Suzy and Toots vs The Shapeshifter

 

Even scarier than the real thing!

          The night of Banging on Doors came and mostly went. Apparently, it was not uneventful. Deep in the middle of the night, the girls compared notes…

            “Toots, hey Toots. Are you there? Can you talk now?” Suzy said from way deep behind the old piano on the back porch. It was 3 AM there and 5 AM at Toots’ location. “Are you alright?”
            “Mrrrrr, eh…, I think so,” said Toots, sounding unsure, but coming in as clear as usual.
            “Let’s purr for a bit, then talk,” said Suzy, sounding a little scrambled.
            That helped. They got their transmissions synchronized after a few minutes, and continued.
            “Did you have visitors at your house, Toots,” asked Suzy. “You know, door bangers?”
            “I only saw one or two, Suzy. That was enough!” sighed Toots.
            “What did they look like,” said Suzy, obviously full of her own stories.
            “Well. What I saw was this. I don’t know what to make of it. It was not a child, or maybe even human, Suzy. That’s why I said one was enough. Under the Vdub for me after that one! He had a skintight black suit on, like it was stretchy. Creepy much? And he had a hat on. The one people call a bowler hat, black also.
            “But the worst part was his face. I don’t know what to think. Big weird black eyes with no white part. Real people have white in their eyes. Then he said his name! OZ! What’s an OZ? I gave up! I could hear it through the wall! I was gone!” said Toots, beyond rattled.
            “Come on, Toots! He can’t have been in two places at the same time,” yowled Suzy!
            “There can’t be two of them,” insisted Toots.
“Well, either there are two of them, or IT can be in two places at the same time, Toots. Take your pick,” said Suzy.
            “I don’t wanna! Prrt. Hsssssssss!” remarked Toots.
            “Well get this, Toots. At my house they have given up sugar. Lol! So there was no candy here except an old bag of rolls of Smarties, those nasty little dry things like pills you know? Well, haha, that’s what OZ got for his trouble on this porch, I’ll tell you,” snickered Suzy. (Do cats snicker?)

          “After that, Toots, a big black Raven pecked on the door! I’m not lying! When they opened the door the Raven said, ‘Evermore!’. They gave her Smarties too. She had to eat them on the spot. Ravens don’t have pockets apparently, but they are very greedy.”

            “NO! Stop! I saw her fly by! I swear she did! Right by my window, croaking that same stupid word,” said Toots.
            “Then there was a big hairy dog with a missing fang, that talked, and wore corduroy pants and a flashy shirt! He was disgusting. He smelled awful. Also, I did NOT trust him. I was watching from deep cover, you may believe!” averred Suzy, with conviction.
            “You best believe I’d have been in deep cover,” said Toots, hissing again.
            “He got Smarties too! He wasn’t happy. I think he marked the porch after they shut the door!”
            “Disgusting. We don’t do that!” said Toots. “Oh, sometimes Toms do, but for good reasons, of course,” said Toots, “such as warnings!”
            “OK, there was one more door banger, Toots. It was a little black thing, not human, or animal. It had a long tail that it twirled around and around. They asked its name, and the thing said ‘That’ was its name.”
            “How did That like its Smarties?” laughed Toots.
            “I don’t know! It kind of blew up in a puff of stinky black smoke and vanished right off the porch,” said Suzy. “And I’ll tell you what Toots, I think they were all the same creature! No, really! I think we both saw the same darn shapeshifter! They all seemed to originate from the same source somehow? It was like this shifty thing got onto our wavelength somehow and we both saw it!”
            “Aw, Suzy. That might be too weird. I don’t get it,” said Toots, who was getting pretty sleepy because it was nearly morning.
            “The weird thing about Crazy Door Banging Night, is we just don’t know. Sometimes it’s just kids, and sometimes it’s something else. But the important thing is that you and I and those two unimaginative cats, Willie and Sammie too, made it through the night alive!”
            “I guess someone was pulling our tails a bit, Suzy. But you’re right! All’s well, that ends well, and I hope to never see it again, in any guise!” said Toots.
            “No way!” said Suzy.
            And with some low-key hissing and purring transmission ended for Crazy Night.
            Suzy slipped out to the living room because she wanted to taste a Smartie and just see if it was as nasty as the writer said they were. She wasn’t impressed either. They were dry and crunchy and sort of sour. “Mrrp,” Suzy remarked, then went up to the back of the big chair to sleep.