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b'Episode Notes
After running over her brother\'s cat with her car young Michelle becomes tormented by feelings of guilt but is that the only thing haunting her?
The Cat\'s Out of the Bag by Morgan Moore
Music by Ray Mattis
http://raymattispresents.bandcamp.com
Produced by Daniel Wilder
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Transcript:
The sound of tires screeching tore through the air as a Mitsubishi Lancer came to a sudden and jerky stop.\\xa0
Bursting out of the drivers side of the car came a girl of about 15. She made her way to the back of the car, as her passenger\\u2026 a girl as well, joined her.\\xa0
The two girls looked down at the ground and saw a black cat in rough shape.. its midsection had been crushed in, and it\\u2019s brains oozed out.
\\u201cOh shit!\\u201d The former driver croaked out, panic flooding over her face.
\\u201cWhat\\u2019s the matter?\\u201d Her friend asked. \\u201cIt\\u2019s only a cat.\\u201d
\\u201cNo it\\u2019s not just a cat. It\\u2019s my brother\\u2019s cat!\\u201d She explained as her face grew red and her voice jumped between panic and frustration.
\\u201cOh. Well shit is right then. You\\u2019re screwed Michelle.\\u201d
\\u201cLike I didn\\u2019t figure that one out Arianna!\\u201d Michelle nearly shouted at her friend.
It didn\\u2019t take her long to figure it out at all. The cat had been living with Michelle and her family for a couple of months now. They had noticed it coming around the neighborhood and specifically that it was hanging around their house.\\xa0
Michelle\\u2019s mom figured it was maybe because some old cat food from their last cat might still be in the yard since it lived outside, or that it was trying to just find scraps from the garbage. Cats in general always seemed to roam around their neighborhood, and so they paid no attention to it.\\xa0
That is until the darn thing somehow got itself stuck in their attic.\\xa0
Her dad managed to get it down and once it saw her brother Mark it became attached to him and vice-versa.\\xa0
Mark loved the cat and never let it outside out of fear it, which he later named \\u2018Munk\\u2019, would leave and never come back. To the credit of Mark and her parents, the cat was never let out and they did everything they could to make sure it couldn\\u2019t escape.
Unfortunately it seemed they didn\\u2019t do the best of jobs today.\\xa0
Michelle didn\\u2019t know how Munk got out, she could only guess that maybe she and Arianna didn\\u2019t shut a door as well as they normally would in their rush to go meet up with some friends.
No matter how the cat got out, it did, and in their focus on friends and fun, didn\\u2019t pay attention as Munk began to cross the road in front of them\\u2026 they only knew they had run over the poor cat as they did the deed.\\xa0
\\u201cDammit, what am I going to do?!\\u201d Michelle questioned.
The two teenagers looked again at the cat, their stomachs churning at the grotesque image.\\xa0
Arianna was the first to break the sudden silence.
\\u201cJust get rid of it. It\\u2019s just a dead cat\\u2026 nobody saw us hit the stupid thing, so just throw it away somewhere and problem solved.\\u201d
Michelle looked at her friend in astonishment.\\xa0
\\u201cYou want me to just dump it? You want me to just dump my brother\\u2019s cat?\\u201d Her voice grew in anger.
\\u201cWell\\u2026 yeah. It\\u2019s not like he\\u2019ll know you did it. He\\u2019ll figure it jus\\u2026 ran away or something.\\u201d
\\u201cYou do realize how protective he is of the stupid thing right? He goes apeshit if it even looks like it might escape or get hurt.\\u201d\\xa0
\\u201cLook,\\u201d Arianna started in a soothing tone. \\u201cMistakes happen. Maybe we didn\\u2019t close the door all the way\\u2026 maybe the wind blew it open enough for it to escape\\u2026 heck, you said the cat once got in your attic\\u2026 maybe it did a similar thing this time. Point being\\u2026 shit happens, and cats are tricky little shits. He will never know and never has to know.\\u201d
The two girls looked down at the cat again, the image of its corpse becoming a bit easier to handle.\\xa0
Michelle had to admit that Arianna had a point.\\xa0
To the best of their knowledge, no one had seen them hit the cat, and even if they did they wouldn\\u2019t know whose it was.\\xa0
Michelle sighed and took a deep breath.
\\u201cYou\\u2019re right. Shit happens. Besides, cats tend to just\\u2026 leave anyway.\\u201d Michelle opined.
\\u201cSee? Now you\\u2019re thinking. Plus it\\u2019s a black cat, they\\u2019re unlucky. Maybe it rubbed some of that bad luck on him.\\u201d Arianna suggested as a smile grew on her face. \\u201cHell it crossed your path, maybe you\\u2019ve been marked for bad luck now.\\u201d She added with a small snicker.
\\u201cOh shut up and help me get rid of this stupid thing.\\u201d Michelle returned.
The two girls leaned down and picked up the cat, their faces twisted in disgust as the unfortunate animal\\u2019s blood ran through their fingers and down their arms\\u2026 a final warmth before the coldness of death.
They moved quickly over to Michelle\\u2019s car and put the cat in the back seat.\\xa0
Each girl gave a quick look around the area before getting in the car and speeding off.\\xa0
Later the girls arrived on a secluded bike path and, once deep into it, threw Munk\\u2019s body into a group of trees before running back to the car.
Once inside Michelle and Arianna looked at each other. After a moment they nodded their heads and drove away, off to spend time with their friends.
It didn\\u2019t take long for Mark to notice.\\xa0
That night, when Michelle came home, she found her parents and Mark trying to hunt down the cat\\u2026 Mark was in an outright frenzy.\\xa0
Her parents explained that Munk had somehow ran out from the house and they couldn\\u2019t find her.\\xa0
They had driven and walked around the neighborhood and even had asked some of the neighbors, but neither they, nor anybody, knew where the cat may have gone.\\xa0
This brought some relief to Michelle\\u2026 enough so that she was able to fall into a deep, guilt-free slumber that night.
As the days went on the search for Munk grew. Her folks put up posters throughout town and made posts on social media asking friends to keep an eye out\\u2026 and Michelle did so as well, never letting on that the cat\\u2019s blood was on her hands.
Mark however went from searching in a frenzy, to searching in flat out hysteria.\\xa0
He would stay up all night looking around the neighborhood, putting out her favorite treats to try and lure her back to him.\\xa0
This led to him skipping school to continue the search, something which both the school and their parents became more than upset about.\\xa0
This resulted in Michelle\\u2019s parents trying to reign in the grief\\u2026 to regain the control\\u2026 to make restrictions on the time allotted to searching for the feline.\\xa0
All this did was make Mark angrier at the situation\\u2026 and while he would go to school, the random unprovoked fights he instigated proved he had nothing but hostility regarding the situation of losing his beloved cat.
Days became weeks and then weeks became a month and no sign of Munk had yet to surface\\u2026 not that one ever would.
It was at this point that Michelle and Mark\\u2019s parents simply stopped looking and caring. They kept reminding people on social media about the reward, but the intensity they first had vanished and they simply came to the conclusion Munk was gone forever.\\xa0
Michelle went through the motions of her normal life, but the guilt was bubbling more and more as she watched her brother become more obsessed and depressed over Munk being gone.\\xa0
Whenever she and Arianna hung out they would never bring it up, only acknowledging it every so often with a knowing look\\u2026 even in private they never discussed it save for Arianna asking how Mark was doing and leaving it at that.
And so their days became ever more hellish;Mark was falling into a deep depression, and Michelle was overwhelmed with guilt and shame that continually churned inside of her. Any cat she saw made her think of Munk.\\xa0
When she would be alone in the dark she could swear she saw the cat moving in the darkness,waiting for an opportunity to strike and exact revenge on her.\\xa0
Soon it was becoming clear to her that she was falling into a pit of paranoia.
In the back of her mind she thought that it was due to the folly of her and Arianna, their rush to go meet with friends, that gave Munk the chance to sneak out. At first she would blame Mark for not teaching the dumb thing to not even approach a door, let alone to fear going back outside now that it had a home.\\xa0
But in the end there was no clear sign as to how the door was able to open enough and why Munk decided to go out for a stroll. The only thing crystal clear was that it was Michelle who ran over the poor thing. It was Michelle who went along with the idea to simply just dispose of the body. It was Michelle who made the decision to not tell her parents what had happened, and it was she that made the decision to not tell her brother. No matter how she spun it in her head, no matter what Arianna told her, no matter what it was purely and simply Michelle at fault, and she was tired of the guilt she felt.
After about two months of searching Michelle decided it was time to come clean about the whole situation.\\xa0
She came home from school one day and saw a note from her parents saying that they\\u2019d be gone for the weekend to visit some relatives. The siblings were on their own.\\xa0
Michelle went upstairs to tell her brother about it and saw him sitting on his bed, his face distraught and filled with sadness. Now was the time to tell him. Michelle knocked on his door and her brother turned his head some to see what the cause of the noise was.
\\u201cMind if I come in?\\u201d
\\u201cNo\\u2026 \\u201d Mark replied solemnly as he returned his gaze downward.
Michelle walked over to his bed and sat down. She never really enjoyed being in her brother\\u2019s room. It always smelled putrid even with both him and mom going through cans of air freshener and wax melts.\\xa0
Her parents theorized it was due to Mark\\u2019s room having a little crawlspace that tended to catch a lot of water whenever it rained, and so the smell probably came from rotting wood. Arianna had once said her brother\\u2019s room smelled too'