hoped. Nonetheless, I waited for two hours, various bludgeoning instruments in hand at various times, waiting for Chinhella to return like a bad horror movie. It never did, though I still fear its return to this day and have prepared sufficient weaponry to protect myself. Chinhella 2: The Wrath of Chinhella, must never, ever happen again.


Totally an over-dramatic re-enactment of something that happened to me a few summers back. I waited about half an hour, poised by the window with a flashlight only to discover that Chinhella was actually an adorable little possum. I suppose I really ought to be glad he wasn't a skunk instead.