003: The Cat From Hell – When Animals Get Possessed

So who do you call when the sweet cat you raise from a kitten becomes possessed by something evil? Then it starts yelling at you in human voices, and then it tries to kill you. Our next guest called in the church when it happened to her but not before blood was spilled when she encountered the cat from hell. Louise (00:30):My name is Louise and I grew up in northern Arizona. We spent my childhood teenage years there, and this is the story of my pet cat. When I turned 13, my mother finally let me have a cat. I’d been begging and begging and begging, so we knew a farmer. So she took me out to the ranch and I got to pick out a kitten. And I remember bringing that kitten home and feeling so proud of myself for two reasons. Number one, I finally had responsibility for my own pet and my brothers wouldn’t get access to it. And second of all, because I was going to be able to sell my mother on whatever I wanted from this point forward. That’s how I saw it. Anyway, so we get home with this kitten, and I name him Max. And Max was my dear little pet. He was playful and cute, and kittens are so adorable. (01:24):And we watched him grow. He had free run of the house we lived in at that time, and he became the family cat. And even though I had responsibility, my brothers played with him and my mom and dad played with him and he was just a lovely cat. But then we moved into this house in Prescott, Arizona that was really quite old, 80, 90, maybe a hundred years old. And we lived there and my mother decided that Max should live in my bedroom only and not have free run of the house. I don’t know why she decided that. And I tried to pitch Max for having free rain, but she said no. So we kept Max in my room, and that was okay for about a year, maybe two years. And I was home alone one summer because I’d started college and my family had left for the summer to go do something else. And I came home from work one day and planning to get ready because my girlfriend’s mother had invited me over for dinner that Friday evening. And I went to my room to open the door and I heard what sounded like someone shouting on the other side in a really scary voice “Get out, GET OUT! (02:36): And I don’t know what that voice is. I’ve never heard it before. And I go to open the door and Max my precious little cat jumps from under the bed all the way across my room. I don’t know how he could possibly have gone that far. And he lands on my forehead. I still have the scars, and he just starts scratching and biting and clawing and terrifying me. And I’m screaming. I’m trying to get him off of me and I can’t get him physically off me. I have scars on my wrist from it, and he bit me on my chest. He actually bit me first time ever, not just through my shirt, but through my bra. And I had blood pouring down my face from all the scratches. And I finally get him off me and I throw him across the room because I don’t know what else to do. There was blood all over the front of my shirt and there were tears on my sleeves. It was my favorite shirt at the time, and I didn’t know what to do… (03:34):And Max curls up on my bed and he’s shouting, “get out, get out” in this terrifying voice. And I don’t know what to do. And I am bleeding. And I just shut the door and I run downstairs. And this was before cell phones and I don’t know what to do. Try and calm myself down and I’m crying and I’m trying to mop up the blood. I remember I had a white shirt on and there was blood all over the front of my shirt and there were tears in my sleeves. It was my favorite shirt at the time, and I don’t know what to do. And I finally go to our phone and I call my friend’s mom, and I said, I can’t come over for dinner because my cat went crazy and he bit me and he scratched me up really bad. And I remember her mother didn’t believe me and she laughed at me kind of meanly and thought I was making an excuse. (04:29):The next day I went to church and the mother and my friend were there, and when they saw my face, it was covered with scratches and my arms were covered with scratches. And of course they couldn’t see my chest, which also was covered with scratches. There was a big bite out of my breast. And her mother was horrified that this had happened to me. All of a sudden she believed me and she went and got a man in the church and said, can you help Louise? Can you catch the cat so we can take it away? And I didn’t want them to take max away, and this guy didn’t really believe what had happened, but he could see all the scratches on me and everything else. And so he said he would come by after church. So he came by and he brought his suit. (05:20):He was a automobile mechanic, and he had, I so remember he’s standing outside my bedroom door with his wife and my friend and my friend’s mother, and he’s got this cage that he had just bought that he’s going to put Max in. And I’m crying, of course, this is my ...