[Complete] [7.7k] [Horror] That's Not a Cat

Blurb:

Jake is a history teacher who prefers the company of his cat, Charlie, to the hustle and bustle of the modern world. He walked away from his Catholic upbringing years ago, and he’s long since forgotten how to pray...that is, until a demonic entity forces him to rethink the very nature of reality. To survive the night, Jake must face the terrifying possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth than he ever imagined.

Feedback Requested:
I'm looking for general reader reaction to the story. Just let me know what works and what doesn't, and especially if the "slice of life" first half effectively grounds the main character or if it goes on for too long.

Timeline:

I'm looking for a turnaround of about a week or so, but I'm flexible.

Excerpt:

“Time for bed, Charlie!”

Jake Mason’s mom loves to tease him about talking to his cat like it’s a person, but he does it anyway. He talks to Charlie when he wakes up, when he feeds him, when he leaves the house or returns home, and, of course, when he’s about to turn in for the night.

The way he sees it, talking is just what people do, even if we know our words will fall on deaf ears (or no ears at all). We talk to everything from movie screens to houseplants to God (his mom even goes to church on Sundays!), so it’s only natural that we’d talk to our pets as well. In fact, Jake thinks it would be weird not to talk to Charlie. What else is he supposed to do? Just grunt and make faces at the poor thing? That would be ridiculous.

Besides, telling Charlie he’s going to bed is part of his nightly routine. He’s followed that routine every week night (he loosens up a bit on weekends) for the past decade, and he's not going to change it now. First, Jake trades in his daytime clothes for a pair of comfortably loose-fitting pajamas. In the summer and spring, he typically opts for a T-shirt and shorts, and as the weather grows increasingly colder, his nocturnal clothing choices get warmer and warmer. In fact, during the most frigid months of the year, he sometimes just puts on a heavy sweatsuit instead of real PJs.

After changing, Jake takes a five-second walk down the hall to the bathroom, where he flosses, brushes his teeth, and rinses his mouth out with a swig of mouthwash. Despite being in his mid-30s (Or is it late 30s? He’s not entirely sure where the dividing line is), the guy has never had a cavity. He attributes this good fortune to his meticulous oral hygiene regimen, and if he has anything to say about it, he’ll go to his grave with that streak intact.

Next, Jake takes another five-second walk, this time back to his bedroom, where he double-checks his alarm. He resets it every morning after he wakes up, but he always likes to make sure he didn’t accidentally turn it off in his AM stupor. That actually happened to him a few times in his younger days, and after almost getting fired from a previous job for being late one too many times, he finally learned his lesson.

With his clothes changed, his mouth clean, and his alarm set, the final step in this nighttime ritual is to tell Charlie it’s time to hit the hay. No matter what room the cat is in, whenever he hears those familiar words, he immediately gets up and walks over to the living room for his own bedtime routine, the jingle of the high-pitched bell on his collar letting Jake know he’s on the move.

Ding, Ding, Ding.

The senior, slightly chubby brown tabby rummages through his many toys–mice of all colors, little plastic springs, tiny balls, and an assortment of random plush animals, including, oddly enough, a cat–and picks one out for his final play session of the day.

He’ll toss the toy up in the air, pounce on it when it comes down, and then start the process all over again, all the while treating his dad to a medley of feline commotion that keeps the poor guy firmly on this side of the sleep/wake divide. Along with the bell on Charlie’s collar, Jake will also hear the pitter-patter of little paws on the hardwood floor and, most annoying of all, the sound of the cat slamming into just about every vertical surface in the house–walls, chairs, radiators, and anything else the little booger can find.

Ding, Ding. Tap, Tap. Whack!

Charlie keeps this up for about ten minutes or so, and when he’s finally tired himself out, he lets his toy fall to the floor (as you can probably guess, the house is littered with them) and slowly ambles to Jake’s bedroom. He lets out an endearing trill–the same one he makes whenever he jumps onto or off of furniture–and with one last jingle from his collar, he leaps onto the bed, where he snuggles up against the lump in the sheets that he knows is his dad.

For Jake, this moment is well worth the minor annoyance of hearing the cat repeatedly hunt and kill the same toy for ten minutes. He adores his little guy, so every time he goes to bed, he can’t wait to feel that warm, soothing pressure on the back of his spine.

See, Jake is a side sleeper–the right side, specifically–and he’s in the habit of only sleeping on one side of the bed. It’s always the side he’s facing, and he usually lies so close to the edge he can almost touch the floor just by extending his arm. If he ever gets married, he often thinks to himself, his wife won’t have to worry about him invading and potentially annexing her half of the bed (because of course that’s every woman’s greatest fear).

He’s already used to leaving the other side empty so Charlie can easily snuggle up against his back, and to the surprise of no one in the Mason family, the cat has taken full advantage of the opportunity once again tonight. He’s curled up into that oh-so-cute feline spiral every cat owner knows so well, and as he drifts off to sleep, he lets out a soft purr that helps Jake join him in the land of dreams, blissfully unaware that tomorrow just might be the last day of his life.