Free Hoarder by Armando D. Muñoz

count. Hers was a dirty God.
    Dani did not see the living room as the next level of a Hell hoard, or as Missy’s entertainment center, or a department store dumpster. Dani only saw the cages, dozens of them. This was a temple of suffering, a concentration camp for cats. She felt she was in a hungry lion’s mouth.
    Will was the first to voice an observation about the room. “Have you noticed, she has every light in the house on.”
    “All the better to see her lovely stuff,” Keith said. Keith was partly correct in figuring that it wasn’t enough for Missy to just buy or steal her possessions, she had to have them on constant display, in the light for her delight. This room was lit with many high-set frosted white light sconces that had turned yellow, with brown splotches that looked like bulb burns. Each light sconce was filled with over an inch of dead flies. Now that he’d seen them, he thought he could smell them, long roasted flies.
    Ian offered his own theory. “Maybe she’s afraid of the dark.” Will always talked about how Missy acted, like a little kid, and a lot of little kids were afraid of the dark. He had been, until he reached the mature age of seven.
    Dani aimed her camera at a far off cage. Keith saw Dani getting to business and he followed her lead.
    “Every cat,” Dani said.
    “That’s the plan,” Keith confirmed.
    The four fanned out through the hoard on their search and rescue mission. In their eagerness to film and open the cages, none of them bothered to open a door or window. All of the windows were blocked from view by dressers or other obstructions, and the front door was out of sight, in a foyer that held its own high hoard.
    None of them actually walked through the room, it was just not possible. They had to brace at least one hand against objects for balance and frequently needed to be on all fours to climb over the constantly shifting surface.
    As she worked toward a cage, Dani came upon a stack of newspapers that was entirely shredded. She knew that a machine was not responsible for the shredding, rats were. Dani gave the rats’ nest a wide berth, since she knew its occupants wouldn’t hesitate to protect their home by long tooth and contaminated claw.
    Keith was the first to reach a cage in the living room, perched on a pile of garbage bags. He got down on one knee on the slope of bags to reach it. His knee immediately became wet, his pants saturated by some stagnant soup leaking from the sack. Marked by the muck, the pungent smell of the mystery liquid would follow his every step, just as the stink of sewer pipe water ( water, right ) on his hoodie followed him still.
    The cat inside the cage had a lame ear and a gummy eye. Keith opened the cage door and the cat cowered inside. He didn’t wait for it, leaving for the next rescue. Only after the horrible human had moved away did the scared cat venture out of its inhumane enclosure.
    Ian reached a cage atop a pile of busted TVs. Inside was a restless white cat with black paws, excited by new company. The latch to the door of this cage was coated in cat feces, but Ian didn’t hesitate to grab it. He did hesitate when he discovered the feces were fresh. Ian pulled the cage door open and turned to wipe his fingers off on top of a TV shell as the cat took leave of its prison. Not all of the rescues were scaredy cats, some were eager to greet their liberators.
    As Ian cleaned off his fingers, he spotted movement beside him in the dark, hollow shell of a television that had its screen busted out. He saw a flash of brown fur.
    “Come out, cat,” Ian encouraged the animal.
    A well-fed rat leapt out of the broken television with a defiant squeak. At least Ian figured it was a rat from the sound it made, since it was more the size of a Dachshund. Ian fell back against a towering stack of newspapers, causing its collapse, which in turn released a swarm of silverfish. Ian righted himself as the black pawed cat darted past him in pursuit of