Little Luci

Dark Lore Digest Prompt #46 — The Omen Cat

Image found on Pinterest.

She’s a tiny black furball with a stub of a tail and eyes the color of pennies. When she meows, it’s really more of a squeak. Kind of like an old chair or a door with hinges that need oil.

More than one person’s brought Little Luci home from that alone. Who can resist a black kitten scampering up to them with that rusty door-hinge meow, big copper eyes begging for someone to scoop her up and give her a good home?

No one, that’s who.

She might come bolting out of an alley or be sitting in a cage at a shelter. Not that anyone ever remembers bringing this kitten in but there she is, looking at you like you’re the one she’s been waiting for. Sometimes she’ll run up to someone in a park and beg for food. More often than not, she’ll be wandering in or near a graveyard.

Everyone who takes her in names her Luci too. It just feels right. Like they look at this little beast with her big round eyes and nubby tail and go ‘Yeah, that’s a Luci’. They might work through others first: Inky, Lilith, Shadow, Stubby maybe…but in the end, it’s always Luci.

And where Luci goes, misfortune’s sure to follow.

In the summer of 1966, a little boy threw rocks at her and chased her down the street, laughing all the while. Late that night the whole block went up in flames, stemming from the boy’s house and consuming all the rest.

The fire department was able to save most of the other buildings, but that house just refused to stop burning. Burned like the fire was alive and hated the place. Burned until there was nothing left but ash and bone.

They blamed bad wiring.

No one would ever suspect the tiny black cat watching from an alley across the street, copper eyes aglow.

One night in 2005, a man who sped up to try to hit her while she crossed the street ended up wrapping his car around a telephone pole a block later. Luci sat on the curb unharmed, daintily washing a paw while an ambulance and a fire truck raced by.

There are others. There are always others.

Five years ago, a woman in Phoenix took her in off the street, and she was laid off the following Monday, with her house in foreclosure by the spring. Unable to afford Luci, she took her to the shelter. Luci was waiting on her porch when she got home.

A teenage girl found her outside a cemetery in rural Vermont last October and snuck her into her bedroom. Three days later, her father’s business partner disappeared with everything in the company accounts. Her dad hasn’t spoken since. Just sits in his chair.

As far as anyone knows, the girl still has her.

No one who takes Luci in seems able to give her up. Not even when they want to. Even when they start to notice the pattern. Even when they find the old forum posts where other people described the same little black kitten, the same stub tail, the same copper eyes, with years between each sighting.

She’s been showing up in photographs since at least the 1940s.

And if you’re reading this thinking you’d never be foolish enough to pick her up —

You’ve never heard that squeaky little meow.

Inspired by my own tailless cat Lucy (or her proper name, Lucipurr), who I swear is a tiny tuxedo demon.

Also check out this story by Pen & Page!

[embed]Don’t Read the Red Illustrations A cursed children’s book changes after midnight, and a grieving narrator learns every illustration rewrites reality and…medium.com