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She finds it in an alleyway in the pouring rain. It’s yowling its head off, and probably pissing everyone off in her apartment building. Karen thinks that dying cat is a bad ambience for her night, so she tracks the noise to its source. It’s kind of an amazing feat– how the cat manages to get its high pitched cries out over the sound of pouring rain and New York traffic, especially when Karen actually lays her eyes on the cat and sees how scrawny it is.
It’s swimming in a pool of garbage and rain water, sitting on top of a large black trash bag like it’s a pool floatie. Its fur is long and matted from the rain, and if it wasn’t being so loud, Karen probably would’ve mistaken the cat for an old mop. When the cat catches Karen watching it, it pauses its crying. Karen expects it to beg her for food or shelter, but instead it fixes her with the deepest glare that says, I will kill you if it means I get to eat your body.
That’s enough to make Karen want to never look at the cat again, but she has this feeling that the cat was one, single raccoon fight away from death. When Karen stretches a hand out, she doesn’t get far before the cat hisses at her, and she snatches her hand back, frowning.
“Please,” Karen says. Water droplets kept falling into her eyes, her hair soaked and dripping until she’s sure she resembles the cat across from her. “It’s cold . Don’t you want to go inside?”
The cat just blinks at her. Karen doesn’t even get one step before it starts to yowl again.
“Fine! Be that way.” Karen says. She turns rather dramatically, makes it four steps away before she remembers the cat won’t call her bluff because it doesn’t speak fucking English . The embarrassment of that revelation is probably Karen’s last straw. She turns back to the dumpster, snatches the cat up by the midsection, and hauls it with her into the apartment in her outstretched hands.
Once it’s actually in her hands, it doesn’t struggle, probably accepting her manhandling in exchange for the heat inside her apartment complex. She does have to share an elevator with Edith (lives in the floor below, number 126), who keeps shooting her dirty looks because the cat smells like rotting, spoiled milk, and both of them won’t stop dripping onto the floor.
When the elevator doors ding and open, the cat meows as Edith steps out, and she turns to give them one last dirty glare. Karen’s arms are starting to hurt from holding the cat, outstretched at eye level. “Look at me.” (It doesn’t.) “You’re embarrassing me.”
—
“Are you sure Marci’s allergic?”
Karen’s sitting on the floor of her bathroom in a bra with a brand new collection of scratch marks littering her arms. Her soaking wet shirt is discarded by the sink where the cat was bundled up in a towel, staring at her in a similar state of resentment and discontent.
“I feel like you’re making that up,” Karen says, “Because it’s literally never come up before.”
“I’m pretty sure.” Foggy’s voice rings out in the bathroom over the speaker of her phone, and he’s laughing at her. How dare he. “It’s never come up before because you’ve never tried to offer us a cat before.”
“You know actually a lot of people who have a cat allergy own cats. It’s not impossible.”
“Did you beg Matt this much? What was his excuse for saying no?”
Karen had called both Matt and Ellison once she had finished bathing the cat. She’s sure her neighbors hate her– either from the cat’s yowling or her own swearing– but at least her apartment doesn’t smell like spoiled milk anymore. Besides, it was sort of a bonding experience.
“Well… Matt’s excuse is that he didn’t want it.” Foggy keeps laughing at her. Karen pinches the bridge of her nose and turns the volume down on her phone. “And you said he’s cute!”
(Karen recently found out that the cat is in fact a he.)
“That doesn’t mean I want it, Karen.”
“ Fog –”
“Sorry, but no!” Karen lets out a long sigh. “Is there really no one else you can ask?”
“I don’t have other friends, Foggy .”
“Mmm, that sounds like a you problem.”
“Fuck you.”
“What about a shelter?”
To express his discontent with the idea, the cat meows at her from the counter. Even clean and mostly dry now, he has a bit of a permanent frown. He’s not looking at her in a pleading way– Karen doesn’t even think it’s possible with his bone structure. There’s no love or desire for her in his eyes, but Karen doesn’t want to just pass him off to be someone else’s problem– one they might not be able to solve. She chews at her bottom lip, unable to break eye contact with this sad, ugly, old cat.
Ugh.
“No, I can figure it out myself. There’s enough cats in the shelters already.”
“Alright. You got this, Karen,” Foggy says, voice chipper, because he isn’t the one who’s signed himself up for cat fostering, and he isn’t the one who has to hope he doesn’t wake up to cat shit on the floor because every PetSmart in the area is closed and he can’t buy a litter box and– “Matt’s basically like an outdoor cat anyway. How different could it be?”
Karen scoffs.
“I’m telling him you said that.”
—
Karen doesn’t intend to give the cat a name. Naming the cat implies that Karen is going to keep him around long enough to need a name for him, and that’s not her goal. That is, until Karen walks into the vet’s office with the cat in a cardboard box.
(So she forgot to buy a cat carrier. Sue her. He likes it in there anyway.)
The woman at the desk asks Karen what her cat’s name is, and Karen’s brain short circuits. If she were to speak her internal monologue aloud, the receptionist would probably call her a dick, and she might get jumped by a cat lover or two.
There’s a high schooler reading East of Eden seven feet away from her.
God, Karen hated that book.
“Cal. Kal, with a K.”
Because K names are better.
—
Karen doesn’t think she’s going to use the name, but she decides quickly that it was actually a good idea. She needs a name to shout when Kal pushes her books off the coffee table and gets wet paw prints on her papers.
—
“You smell like cat now.”
“No, I don’t.”
“No, you do,” Foggy chimes in, “Even I can smell it.”
“No,” Karen repeats, “You. Can’t. ”
“Okay, I can’t.” Foggy concedes, raising his hands up and shrugging. He turns around, returning to his office, but Karen thinks his strut is a little too dramatic to be sincere.
Matt doesn’t give in as easy. He never does. “You smell like cat now,” He repeats, “Like cat litter and cat food and cat pee–”
“Matt .”
She threatens to stop at the nearest department store and buy the cheapest, most nauseating, old woman, headache inducing type of perfume. She tells him she’ll wear twenty layers of it to work, and she’ll spray it on his desk and his chair and suit.
They both know she won’t, but Matt shuts up.
And then he brings it up again the next day.
—
“Ouch,” Karen says.
Kal doesn’t even glance at her, just keeps kneading away at the thin fabric of her pajama shorts.
“Ouch,” Karen says again, but with more conviction. That causes him to glance up at her, but the movement of his claws in her thigh doesn’t stop.
“Did you know that hurts?”
She pokes his rib.
He slams his paw into the keyboard of her laptop, catching on the power button and sending it to sleep. He returns to his work, and Karen doesn’t bother him again.
—
“What’re you looking at?” Foggy peers over her shoulder at her laptop screen. She always hates when he does that, but she supposes she is supposed to be working, so she can’t complain. Instead, there’s six tabs pulled up– all different articles about the best cat toys for happiness or mental stimulation or whatever. He doesn’t even see the three other windows full of articles for cat litter and beds and scratch pads. “I thought you hated Kal. Now you’re buying him toys?”
“Just because I don’t think Kal and I are compatible as roommates doesn’t mean I want to give him depression,” Karen mutters, minimizing the tabs even though the damage is done. “He didn’t choose this life, Foggy.”
“Can he even get depression if he has ‘evil residing in his soul’ ?”
When Karen says it she’s serious. When Foggy says it, he just sounds silly.
“Would you want to piss off an animal with murderous intentions?”
“You’re right. Only the best for overlord Kal, supreme ruler of Karen Page’s apartment– sorry, Kal’s apartment.”
“That is not what’s happening here,” Karen mutters, “I’m just trying not to neglect my cat.”
“Your cat! You said it!”
“It’s a technicality.”
—
Karen picks up another box of treats when she does her biweekly grocery run. This time it’s a value pack.
—
“Stop being dramatic.”
Karen grabs Kal by his middle and drops him on the ground only for him to jump back onto the counter effortlessly to stare daggers into her soul. His meow feels slow and extremely intentional.
“No. You just ate.”
She can feel his temper tantrum building up. She takes one step back from the counter, two to her bedroom, and then Kal is jumping off the counter and screaming over the empty feeding dish as if she hasn’t fed him for three days.
“It’s a vet recommendation, Kal!”
He smacks the dish with his paw and it goes skittering across the tile.
“Stop it, before you get us both evicted.”
Karen storms over and picks the dish up from off the ground, throwing it on top of the fridge where he can’t pout over it at least.
Kal watches her, and then brushes past her leg, finding a box to pout and hide in until dinner time.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. We can’t all get what we want.”
She thinks she’s going a little insane from how much she regularly converses with a cat.
—
“If you don’t stop getting your paws on my files you’re getting evicted. I’m serious. You don’t pay rent. I pay rent. Understand? Stop it.”
—
“I didn’t take you for a cat person.”
“I’m not.”
“Yeah?”
Kal curls up on Frank’s chest, and Frank scratches behind one of his ears and god, Karen hears that fucker purr.
“He’s laying it on thick,” Karen argues, “He’s usually meaner than this.”
“Maybe cause you’re not a cat person.”
Karen frowns, and Frank gives her this gloating look. He just loves when he can get her to shut up. Maybe that’s why he gets along with Kal so well.
“Well just know,” Karen pouts, crossing her arms and settling back into her armchair, “If I ever go missing, you gotta ask him about my whereabouts first. You’re cuddling up with suspect number one right there.”
“Yeah he’s real threatening,” Frank drags out the word real, and Karen rolls her eyes. Kal stretches his body out, weight shifting into Frank’s torn up shoulder, and Frank makes a small grunt. Almost immediately, Kal slides off Frank’s torso, curling up into the opposite, unwounded, side, most of his weight on the couch now. Frank coos at him, and damn, that cat knows the way to Karen’s heart.
“Stop being a kiss up.” Karen whispers, eyes pointed at Kal, who doesn’t reciprocate the staring contest. His eyes are closed, blissfully unaware of Karen’s gaze.
“He can’t understand you, Karen.”
“No he can.” Karen says, “He just doesn’t listen.”
—
“You know what your apartment smells like?”
“Matt, I swear to god.”
Matt gives her this stupid grin– sort of apologetic, but also completely not. “Where is the little guy anyway?” He asks.
“He’s not so little anymore.” Karen walks over to Kal and picks him up. He’s filled out over the last couple of months, and he’s due for another vet appointment soon. Karen has a small suspicion they’ll change his diet from “starving cat recovery” to “regular cat diet,” and she’s worried he’ll be very vocal about his feelings on the matter.
She puts Kal in Matt’s lap once he’s seated in the armchair. “No wonder you always have cat hair on your clothes now.” He runs his fingers over Kal’s long fur. Karen’s taken to carrying a lint roller around with her.
“You kind of look like a super villain like this.”
Matt smiles, and that only makes her words feel more true. “Do we make an intimidating pair?”
“Oh yeah,” Karen says, with a lot more conviction than is necessary, “You should take him out on your nightly activities. Play good cop bad cop.”
“I’m bad cop.”
“No, you’re definitely not bad cop.”
Matt’s jaw pops open like he’s offended by the fact that the hypothetical scenario Karen’s created isn’t the one he wants. “You’re not saying Kal’s bad cop.” He picks Kal up and says, “He doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body, do you Kal?” Karen saves the cat baby talk to a mental folder of Matt blackmail for later. Definitely not bad cop.
“Kal likes to play sweet with guests, but he’s actually a dick.”
Matt sets Kal back down on the ground so he can scurry away and maybe tear up another one of Karen’s shirts.
“You love him.”
“Nope.”
Matt laughs in the way he does when he can tell Karen is lying. “You’re so full of shit.”
—
“What do you want?”
Kal’s eyes stare at her from the end of the hallway– beady, shrouded in shadow. It’s ominous, kind of like the cat from Pet Sematary . It is way too late for Karen to be thinking about Stephen King.
“Don’t tell me you want to eat. It’s like three am.” Three twenty six to be exact. Karen’s vision is blurry from staring at her laptop screen for so long, and the words are starting to blend together at this point. Still, she’s not nearly as close to finished as she hoped she would be.
Kal jumps up onto the empty couch space by her torso, climbs onto her stomach and makes Karen wheeze when he finds all the worst places to step. When he’s curled up and settled, Karen can barely see her laptop screen over the mound of fur. She doesn’t kick him off.
—
The doorknob rattles when Karen tries to unlock it.
Kal must be able to hear it. He’s always waiting on the other side.
—
“You have a bed,” Karen whines. Kal gets his feet all over her neck, steps on her windpipe and lies across her face when she’s trying to drift off. “I put a lot of research into that bed,” she mumbles.
Cal gives her a look in the darkness that says, Didn't ask. Don’t care. His bed remains abandoned on her bedroom floor.
Karen doesn’t know how it is exactly, when she’s got someone actively trying to suffocate her, but she sleeps a little easier.