The year was 1995, and Summer had crept into
Fall.
As October was just around the corner, local
children were already fantasising about Jack-o’-lanterns
and Halloween Candy.
But behind all the rubber witch noses and
plastic vampire teeth, a real monster lurked.
Something terrifying and dangerous, hiding
where few dared to tread.
Among those few were Kyle Ellis and Johnny
Rogan, two teenage boys who were about to
experience a horror beyond imagination in
the dusty halls of their local dead shopping
mall.
In a previous video, we’ve explained Sirenhead,
the 40-foot-tall humanoid entity that can
make whole families disappear without a trace.
Now, we’ve got an even more dangerous creature
from the twisted mind of Canadian Master of
Horror, Trevor Henderson.
This is the story of Cartoon Cat, the ferocious
feline that can turn childhood dreams into
living nightmares.
(Use this image: https://tinyurl.com/ycdhypry)
Let’s see if we can peel away the layers
of mystery and find out what this monster
really is, and why you should be so afraid
of it.
Despite its whimsical name, Cartoon Cat is
the furthest thing from child-friendly, seeing
as it’s responsible for a huge number of
unexplained disappearances.
While Henderson himself has described the
being’s form as “malleable”, it’s
most commonly seen as a large, black, cat-like
humanoid around nine or ten feet in height.
But it doesn’t bear any resemblance to an
actual cat.
If anything, it looks more like the stylised,
black-and-white cartoon animals depicted in
old silent cartoons like Felix The Cat, or
early Mickey Mouse, complete with spiffy white
gloves.
If you’re unlucky enough to run into this
creature, you’ll also notice its huge, glaring
eyes, and its giant, crooked teeth, often
stained with blood.
Cartoon Cat has been in our dimension in this
form since at least 1939, when the obscure
cartoon from which the Cat takes its form
was believed to have been quietly discontinued.
Whether the end of the show itself released
him, or if this was pure coincidence, we may
never know.
But what we do know is that Cartoon Cat is
pure evil.
While the minds of entities like Sirenhead
are a mystery, it has been confirmed that
Cartoon Cat is fully aware of the moral implications
of what it’s doing, and even worse, it enjoys
it.
Cartoon Cat is not a being that hunts humans
out of hunger; it hunts because it takes pleasure
in the suffering and fear that it causes.
Its tendency towards unspeakable cruelty makes
it more like a human serial killer than an
animalistic predator, but Cartoon Cat can
do things that no human serial killer could
ever be capable of.
According to Henderson, Cartoon Cat is merely
a physical representation of a far more powerful
and incomprehensible being – and he’s
able to take a number of other forms based
on the popular conception of what a “cartoon”
is.
One such form is the “Cartoon Dog”, with
that same unsettling, rubber hose appearance.
(Use this image: https://tinyurl.com/y9k9gsvv)
Rubber hose was the first popular animation
style standardised in the US, and would have
been what the Cartoon Cat was originally animated
in.
The name is derived from the fact that the
characters’ limbs would move as though they
don’t have bones, more like rubber hoses.
Cartoon Cat’s long, stretchy, boneless limbs
are no exception.
However, as people expand their definitions
of what a cartoon can be, Cartoon Cat can
theoretically take almost any form – from
Spongebob Squarepants to Homer Simpson.
This shapeshifting ability has led to comparisons
to similar beings like the legendary Boogeyman,
and Pennywise The Dancing Clown, also known
simply as “It.”
Though we can’t be certain if there’s
any actual relation between these shapeshifting,
child-snatching beings.
The true extent of Cartoon Cat’s power is
unknown, and it’s possible he’s capable
of many more atrocious feats we don’t even
know about.
As Cartoon Cat encounters rarely leave survivors,
there are plenty of blank spaces in the mythology
of this frightening internet urban legend.
Cartoon Cat is said to stalk and make rudimentary
lairs in abandoned places such as homes, warehouses,
and malls, but he could conceivably turn up
anywhere.
Anywhere at all…
Back to Kyle and Johnny, and their terrifying
Cartoon Cat encounter.
Like most fourteen-year-old boys in the mid-1990s,
the duo believed they were invincible, and
felt the need to constantly prove their fearlessness.
They’d picked up spiders, played Bloody
Mary in the dark and laughed off the results,
and even approached and knocked on the door
of the local “haunted house.”
But the jewel in the crown of teenage machismo
would be daring to venture into the local
abandoned dirt mall, and take pictures to
prove their courage.
This would be at least a decade before the
Urban Exploration trend would take the internet
by storm, so in a sense, the boys were real
trail blazers.
Though neither of them had any idea what was
in store for them at their intended destination.
The duo may have had more bravery than sense,
but they weren’t stupid.
As they prepared to take on their most ambitious
expedition yet, they packed two flashlights
and some spare batteries, a Polaroid camera
generously and unknowingly donated by Kyle’s
mother, and most serious of all, Johnny’s
dad’s revolver.
Johnny knew that he’d be grounded until
he hit his forties if his dad found out, but
he didn’t expect his dad would even notice.
After all, they’d only be in the mall for
an hour or two – and the gun was good insurance
if they ran into a crazed meth-head while
they were inside.
They never expected that their lives would
ever actually depend on them using it.
As the afternoon bled into evening, the two
boys snuck into the dirt mall via a broken
back entrance.
The mission was simple: Get in, take some
pictures of all the abandoned stores, and
then get out.
Easy.
They probably had more to worry about from
asbestos left in the building than anything
malicious, or so they thought.
The two boys began exploring the dusty old
husk of the building, everything covered in
cobwebs and shrouded in complete darkness.
Were it not for the flashlights, they probably
wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.
Occasionally, they heard quiet skittering
sounds echoing out in the dark around them.
The boys just wrote it off as rats.
Nothing to worry about.
Kyle snapped a few Polaroids of the crumbling
food court, and an old Macy’s with a few
dusty racks of moth-eaten clothes.
Johnny could swear that, during the camera’s
flashes, he could see the shadows moving in
the corner of his eye.
Maybe it was just his imagination, or a trick
of the light.
But every now and then, he couldn’t quite
escape the thought that the two of them weren’t
alone in the dirt mall.
Even with his dad’s revolver, he didn’t
feel quite as safe as he hoped.
But neither of them had any idea of just how
much danger they were in.
Soon enough, the boys felt that they’d hit
the jackpot: An abandoned arcade.
These things were huge in the 1980s, and many
of the classic machines were still there - from
Street Fighter to Double Dragon.
Of course, power to the machines had been
cut off for years, but Johnny figured that
if they kicked a few open, they might be able
to score enough quarters to keep them in bubble
gum until the turn of the Millennium.
They kicked away at the lockbox on the back
of a Space Invaders machine, having no idea
that something was moving towards them in
the dark.
While Johnny continued kicking, Kyle stepped
back to take another Polaroid and mark the
occasion.
One more quick flash in the dark, and already,
the photo was developing in Kyle’s hand.
Their expedition into the abandoned mall seemed
like it was shaping up to be a phenomenal
success, but when the picture fully developed,
Kyle’s face fell.
It took him a second to even process what
he was looking at, but when the image came
into focus, he almost screamed: As Johnny
kicked away at the lockbox, a huge, looming
figure was leaning over the machine.
Its staring eyes were the size of baseballs,
and it was packing more long, white teeth
than a piano.
Its stretchy, rubber hose arms were beginning
to coil around the machine, white gloves reaching
for a distracted Johnny.
Without even knowing it, these two poor kids
had wandered into the domain of Cartoon Cat.
Kyle looked up at Johnny, heart pounding,
and saw that the creature was gone.
Johnny hadn’t even noticed, as he still
pounded at the back of the machine.
But that didn’t mean they were safe.
Kyle grabbed his friend, and, without a word,
began dragging him towards the exit.
There wasn’t time for conversation - they
just needed to get the hell away from whatever
was in that arcade with them.
When Johnny tried to protest, saying he was
probably only one kick away from scoring them
at least fifty bucks worth of quarters, Kyle
just showed him the photo.
In an instant, Johnny understood the need
for urgency and was on his feet running as
fast as his legs could take him.
But Cartoon Cat wouldn’t let these two get
away this easy.
No, this fatal feline preferred to toy with
his prey before devouring them…
As Johnny and Kyle turned the corner out of
the arcade, they were stopped dead by the
huge figure standing right in front of them.
The Cartoon Cat was back - crooked, bloody
smile wider than either of their shoulders.
Rubber hose limbs wriggling like snakes.
It towered over them, its inky black skin
seeming to almost swallow the beams of their
flashlights.
Johnny reached into his pocket and whipped
out his dad’s revolver.
He was no Clint Eastwood, but surely six bullets
would put anything down - or at least scare
it off.
Johnny drew a bead on the advancing creature
and pulled the trigger again and again, gunshots
echoing through the hollow expanse of the
abandoned mall.
Two shots missed, and the four that actually
connected just seemed to disappear into the
creature’s mass.
Cartoon Cat didn’t even bleed, and it didn’t
stop grinning, either - not even for a second.
It was going to enjoy this.
Before Johnny could even scream in terror,
a stretchy, cartoon arm shot forward and snatched
him.
It yanked Johnny’s thrashing body up into
the air, and effortlessly lifted him over
to the Cartoon Cat’s huge face.
The creature’s jaws swung open, revealing
a gaping maw with hundreds of teeth.
This time, Johnny really did scream.
Poor Kyle could only watch, paralysed in fear,
as the Cartoon Cat swallowed his unlucky friend
whole.
It was only when he saw Johnny’s kicking
legs sinking down the creature’s throat
that he finally snapped out of his trance
and started to run like hell.
With one final gulp, Johnny was gone, and
Cartoon Cat was ready for seconds.
As Kyle scrambled towards the exit, running
for his life, Cartoon Cat was gaining behind
him - bounding forwards on impossible, spring-like
limbs.
That thing has just eaten his friend alive
right in front of him, Kyle was sure that
he was a goner, too.
But, as luck would have it, Kyle managed to
cross the threshold out of the dead mall mere
seconds before his feline pursuer.
He kept running, as Cartoon Cat spilled out
of the mall behind him and continued the chase.
Kyle ran so fast and for so long that his
legs and lungs burned, and he felt like was
going to throw up.
But, in the end, he finally escaped with his
life - Cartoon Cat fading into the distance
behind him and then disappearing entirely.
Probably heading back to the lair to digest,
Kyle grimly assumed.
As Kyle finally collapsed from exhaustion
on a grassy patch about a mile away from the
mall, the horrific realisation hit him that
he’d just lost his best friend, and nobody
would ever know why or how.
In his frantic escape, Kyle had dropped the
camera and photos back in the mall, and like
hell would he ever go back to fetch them.
His proof of what happened was gone.
Cartoon Cat would only live on in his nightmares,
and in the shadows that seemed to move out
of the corner of his eye.
And so ends the tale of Cartoon Cat, for now.
Another terrifying beast in the vast monster
catalogue of Trevor Henderson.
Of course, it’s all make believe, right?
You have nothing to worry about.
I’m sure those rustling noises you’ve
been hearing lately have a perfectly rational
explanation.
And everyone sees a shadow move behind them
now as then.
...Right?
Check out “Russian Sleep Experiment – EXPLAINED”
and “How A Meme (Slenderman) Became Real”
for more on the spookiest corners of the world
wide web.
