Zoso the Cat

Torhaven Police Department Report

Case Number: 770451       Date: 08/20/2000

Reporting Officer: Detective Randy Greene

The following is a statement given by a witness in the above case number. The above officer has read the witness their rights, and a signed document is attached containing a sworn declaration that he/she understands their rights and that the following statement can be used against them in a court of law.

My name is Alex Tanner and a trash can cat killed my family. You probably think that I’m crazy. I thought I was going crazy for the past three weeks. A stupid, cuddly black-and-white cat morphed my family from a “happy” middle-class family into a living nightmare.

It all started a few weeks ago. Around 3 a.m. on the morning of August 2nd, a loud crash outside our house woke my mother, father, brother, and me. We had heard on the news throughout July that there had been a slew of break-ins around the neighbourhood, so when we all heard the crash, we immediately thought someone was trying to break in. My father, Gregory Tanner, grabbed his hunting rifle and headed outside. He looked pissed, but I knew he was just putting on a show for us—he was scared just like the rest of us. It wasn’t long after he turned on all the outdoor lights and got a good look around that he noticed it was just our trash can. Something was inside it; he thought it was a raccoon.

My younger brother, Robert, and I went to overlook the scene from the second-floor balcony. My mother, Jennifer, made sure that Dad didn’t try to shoot any critters that were digging around in the trash—he was always a shoot-first, think-later kind of guy. Mom knew this, and she always had a big soft spot when it came to animals, so she told him to just hold the flashlight for her while she tried to find what had made all the fuss. From the bottom of the garbage bin, Mom pulled out a skinny little cat, mostly black with a tiny bit of white under his chin and belly.

From the very second that cat came from the bin, my mother was enamoured with it. After fighting with Dad for ten minutes, Mom brought that stinky stray cat into the house. I don’t know where the smell that emanated from this cat came from—it couldn’t have been anything in our garbage can. Nothing in our house ever smelled that bad. It smelled like rotten seaweed mixed with burnt plastic. Dad didn’t stop yelling at Mom the whole first night as she repeatedly bathed the cat to get the smell out.

“Jen! What the fuck is wrong with you!? This cat—it’s gotta be sick!”

He kept yelling. Mom wouldn’t listen. I wish she had listened. Or maybe it was already too late.

My brother slept in my room that night.

The next day, Mom told us the name of the cat: Zoso. When we asked her where she got the name, she just smiled and said, “He told me, silly!” I laughed at the time, but looking back, those words send shivers down my spine. For the next few days, my mom did everything for this cat. She bought him hundreds of cat toys, got him the most premium wet cat food, and spent thousands of dollars on vet bills and cat trees for this fucking cat. If I am honest, though, he was pretty chill the first few days.

Zoso would climb up on anyone who was near him and purr and purr until you pet him, he would then proceed to headbutt you until he had enough and moved on to his next victim. My father started getting the most attention; Zoso would climb on top of him and knead his claws into his stomach while purring and sucking on his clothes. He would leave giant wet spots on his clothes after he was done. It was gross.

Then the wailing started.

One night, I woke up from a dead sleep with Zoso sitting on my chest, staring directly into my eyes. He was making the scariest sound I had ever heard. It wasn’t a regular meow—it twisted and distorted, like this cat’s vocal cords were being put through a blender. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move as Zoso’s extraterrestrial scream caused my eardrums to throb in pain. His claws slowly extended into my chest. And suddenly, he stopped. I could move again, and he went back to purring and cuddling.

I told my brother the next morning about what happened, but he thought I was just dreaming. I had a hard time believing he couldn’t hear the noise that Zoso was making. It was so loud. But it wasn’t just him—no one else in the house heard it. I hardly slept from that night on. That cat scared the hell out of me.

I tried to catch the cat making that fucking crazy noise. Three days after he woke me up on my chest, I heard it again. I got out of my bed and ran toward my door to listen, to see if I could tell where it was coming from. It was coming from Rob’s room. I had to go help him.

I ran to his room and saw Zoso sitting on Rob’s chest, belting that vocalized horror into his face. His eyes were wide open, and he looked terrified. I ran over, grabbed Zoso, and threw him off Rob. He hugged me.

When we looked over at the door to his bedroom, my mother stood in the doorframe holding Zoso.

“Did you hurt Zoso, Alex?” Mom asked me as she pet that demon cat.

We tried to tell her about the insane shit the cat was doing, but she wouldn’t hear it. She grounded both of us for upsetting Zoso and causing her to wake up in the middle of the night. Dad just stood behind her, looking just as worried as we were. Somehow, this cat had gotten into my mother’s brain. I was sure of it. My brother had to be sure of it now. My dad must have seen something wasn’t right with her.

It didn’t matter if he did.

He died the next day.

Mom wanted to set up a new cat bed up high next to the patio window so that Zoso could look out and see the view of the ocean from his bed. Dad started to set up his ladder and tools to screw the new bed into the drywall. Mom wanted to go shopping for groceries for the next week and made Rob and me tag along to carry all the bags to the car.

When we got home, my father’s body was tangled up in the ladder. His neck was broken and bent back completely. We could see his eyes and the terror on his face, even though his body was facing the wrong direction. Zoso was chewing on the meat from his neck.

To be honest, I kind of blacked out from there. We called the cops, and you guys came. It was an accident. That’s what everyone said. I know it wasn’t. It was Zoso. Somehow.

Over the next few days, after things were settled, Mom started acting stranger and stranger. Rob stayed in my room every night at this point. Every night, we would hear the screams of Zoso coming from her room. Sometimes, we swore we could hear her laughing behind the nightmare moans.

She woke us up one morning standing over us. She started to stink like the cat did that first night—putrid vomit, compost, sick seaweed, and cat shit.

“Come eat breakfast, boys. Now!” she screamed at us.

She dug her long nails into our skin as she grabbed us by the necks and dragged us to the kitchen table. She had two bowls already placed on the table. There was no cutlery, no drinking glasses—just two empty bowls.

We both sat down and watched our mother, her eyes a jaundiced yellow. The smell was getting to me, and I almost puked, but I held it in. For a while, anyway.

It wasn’t until she brought over her new “recipe” that I completely hurled on the floor. She spooned out a brown, slimy meat cake with an ice cream scoop. It wobbled back and forth in the bowl as a greenish-black slime melted into the bottom. I puked all over the floor next to me.

“Oh, you poor baby!” She took the other bowl, filled it with water, and sat it on the table. “Drink up—you’ll feel better.” Her smile sickened me.

Rob and I just stared at each other, frozen, not sure what to do.

“DRINK! EAT YOUR BREAKFAST!” she screamed.

She grabbed the backs of both our heads with her claws and shoved our faces into the bowls. I thought I was going to drown in the water dish. I could hear Rob puking into the bowl as she held his face in the putrid meat. She let go and slowly started to pat the backs of our heads. I think she started to purr.

I caught Zoso watching from the stairway.

She finally let go of us completely, and both of us ran toward our room. As I was closing the door, I caught Mom and Zoso on the floor. It looked like they were licking our puke off the ground. I shut the door and moved a chair in front of the knob to keep Mom and that fucking cat away from my brother and me.

The scratching. The clawing. At the door.

We could see Zoso’s paws reaching underneath the doorframe. My mother’s fingers too. Her nails bled from the gnawing she was doing to the wood on the other side. She and Zoso both hissed and moaned.

“Please, boys, it’s me! Your mother! Your brother, Zoso! We just want to hug you!”

It went on for hours.

I must have fallen asleep.

The wailing woke me up—the unholy, cacophonous scream that could put fear into the most sturdy of men. My eyes opened to blackness. I called out to Rob, but he wasn’t answering. I rushed to turn the light on.

The door was open. The chair was moved.

Did Mom convince Rob to open the door? She must have. Stupid idiot.

I ran to Mom’s room, where the noise was coming from. What was on the other side of the door will haunt me to the day I die. My brother—my poor, poor brother—was splayed out all over the bed. His chest was open, his organs laid out at his feet. Except his heart. His heart was still inside his chest and sat with Zoso as he bit and chewed at the meat that used to pump blood through my brother’s body.

My mother, Jennifer Tanner, crouched in the corner, clawing at the carpet, and the noise was coming from a gaping maw that used to be her mouth. Her eyes were black. A deep purply-blue goo dripped from her eyes and nostrils. The air was thick with a smell that made my nostrils burn so badly my nose started bleeding.

My eyes stung, but I managed to turn and run toward the room where my dad kept his hunting rifle. I stumbled back to Mom’s bedroom. I took aim at Zoso, but she ran at me.

The look on her face as she ran toward me sent me into a spiral of torment. It was just a few milliseconds, I’m sure, but it felt like an eternity. Blackness. Pain. Screaming. Scratching. Burning. Forever.

I pulled the trigger and shot my mother in the face. The noise stopped.

I aimed at Zoso and fired again.

I set the gun down and called you guys.

So that’s it. The cat killed my fucking family.

Detective Greene’s Note:
The scene at the house was similar to what the boy described here. The woman was shot once. The little boy was dismembered on the bed. The smell in that house is something awful. However, there was no evidence that a cat was ever in that house.