At the sound of her voice, the cat finally stopped washing and turned its head to look at her.
Sarah went cold as she met that steady, malevolent gaze. Those hard, yellow eyes. She knew them. She remembered the rat’s glowing eyes, and how they had locked with hers.
The cat leaped down from the step and stalked towards Sarah, tail switching back and forth. Sarah jumped back.
“Miaou?”
A plaintive cat-sound. It looked up at her with bright, inscrutable eyes. A cat’s eyes. Yellow was a common color for cat’s eyes.
Sarah managed a shaky laugh. She was being silly, letting her dream affect her so. She knew it was only a cat.
“Good cat,” she said, looking down at the animal. She couldn’t quite bring herself to touch it. “You killed that nasty old rat, didn’t you? Now, how did you know that’s just what I’d like? If you’re looking for a job as rat-catcher, you’ve got it. But probably you already have a home—you look well-fed to me.” As she spoke, she climbed the steps and fumbled with her keys, very aware that the cat was watching her intently. But, then, cats often stared. She knew that.
As she opened the door, the cat was suddenly right beside her, slipping inside the porch with rapid skill.
“Hey,” Sarah said. “I didn’t invite you in! If you want to stay in the cellar and catch rats, that’s fine, but I don’t need a house cat, thank you very much.”
She looked down, and the animal looked up, and their eyes met. Golden, burning—they are like flames, Sarah thought. She broke the gaze by turning her head aside. She was breathing rapidly. I must not look, she thought. I must not let it trap me. Those flames will burn into my mind and consume me.
Her own thoughts appalled her. Was it the return of the fever? Was she crazy, to imagine some horrible connection between this cat and the demonic rat of her nightmare? No matter how she argued with herself, she could not reason away the visceral fear she felt, the fear that strung her nerves taut and made her keep her eyes averted. It was crazy, but she could not shake her conviction that the cat—standing very still now, head cocked to one side to gaze unblinkingly up at her—was dangerous.
Moving slowly and carefully, Sarah opened the door to the kitchen and slipped inside. The cat did not move, as if it understood any attempt would be foiled. Sarah had left the back door open, and she hoped the cat would soon leave the porch.
Inside, Sarah leaned against the solid kitchen door, feeling weak. Her sudden perspiration dried on her skin, and she shivered, chilled. Dazed, hardly knowing if she were awake or dreaming, Sarah wandered back to the living room and slumped onto the couch.
It was just a cat, she told herself. Cats often had yellow eyes. It was just the likeness of those eyes to the eyes of the rat in her dream which had disturbed her, stirring up scenes she didn’t want to relive. Her own explanation did not convince her.
A low moaning interrupted her thoughts. Skin prickling, Sarah turned towards the front window. Through it she could see the cat, crouched on the porch railing on a level with the window, glaring balefully in at her.
Sarah stared back, waiting for it to move. But nothing happened. The cat went on moaning and staring. Its eyes seemed to expand, and she thought, distractedly, of the story of the tin soldier and the dog with eyes as big as saucers.
She must not look into them; it wasn’t safe.
Making a great effort, Sarah managed to turn away from the window. She dropped back against the couch, breathing hard, feeling dizzy, as if she had done something far more strenuous than simply turn her head.
The cat had killed the rat, she thought.
But the rat wasn’t dead.
The rat—or something which had been inside the rat—lived on, now within the cat. Sarah had seen it staring out of those golden eyes. She knew, beyond possibility of doubt, because she had felt it clawing at the edges of her mind.
She remembered, now, what she had blocked out of her memory.
After the suffocation, after the drowning, after the pain, the rat had leaped at her in the darkness. Throwing her hands up to protect her face, Sarah had encountered two other hands which had seized her and thrown her to the floor. Someone or something—she had thought, in what little time she had to think, that it was a giant rat with human hands—had ridden astride her, legs in a painful vise around her hips, hands throttling her neck. Blood-red light had blazed before her eyes, but Sarah had not passed out. She had managed to pull the hands away, and wrestled to keep them away although she could not dislodge her assailant entirely. It was like wrestling with her own shadow: the attacker made no sound, and seemed to match her exactly in size and strength. Despite the sensation of the legs and hands which gripped her, Sarah could not feel any head or body. Perhaps her attacker had no body? Perhaps her attacker existed only in her mind, and she was wearing herself out by fighting herself?
