- Excerpt
Ghost Stories of Pets and Animals
Darren Zenko
INTRODUCTION
The excerpt below is from the chilling
new book, "Ghost Stories of Pets
and Animals." The eerie tale (or is that "tail"?) concerns a geriatric
tomcat who sends a farewell message to his vacationing human companion.
Like most of the stories in the book, it will leave you with that tingling
feeling of the familiar.
"Ghost Stories of Pets and Animals" began
as a project to document the immortal bond between people and their
beloved pets. However, author Darren Zenko and his team of researchers
found that many of the best stories involved, not the afterlife comforts
of a favorite animal companion, but arresting apparitions sent as harbingers
of doom. The book includes 35 historical gems and present-day encounters,
both menacing and benign, covering a menagerie of creatures including
dogs, cats, horses, camels, sheep, pigs, rats, birds, and a mongoose.
More information about the book, "Ghost Stories of Pets and Animals" and
author Darren Zenko follows the excerpt. Enjoy!
The Telepathic Cat
by Darren Zenko
Brent Jansen had been having the
trip of a lifetime, backpacking with college friends for five weeks
through the length and breadth of Ireland. He and his buddies wandered
from the weird volcanic formations of the Giant's Causeway in the north
to Blarney Castle with its famous stone in the south, from the majestic
cliffs of Slieve League in County Donegal to the mysterious ancient
tomb of Newgrange in Glendalough. All the along the way, they enjoyed
Ireland's food, music, people and, of course, pubs. They sat in dozens
of pubs and quaffed hundreds of pints, Beamish stout and Harp lager,
joining forces with Irish whiskey and "Scrumpy Jack" cider
in a happy blur of Celtic joy.
And now, fresh from a pilgrimage to the famous Guinness brewery, Brent
lay in his bed at Dublin's cozy Tathony House hostel. Tomorrow, it was
back to London and from there the long transatlantic flight home to Calgary.
As much as he'd loved Ireland, the young man looked forward to getting
back, with his bag full of photos and his head full of stories.
It didn't take long for Brent to fall asleep that night (he had thoroughly
sampled the Guinness family's fine products). But he didn't snore peacefully
for long. At about two o'clock in the morning he began to dream, a dream
more immediate and vivid than any he'd had before: a vision of the death
of one of his oldest and dearest friends.
In his dream, he found himself in the familiar surroundings of Calgary's
Nose Hill Park, a little piece of unspoiled wilderness in the midst of
modern housing developments, not far from his parents' home. Brent often
spent hours hiking through the park, enjoying the quiet and solitude.
The dream sight of its foothills terrain -- wild grasses and scrub rustling
in the dry summer wind, the evening sun throwing its long shadows --
filled him with a mix of happiness and homesickness. But something wasn't
quite right. Everything looked familiar but somehow different. When the
dream revealed his pet cat, Moby, loping through the familiar grassland,
he realized what he was seeing.
"I was down almost at cat level," Brent remembers, "not seeing through
Moby's eyes, but still somehow experiencing what he was experiencing." The
big old platinum Siamese was moving unusually fast for his advanced age
-- over 16 years and counting, with more than a touch of arthritis in
his back legs. Brent's parents were cat-sitting; he had left strict instructions
for them not to let the aged but feisty tomcat out. Moby was far too
rickety to deal with any trouble his temper might get him into.
Brent knew his dream was actually happening. As the vision continued,
the reason for the old cat's painful sprint became clear.
"He was being hunted," says Brent. "There are lots of coyotes in that
area, and they take what they can get. They can't usually catch cats,
but Moby was a pretty easy target: old, fat and slow." The cat tried
to make a run for it, but adrenaline can only make up for so much. Brent
could feel Moby's exhaustion, feel the pain in his legs, feel the electric
panic of a frightened feline. Worst of all he could feel his childhood
pal losing steam, and with the cat's senses he could hear, smell and
even feel the canine predator closing in. Yards behind, feet, inches...
It was all over in an instant. The golden sunshine of a clear mid-July
evening in southern Alberta vanished, replaced by the close darkness
of the Dublin night. Brent awoke suddenly, disoriented, his heart pounding.
"I knew Moby was dead, and I knew that I had watched it happen," Brent
says. "It was an absolute conviction."
The strange dream left him mystified
and disturbed but, oddly, Brent didn't feel upset by Moby's death itself. "Maybe it was the certainty
of knowing," he speculates, "that sort of calm that comes when there
are no questions or loose ends. I knew he'd been killed, but I also knew
that he was beyond the reach of pain and suffering. I think it would
have been worse if I had arrived home and he was just gone."
After the flight home, Brent's parents
met him at the airport. He says, "They
didn't waste any time in letting me know about Moby. After the hugs and
kisses, picking up my luggage and getting on the road home, my mom turned
around in the front seat and looked at me with a really strange expression.
She said, 'Honey, before we get home, there's something you should know...'
"I just put my hand on her arm and
said, 'I know, Mom, Moby's gone. It's okay.' Her eyes went wide. She
just stared at me, half-stammering, not knowing what to say. She asked,
'How do you know?'"
Brent told them about the dream he'd had in Dublin, and his amazed parents
confirmed that the times matched up perfectly. Moby had gotten loose
at more or less exactly the time that Brent had his vision. Brent's mom
had been grilling steaks on the barbecue. She wasn't used to having a
cat around the house and had absentmindedly left the patio door open
when she went in to answer the phone. The veteran tomcat had seized the
opportunity and literally headed for the hills.
"Mom started to cry a little," Brent continues. "She
felt really guilty and embarrassed for letting the cat out. They hadn't
stopped searching the neighborhood until they had to leave for the
airport to pick me up. I just said, 'Don't worry, it's okay. He's gone
and it's over. It was his time. There's nothing you could have done.'"
When Brent got back to his parents'
place, he went straight out to Nose Hill Park. With no difficulty,
he found the exact spot he'd seen in his dream, the spot where Moby
died. He couldn't see any blood or bones -- "Coyotes
are pretty thorough," he says -- but he sat there for a long time, meditating
and reflecting on his seemingly supernatural experience.
Brent still visits that spot often. He sits amid the wild beauty of
the Rocky Mountain foothills and thinks about the day his old friend
somehow reached across half a planet for one last moment of connection.
Copyright ©2004 by Ghost
House Books. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to duplicate and
distribute this file, as long as the excerpt is not altered and this
copyright notice is intact. Thank you.
