Tom’s sister Kate smiled like she’d just buried something in the backyard.
“It was so nice to meet you, Kyle,” she cooed at the front door, voice syrupy and wrong. “See you at the wedding! And come back any time. You’re family now.”
She closed the door with the kind of care you’d use on a cooler full of raw meat.
Kyle didn’t respond. He was too busy gagging behind his smile.
Kate’s house had the ambiance of a flooded basement, if a flooded basement also had hoarder energy and smelled like a long-forgotten corpse marinated in Fancy Feast. The walls wept moisture, streaked with something black and spongy. The floor sagged like it had secrets. The whole place stank of litterbox—warm, sour, alive.
Dinner was a casserole that looked like something coughed up. Hot dogs bobbed in a coagulated swamp of crusty mayonnaise and instant noodles, the whole thing giving off a heat that felt… intestinal. Flies swarmed the dish like it owed them money.
But the worst part? That fucking litterbox in the dining room. Center stage. No attempt to hide it, just sitting there next to the China hutch, steaming with what Kyle prayed was cat shit. Long, human-looking coils curled among clumps of gravel. The stench punched him in the throat every time he inhaled, like it wanted inside.
He tried not to stare, but it was magnetic. A crime scene with clumps.
When Kate got up to get seconds, Kyle noticed clumps of kitty litter stuck to her pants, trailing from the chair she’d sat in like breadcrumbs from Hell. A few chunks had mashed into the carpet. One stuck to her bare foot as she dragged it along the linoleum.
Kyle kept quiet. He was newly engaged to Tom. There were boundaries, and this was apparently one of them.
Now in the car, silence pressed between them like foam insulation.
Kyle finally asked, “So… what kind of cat does Kate have?”
Tom looked confused. “She doesn’t have a cat.”
Kyle stared at him.
“She’s never had a cat. Why do you ask?”
Kyle turned back toward the road. “No reason.”
Then Tom unbuckled his seatbelt and said, “Shit—I forgot. I gotta run back in real quick and take a dump before we leave. Be right back.”
And before Kyle could stop him, Tom was already jogging back toward the house, litter crunching underfoot.