The Rivera household was settled into one of its rare, quiet rhythms. From the kitchen came the gentle clatter of Rosa preparing dinner, the scent of simmering sofrito and garlic drifting through the house like a warm, edible hug. In Marco's room, the only light came from the TV screen, where some mindless Netflix comedy flickered, neither of them really watching it.
Alex was curled against Marco's side, her head on his shoulder, her legs tangled with his on the narrow bed. His arm was wrapped around her, his fingers absently tracing patterns on her arm. It was comfortable. It was peaceful. It was, by Marco Rivera standards, almost suspiciously calm.
Then, for no reason he could articulate, Marco's gaze drifted to the window.
His hand stopped moving on Alex's arm. His body went rigid.
"What the fuck is that?" he said, his voice a low, incredulous whisper.
Alex lifted her head, immediately alert. "What? What is it?"
Marco was already untangling himself from her, moving toward the window with the slow, deliberate caution of a man approaching a live explosive. "Is that a fucking cat?"
Alex scrambled off the bed and joined him at the window, pressing close to his side to peer through the glass.
In the backyard, illuminated by the fading afternoon sun, sat a creature on the cracked concrete patio. It was, technically, a cat. But it looked like someone had assembled a cat from memory after only a brief description. Its fur was a patchy, indeterminate gray-brown, matted in some places and missing entirely in others. Its ears were ragged, one bent at a permanent, unfortunate angle. Its face was flat and squished, with a jaw that seemed slightly misaligned, giving it a permanent, unsettling sneer.
"Yeah," Alex breathed, her scientific mind cataloging the features with reluctant fascination. "It is. It's pretty ugly."
Marco gaped at the animal, then at her, then back at the animal. "Pretty ugly? Mami, that thing looks like it survived a war it started."
As if hearing them, the cat slowly turned its head. Its eyes—wide, unblinking, and disturbingly yellow—fixed directly on them through the glass.
Marco recoiled half a step, then immediately caught himself. His face twisted into a mask of indignant outrage. He jabbed a finger at the window.
"¡Aye!" he shouted, his voice carrying through the glass. "Don't fucking look at me like that! That's a weird fucking looking cat!"
The cat did not move. It continued to stare, its mouth slightly open, revealing a pink tongue and a concerning number of missing teeth.
Marco spun away from the window, yanking it partially closed as if to create a barrier. He leaned back into the hallway, his voice pitched loud enough to reach the kitchen.
"¡Mamá! There's a stray cat outside! I don't want it to start a fight with Carlos!"
Carlos, the resident raccoon, was currently perched atop the wooden shed in the corner of the yard, his little black mask visible against the weathered gray wood. He was watching the intruder with the calm, calculating disinterest of a king observing a particularly pathetic jester.
Marco pushed the window open again, leaning out just enough to make kissy noises toward the shed. "Carlos! It's okay, buddy! Don't worry, Papi's got you! It's okay!"
He pulled back inside and immediately shouted again, his voice climbing in pitch. "¡Mamá! There's a weird fucking stray cat outside!" He pressed his face closer to the glass, studying the creature with growing horror. "It... it looks like grandma or some fucking thing!"
Alex snorted, clapping a hand over her mouth. "Marco!"
"I'm serious!" he insisted, his eyes wide. He cupped his hands around his mouth and pressed them to the window like a crazed announcer at a sporting event. "¡Yo, puta! Get the fuck out of here!"
The cat did not get the fuck out of here.
It sat there, motionless, its unblinking yellow eyes locked onto them. Its mouth hung open in what might have been a snarl or might have been just its face. It was impossible to tell. The effect was deeply, profoundly unsettling.
Marco's bravado began to crack. He leaned closer, squinting. "I don't even know if that's a cat."
"It's a cat," Alex said, though her voice wavered slightly.
"It's a demon. It's a demon in cat form. Look at its eyes! They're not blinking, Alex! Cats blink! This thing hasn't blinked once!"
"Maybe it has a neurological condition," Alex offered, but she was staring too, her earlier scientific detachment eroding under the sheer wrongness of the creature's gaze.
Marco slapped his palm against the glass. "¡Blink, puta madre!"
The cat blinked.
Slowly. Deliberately. One eye at a time.
Then it stood up.
Marco made a sound like a tea kettle coming to a boil. The cat took a step forward. Then another. It was walking toward the window. Directly toward them. Its gait was unhurried, purposeful, and deeply unsettling, its misshapen head bobbing slightly with each step.
Alex grabbed Marco's arm. "Marco—"
"It's coming closer—"
"It's coming right at us—"
"Close the window—"
"CLOSE THE WINDOW!"
They shrieked in unison, a high-pitched duet of genuine panic. Marco lunged forward, grabbed the window frame, and slammed it down with enough force to rattle the glass in its pane. He stumbled backward, pulling Alex with him, both of them landing in a heap on his bed.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing, harsh and rapid, and the distant, unconcerned sizzle of Rosa's cooking.
Marco stared at the closed window, his chest heaving. Alex stared at the same window, her heart pounding.
From the backyard, there was a soft thump. Then another. A scratching sound.
Marco's eyes went impossibly wider. "It's trying to get in."
"It is not trying to get in."
A shadow passed across the window. Two yellow eyes appeared at the bottom corner of the glass, peering in.
"It's TRYING TO GET IN!" Marco scrambled backward on the bed, pulling Alex with him until they were pressed against the headboard.
"Marco Rivera, what is all this screaming?!" Rosa's voice preceded her by several seconds. She appeared in the doorway, a wooden spoon in one hand, her apron dusted with flour. She took in the scene—her son and his girlfriend huddled together on the bed like frightened children, the closed window, the look of pure terror on Marco's face.
She walked calmly to the window, peered out, and let out a dismissive tsk. "Oh. That's just Señor Bigotes. He's been coming around for years. He's old and he's mean and he has no teeth. He's not going to hurt your fat raccoon."
She turned back to them, unimpressed. "Dinner in twenty minutes. Wash your faces. You look ridiculous."
She left. The wooden spoon never stopped moving.
Marco and Alex sat in silence for a long moment. Then, slowly, the tension began to leak out of Marco's shoulders. He let out a shaky breath, then another. A laugh bubbled up, surprised and a little hysterical.
"Señor Bigotes," he repeated, shaking his head. "My mom named the demon cat."
"The demon cat," Alex agreed, and she was laughing too now, the adrenaline converting into giddy relief. "You called it grandma."
"I stand by that. It does look like grandma. Not my grandma, obviously. A different grandma. A scary grandma. A grandma that lives in the woods and eats children who wander too far from the path."
He looked at the window again. The yellow eyes were gone. For now.
He wrapped his arm around Alex, pulling her close. "You know what this means, right?"
"What?"
He turned to her, his expression deadly serious. "We have to move. New house. New city. New country, maybe. Somewhere Señor Bigotes cannot find us."
Alex snorted, shoving his shoulder. "We are not moving because of an ugly cat."
"You didn't see its eyes, Alex. You saw its eyes. That cat has plans. That cat has ambitions. That cat is looking at us and thinking about our bones."
"Your mom literally just said it has no teeth."
"Don't need teeth to be a menace. Look at my abuela. She's been menace for seventy-three years and she's had dentures since '92."
Alex couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. It was loud and unguarded, the kind of laugh that only Marco could pull from her. He grinned, triumphant, and pressed a kiss to her temple.
"There she is," he murmured. "My brave scientist, unafraid of spiders and raccoons and my entire family, scared of an old toothless cat."
"I wasn't scared," Alex protested weakly.
"You shrieked, corazón. You shrieked and grabbed me like I was a life raft."
"You shrieked first."
"I shrieked in Spanish. It's more dignified."
She laughed again, and he laughed with her, and the demon cat Señor Bigotes was forgotten—or at least, pushed to the back of their minds, where he would wait, patiently, with his unblinking yellow eyes, for his next appearance.
From the kitchen, Rosa's voice floated down the hallway. "¡Ya! Wash your faces! The food is getting cold!"
Marco kissed Alex's forehead, quick and warm. "Come on, mami. Let's go eat before Señor Bigotes figures out how to pick the lock."
He pulled her off the bed, keeping her hand in his. As they passed the window, neither of them looked out.
But both of them walked a little faster.