Thank you, once more, @mariannewest for another #freewrite challenge. This being the weekend, it must be the #weekendfreewrite challenge (the forth weekend freewrite, and my second). This story is written in response to three prompts, in three separate posts. You can find the first prompt (with instructions) here: @mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-4-the-first-sentence
Cat-astrophic
There were 17 cats living in Larry's basement. And, by the smell, there must have been several more that had ceased to be living some time ago. The man looked around and smiled.
This would be perfect.
He set down the large cloth bag in the centre of the room. Several of the cats came to inspect it, and he shooed them away gently.
"Not yet, kitties," he said. He took off his jacket and looked for a hook to hang it on. He didn't want it smelling of cat piss, or anything worse. He settled on something that looked like it was last used fifty years ago to hang meat. He turned back to the bag.
He knelt down (first checking for faeces, or dead animal carcasses) and then carefully took hold of the leather fob and unzipped the bag. As he did so the bag shivered.
And purred.
And growled.
And then, as he stepped back, the bag opened up...
"On Tuesday, she asked me the most perculiar question..." a voice said.
The man looked up. Larry was coming down the cellar steps. The man looked down at the bag. Or rather, at what used to be the bag. Larry did not appear to notice, neither the look, nor thethingthatusedtobethebag.
"If you take a rat, and a cat and add a sheep, what do you get?" Larry said, his feet now firmly on the floor of the basement. "Very strange question," he leaned down and gave a large ginger Tom a stroke on its back. "But then, as you know, my mother was a very strange woman. What do you think the answer is?" he said to the man.
The man said nothing. He was watching thethingthatusedtobethebag pulsate and grow.
If Larry had only stopped talking, just for a moment, he would have heard it squeek, too...
"The way Herb defrosted the refrigerator," Larry continued. "Always left Mother in a state of anxiety. He would take a blow torch and use that baby to melt the ice right off."
Larry seemed to notice thethingthatoncewasthebag (it really was quite difficult NOT to notice it now) and smiled.
"Hello there," he said. His mother, smiling back at him, opened her arms and walked towards Larry.
"Hello dear," she said. "Have you the answer to my question, yet? I am sorry if it frustrated you. But there really was no reason to stick that knife in my chest, quite so many times."
The man was smiling to himself. Larry was oblivious, to all except his mother.
If he had chosen this moment to look around he might have noticed there were no more cats in the basement.
The man opened his mouth and licked his lips. Yes, he was very hungry.
And he was going to enjoy this feast.
...
Note: the picture is of one of my cats, I made changes to it using the phone editor and then the app PicSee. I wrote the story using the themostdangerouswritingapp. I added line breaks and italics