Kitten heels

With less than ten minutes before she was due to meet the girls at the bar, Brianna hopped around her shoebox apartment, pulling on a knee-length black leather boot with one hand while the other fluffed ineffectually at her platinum blonde hair. Reaching her vanity table, she cast about for her beautiful false eyelashes; the perfect finishing touch to complete her ensemble. Here were the left ones, but the right were nowhere to be seen. And what were all these traces of moisturiser all over the table?

"Ugh," with a guttural exclamation, Brianna realised what had happened. It was that damn cat. Smicks had been such a lovable little kitten, curling up in her hair and pouncing adorably on the shiny toys his excited mistress had bought him. But somehow, dangling bits of tatty string had lost its appeal. The cat was massive now - a huge, recalcitrant lump that seemed to eat more than could feasibly be possible. Brianna was a busy woman, and she didn't have time to constantly be dealing with the brute's mess. Like now, for example. Where the hell were her damn lashes? Was she supposed to get by with mere mascara like some kind of primitive idiot?

Smicks, sensing Brianna's frustration, leapt up onto the arm of a chair and nudged her arm with his head. Purring softly, he pawed gently at her clothes, trying to comfort and console the best he could. But Brianna was in no mood. Bristling with frustration, she lashed out, sending the fluffy ball of fur tumbling to the ground. Smicks struggled to get a grip on the bare wood floor, scrabbling frantically with limbs akimbo until his claws found purchase and he was able to scurry off to hide behind a mound of his mistress's discarded clothes.

Regarding his owner balefully from his sheltered corner, Smicks saw Brianna hastily apply several coats of thick, black mascara and pour yet another shot of astringent vodka, before downing it and heading out the door. Safe at last, he crept from his hiding place to investigate his unwashed food bowl. Empty. Again. He really couldn't take much more of this.

***

The four-am sky was already starting to brighten when Brianna's unsteady footsteps were finally heard again in those halls. Smicks heard her keys jangling in the lock for a suspiciously long time, and knew instantly that his owner was drunk again. As she fumbled her entry, several more sets of footsteps lumbered up behind her - light steps and heavy ones, none seemingly travelling in a straight line.

"Come on in, guys," Brianna crowed, "voddy's in the freezer."

With that, a group of five or six incredibly beautiful people, all young, brilliant, sparkling, and utterly hammered, trooped into the flat. A wayward stiletto overturned Smicks' water bowl, while the cat himself dodged and dived between the clumsy clod-hopping of excessively expensive loafers.

The final straw came when a steaming stockbroker type, stumbling towards a mini-skirted redhead with lighter at the ready for her toxic cigarette, planted his shiny brown brogue firmly on the tip of Smicks' tail. With an unaccustomed screech, the cat leapt into the air and fled for the only other space in this tiny apartment; the bacteria-ridden bathroom that he usually tried to avoid.

Prowling the floor of his tiny, safe space, Smicks knew this had to end. If he didn't act, that feckless girl and her idiot so-called friends would be the death of him, either through some terrible accident or a more prosaic yet prolonged neglect. Slinking his way up to the sink, he lifted one soft, grey paw, patted the frosted window until it swung open into the dawn, and let out a firm, yet gentle mewl.

***

The day was well advanced by the time the revellers' party was winding down. One pair were passed out on the sofa, clothes hiked up to reveal an undignified amount of flesh. One girl, with traces of tearful mascara lining her cheeks, had failed to find a blanket, and crouched awkwardly asleep beneath a bundle of coats. Just two of Brianna's posse had made it this far; shiny-haired men with perfect teeth, each hoping that by outlasting the other, he could claim their host as his prize.

Brianna herself stumbled through the littered bodies, drawing the curtains to keep out the probing rays of sunlight that threatened to disturb her buzz. She knew just what the two guys thought they were playing at, and was thoroughly enjoying the attention. Her cherry-red lipstick was still perfectly applied in spite of her advanced intoxication, and all-in-all, it was shaping up to be a very satisfying night.

Having effectively darkened the room, Brianna was just collapsing into a beanbag between her two drinking buddies, trying to arrange her limbs to their best advantage, when she thought she saw a low, dark shape slinking into the shadows by the bathroom door. Shaking her head and blaming the double vision, Brianna surrendered to the scintillating logic of intoxication, and took another shot of whiskey, confident that this would clarify matters.

Further rumpling their exquisitely tailored suits, the two men were now arm-wrestling, seeming to have completely forgotten about the original point of contention. Suddenly bored, Brianna rolled onto her stomach and began to roll a cigarette, downing another shot for good measure. In the flare of her lighter as she inhaled, there was no mistaking the shadow by the bathroom door: it was that damn cat again.

Reaching down clumsily, Brianna succeeded in removing her white kitten heels on the third attempt. She abruptly hurled the shoe at the silent shadow, startling her two suitors out of their contest.

“Brianna, what the hell…” the taller man began, but was soon stopped short as a fat ginger tabby sprung, seemingly from nowhere, and landed on his shoulders. “Hey, get your damn cat off me!”

“That’s not even my cat!” slurred Brianna, bemused. The room whirled as she returned her gaze to the bathroom door, expecting the shadow to be gone. But not only could a slim, feline outline still be glimpsed in the corner of the room; it had been joined by others.

As the taller man wrestled ineffectually with the beast that was now curling itself around his neck, the shorter felt something brush against his leg. Instinctively jumping up with the gracelessness that only beer can provide, he promptly toppled backwards over his chair, to find not one, but two cats ready to pounce; a pair of hairless horrors who reacted instantly to his sudden vulnerability, going straight for the throat with claw and fang.

Reacting far too slowly in his inebriated state, the man found that the hours he had spent honing his muscles in the gym were to no avail. Impotently, he floundered at his glabrous attackers, unable to dislodge their piercing claws from his tender flesh.

The sound of her friends’ futile struggles finally roused Brianna from her beanbag. Somehow struggling upright, she spun slowly and groggily around to face the shadow she had seen before, beside the bathroom door. But now, a whole bank of shadows flowed through the narrow opening and into the room; a whole clowder of cats, streaming silently in through the darkness.

Suddenly sobered by the singular sight, Brianna realised that the faint breeze she felt on her face must be from an open window – the bathroom window. It was a full-scale invasion, a full-frontal feline assault. But why? And how?

Four individual shadows peeled away from the pack. As they padded softly towards the bewildered Brianna, a faint chink of light from beyond the fetid room revealed their true natures. Deeply matted fur bore the evidence of lives hard-lived. Torn and tattered ears pricked and turned, while one grey and greasy mongrel peered myopically at her through a single bloodshot eye. All bore the unmistakeable look of utter venom, and seemed straining as if to strike.

Ears back and haunches raised, they inched ever closer to the former happy-go-lucky party girl. Still fighting intoxication and locked in terror, she hadn’t even noticed that her unconscious friends had begun to stir, roused from their sleep by the sudden piercing of dozens of pinprick claws.
Brianna’s full attention was caught by the four hardened street beasts, ears flat against their heads, hissing softly as they slowly converged on her. Why wouldn’t they attack?

Although there must have been more than fifty cats in that tiny apartment, they remained surprisingly quiet. So it was no surprise that Brianna actually screamed in terror when she heard a sudden, subdued miaow from somewhere to her left. Instantly, the four cats stopped advancing, and Brianna strained her eyes to see the source of the sound.

There, atop her highest cupboard, watching the proceedings with a sense of enviable satisfaction, sat Smicks. The other cats eyed him eagerly, awaiting the go-ahead from their trusted friend. They’d all had owners like Brianna.

In that moment, the careless woman knew the reason for her pain, just as surely as she knew that she would never leave that apartment alive.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I should have taken better care of you. I can change, I promise, I,” and she stepped forwards, intending to finally fill her trusting pet’s food bowl for the first time in three days.

Above the chaos and destruction, Smicks gave a soft, almost regretful miaow.

His companions advanced.