The Odd Cat Lady – Page 2 – Don't fear the monsters

Mr. O’Brien’s Party Place

I just wanted to start saving money for college. I didn’t sign on to deal with the rest of this bullshit.

I applied for practically everything in my area, but the thing is, so did all the other kids that graduated from my class. And luck of the draw, I didn’t get hired at McDonald’s, KFC or Panda Express.

I got hired at fucking Mr. O’Brien’s Party Place.

I’m Never Shooting Another Snuff Film

You don’t start out shooting snuff. You build up to it. To be honest, I never thought I’d let it get that far. And I wish I never did.

I started out wanting to be a legit film maker. But that’s a hard business to break into when you don’t know the right people. Living on your own is expensive, and it gets humiliating to ask your parents for help covering your rent after the second time. My mom was always more than happy to help, but it wasn’t like my parents were loaded, and I hated being a leech.

Pieces and Parts

My ‘father’ calls me Miranda, but I’m not sure if that’s entirely true. But you can just call me that too, I guess.

The only thing I know for sure is that three weeks ago, I died. And two weeks ago, I came back in my father’s basement.

It was dark, I was cold. I couldn’t move my right arm or leg. I tried getting up off the table I was laying on but I ended up just face planting on the floor. Despite the feel of blood trickling from my nose it didn’t hurt.

They’ve Taken Our Tongues

I knew something was wrong when Greg came home and didn’t even so much as give me a kiss before he ran into our bathroom.

Obviously the first thing I did was run after him, knocking on the door after finding it was locked. “Is something wrong, dear? Are you sick? I thought you’d be out fishing for a few more hours,” I asked.

Greg’s response made something inside my skin crawl. “Everything’s all right, lovely!” I heard his voice respond in a tone far too chipper than the look of sheer panic I saw on his face when he sped past me. “What’s for dinner tonight?”

Midnight Buskers

“All right, ladies and gents, three rules for tonight!”

Adam clapped his hands together, snapping me awake from my position in the front seat. I’d not even meant to fall asleep, I’d just been on my feet all day and I wasn’t really up for being out this late. But this was apparently a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience and I’d not had a chance to hang with Adam outside of cyberspace for months. So I let myself be dragged along as long as I didn’t have to drive. I didn’t have the gas money.

Book Sale

Both The Children at the End of the World and Wedding Bells are marked down to 99 cents! If you’ve wanted to purchase them, now is the time.

The Girl Named Bea

I met her while I was weeding the flower garden.

I had just about finished up when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. They may have been trying to get my attention for a while, I had my headphones in and the only reason I heard anything was because I was in between songs.

“Sorry, sorry,” I pulled out an earbud and scrambled to my feet, “I didn’t hear you back… there…”

Lucifer’s Diamond

After the Belphegor Pocketwatch was successfully retrieved, our investigation had come to a dead end.

On one hand, Pearlie’s theory about the seven deadly sins seemed to be an accurate one: the silver spoon for gluttony, the golden cuff for greed, the brooch for lust, the gun for wrath, the pen for envy, and sloth for the pocketwatch.

But if that theory was true, then we were missing one.

The Belphegor Pocketwatch

Out of all the trinkets, this one was the hardest to find, we only came into possession of it six months ago. This was partially due to the ambiguous description we had to go off of, but mostly because it was never in a single person’s hands for long before the owner expired.

Pearlie, again being incredibly helpful, was the one who figured out what the trinket was through an urban legend forum. The story went that a man in the early 1900’s committed suicide and his eldest son inherited his fortune. Shortly after though he also died, the fortune going to the next brother. The pattern repeated until all four sons were dead and the estate was sold off. The urban legend said that a particular watch belonging to the father was cursed.

The Leviathan Pen

Having Pearlie on my side during this made finding these trinkets so much easier. It took only six months to track this one down, finding it at an auction of a certain Ms. Wanda Perch’s property. The pen was in a box of various other calligraphy items and we bought the whole thing for seventy five dollars.

We’d discovered its existence through an article about this Ms. Perch, and the curious story about her and this pen revealed itself through various social media posts and police reports. At this point, it wasn’t about solving a case for a client. I hate to admit it, but curiosity about these trinkets had begun to run my life. I wanted to know how these trinkets changed people, people who seemed so normal until they’d stumbled across a decorative spoon or stole a brooch.