I proofread this poorly, I can tell. I'm recuperating from having all of my wisdom teeth extracted at once. Vicodin does shit to me, man, i'm probably still feeling the after effects and it's been hours since that pill wore off.

Frigid

Henry was not used to having someone—or something else—in the apartment. For a while in his life the only other inhabitants he would expect in his apartment were malicious ghosts that were trying to worm their way into room 302. When he briefly lived with his parents they were so silent and tended to their own individual needs that Henry barely saw or spoke to them as he searched for a new place to live.

This kitten was another world entirely.

Henry had never had a pet growing up. Sometimes he would get paid to feed and walk the neighbor's dog, and one of his aunts lived on a farm, but that was about as close as he ever got to experiencing what it was like to own a pet. It wasn't long before he kept helpful web pages up on his computer, nervously glancing as Eileen padded about the apartment, rolling, stretching, shedding, clawing, and occasionally biting. There was a saving grace in that she couldn't really sharpen her claws very well as she was missing half of her leg, but it still caught Henry by surprise. She seemed to fall into a perpetually perky state without that much recuperation after her major surgery, and all of that energy fell straight to exploration and terrifying the hell out of her owner.

During the night she prowled about, knocking things over or otherwise making a tiny ruckus that would rock him from his sleep and to his feet. The first thing to his mind was never that he had a rampaging kitten and was moreso inclined to believe that his apartment was being invaded by the Other World again. More than once he had crept about his dark apartment in the night, hugging the walls and gripping whatever measly weapon he could find—from flimsy yardstick to ceramic lamp (sometimes with it still plugged in because he was in such a panic to see what the noise was). Almost always Eileen would mew curiously at him, causing him to squint and see her small form staring at him wondrously from the dark. Usually then he'd sigh, pat her on the head if she was close enough, then go back to bed, leaving the door open lest she prodded, meowed, or clawed against it in protest.

After two weeks Henry had begun to wonder whether or not his impulse decision was a good thing. Sure, the kitten had adjusted well to the litter box and was otherwise a relatively quiet pet—no complaints from the neighbors—but the cat had turned his apartment life upside down. As he paced about the small space she would leap from unseen corner, lashing out at his pant legs to chew ferociously on his shoelaces—or his socks, whichever he was wearing. Almost always he would cry out in shock in a decided overreaction to normal kitten play, but he couldn't help the primal belief that he was moments away from being attacked (or eaten) whenever her tiny claws attempted to pierce his skin.

At least once he had almost kicked the kitten to the ceiling on accidental reflex, catching himself with his leg in midair before the kitten flung off, Eileen hanging by claws and teeth and mewing in a confused and scared manner until he unhooked her from his pant leg.

Henry needed a break, but it wasn't coming anytime soon.

Wedding season was in full-swing, causing his freelance work to momentarily skyrocket. The more he did, the more he slept through Eileen's nighttime rambles; the more he moved around, the more he easily danced around her ambushes. Becoming quite agile around the kitten, he soon found himself avoiding her in the morning and too exhausted to play with her in the evening, much to the kitten's hidden dismay.

One morning Henry was somehow successfully juggling cereal, a bowl, a spoon, and his cell phone in his small kitchen, making hasty arrangements with a client as he set up his breakfast. He awkwardly closed the fridge with his foot as he weaseled the milk out of the door, thanking the client and hanging up.

If nothing else for the entire day, Eileen was always doing figure-eights around his legs in the morning, happy to see him awake and eager to be fed herself. After a few minutes of silence and Henry poured the cereal a click went off in his head.

He couldn't hear Eileen purr, and he sure as hell wasn't feeling her small body rubbing up against his ankles.

"Eileen?" he called out quietly, his mouth full of cereal. Gulping it down and wiping his mouth, he stood on his tiptoes and peered over his small apartment.

"Eileen? Where are you?"

Pausing in the middle of his own breakfast, he took out her own food and filled her dish—even being a little generous. But Eileen didn't show her face. A slow fear ate away at his stomach, and as he left his cereal to grow soggy on the counter to search for her it started to become wretched. He had felt this kind of fear before—searching for a woman with the same name whom had gone missing from his sight and protection.

Henry began to tear his room apart. Dropping to his knees and searching under every piece of furniture, calling and making kissing noises constantly, and even opening the windows and peering fearfully downwards.

Nowhere.

Slamming the window shut, Henry felt his breaths quicken and his heart race. Panic blurred the edge of his vision. Desperately trying to keep it at bay, he rubbed the bridge of his nose fiercely, gnawing on his lower lip. He couldn't hear or see her. He knew she was about him as he got up; he remembered her skittering away from the water that dripped from his body as he stepped out of the shower.

A flash of red interrupted his train of thought and he choked as pain laced his forehead. A horrible vision flitted through his mind—a disgusting fridge, a bloody pair of jeans, a lump of furry flesh within—and just as quickly as it had come it was gone.

Henry's eyes flew open and he bounded to the fridge, opening the door.

"Eileen!"

She tumbled out from the bottom shelf, dazed and unhappy.

"How did you get in there?" Henry gaped, picking the kitten up and placing her carefully on the counter. She shook her head and mewed at him, blinking deliriously. Rubbing her with his warm hands, Henry slowly forced himself to breathe normally again.

"I should get you a bell...," he muttered, brushing back her velvety ears and watching them spring back to attention.

Leaving her in a bundle of blankets (as he had yet to get her a proper bed) and a dish of warm water, Henry left for his next appointment. He tried not to think about what would've happened to her had he not thought to look in the fridge, and he tried even more to forget about the reason why he thought to look in the fridge.

The last wedding he was asked to do came to a close, sending a poor, tired Henry home in the middle of the night. Shuffling to bed without turning on any of the lights and only putting on half of his pajamas he collapsed into a slumber that he was certain he wouldn't wake from until the sun was at its highest in the sky the next day.

Then he heard whimpering. It slowly drew him out of his sleep until he awoke roughly. Turning around on the bed, he saw that in his delirium he had forgotten to leave his bedroom door open. Groaning as he stood up, he opened the door and mumbled Eileen's name to call her to the room. She continued to whimper as though she didn't hear him. Exasperated, Henry stepped into the small hallway.

There, in the middle of the floor, was Eileen, curling and twisting over herself violently. Henry stared, mystified and scared as he watched the kitten wrench itself in awkward directions, whimpering and whining as it did so as though against its will. She had made similar movements before, but it was always in play, and she never sounded so in pain like she did now.

"Eileen," he called louder, "Eileen?"

Henry wrapped his big hands around the kitten and it jerked in surprise with a pitiful yowl. Henry flinched, keeping the small ball of fur between his palms.

"Eileen, what's going on here? What happened?" Righting the kitten so it could look at him, he tried to examine her eyes in the darkness, "Are you all right?"

Eileen whimpered, her ears flat and her tail curled between her legs.

A meow, deeper than Eileen's and not from her mouth, bounced off the walls of the apartment. Henry felt his heart sink into his stomach. Frightened by the noise, Eileen jumped and frantically curled herself between Henry's knees, desperate to get away. Picking up his kitten, Henry slowly backed into his room. Fumbling with the nightstand as Eileen's tiny body was wracked with pain in his hand, he fished out a long, pure white candle with a bloody red inscription. Keeping the kitten close to his heartbeat, he ventured back out into the hallway, easing his way to the kitchen. The deeper cat yowled again, causing Eileen to squeak in fear.

"It's all right," Henry said soothingly though his voice trembled, "I've seen this before."

Carefully he opened the fridge, seeing the all-too-familiar lump of flesh stare at him with a bloody stump for a head. The candle in his hand flared to life as he set it down in front of the flesh. The lump yowled and Eileen shrieked in pain as a response. Henry felt his fingers close protectively over the cat.

"I hope this is a dream," he whispered hoarsely as he watched the lump of flesh disintegrate with the candle. Eileen shivered against him.

Dazed, he closed the fridge when everything had disappeared and shuffled back to bed, wide-eyed and kitten in hand. Placing her carefully on the bed before clambering in after her, he gazed at the kitten, wrapped tightly in her own tail and still trembling from the lump of flesh from the fridge.

Reaching out a finger to lightly stroke her chest, he spoke to the kitten quietly.

"Did you see it coming? Was that why I found you in the fridge this morning?"

The kitten gazed at him as though it was frustrated with itself for failing to make him understand. Or maybe he was reading into its green eyes too deeply.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "Talking to you like this, thinking you're more than a cat...,"

Eileen batted his finger.

"I'll be here now, just nine-to-five work for a while. No more weddings."

She seemed to ignore him. Henry sighed, and tiredly moved his finger to the soft fuzz of her stubby arm. Eileen flinched away, sitting on her hind legs before pouncing on his finger and biting. Henry let her.

"I'll pay more attention to you is what I'm saying," Henry explained quietly, "Hopefully...we won't be haunted again."

The kitten released his finger and Henry sniffed, dismissing his one-sided conversation with a cat as he rolled over to fall asleep.

Eileen watched him, her tail swishing back and forth. After a while she started to purr softly, climbing carefully onto his pillow and nestling herself against the thick hair on the back of his head.

Henry felt as though he was forgiven, but the circumstances that led up to the forgiveness troubled his sleep for the rest of the week.