The Ghost of My Cat

From: Jules (jjw394@soton.ac.uk)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Thame, Nr. Oxford
Source: Form Submission

I have had a cat in my life since God knows when and this cats name was Tiger, after the character in Pooh bear. He was a bold cat and as the saying goes, "There are old cats and bold cats but no old, bold cats". So one day he was too bold and decided to cross the road at night without looking properly. Perhaps there was a nice lady cat on the other side, but the upshot was he was run over. We were not aware of this at the time and expected to see him in the morning. Later that night my Mum got up to the doorbell. She was shown this rather mangled cat and identified, amongst tears, as ours. That very same night she dug a hole in the garden and buried it. Due to tiredness (it was quite late) and deep sorrow she did not dig a deep hole.

The next morning we were all dutyfully told and had a session of mourning. We eventually got over it and in some years time got a new cat called Muffin (still with us).

We had had this cat some time when one day my brother and I were in the kitchen playing. We saw the cat, Muffin, wander out in the garden and sit in the garden. A few moments later we heard a call from upstairs from Mum, "Why is the cat up here its meant to be downstairs?". We simply checked and replied that it was. Later she explained that while putting makeup on in the mirror she saw a cat in the mirror. It was very obvious and just walked past the banisters. We joked that this must have been the ghost of tiger, but my Mum was quite distressed.

Later on in our lives in the same house, we regularly heard a cat jump of a bunkbed, which tiger used to do, while seeing Muffin on our laps watching T.V. We came to accept this, but then my brother used to go to sleep with the lights off he could feel a warm body (cat sized) climb onto his legs and curl up. None of us were ever frightened, we just accepeted it.

We moved house a few years on and natrually expected Tiger to stay in the house. We joked that he would annoy the new residents. Living in the new house was fine for about four years. However recently we have heard purring in one particular part of the room when watching television. Now that I am older and more wary, I am a little afraid and try to avoid sitting near the spot.

I hope this story intrigues some people it certainly interested me,

Jules.