Two Men and a Cat

I was about 16, and was babysitting my brother, and my parent's friend's children (a boy of 10 and a girl of 14). We were living in Alconbury Village, in East Anglia. My bedroom was situated directly above the front door of the house (just for later observation). We had a downstairs living room, and an upstairs one. Downstairs, well we hardly ever used it. It had a few basics in it, like couches, and a small television, but not much else. The TV downstairs didn't even have satellite hooked up to it. Upstairs we had a lovely, cozy living room in one of the spare bedrooms, with nice big couches, a wall unit entertainment system with Sky hooked up, and a video player. My brother at the time really liked the girl I was watching, and her brother wanted to watch Toy Story. I'd seen it like a billion times, so I put it on for them, left them in the room, and went over the hall (my room was directly across from that room) to my room.

We had been in the house for about six months, and all that time, we would get the faint smell of cigarettes, or kitty litter... We were a non-smoking family, and had a dog (my dad doesn't like cats, and my mom is allergic to the dandur in their fur).

So as I was saying, I had just gone into my room, and turned on the radio (because it was time for a radio program called 'Late Night Love' with Graham Torrington, which played love songs and had people call in and voice their love problems), which was near the window, and the sat on my bed with a book. I was listening to the radio, trying to block out the sounds of Buzz and Woody in the next room, and got a few pages in when my radio started to lose the station. I got up after it had gone completely static, and put it back on the one I had been listening to. I sat back on my bed, started reading again, only to have the radio do it again. I rolled my eyes, and as I got up, I saw the dial moving! I froze, watching, and waited. The dial stopped finally, on Classic FM. I turned the dial back to my station (which was in the 90s, and Classic FM was 101FM, just to give an idea of how much it moved), and went to check on the kids in the other room. (And no, it was an old radio, without a remote)

Once in the hallway, I could hear speaking coming from downstairs. I thought for a moment that my parents had gotten home. But then remembered that I would have heard the front door open and close... And I hadn't. I moved quickly across the hall, and found that they had ALL fallen asleep. I was seriously starting to freak out, but in case I was just hearing things, I didn't want to wake them and look like an idiot. I went back into my room to find my radio BACK on Classic FM, so I turned it off and unplugged it. The song that had been playing on my radio... I still heard it. It took me a minute to realize that it was coming from downstairs. Remember my description of the downstairs living room? It didn't have a radio. Just couches and a TV.

I went into crazy mode. I turned on the stairway light, and began to creep down the stairs. The smell of cigarettes and kitty litter hit me, and made me cringe. It was so strong! I made it to the bottom of the stairs, and could hear that music playing, coming from the downstairs living room. I could also hear two men (they sounded like they were at least in their 70s) talking about something or other, although I did pick up mention of 'the war'. I peeked my head around the corner from the stairwell, and the light was on in the living room, the door ajar (we always kept the room shut to keep our dog out... Oh our dog was in the kitchen, I forgot this until just now... There was a baby gate keeping him in the kitchen, and he was whining quietly, but his tail was going mad when he saw me... He was a King Charles Cavalier) I saw the shadow of a cat approaching the door way (from the light pooling out of the ajar door), and I legged it back upstairs.

I ran into the upstairs living room and flipped on the lights. My brother woke up, and asked what was wrong. I told him that someone was in the house (not mentioning the spooky stuff, because I didn't want to scare him). He ran to his room, grabbed his baseball bat, and we went back down the stairs. On rounding the corner at the bottom of the stairs, I stared in disbelief. The light was off, and the door was now closed. The smells were still there though. My brother noticed, and commented as I creeped up to the door. I opened it, switched on the light, and the smell was overwhelming. Cigarettes and Kitty Litter. And the room was HOT (we kept the radiators off in this room, as it was so unused, it was a waste of heating, so it was usually ice cold in that room). My brother kind of freaked (and he'd only seen the aftermath), but I spared him the details. We went upstairs, I sat, terrified and joined them this time as they decided to watch Toy Story... again.

My parents got home about 30 minutes later... But I never told them about it. My brother never mentioned it to me, but he did tell some of his friends that our house was haunted. I don't think I offered to babysit in that house anymore (I went to their house from then on), and I barely stepped foot in that room until we moved out.

On our last day, just before we were moving (we'd lived there for about a year), I popped my head in, and was welcomed with the cigarette smell and kitty litter. I felt something brush up against my leg, and I heard a small, muffled cough. I said out loud, "Bye guys, have fun scaring the next people to move in..." I heard what sounded like a chuckle as I pulled the door closed to the room. As we pulled out of the driveway, I saw the curtains in that room move back, just slightly, and I saw the cat finally, it was a beautiful tabby, and it was just looking at me. Then I saw some hands pick it up from behind the curtain, and pull it away from sight.