Something's Wrong

Something's Wrong

This story contains reference to dead bodies (animal).

Something weird is going on.

It started small, with things so insignificant that you'd barely notice them. I certainly didn't.

The first big thing was the weather. If you've ever visited London in autumn, I can almost guarantee that any outdoor plans you naively made were spoiled. Why? Because, no doubt, it was raining. It's always raining.

Somehow it didn't seem to occur to anyone that a sudden period of bright sunshine, the sky impossibly turquoise, was odd. I could forgive the tourists – though they were few and far between in September – for not being familiar with London's weather patterns, but my fellow locals should've known better.

But nobody reacted. That was the strange part. They went about their day as though nothing was wrong.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Weather changes on a whim; the sunshine was out of the ordinary, but not cause for alarm.

The next thing was the birds. I'm an ornithologist – to a normal person, a 'bird guy' – so I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't notice this one at first.

Swallows are pretty little migratory birds. They leave around this time of year, and before their departure they gather in great numbers and tango through the autumn sky.

This time, they didn't. They didn't leave, but they didn't stay either. It was like they just evaporated.

I should've wondered, from the beginning, why I didn't see them on the telephone wires or catching the wind. But it's difficult to notice the absence of something.

And so it was that I didn't realise anything was amiss until one sunny Thursday morning – the weather still hadn't gone back to normal – when I left my house in a hurry and heard a crunch under my boot. I lifted my foot, expecting to see a fallen leaf underneath it, and found to my horror the tiny, fragile body of a swallow.

It was stiff and cold, and had already been dead before I stepped on it. This was further confirmed when I looked up and saw my entire garden was full of them: there must have been a hundred bodies strewn across the lawn, caught between the branches of my cherry tree, gently drifting around the pond.

I ran inside to be sick. Then, steeling my stomach, I opened the curtain just enough to peer back out from the safety of my home.

They were gone.

A hesitant trip outside told the same story. There was nothing there. It was like the world was trying to reassure me – 'Don't panic. There's nothing wrong'. It felt less like reassurance and more like gaslighting, but it worked.

I convinced myself that I was very ill, and hallucinating. Perhaps, I thought, I could just sleep it off. But when I woke up from my nap, with the clock reading 4pm, I still felt unsettled. It was a feeling I couldn't really put into words, but I pushed it away. This was nonsense.

Then about a week later, my cat came home from one of his late-night jaunts, sauntering into the kitchen and loudly demanding a share of my dinner. This was business as usual: Bingo hopped onto the counter, I put him back onto the floor, and so the dance went on.

Then he bit me. Hard. It wasn't a play-with-me bite or even a bad-tempered bite, but something that left a river of blood running down my hand. I held it under the tap and watched the water turn red. Shock dulled the pain. "What the hell, dude?" I gasped, addressing Bingo. "I know you're a grumpy old man, but..."

I turned around and froze. Bingo wasn't there.

To be clear, there was a cat in my house, but it wasn't my cat. Bingo was ginger; this cat was grey. It was sitting on my carpet, so still it could've been a statue, looking at me with huge yellow eyes.

I didn't like the way it was looking at me.

It was stupid, I know, but I couldn't help asking out loud: "What are you?" And I swear to God, it was about to answer.

The doorbell rang. With a mixture of relief that I wouldn't have to be alone with this... cat(?) and irritation at being interrupted, I opened the door.

It was my best friend, Emma. "What are you doing here?" I asked, all social graces abandoning me.

She raised her eyebrows. "Rude," she said lightheartedly. "I thought I'd pop in to say hi. I brought wine. Are you busy?"

Unless losing my mind counts as being busy, I thought. I shook my head, motioning for her to come inside. She asked about my bleeding hand; I told her my steak knife had slipped. It seemed easier that way. Even if I tried to explain, she wouldn't believe me.

I went to the kitchen to make her a drink. The house was small, and I could hear her voice from the living room like she was speaking into a megaphone.

"Hey, Bingo!" she fussed. "Aren't you a handsome boy? Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Oh, good boy."

"Em, do you notice anything... different about Bingo today?" I called, making an attempt to sound sane and unbothered.

"Not really," she replied. "Why do you ask? Is that a new collar or something?"

I all but sprinted through to the living room, where Emma was sitting on one of my threadbare armchairs cuddling... the grey cat. It was staring at me with an almost smug expression.

"What colour would you say Bingo is?" I asked carefully.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Fine," I responded quickly. "What colour?"

"Orange, James. He's orange." She let out a bewildered laugh. "Are you sure you're alright?"

I made up my mind to call a psychiatrist in the morning. The Bingo my friend was kissing on the forehead was, to me, very obviously not Bingo at all. I was seeing things.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Think this heatwave's just getting to me." I chuckled. "Never thought I'd miss the rain."

"What heatwave?" Now Emma looked at me like I'd just sprouted wings – which, given the circumstances, seemed increasingly plausible. "James, it's been raining all day. It's raining right now," she said very slowly. "Go outside and look."

My blood went cold. She was joking. She had to be.

I opened the door and stepped into my garden. Thankfully there were no dead swallows this time but, notably, it wasn't raining. In fact, the night seemed impossibly crisp and bright – I could see every piece of the world around me in stark detail. There was something in the air tonight. Something sinister.

I looked up.

There were two moons. Right next to each other, both full and pale buttercup yellow. I felt trapped, rooted to the spot as I stared up at them. I couldn't drag my wide eyes away.

I blinked at the moons.

They blinked back.