Fiction by Hailey E. Beck

Fear the Tomcat

Before Mom went cold, I was her only girl. At first, we were a sea of five suckling beneath her. I was her favorite, or I was at least her greatest cause for concern. My imagination drew a likeness between our faces; hers was round and soap-white, mine was invisible. The name she gave me was a four-syllable purpose: Fear the Tomcat. Above all else, Fear the Tomcat.

And above all else, I did. As my brothers were plucked off by hot rubber wheels and sharp angel claws and weakness, Mom took up any spare room we had for grieving. When she found my first brother flattened, she hid what was left of him deep in the Earth and kissed his grave with her belly. When my second brother was ripped high into the sky, I climbed every tree she claimed to smell his blood in. Of course, there was also the Runt- I never mentioned her eating him. I coveted fear over Death. Death was a Saturday afternoon, it was drunken sleep, it was one less brother to compete with. Sleeping in cold ditches between the Concrete and the Green did not shake me, nor did Mom’s hunts coming up bare or her nipples dragging with the soreness of our missing kin. I was strictly fixated with Him, the Tomcat, that intangible presence. By the time she was near running cold, I had not noticed the Mouth hiding behind the Dumpster.

It had been lying in wait, mocking us with its hollow teeth. I knew it was Death by the prey that it held; the limp puddle was cold and grey, not at all like fresh blood’s salt, but Mom was thin. She could not help eating the coldness and it could not help eating her in return. As soon as she stepped into its silver gape, the Mouth swallowed her with a snap while I, a small coward, watched her howl for me. My name rang across the Concrete, beckoning fear on her voice.

Eventually, a flesh creature found her. They stepped out of the Dumpster’s Mother, a concrete box nestled fondly next to her offspring, and made many false moons flicker to illuminate the Mouth’s skinny catch. Despite Mom’s protests, the creature clucked gently before donning thick rubber paws to lift her into the belly of a roaring metal beast. The Beast’s stomach was all carpet, no Concrete, no Green, and all wrong. The creature climbed in after her and ducked under night’s cover. In the quiet, I watched darkness lift Mom’s milky face into the moon.

                  I tried to live up to my name. At every dusk’s rising, I followed Mom’s face, leaving the omnipotent Tomcat behind us. Every smell could be Him; every flesh creature I shunned, every one of my own kind I spat at. I was determined to refute His clever entrapments. My name had not died with Mom.

But it was not beneath her wide, bright gaze where He found me. It was midafternoon when my limbs grew cherry hot in the sun. I knew better, I should have stuck to scrounging the Green for earthworms and bathing in shadows. I should have let the hunger leave me for vultures in a bed of clover. I should have clipped caution to my ears. After all, I was my mother’s only daughter. I rolled my cheeks against flower beds and the palms of stray creatures and sang, no, howled. For once, I did not fear Him.

                  I do not like to remember Him finding me.

                  Afterwards, I could think of nothing else. He had left something inside me, but I could not lick myself clean. His rot festered and grew into a thousand tiny feet kicking inside my body; my paunch grew low and expectant, but I could not cough Him up. I was nameless. I wanted milk and I wanted my mother. A famine grew within me, a strange thirst that panted for cold, sharp, silver prey. I could not deny the Mouth; I had already gone cold.

When they came to collect me, there was no one to call out for. I thought, thank God I will not have to name my daughters. Thank God they will meet my brothers; thank God they will never know or taste or Fear the Tomcat.

                  I did not expect the flesh creature to whisper kind sounds as they fed me to their beast, but I felt as though this end might be an heirloom. Inside, I found that Death was not what I had expected. Its stomach was tender, and its carpet smelled faintly of Mom.

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Hailey Beck is a budding writer who studies at Seminole State College, where her work was previously featured in the college’s 2024 Fall Essay Competition Chronicle. She currently resides in Orlando Florida with her partner L.