Something twisted inside my ribs.

The cat pressed his forehead against the weather-beaten door, as if waiting for it to open. As if expecting the old man to shuffle out and chase him away like always.

But the door stayed closed.
The porch groaned with the shifting ice.
Scrap meowed again, weaker this time, and finally collapsed onto the top step.

My breath hitched.

I couldn’t just leave him there.

I crunched across the snow, each step louder than it should’ve been in the bitter quiet. When I reached the porch, Scrap tried to lift his head, but it wobbled, and he slumped sideways.

“Oh, buddy…” I murmured.

Up close, I could see frost clinging to his whiskers, his paws raw and bloodied from walking on ice. How long had he been out here? Two days? Three? Had he been waiting outside while Henderson lay dying inside?

I scooped him into my jacket. He barely moved.

My house was warm, humming with heat from the generator I had smugly installed last summer—the kind of thing Mr. Henderson would’ve called “fancy city nonsense.”

Inside, I laid Scrap in a blanket near the fireplace. His eyes blinked open only once, unfocused, then shut again.

As I warmed my hands near the fire, guilt crept in like the cold had earlier. I kept replaying that moment from two days ago: Henderson yelling, throwing that boot, the cat limping away, and my irritated thought:

God, I wish he would just disappear.

And now he had.

I tried to shake the feeling off—correlation didn’t mean causation. I wasn’t some supernatural force. Old men died in blizzards. It happened.

Still, the weight of the thought lingered like a bruise on my conscience.

The next morning, I went to bring in the trash bins the plows had knocked sideways. As I passed Henderson’s house, something made me stop.

There were footprints in the snow.

Lots of them.

Multiple pairs, leading from the street to his porch, then around to the backyard. They weren’t from the medical team—I’d seen those tracks yesterday. These were different. Narrower. Closer together. Almost like…

Children’s footprints.

My stomach tightened.

Kids? In a blizzard? No way.

I followed them with slow, careful steps, my breath fogging as I moved. They led around the house, past the sagging fence, to the backyard where the snow was less disturbed. The prints went in a single direction—toward the small shed that had been leaning crooked for years.

The door of the shed was slightly open.

A strip of blackness waited inside.

Something told me to turn around, to go home, pretend I didn’t see any of this. But curiosity tugged harder than fear. Maybe someone had been squatting here. Maybe Henderson hadn’t died alone. The thought made my chest ache.

The shed smelled of mold, rust, and wet wood. In the corner sat a stack of old wooden crates. On the floor was an overturned metal bowl… and beside it, a small knitted blanket.

A child’s blanket. Faded blue.

Another shiver ran up my spine.
Had Henderson been hiding someone?
Or had someone been visiting him?

Before I could think further, a voice spoke behind me.

“You shouldn’t be in there.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

A woman stood at the entrance.
Tall, wiry, bundled in an oversized coat with snow clinging to her boots. I recognized her—though not personally. She lived three houses down, always walking too fast, always avoiding small talk.

Her name was Claire. Or Clara. Something like that.

I cleared my throat. “Sorry. I… saw footprints.”

She stepped forward, eyes scanning the shed like she already knew what was inside.

“Did you find it?” she asked.

“Find what?” I frowned.

Her gaze landed on the blue blanket, and her expression softened in a strange, haunted way.

“Ah,” she whispered. “So he kept it.”

“Whose was it?”

She didn’t answer immediately. She ran her fingers across the frayed edge of the blanket, as if holding something fragile and long-buried.

“Henderson wasn’t always the man you knew,” she murmured. “Before the war, before the drinking… he was different.”

Different how?

Before I could ask, she straightened, her face tightening.

“If you took Scrap,” she said, “take care of him. He mattered to Henderson more than the old man would ever admit.”

I blinked. “Sorry, what? Henderson hated that cat.”

She shook her head slowly.

“Henderson didn’t hate him. He was scared of him.”

Of a half-maimed stray cat?

My brain fought the absurdity, but her tone was dead serious.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

She looked over her shoulder, ensuring no one was listening, then leaned in close.

“That cat has been around longer than any of us,” she whispered. “Longer than you think. He always comes to the ones who are about to die.”

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the weather.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” She tilted her head. “Henderson’s wife died ten years ago. Scrap appeared a week before. Henderson’s brother died on that porch—heart attack. Scrap was there that morning too. Old Mrs. Camden across the street? Same thing. The cat always knows.”

I shook my head. “Coincidence.”

She let out a dry laugh. “You think it’s coincidence he spent the night outside Henderson’s door?”

That uncomfortable sensation—guilt, dread, guilt—swelled in my chest.

“You’re imagining things,” I muttered.

She shrugged. “Believe what you want. But keep that cat warm. And don’t… wish things lightly.”

Her gaze lingered on me too long.

Then she walked away, her boots crunching through the snow until she disappeared between two houses.

I was left standing in the shed, heart thudding in my ears, staring at the blue blanket and overturned bowl.

Scrap knew when people would die?
No. No way.
That was superstition. A story built on coincidences. People see patterns everywhere.

Still…

I locked the shed on my way out.

Scrap survived.

He stayed close to the fireplace for two days, letting me hand-feed him tuna and chicken broth like a newborn. Sometimes he’d open one eye and stare at me—long, unblinking, unsettlingly intelligent. It made my skin crawl in ways I couldn’t explain.

On the third day, he stood and limped across the living room, exploring with newfound strength. I smiled despite myself.

“You’re one tough little monster,” I whispered.

He leapt onto the couch—right beside me—curled into a ball, and fell asleep.

For the first time in years, I didn’t feel alone in that house.

A week later, the neighborhood held a memorial service for Henderson.

People showed up who hadn’t spoken to him in years. I wasn’t sure why—guilt? Obligation? Curiosity?

I stood near the back, listening to the murmured condolences, the half-remembered anecdotes, the awkward attempts to paint the man in kinder colors.

“He could be difficult…”
“He was private…”
“He had a hard life…”

Then Claire (or Clara) appeared beside me again.

“Do you want to see something?” she asked quietly.

“See what?”

She pressed a folded piece of paper into my palm.

“This was Henderson’s. Found it taped inside one of his kitchen cabinets.”

I unfolded it.

It was a drawing.
Crude. Childlike.

A child holding hands with an older man. And beside them… the shape of a small, pointy-eared cat.

Beneath it, in shaky handwriting:

“Scrap always brings the ones I love back to me.”

My pulse hammered.

“What does this mean?” I whispered.

She sighed. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Henderson had a daughter once. Before the war. She got sick. He lost her.”

My grip tightened around the paper.

“Scrap was hers.”

I felt the floor sway.

“No,” I said. “No, that can’t—he’s just a stray. A beaten-up cat.”

“He’s a survivor,” she corrected. “Just like Henderson was. Just like you.”

“Why me?”

She gave me a long, unreadable look.

“You wished him gone,” she said softly. “But the cat chose to come to you afterward. That means something.”

Something icy slid down my spine.

“What does it mean?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper.

“It means your life is about to change. Dramatically. And not in a way you can undo.”

I held Scrap that night, feeling the weight of him—small, soft, warm in my arms. His purr vibrated against my chest, steady, rhythmic.

But something else gnawed at me.

Before Henderson died…
Scrap had been at his door.
And two days earlier, I had wished him gone.

What had I brought down on myself?

Scrap lifted his head suddenly, ears twitching, eyes narrowing—not at me, but at something behind me.

I turned.

Nothing.

The house was quiet.

But Scrap was still staring at the empty hallway, fur bristling—

As if he sensed someone I couldn’t see.

A presence.

A shift in the air.

A warning.

My stomach dropped.

Because for the first time since Henderson died…
I wondered if the old man wasn’t the only one Scrap had come for.

And maybe—just maybe—
he wasn’t done.