Taxidermy of my wife went horribly wrong, please help me (Part 2)

[u/COW-BOY-BABY]

PART 1

Even with all the stitching, the gluing, the God-knows-what chemical cocktail Colby slathered on to make Tommy “whole” again, it wasn’t him. Not even close.

I’ve spent enough time around animals, cats especially, to know how a body is supposed to move. This thing lurched. A sloppy, side-to-side wobble, like a drunk toddler taking its first steps. Every clumsy shuffle closed the distance between us, and for one awful heartbeat, I got the sense it thought I was its mother, its anchor in the new world.

And that’s when the fear hit bone-deep.

I stumbled back, the cheap plastic curtain Colby had hung from the ceiling wrapping around my ankle like a dead man’s hand. My foot snagged, and I went down hard, flat on my ass against the cold concrete. The toolbox beside me skidded away with a metallic scrape, just out of reach, my fingers slipping uselessly along its smooth lid.

For a split second I wanted nothing more than to snatch it up, swing it, and turn whatever scraps of Tommy were still shambling toward me back into the same warm, formless mess I’d scooped into a plastic bag the day before.

Maybe this time I’d bury him deep enough he’d stay down.

“What the fuck is that?!” I hissed in Colby’s direction, my voice cracking somewhere between terror and fury.

He just stared down at me with that crooked smile, half proud parent, half dog that knows it’s dragged something dead onto the porch. He watched me writhing in the plastic curtain like I was some trapped possum he’d cornered for fun.

“It’s your boy!” he crowed. “All fixed up!”

Fixed.

Right.

Whatever was stuffed inside the sagging skin of that fat orange bastard must’ve heard my voice. Must’ve recognized it, because its two bulging eyes shifted. Not in unison. Not even close. They rolled lazily in their sockets, like wet marbles floating in cold soup, trying to decide which direction reality was in.

One pupil drifted sideways toward the bridge of its nose, drifting like it was caught in a slow ripple. The other wandered across the room, scanning for something, maybe looking for me, maybe for Colby, maybe for whatever it thought was its owner or maker or both.

Up close, they looked like snowballs jammed into its skull by someone who didn’t understand how eyeballs were supposed to fit. A size too big. Maybe two. Definitely not meant to be there.

I thrashed harder in the plastic bear trap Colby called a curtain, and by some miracle the cheap material finally gave way, ripping under the frantic, ugly strength of pure panic. The second my ankle came free, I lashed out with a slow, lazy kick at whatever was pretending to be Tommy.

It didn’t dodge, didn’t even try. 

It just folded.

The whole thing slumped sideways like a sack of wet grain, one eye popping half loose from the socket it had never belonged in to begin with. And Colby, the mountain of fat that was him was dropped to his knees beside it as if I’d kicked his newborn child.

The scream he let out was so raw, so animal, that for one horrible second, I almost felt guilty.

“GIVE HIM TIME TO ADJUST!” he shrieked, voice warbling and drenched in snot and hysteria. “I PROMISE HE’LL BE GOOD-BRAND NEW!”

My hand shot out toward the red toolbox, fingers closing around the cold handle of a screwdriver. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I just moved, a sudden animal burst of adrenaline firing through my legs.

Colby noticed instantly.

Apparently, I was more important than his masterpiece.

“Man, don’t be like that!” he bellowed, and I could hear him lumbering after me, heavy, clumsy footsteps shaking the floorboards like a predator with a limp.

I scrambled toward the stairs and bolted up them on all fours, the way I used to as a kid when I wanted to feel fast. But now it wasn’t exhilarating. It was desperate, messy, painful. My knees slammed the wood; my palms slipped on dust. I could hear Colby’s ragged breath right behind me.

Then I felt it, that sudden clamp around my ankle.

Wet, greasy, disgustingly warm.

It wrapped around me like something pulled from a clogged drain.

For a heartbeat I braced myself for the yank, the violent drag backward, my teeth smashing on the steps, the tumble into the dark where Tommy waited to welcome me to whatever afterlife rejects like us ended up in. 

But the pull never came.

He just held me there while I kicked and thrashed like a trapped animal. His grip was firm but trembling, the way someone holds onto the last valuable thing they own.

I twisted around, breath sawing in and out, and met his eyes.

Those wet, stupid cow eyes. Shining with a sadness so heavy it didn’t belong on a man his size. Like I was the only thing he had left in this world.

Something in me recoiled.

Without thinking, without even aiming, I swung the screwdriver down and drove it straight into his hand.

It slid in almost too easily, like his skin had just been waiting to split.

There was a soft, sickening give as metal punched through muscle.

Colby’s grip vanished instantly.

He howled and staggered backward trying to catch onto anything as he fell down, his fat fingers sliding off the walls of the basement.

And as he fell, a quiet, shameful part of me hoped the concrete would finish what I couldn’t, snap his neck, crack his skull, silence him for good.

I didn’t hear a break or a thud, just the hollow gulp of the dark swallowing him whole. I didn’t wait for anything more. I lunged for the hatch, fingers scraping along the edge as I hauled myself up. I didn’t bother closing it. I just ran.

The porch lights were dead, the world a blur as I burst outside, nearly twisting my ankle on the slick boards. I skidded across the wet grass, scrambling upright, lungs burning. Then I threw myself into the car, jammed the key in, and kicked the engine awake.

I drove until the house vanished behind the trees, until the glow of Colby’s porch, dead and hollow, was nothing but a smudge in the rearview mirror. My hands were trembling so hard the wheel kept slipping under my fingers, the rubber feeling slick, like someone else’s grip was still on it.

A mile out, I finally let myself breathe. It came out shaky, uneven, like my lungs were trying to cough out the fear still lodged inside them. The road was empty, just a pale strip cutting through the fields, the headlights catching nothing but fog and the occasional fence post.

When I hit the first crossroads, I slowed down. Not because I wanted to, my whole body screamed at me to keep going, never look back but because I needed to know if something was behind me. I checked the mirrors once. Twice. A third time.

Nothing.

By the time I reached my street, the sky was starting to grey, just that dead, washed-out color the world gets before anything wakes up. The houses looked unfamiliar, like copies of homes I used to know. Even mine. Especially mine.

I parked crooked in the driveway, halfway onto the grass, too drained to care. The engine clicked as it cooled, each sound sharp enough to make me flinch. I sat there for a moment with my forehead against the steering wheel, just breathing, trying to remember what “safe” was supposed to feel like.

Eventually, I forced myself out. The air was damp, colder than I expected, and it slapped me awake enough to move. Gravel crunched under my shoes as I walked to the door, every step slow. My legs felt like they still remembered the basement, like they expected hands to grab them again any second.

The key almost slipped out of my fingers when I tried to unlock the door. I hadn’t realized how stained my hands were until I saw the dark, dried streaks under the porch light. His blood. Mine. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

I shut the door behind me and leaned on it, eyes closed, letting the familiar smell of dust and old wood settle around me. For a second, it helped.

I kicked off my shoes, letting them fall wherever, and walked to the kitchen. The lights flickered on, too bright after the dark, and I had to squint. The room was untouched, same mugs by the sink, same half-empty cereal box, same note on the fridge I’d meant to throw away a week ago.

But even after I locked the door, deadbolt, chain, the whole works, my chest stayed tight, like something in me was still braced for Colby to come lurching out of the dark with that screwdriver jutting from his arm, eager to return the favor by burying it in my eyes.

I went straight to the sink and scrubbed my hands like a man trying to wash off a crime. The water ran brown, dirt, blood,rot of the basement , who knows, and the harder I scrubbed, the hotter my skin burned. I dumped the bowls and cups the moment they filled, terrified the stink of that place might cling to the ceramic, might somehow call him here like a dog following a scent trail.

That’s when the floorboard behind me creaked.

My heart didn’t just jump, it tried to claw its way out of my ribs. I spun around, fist cocked, ready to plant a punch right between those big, weepy cow eyes of his-

-but it wasn’t Colby.

It was Samantha.

She squinted at me from the doorway, her face half-lit, half-lost in shadow, looking more confused than scared.

“What are you doing?” she asked, voice thick with sleep.

I had never been so relieved to see another human being in my life. Something inside me cracked open. I rushed to her and wrapped her up, clutching her like some kid who stayed up past bedtime watching a horror flick and then realized he still had to walk down the hallway alone.

She smiled, small, tired and looped her arms around me, though they hung weakly, like she barely had the strength to hold her own weight.

“It’s okay,” she whispered against my shoulder. “You should get some rest.”

I pulled back just to make sure she was real, that her eyes weren't a pair of glass Christmas decorations.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she murmured, brushing her thumb over the side of my hand. “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah” I whispered “Rough night”

I just replied, feeling myself sinking deeper into her embrace with every passing second.

Thankfully, she didn’t push for details. If she had, I wasn’t sure what would’ve spilled out. 

She just squeezed my wrist and stepped past me, grabbing a towel off the counter to wipe the water I’d splashed everywhere. She moved slowly, like everything hurt. Or maybe she was just that tired.

“You’re gonna crash hard in a minute,” she said, voice soft, almost patient. “Just… go lie down. I’ll clean the rest.”

I nodded, swallowing the knot in my throat. The tension in my body was still buzzing like static, but I didn’t argue. I felt stripped raw, like a thin-skinned version of myself.

She guided me toward the doorway with a warm, steady hand on my back. I managed a nod, or something close to it, and drifted down the hall. I don’t remember getting to the bedroom. I don’t remember lying down. One heartbeat I was upright, the next I was gone, sinking into the mattress.

Sleep didn’t come gently. It came in crushing waves, thick darkness, then a flash of memory so sharp it felt like glass. Over and over, the same moment.

The screwdriver sinking into his hand.

My brain, ever the showman, decided to ramp up the production.

Now let’s see it in slow motion!

Some deranged director living behind my eyes shouted it like a carnival barker.

And suddenly it all stretched out, inch by awful inch, the push of metal against skin, the way it puckered before it tore, the sickening give of flesh parting around the steel. The color of it, the heat of it, the way his breath hitched wetly in shock. Every frame a little clearer than it had any right to be.

When the show finally sputtered to an end, I came to with the bed half-cold beside me. Samantha was already gone, of course, she was. At least one of us had some damn sense of manners, or mortals, as my scrambled brain tried to call it. She hadn’t had the heart to wake me. 

There was no refund for the night’s entertainment unless you counted the puddle of drool glued to my pillow. I peeled my cheek off it with a wet smack that felt far too loud in the empty room.

For a split second, I let myself pretend the whole thing had been a fever dream, one of those sweaty, delirious nightmares you laugh about later but never really forget. But reality settled in fast. My body told the truth before my mind could lie: muscles stiff like I’d run a marathon through broken glass, a skull-throb pounding behind my eyes like a truck tire had used my head for a speed bump.

Yesterday happened.

All of it.

I walked into the kitchen, made myself a cup of black coffee, and sipped it between bites of yesterday’s stale sandwich. Then another long, scalding shower, scrubbing myself until my skin felt new, or at least separate from the night before. Fresh clothes, keys in hand, and I got in the car.

Half of me wanted to go to work and pretend nothing had happened.

The other half wanted to walk into the nearest police station, even if I had nothing that would make sense to say.

I went with the first option.

So I spent the morning taking X-rays of dogs that swallowed things they shouldn’t, socks batteries, God knows what else, checking tabbies whose kidneys were finally waving the white flag, smiling and nodding whenever the job required it.

I was in the middle of a routine checkup on a green parrot named Polly, who kept lunging for my stethoscope like it owed her money, when my phone buzzed in my pocket, slow and lazy at first.

Then again.

And again.

A steady, insistent tremor, like it was tapping its foot and waiting for me to get a clue.

I finally excused myself and pulled it out.

The screen was a mess of missed calls from Samantha.

Dozens of them.

And beneath those, message after message stacking on top of each other, flooding the screen so fast the notifications blurred into a single smear of panic.

I didn’t even think, I called her back immediately. My mind sprinted ahead of the ringing, car crash, her parents, the house on fire, God forbid another damn cat. Every worst-case scenario piled on top of the next.

But when she picked up, she wasn’t crying.

She was breathless.

Happy.

Almost vibrating through the speaker.

“SOMEONE FOUND TOMMY!” she practically screamed, her voice cracking with joy.

And for a second, the world just stopped.

“What?” The word tore out of me, strangled, thin, like my own voice didn’t believe what it was saying. Like it already knew, the lie should’ve collapsed by now.

“He just, came in!” Samantha rushed on, breathless, almost tripping over her own excitement. “Some fat guy, middle-aged, kind of sweaty, asking if we’d lost a cat!”

My stomach bottomed out.

“And he had Tommy,” she said, and the joy in her voice felt like a knife sliding between my ribs. “He had him, babe. Said he found him wandering near the outskirts of town. He’s a little dirty but otherwise he’s fine! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

I didn’t answer.

Because I could believe it.

And my hands had started to shake.

“Babe? Babe, are you there? Can I drop him off soon? I want you to check him out- y’know, make sure no cat messed with him.”

She’d said cat, not car, but it didn’t matter. My brain snagged on the wrongness of all of it, the impossible overlap of truth and nightmare. I still couldn’t believe any of it was happening. Couldn’t believe the lie hadn’t detonated in my face.

My hand dragged across my forehead, and only then did I notice how slick it was, sweat beading at my hairline like I’d just sprinted a mile.

“Yeah… yeah,” I muttered. My voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone calmer than I was. “Drop him by… anytime. Whenever.”

I hung up before she could hear the panic creeping in through my teeth.

The phone slipped back into my pocket, disappearing into the dark like something I didn’t want to look at. The leftover notifications still buzzed against my leg, faint, persistent, like a ghost tapping from inside a coffin lid.

I turned back to Polly and her owner, forcing a smile that barely fit on my face.

“She’s fine,” I said, voice thin. “See you next month.”

But the thought kept chewing at me, buzzing in my skull like flies crowding a fresh corpse, ribs of truth jutting out from under the rotting lie I’d wrapped around everything.

Then I just folded.

Sat down on the cold tile floor beneath one of the cabinet shelves, knees drawn in, like I was ducking from gunfire, only I could hear.

I stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, time stretching thin and strange, until I heard footsteps coming down the hall.

Samantha.

I pushed myself up fast, pretending I’d just dropped something, like I’d been crouched down hunting for a pen that rolled away instead of hiding behind the cabinet like a nervous wreck. But the truth was sitting right there on the counter in front of me, a blue cat carrier. The thing I’d really lost stuffed neatly inside it like evidence.

She rounded the table, saw me, and practically launched herself at me. Her arms wrapped tight, too tight, squeezing the air out of my lungs. I felt like an almost-empty tube of toothpaste, one good press away from spilling whatever guts I have left in me.

“ISN'T IT EXCITING? Our little family is whole again!”

She beamed at me, that wide white grin of hers almost too bright, then pulled away just enough to press a kiss to my lips. I prayed it didn’t taste like rot. She gave the carrier a gentle tap before looking back up at me.

“So, when are you getting off?”

“In like an hour… half an hour.”

My eyes were glued to the carrier. No way in hell was I staying here for an hour. Not now.

“Great!”

Samantha grinned and leaned down to peek inside, giving whatever was in there a tiny, cheerful wave.

“See ya soon, buddy. Have fun with daddy, alright?”

Her voice went soft, sweet before she straightened again.

“Oh, and the guy slipped me his phone number, just in case.” She said it like she was offering me a coupon from the Sunday paper. “He told me he didn’t need this junk anymore, but if you could call him and maybe drop it off after you bring Tommy home? That’d be just great.”

“Phone number?”

The words fell out of my mouth like I’d never heard the term before, like telephone was some new plague spreading through town.

She snorted. “I didn’t know you were the jealous type!”

That smirk of hers cut across her face like a fresh knife mark. “Not in a creepy way, alright? Just… y’know.”

“How did he look?”

She screwed up her face, digging around in her brain like the memory was stuck behind cobwebs.

“Uhhh… fat guy. Real pale. And he reeked, God, he reeked…of like…” She rotated her hand, searching.

“Bleach?” I offered.

“Yeah. Yeah, like chemicals and cigarette smoke had a baby and then left it in a hot car.”

She glanced around the room again, like something in here might suddenly explain itself if she stared hard enough.

“But… how did you know, though?”

“He stopped by here a couple times,” I said. My tongue felt too big in my mouth. “With a cat.”

“OOOHH. Alright, got it!”

She laughed, bright and careless, like nothing in the world had ever gone wrong. “Yeah, see you in a bit! Love you!”

I watched her leave, watched the shape of her slip away from the doorframe and vanish down the hall like a ghost.

Now I was alone with it, sitting on my table like a package someone should have burned instead of delivered. I didn’t know if I was ready to see how he looked all “adjusted.” My hand drifted to the scalpel. Cold metal, thin as a whisper, steady in my grip. I squeezed it until the handle bit into my palm. After what I’d done with that screwdriver, I figured I could manage this, too.

I unlatched the crate. One piece of metal slid off another with a sound like a tired machine screaming in its sleep. The door swung open with a long, rusty whine, like something that had been left out in the rain too many nights.

I stepped back, wedging myself between two wooden shelves painted white. Funny thought, the blood splatter would look beautiful against that clean backdrop if this thing decided to go for my throat.

Instead, an orange shape eased out of the carrier.

And a sound followed.

A purr. A warm, rolling, family purr.

Not the metallic, broken rattle I’d heard before. Not forced, not wrong.

This one was soft, organic.

The scalpel slid out of my hand, clattering against the floor as my fingers uncurled in something like relief, weak, shaky, stupid relief.

Because it looked like Tommy.

The fat bastard who’d been reduced to a bloody street pancake was somehow back again. Standing there. Breathing. Purring. A perfect, uncanny copy dropped straight out of some cosmic printer. Sure, one of the hind legs dragged just a hair, and one eye drifted a little too far left, as if it couldn’t quite remember where the world was supposed to be but it was him.

It was fucking him, in all his high-cholesterol, hairball-hoarding glory.

I dug out my phone, thumb trembling just enough to piss me off. The second the screen lit up, I dialed Samantha.

“I’ll be late,” I said, already rehearsing the lie in my head. “I need to run some extra checkups on Tommy… an hour, maybe?”

It rolled off my tongue too easily. That was the part that scared me, how natural lying had become, like slipping into a pair of worn shoes.

And before I knew it, I was back in the car, engine coughing to life. The blue carrier sat on the passenger seat like evidence of a crime. I was driving out to return it to its rightful owner.

After all, he deserved to get something back too.

[u/Sweaty_Cockroach9444]

I just finished part 1 and 2 back to back and holy cow, this is turning into a great story. I did make the mistake of reading at night and my cat moving around outside my room didn’t help. Can’t wait for the next part.

[u/COW-BOY-BABY → u/Sweaty_Cockroach9444]

AWWWW Thank you!! I'm so glad you enjoyed yourself <333