When I was young and slightly more nervous about things like spirits and the like, I relied upon my cats to warn me if anything otherworldly was about the house. Since my two cats pretty much slept like lumps, I always figured my house was free of ghosts and monsters.

But I did have a friend who once woke on a rainy night to see her cat staring intently out the window. This was unusual, because her cat was a lazy thing, and preferred sleeping under the covers on a chilly night to  sitting by a cold window watching the rain. She called to the cat, but it didn’t move.

Curious, my friend got out of bed to see if she could see what the cat was looking at in the rain soaked streets. When she touched the cat, the animal’s body tensed. It whined low in its throat, and suddenly there was a tapping at the front door.

That was weird, but she still went to the door to see who might be there. Since all the neighbors in that small apartment building were friends, she thought perhaps it was someone needing help. As she headed to the door, the cat growled menacingly, and ran in front of her to crouch on the entry rug. When my friend tried to get to the door, the cat growled and hissed at her.

This spooked my friend. Another tap on the door, and the cat, all it’s hair puffed out, it’s eyes as big as saucers and glinting in the dark, hissed again, but silently. My friend, by now thoroughly scared, decided that whoever was tapping on the door could wait until morning.  She went back to bed (after grabbing her telephone, and a big knife from the kitchen.) The cat finally came to join her as dawn was breaking, and they were both finally able to sleep easily.

She still doesn’t know why the cat was growling, or at who (or what!). The cat never did that again, but then again, no more night visitors ever came tapping at her door.

But my friend slept with a kitchen knife under her pillow for a long time after that.