Haunted by a Cat!

Two years ago, we moved into an old 19th century mill house in a quiet suburban street in Birmingham. We are approaching the end of our studies at the University of Birmingham, each of us studying Medicine.

Strange things have been happening over the last four months.

Around November, we started to notice that the bins had been torn apart inside and outside. We initially thought it was a friend playing a prank, then we thought it was a rat infestation after we started hearing scratching sounds late at night, coming from the kitchen.

We thought our mystery had been solved after a few of us had spotted what we thought to be a stray cat wandering outside the house one night. For some reason, we felt uneasy having seen this cat. For two weeks he did not appear again.

One night in December, I woke up in the middle of the night hearing scratching sounds on my door. I opened it and nothing was there. Around this time, we began to hear crying sounds in the middle of the night. We also started to see cat hairs littered around the house, even though none of us had seen a cat in the house or recalled letting one in. The scratching and crying at night got more frequent. We felt unsettled and decided to contact the landlord.

The landlord told us that the previous tenants also experienced this phenomena. She had done some research and told us a story of an old couple who used to live in this house during the Great War with their cat. The husband died in the war and friends and family reported that Mrs. Hobbs became secluded, having never recovered from her loss. One day, it was reported that she cooked her cat in the oven. After a vile stench was smelt by the neighbours, Mrs. Hobbs was caught and put in an asylum.

One night, after a late shift at the library, Alex (one of my housemates) decided to cook some food. After putting his food in the oven and starting to cook it, he heard scratches and screams coming from the oven. He quickly opened the oven, but nothing was there.

Over the next few days, whilst cooking food, we felt sharp bites on our ankles but nothing present to account for it.

One night in January, after another late library shift, Alex again turned on the oven to cook some food. I heard a crash and came out of my room. Alex was lying on the floor, passed out on his back. I looked up to see a cat levitating above Alex, he was charred, burnt, deformed and had piercing red eyes.