Neighbor was Dead for a Year and Nobody Knew

Date: 4/14/2023

I was going through my mail and noticed one letter was addressed to my next door neighbor, Deb. I started walking towards her house to place it in her mailbox. When I got there I noticed her mailbox was overflowing. I then saw open boxes placed at her doorstep that were also overflowing with mail. I then remembered… I had thought she moved away last spring. She said she was going to. I knocked on her door and called for her. There was no answer. I remembered that she always kept her door unlocked. I entered reluctantly, wanting to just quickly confirm that she had moved. Her place was a mess and smelled terrible. Her cats were still there, wandering about. I called for her again but was already thinking something was very wrong. At this point I believed I was looking for a dead body. I looked in her bedroom and did not see anything. I looked in some other main rooms. She was nowhere to be found. I felt creeped out and decided to leave and call the police. The police came along with animal control. They found her dead body. They began clearing the house of all her things, and trying to round up the cats. The main animal control officer was trying to scare the cats into submission with a taser. He wasn’t tasing them but just turning it on to make the electricity sounds and flash a light. The cats were reacting angrily and were running around and crying. One particular cat had natural blue coloring on his legs. He was named Bluey. By the way Bluey was responding, everyone thought he was vicious. I offered to help. “They know my smell, I’m not a stranger to them, maybe it will be more comforting if I try to round them up. I can take care of them and foster them too.” “No, get out of here,” that officer responded. He then left the main area of the house to do something else. I pulled one of the open cat carriers over toward Bluey. I pretended to have a treat in my hand. “Hey Bluey. Come here Bluey!” I pretended to put the treat inside the carrier. Bluey came over to me and went inside the carrier, and I quickly zipped it up. I turned around and all the other officers there were staring in awe. They went back to cleaning out her home. There was a truck outside and they were throwing all her clothes and belongings inside. After bringing Bluey to my apartment I went back and watched. Other people had come to watch as well, including a mean girl that I went to high school with, Casey. She was with her boyfriend who I did not know. “What happened?” she asked. I explained the story about me bringing over the mail. “She was kind of a mean, cranky lady, and apparently she had nobody in her life who noticed she was gone,” I said. I started to feel really bad for Deb. She was indeed a very mean, rude person. She had insulted me before, yelled at me, cursed at me, threatened me, spread lies about me to the neighborhood, and made racist remarks in my presence. I had hated her. But apparently she had gotten food poisoning and due to her age and isolated social lifestyle, her health declined to the point where she couldn’t move and couldn’t get help, and then she died. She apparently died the day she was supposed to move. Nobody ever knew she was still here for a year. I went back home where I was throwing a graduation party. Another kid from my high school was there, Zack. He is dead in real life. “Hey, welcome,” I greeted him. “For everyone who’s graduating, this is your party too!” I announced. Everyone who was already there cheered. Casey then showed up. She walked by me completely ignoring me even though it was my apartment. She started telling everyone the story of Deb. Everyone was gathered around her mesmerized by her storytelling. “She had these crazy cats, one of them attacked me! I can’t believe I made it out of there okay,” she told. I rolled my eyes at her lies and embellishments. I started gathering a bowl of food for Bluey, and setting up a litterbox. I had him isolated in his own room, away from my other cat, because cats aren’t supposed to meet immediately, they’re supposed to be separated so they can smell each other first before seeing.