Story by Gordon the Friendly Dragon

We called him Spanky. He was a hairless cat, and ugly as a sow's rear end. Though I grew to love him later, the wrinkles around his nether regions and his pasty white skin disgusted me from the first, and his beady pink eyes, which we assumed were the result of albinism, were more intense than those of any other cat I've known. All things considered, the little guy was seriously creepy, but the night was cold and wet, and I couldn't leave him all alone.

My first glimpse of spanky, like so many of the events surrounding his arrival, left me startled and just a little confused. I was washing dishes, listening to the autumn rain patter off of the window over our sink and staring out into the murky, storm borne darkness when a loud “whump” and a frantic scratching noise pulled me from my reverie. The sounds, combined with the sudden view of a glistening hairless mass of bulbous flesh scrambling for purchase in my kitchen window, caused me to drop the pot I had been scrubbing and leap backwards.

Sudsy water splashed all over the floor and my pants, but I paid it no mind. My full attention was absorbed by the worm-like creature attempting to slither through the glass and onto my clean dishes. A few moments passed before I realized the monstrous apparition was nothing but a cuddly little kitty. The pale wrinkled flesh looked more like something evolved in the New York city sewer system than a cat, and the slick knobby tail reminded me of a long skeletal finger. Still, once that rascal found a secure perch and turned his pink eyes to the light I was sold. I ran to the enclosed porch that adjoined our kitchen. I left the kitchen door open behind me, opened the storm door, and leaned out over the stoop.

Almost immediately, Spanky bounded around the corner to sit on the steps beside me. In retrospect, he probably should have looked more pathetic. It couldn't have been more than thirty-five degrees, and the wind and rain had been relentless for the past two days. The cat had no collar and looked underfed. He could have been outside for weeks, yet the scrawny hairless animal was completely in possession of himself.

I held the door open, expecting him to walk through or dart off into the night, but he remained a motionless alabaster form. He looked up at me with his deep pink eyes, as if insisting that I carry out his will. I was captivated. I would have done whatever he asked, if only he'd had the power to ask it. We stayed that way for a time, the silence only breaking when one of my two other cats, Gandalf, the twenty pound grey tabby, came loping past the inner door and onto the porch. He sucked a quick, snorting breath and let it out as a howl and a hiss.

“None of that,” I said, and I bumped him with my foot. Spanky stayed put, calmly matching stares with the grey giant.

Gandalf snorted a few more times and backed slowly off the porch. Spanky arched a hairless, rain soaked eyebrow and watched him go.

“Don't you mind him,” I said when Gandalf had finished his ridiculous retreat. “Why don't you come in and have something to eat.”

Without a moments hesitation Spanky was through the threshold. He pranced around the porch, poking his nose into anything that interested him just like any other friendly cat, but something about his movements caught my eye. His smile, so like my own pets, seemed grim, and his movements graceful even in comparison to other felines. He let me pet him a few times, his flesh was stiff and cold as ice, and wandered off to curl up under a shelf.

Fearing that he would disturb my other animals, I left some food and warm milk on the porch and closed the kitchen door until I could greet Spanky properly. I finished washing dishes and shooed Gandalf and Snickers, my calico, into the basement. I closed them in and returned to the porch for Spanky, but when I opened the door he was nowhere to be seen. Stranger still, the food and milk were untouched.

I called out, “Here kiddykiddykiddykiddy,” as I searched through the stored boxes and supplies. Ten minutes later I gave him up for lost. By the time my husband came home from work I pretty much figured I had seen the last of my hairless friend.

The next day I had breakfast, put a few hours into freelance design, spent an hour or so on home maintenance, and made dinner. Such is life. I hadn't quite finished by seven thirty, when Al walked through the door. I didn't stop working as he gave me a quick hug and a kiss at the stove and continued on to his evening necessaries in the bathroom at the top of the stairs. I did stop when his anguished cries rang down from above.

I dropped the ladle I was holding back into the soup and rushed to his aid. When I reached the bathroom he leaned in the door way, fuming, and inspecting one foot.

“What's the matter,” I asked.

“What was that?” He said, pointing at the closed door.

“What was what?”

“What just attacked my foot in the bathroom?”

“I don't know, why don't you look and see?”

Al smirked, but he opened the door a crack anyway. “I'm looking right at it, but I still can't tell what it is.”

“Move over,” I said.

He held the door steady and stepped aside. I looked in.

Spanky sat on the rug in the middle of the room, licking his forepaw. Now that I knew what to listen for I could hear him purring through the door. I couldn't imagine how he got in there, though I assumed he had slipped silently by me while I searched for him on the porch the night before. I wondered where he could he have hidden, and why he hadn't come out to say hello.

“It's a cat,” I said.

“No,” Al said, “It can't be. We decided together that we wouldn't take in anymore strays after we pawned off that last batch of kittens.”

“Don't be silly. I couldn't leave him in the cold, and it's a boy cat.”

“That's what we said about Steve and half her babies.”

“Oh Al, he's hairless. You can see his equipment from here.”

Al looked and agreed that it was so. Shortly after, Spanky was officially a lap cat.

It's kind of nice petting a hairless cat. Spanky's smooth skin was a nice change from the usual fuzzy bottoms, and it made a satisfying sound when you patted his butt, hence his name. Even after a night indoors he was still cold and clammy. I assumed it was characteristic of the breed.

After an hour of interspecies affection I opened the basement door to introduce Spanky to Snickers, and to let him make amends with Gandalf. When they didn't come running up the steps I decided to let the kitties figure it out for themselves. When neither Snickers nor Gandalf turned up the following morning, I began to get concerned. By noon I was genuinely worried. They had seen other cats come and go, and they'd gone into hiding before, but never, not once in fourteen years, had Gandalf missed a feeding.

After lunch I cleaned up my dishes and ventured into the basement. Spanky was easy enough to find. He was in the storage room, sleeping in an old clay pot. He was still chilly to the touch, and I began to think he had died in the night until a sharp nudge in the ribs brought a growl and a gentle swat. I finally found the other cats about half an hour later. They hadn't been in any of their regular hiding places. They were sleeping in their litter.

About a month before we had purchased a couple of domed litter boxes to reduce the poo smell. We even made two little name plates to personalize them, but Snickers and Gandalf never seemed to care which they used. I lifted the lid from the nearest, Snicker's name plate swinging in the opening, and uncovered two desiccated lumps of fur and bones.

I turned away as tears began to well in my eyes. My breathing came in quick harsh gasps. I thought of the years those cats had been with us and all the trials that had come and gone from our lives in that time.

Snickers groaned.

I turned to see her violently struggling to free herself from the tangles that Gandalf's ponderous paunch had become. The folds of hairy skin enveloped her, yet she fought valiantly. Gandalf may as well have been dead as she tried with tooth and claw to rip her way free, but the moment she rolled him into a dim beam light from the glass block windows, he shot off like a clumsy rocket, tripping and falling all over his own hanging skin. He and Snickers bolted into the storage room. I tried to find them, but after an hour of fruitless searching I gave up.

When Al got home we searched the basement again together, and still, the cats were nowhere to be found. It was getting late, and neither of us felt like cooking so we went out. When we came home six pink eyes reflected our headlights in the drive. All three cats were sitting in front of the garage door soaking in the rain. All three were fat and happy, particularly Gandalf, who had found his prodigious girth again somewhere in the night.

Very relieved, we let them in and spent an evening with the most indulgent animals we had ever known. It was like they were kittens again. They lived for our affection, they performed amazing feats of feline acrobatics. They ran up walls and played on the ceiling. I admit, that last bit was peculiar, but you can get used to anything in time, and now it would seem strange to be without it. Besides, it's loads of fun with a laser pointer.

Soon neighbors started complaining of missing pets, all cats. We snickered into closed hands when they returned to their owners with increased “vitality” and a whole new attitude. Before long we saw the first news reports about “the stalking dead”, and within a year it was becoming difficult to find a breeding pair of unchanged cats. There are still a few normal cats out there. The new breed can't enter a house where they're not wanted, though they come and go as they please once they've been in, so house cats have nothing to fear if they stay in at night.

But I have to ask, why would anyone want one of the old cats? The new breed is great. They're perfect pets. They sleep while we work, and wake every night to play or curl up on the couch. They're hypoallergenic, they always keep the house and yard vermin free, they find their own food, they don't make unwanted offspring, and they never, never need a vet. They don't even use the litter box anymore, accept for sleeping, and we don't have to clean up after that.

Some folks have environmental concerns or moral objections. I don't see the problem. A lot of people love their new pets, and PetSmart has a few spare isles. That sounds like a fair trade to me. Spanky may have put an entire wing of the pet industry out of business, but he has given millions of cat owners a much happier home.