 My grandparents had a farm out in middle of nowhere, Mississippi Just grandpa grandma and nothing but country roads for 30 miles Every summer my parents would dump me there just to get rid of me and considering what I was like as a kid I don't really blame them hated it there. Of course. This is the 80s mind you So there's even less options to keep me occupied a TV with four channels Church on Sunday busy work and not a soul around except Aunt May my grandma's sister who lived about five miles down the road As I understood it. She and my grandma didn't get along Well, I get dropped off at the farm one year and find out that in the meantime Aunt May died her house was apparently so rotten and termite infested that they didn't have any chance But to tear it down and in the meantime the farm had a new guest A little responsibility. She left behind Aunt May had a cat Name was raffi skinny snow white fur dark dark green. I'm talking nearly black eyes I don't know what the breed was A few things about raffi He had a deep voice I really can't tell you in words how deep this cat's voice was Like a grown ass man making cat noises There's a video online of another cat with a really deep voice and it was pretty much exactly like that If I'm remembering right raffi once had a surgery that paralyzed his vocal cords Just kind of leaving him with this permanent deep voice And I swear he knew his voice sounded weird He'd wait until you were alone or getting a drink of water in the middle of the night And go meow And scare the ever living but jesus out of you He had to be 20 years old But he didn't look old besides him being perpetually skinny no matter how much he ate He looked and acted like a completely healthy active cat And raffi Was evil There's a lot of people that really recoil when you slap the label evil on an animal Some hippie types especially going oh no animals aren't evil. It's just that people. Oh my god shut up You know it when you see it raffi was 100 percent malevolent Now this doesn't mean raffi just attacked us at random or anything We were still the people that fed him after all But it was all the little things Just off the top of my head The a4 mentioned scaring you in the middle of the night with his voice thing He didn't just limit himself to that either. He'd climb on your bed and do it I woke up a few times to that before I learned to lock my door Bitey Stared at you like the way a person plotting your murder does creepy as hell Liked to watch fire. It was about the only time he'd let anyone pet him Stoke a fire. He'd watch the embers until they were completely cooled off Would go out of his way to torture his prey I don't mean play with his food like a normal cat does but make birds and rats and stuff Scream and it wasn't enough that he did that He'd go out of his way to find a person to do this in front of He wanted an audience Once saw him throw a live rat into the fire. He wasn't allowed in the house after that So Evil cat I hated raffi my grandma really hated raffi But for some damn reason raffi always acted almost normal around grandpa Never really understood why Well one night I wake up to a gunshot downstairs The next thing I heard was my grandfather cursing like a sailor down in the kitchen My grandfather was the most uptight christian you can imagine So this was the first time I'd ever heard him curse in all my life Another gunshot my grandfather still shouting bloody murder Like screams of fear and rage My mind kind of takes a backseat to adrenaline And the next thing I know I'm flying down the stairs with a candlestick in one hand Ready to club the hell out of whatever my grandfather's yelling about Grandma's right behind me in her nightgown It's really quiet as we come down the stairs All we hear is grandpa breathing Breathing hard And it's coming from the kitchen We creep towards it Grandma calls out grandpa's name John any kind of croaks out an answer Raffi Both of us walk inside the doorway And we see what's happened Grandpa's killed raffi Double barreled shotgun under his arm still smoking There's a big cluster of buckshot craters in the kitchen wall And another on the floor where raffi's laying completely dead The cat's barely even a corpse half his head blown right off And another big hole in the side of his chest Intestines leaking out blood oozing on the tiles The one eye he had left just wide open in fear His mouth kind of frozen in a snarl Grandpa's covered in scratches I mean all over just coating his face and shoulders Grandma screams of course And grandpa just kind of walks over to one of the table chairs and lights a sig Grandma's yelling at him Yelling at why the hell he just blew away May's cat And grandpa does something kind of weird Usually when grandma yelled at him He'd give as good as he got But this time he just kind of took it Just kind of sat in the chair letting grandma rant until he sat up Walked over and muttered something into her ear I don't know what it was But he said it in a very quiet and very serious voice Grandma just kind of stops Nods and looks to me Tells me to go back to bed Tells me that they're gonna go bury raffi I offer to help and they just flat out shoot me down I go upstairs heart still pounding And the last thing I remember was going to sleep And grandpa's old pickup truck starting up and driving off I wake up the next day and grandpa's sitting in the kitchen Face covered in band-aids reading the newspaper I ask him what the hell happened last night and he glares at me and tells me not to cuss Then he just drops it Refuses to talk about it the rest of the summer Over the next month his scars heal except one long thin line across his cheek A little memento from that night Well, rest of the summer comes and goes I go back to my parents After that summer I stopped going to grandpa's not because of raffi But I just started going to a closer summer camp In retrospect, I think I hated grandpa's place less Fast forward ten years Grandma passes away in the meantime Breast cancer grandpa is still alive And I'm at his farm just helping him clear some stuff out of the barn We're taking a break on his front porch Just kind of watching a storm roll in over the horizon I don't know what drove me to ask But I do Hey grandpa Yeah Yeah? Remember raffi? He kind of looks at me Yeah? What happened that night? Why did you shoot him? He's just real quiet for a good moment Then looks at me dead in the eye You remember where the bible is Your nightstand Why? Go get it Weird thing to ask But whatever I got up the stairs Got it Came back out And gave it to him He puts it on his lap Puts a hand on it Raises his other hand Grandpa The most religious proper christian I've ever known Swares to God On the holy bible That everything he's about to tell me is true I look at him kind of funny But if anything I'm more than interested now He takes a deep breath Okay Here goes Apparently Raffi could talk Not to us Grandpa said To Margaret My grandmother The way he put it After he shot raffi Grandma told him that raffi had been talking to her For a good few months Always in that deep Deep cat voice of his Stuff she brushed off as her imagination at first Then shit she couldn't ignore Started small She'd be walking down the hall And hear a baritone Hello Margaret And then see raffi walking past her Then stuff like Let me in Margaret When the doors were locked And he wanted inside the house And then It got worse Meaner More hostile Grandma didn't tell grandpa Because she was afraid she was going crazy That grandpa would take her to a doctor Grandma hated doctors A good reason they didn't catch the cancer until it was too late And she'd get put in an insane asylum or something Real weird stuff And she swore she saw his lips move When he talked You shouldn't have done that, Margaret You'll end up just like your sister, Margaret It's almost time, Margaret And this just keeps going Apparently this is what fueled a lot of the fights with my grandpa that summer Just her having completely shot nerves and no sleep Okay, say I believe all this, I say Raffi only talked to her Why'd you shoot him? Grandpa just kind of pauses Because he sighed He finally talked to me According to my grandfather Who I must stress is a man with zero imagination And swore to the good lord this happened He goes down the stairs one night To get a midnight snack He opens the fridge Meow It's Raffi Sitting on the table counter Tail just kind of swishing in the air Stardust, my grandpa But once he sees it's just the cat He kind of shrugs Then Raffi smiles Like a human smiling But it's wrong The way a human trying to be creepy on purpose smiles Eyes go wide and black Lips stretch to his ears And teeth just glinting in the refrigerator's light As I'm watching grandpa describe this He's shuddering It still bothers him a decade later Back in the kitchen Grandpa just freezes in fear Watching Raffi just do this And then he talks in a low but polite voice You should kill your wife, John Take your gun in the living room And blow her brains out And then your grandson And then yourself Grandpa freezes Then back steps Towards the living room Where his double-barreled shotgun is hanging on a rack Oh, he's getting his gun all right Snatches it off the wall Grabbed two rounds and marches back into the kitchen Raffi is still sitting there with that creepy smile Loads the rounds in front of him Raffi's smile just getting bigger Raffi finds out He just messed with the wrong farmer Grandpa loads the rounds But instead of marching upstairs And doing the dirty deed like Raffi wanted He points the barrel straight at Raffi's head For a split second Grandpa swears he sees Raffi's smug creepy smirk Turn to fear as he pulls the trigger First shot blows half of Raffi's head apart Most of it turns to red paste and splatters the back wall Raffi wobbles in place Dazed He blinks Then embers of hate flare up in his remaining eye He hisses and pounces at grandpa Scratching and biting and making sounds no cat should make As grandpa tries to fight him off Cursing all the while Screaming at Raffi until he finally throws him to the floor And unloads the second round into him Second shot blows out Raffi's insides And he falls limp against the floor He looks up at grandpa one last time And whispers something I'll be back John And then Raffi goes still Grandpa's considering getting more ammo to finish the job When both me and grandma run down the stairs He gives a little more info of what happened that night I found out what he whispered to her He heard Raffi tell him to kill her So he shot him Grandma's eyes go wide And that tells him everything he needed to hear He'd been talking to her too So I ask Where'd you bury him? Grandpa laughs Burry I burn that little shit's corpse Send him right back where he came from Christ almighty I breathe Grandpa shoots me a look for taking the Lord's name in vain But I guess considering what he just told me He decides to let it go So did Raffi ever make good on that threat? Grandpa gets really quiet Just teeters back in his rocking chair For a good few minutes Like he's not sure if he should answer His voice goes real dark He's not always a cat