Marked for Death

Since it happened to him, it can obviously happen to anyone else, anywhere, at anytime. I'm going to try and recall the events of what occurred as succinctly as possible. Please, bear with me -- the trauma that took place still has me shook to the core, so I may be off-balance with my wording.

My great friend Big Pussy's cat has just died. We call Johnny 'Big Pussy' or just 'Pussy' because of his morbid obesity and love for all kinds of felines. We were just a bunch of Italians in New York mourning for our friend's loss.

"Lilith was the best. When the exterminators was rippin' me off 'Cause of the mice, she was there. When the mice were tryin' to rip me off, she was there. She's gone now. God forbid she ends up at some Chinese restaurant," Pussy said, right before weeping in his hands.

"Puss, it's just a cat." Said Richie, clearly annoyed by Pussy crying over a pet.

"I'm fuckin' cryin', stop fuckin' shaming me," Pussy yelled in retaliation, flinging a half-empty bottle of beer at Richie. Guy nearly got his head bashed over nothing.

"OOHH!" We all yelled in unison. Yeah, we didn't expect things to get as dramatic as they did. We all yelled at Puss to calm the hell down, which he did, thankfully. The others went back home while I stayed around to help him bury the cat.

"OOHH!" We all yelled in unison. Yeah, we didn't expect things to get as dramatic as they did. We all yelled at Puss to calm the hell down, which he did, thankfully. The others went back home while I stayed around to help him bury the cat.

Poor Puss, I didn't know how much he loved that feline, but I get the feeling he loved her more than his ex-wife.

I brought up the idea of getting another pet, but he begrudgingly shot the idea down. "I don't want no other no cat. Ever since she was here, all night she would, whatchamacallit, fend off the crackheads coming at dusk. She's like no other."

I went along with his expressions, comforting him as much as I could during a time like this. As we began wrapping things up at the cemetery, Pussy said he wished to be reunited with her no matter what, which is what might have sealed his fate.

A whole 6 months went by, and it's as if Pussy never even heard of the cat. He had a whole new wife and dog. He even lost 2 inches of his beer belly. It only caught me off-guard because the pictures of his cat at home were gone. Every single portrait of him with Lilith, gone. It's as if she never existed to him in the first place. I asked how he conquered the grief about the loss of Lily.

"Conquered it? I just did, then I considered runnin' for president," he said happily, patting his gut with the palm of his hands. I couldn't help but laugh loudly once he said that. It was truly good to see him bettering himself after months of grief and years of being divorced. We even celebrated with a small BBQ at his backyard and partied all night.

The next morning, we woke up heavily hungover. However, I saw that Puss had these long and painful-looking scratches on his arm.

"Jesus, Mother of Christ. What happened?" I exclaimed worriedly. He had no idea and he said he couldn't even feel them at all. He asked his wife, but she too was baffled at the sight and didn't know what to say. We all fell asleep roughly around the same time, so how did those scratches form? There also weren't any signs of forced entries at his place, either.

Suddenly, his wife throws some female panties and a makeup kit at him angrily. They then got into a heated argument because of the unknown love interest. It was real nasty, however, Pussy kept insisting that he had no idea whose items those belong to, despite his wife's protests of him cheating on her. Weeks later, he was divorced again.

Back to square one again. Pussy then found a note with the words "I Miss You," written in red. At first, he thought I was playing some kind of prank on him, where we nearly fought until he was convinced that I had nothing to do with his marriage falling apart. We were trying to figure out who could've been after him, but couldn't draw any conclusions.

All Pussy had left, was his Jeremy, a small rottweiler. I swear, the way he handled that dog was as if they were meant for one another. He definitely loved that dog more than his cat, for sure.

Pussy came back from the hospital emptyhanded. He complained to me that the doctors tried to heal his wounds, but were ultimately dumbfounded that the wound themselves wouldn't close. Some of the scratches were deep enough to require stitching, but when one was thought to be closed up, it would mysteriously re-open up again.

Freaking out from seeing this, Puss immediately ran out of the hospital, against all medical treatment, and went back home. He was confused and paranoid that he had some kind of curse spelled against him.

"Relax, take it easy. Don't talk like that," I said calmly, do my best to reassure him that there's an explanation for everything that's been happening. Initially, I thought it was gonna be the end of that, but boy, were we wrong. Nothing could've been further from the truth. The real horror was just beginning to dawn on us, especially for Puss.

The next morning, I woke up at his living room screaming in agony. Puss's Dog, Jeremy, was lying dead in front of us. When Pussy came to check up on me, I turned to him and yelled even louder. He had even more scratches on his other arms and they looked worse than before.

Pussy was freaking out and desperately stared at his mirror. He saw that the scratches now began moving on their own somehow, forming the words "I Miss You" on both arms.

Then, the dead rottweiler suddenly stood up, staring right at Pussy. "S-she m-misses you," it said with its croaky voice. We couldn't believe our eyes. We couldn't believe what was happening. Just merely inches from us, is a resurrected dog.

"It's talkin', it's fuckin' talkin'," Pussy yelled loudly. "How is it talkin', let alone in English?" Questions that we'd take to our grave.

"Lilith misses you," it hissed at Puss. What the dog was now doing, put me on edge. I was on the verge of throwing up.

Its eyes were rolling around until they began to bleed. The eyeballs began making their way out of their sockets and fell off. We were staring at this thing in utter disgust & disbelief.

Suddenly, it was pitch black. The power clearly went out. Minutes after, it returned, but then she was there. The cat Puss buried a long time ago, Lilith, was now standing directly in front of us. We couldn't fuckin' believe it.

"I'm here. You wanted to reunite with me, I'm here." Lilith said, staring right at Pussy. As you might've guessed, it looked like she was decomposing.

Chunks of her fur and skin were missing, exposing bone and rotten flesh. Her eyes were dark black with venomous red slits for pupils.

"You came back to me?" Pussy asked.

Lilith grinned menacingly. "No. You came to me."

Pussy didn't even look at it. His eyes were darting at everywhere, but the cat.

"So what now?" He asked.

The cat was still grinning. "You've abandoned me. You've killed me, but I'm not going to kill you. I'll make sure you suffer a fate worst than death."

Pussy began crying loudly. "I'm not a monster, Lilith. I pay my taxes on time, why do you wanna kill me?"

No response. I just stared at the exchange happening right before my very eyes.

"Did you sabotage his previous marriage?" I asked Lilith. She still kept her demonic eyes glued on him. "Yes. The misfortune that fell on him was planned. I wanted him to feel every ounce of pain he inflicted on me. But it's okay now. I'm here."

It all made sense now. But despite this revelation, out of every consideration in existence, Lilith was the last thing we expected responsible for this horrific comeback. We obviously thought she was dead for good.

Pussy and I were in our tracksuits before Lilith made her sudden appearance. We then made a dash to the entrance doors and were fighting one another over the knob.

"Christ, open the door, fatso!" I yelled. Puss pushed me back and flung the door open. He immediately ran out, but Lilith was still there. She turned her eyes onto me and was creeping up. With the anxiety slowly building up within me, my survival instincts took over. I got up and made a run for it too, following Pussy.

He didn't even make it past 5 blocks before collapsing on the ground, wheezing for air. It was pitch black out, and not a single soul was in sight. We left our fucking phones back at his place.

Lilith came out of nowhere, presumably via teleportation. She nearly gave me a heart attack with how sudden she made her appearance. I saw her then slowly walking towards Pussy. She jumped on his beer belly and stared right at him.

"We're going to my dimension now. You'll be staying with me for eternity. Nothing but us, in a white abyss, void of all life."

Pussy began crying anxiously. I tried to get her off, but it was too late. She bit into his neck and together, they just teleported vanished without a trace. I just stared at the ground where Puss was, in complete and utter shock. That beached whale, my best buddy, was not coming back. That's where I fell on my knees, in a complete daze.

This is a warning. Please don't take your pets' deaths for granted. God knows when they'd return from the dead for vengeance. It's been 2 years ever since, and at this point, Pussy ain't coming back. I guess the scratches on his arms were the marks of death. You have been warned.