Cat People (13 page)

"What for?" Joe made a try at innocence.

"This kind of work isn't for you, Joe. I hoped you would develop a feeling for the animals, but it hasn't happened. The business with the leopard yesterday was the last straw."

"What do you mean? I was just hosing down his cage. Ie it my fault if the sonofabitch got in the way and a little water splashed on him?"

"Cut it out, Joe, I saw you. You deliberately turned the hose on the leopard."

"Well, what of it? After what he did to me—"

"The cat didn't do anything to you that you didn't ask for. I don't want to discuss it any more. Clear the gear out of your locker and get out of here. You'll be paid through the end of the week, but I don't want to see you around here again. And don't forget to turn in your keys."

Joe's face turned a dark, angry red. "Well, fuck you, then, Mister High and Mighty. There are plenty of jobs that pay better than this chickenshit little zoo."

"That's enough," Oliver snapped.

Joe took a step toward him. "Like hell it's enough. There's a few things I want to say to you."

Oliver stood up and pushed the chair back out of the way. His hands balled into lists, and he caught himself hoping the other man would attack. "I've heard ail I want to hear from you, Joe. Now get out of here."

For a moment Joe rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, then the look on Oliver's face seemed to change his mind.

"To hell with you and your freaking animals," he growled, and walked out of the office.

Oliver stood for a moment after he was gone, letting his muscles relax. He was actually disappointed that he had missed the chance to smash Joe Creigh's surly face in. Maybe he
was
spending too much time with the animals.

Down in the basement Joe Creigh slammed his fist against the green-painted locker door. It made a satisfying bang, but it also hurt his fist. He sucked at his bruised knuckles and glared around the deserted locker room.

"The asshole is doing me a favor, that's what," he muttered. "Who wants to spend their life working around a bunch of stinking animals, anyway?"

He sorted through the keys that jangled on a ring at his belt and found the one that opened his locker. He unlocked the door, opened it, and took down the halfpint vodka bottle from the top shelf. The vodka level was down more than half.

Joe raised the bottle toward the ceiling. "Here's to you, Mr. Smartass College-Boy Yates. Fuck you." He brought the bottle to his lips and drank, ending in a coughing fit when some of the liquor was sucked into his windpipe.

When the coughing subsided he recapped the bottle and reached back to stuff it into a hip pocket. However, his coordination was off, and the bottle slipped out of his hand, shattering on the cement floor at his feet.

"Goddamn it!" he swore, and kicked at the wet shards of glass. "This is all that sonofabitch black cat's fault. He's been bad luck for me ever since we brought him in here."

Slowly the fury drained out of Joe's face, to be replaced by an expression of drunken cunning. Okay, so he was fired. No big loss. At least there was nothing more they could do to him now. He might as well give that freaking cat something to really remember him by.

He walked across to the far end of the basement. For a moment he paused before the locked cabinet where the guns were kept for dire emergencies. It was tempting, but he could get in real trouble for that. Besides, the college boy didn't trust anybody else with the keys to the gun cabinet, and he'd have to break in. There was an easier way to even the score with the cat.

He left the guns behind and walked on to the oversized chest that served as an equipment locker. After trying several of the keys on his ring he found the one that popped open the padlock that secured the lid. He reached inside and poked through the various nets, ropes, snares, and hobbles used when necessary to control the animals. Near the bottom Joe found what he was looking for.

It resembled a long pool cue, except that the tip was copper and the thick end had a rubber hand-grip with a leather loop attached.

Joe unscrewed the butt end and looked in to see that the batteries were in place. But were they still good? Since the college boy had been in charge, use of the electric prod was forbidden. Joe screwed the butt back on, held the rubber hand grip, and brought the copper tip to within a half inch of the metal locker. He pressed the trigger button. A satisfying spark jumped from the tip of the prod to the locker.

Joe laughed aloud. "Oh,
yeah!
You're in for a shock, pussycat." He laughed all the louder at his joke. "Yes, you sonofabitch, you're going to remember Joe Creigh."

Taking care to slip out of the building unseen, Joe made his way down the bank and into the clump of trees. He carried the electric prod out in front of him with both hands, like a rifle. His flesh tingled with excitement. It was too bad he hadn't thought of this a long time ago. The leopard was not the only animal in the zoo he would like to hurt. But the leopard was the worst of the lot. He was the one who had puked on Joe, cost him his job. Yes, by God, the black sonofabitch was going to pay today.

The leopard lay dozing on its shelf-bed when Joe approached the quarantine cage. Joe smiled, his eyes bright with anticipation.

"Taking a little nap, are you, you lazy bastard? A little catnap?"

Joe giggled as he moved up close to the bars. He clapped a hand over his mouth. It would not do to wake the cat up before he was ready.

He looped the leather strap around his wrist, then slowly and carefully he poked the electric prod between the bars, the tip moving toward the sleeping leopard.

"Easy now, easy," he told himself in a whisper. "Don't spoil the surprise."

The copper tip of the prod hovered just over the leopard's glossy flank, just a handspan away from its fur.

"Now!" Joe stabbed the tip of the prod against the animal's side and punched the electrifying trigger button.

There was a short sizzling sound, and the leopard went straight up into the air with a startled scream. It landed on all fours in the center of the cage and looked around with hurt, bewildered eyes.

Joe Creigh slapped the side of his leg and laughed. Damned if that wasn't the funniest thing he ever saw. It was sure as hell worth getting fired for.

The leopard saw him. The puzzled look went out of the flat yellow eyes, to be replaced by a smoldering hatred.

"How about that, nigger cat? You want some more?"

The leopard snarled, showing Joe the killer teeth.

"You don't scare me. Not with those bars between us." He lunged like a fencer, hitting the trigger button as the tip of the prod touched the cat's face.

The leopard howled and sprang back to the far side of the cage. He used one big paw to rub at his nose where the spark had burned him.

Oh, this was just too good. That black sonofabitch was scared shitless. Joe could not remember when he had felt so good. He was even getting a hard-on.

He moved around the outside of the cage to a spot closer to the leopard. "You can't get away from me," he said. "There's no place in that cage where I can't get at you."

To prove it he lunged out with the prod again and shocked the cat in the center of his powerful chest. The leopard howled again and spun away along the back wall of the cage.

Joe moved along the front bars until he and the animal were directly across from each other. "I told you you can't get away from me. You know, I wonder what would happen if I stuck this thing right in your ear."

The leopard crouched, not moving. The black lips pulled back into grin of primeval rage. Joe reached in through the bars, probing for one of the cat's small, laidback ears.

Faster than the eye could follow, the cat's jaws snapped, and suddenly he had the electric prod clamped between his killer teeth. He held it at the middle, where the electrified tip was harmless to him.

"What the hell?" Joe got out. He released the hand grip and tried to free his wrist from the tough leather strap. He was not fast enough. With a toss of his head, the leopard jerked on the prod, dragging Joe up against the bars, immobile, with his arm fully extended inside the cage.

For a moment that seemed like an eternity, Joe stood with his face pressed against the steel, looking into those yellow, hate-filled eyes. Neither the man nor the animal moved. Joe's right arm began to ache. He smelled the stink of his own fear. He opened his mouth to shout for help, but before the cry could pass his lips, the leopard released the prod and sank the killer teeth into Joe Creigh's arm.

The sound of the man's scream jolted Oliver out of his chair and sent him running for the door. The scream had come from the direction of the quarantine cage. Oliver did not want to speculate on what was happening down there.

He bolted out of his office and down the hall toward the side entrance to the building. As he turned for the door he almost collided with Alice Moore, running from the opposite direction.

"What is it?" she cried.

"I don't know. It came from the leopard's cage."

Without wasting more words Oliver ran out through the door and down the slope toward the trees. Alice followed him.

In the gift shop, farther away from the quarantine cage, Irena also heard the man's scream. She looked up and gasped.

Mrs. Deever, who was laying out a fresh supply of
Born Free
T-shirts, looked over at her.

"What is it, Irena?"

"Didn't you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

As the man's scream died, a sound reached Irena's ears that was even more chilling. It was the low, triumphant growl of a cat that has caught its prey.

"I've got to go to him." Irena moved toward the door.

Mrs. Deever started after her. The older woman's face was creased with concern. "Irena, what's the matter?"

"I—I'm sorry," Irena said, and fled out of the shop, leaving the little bell on a spring over the door tinkling behind her.

As Oliver burst out of the trees and onto the clearing before the quarantine cage, he froze. Joe Creigh was jammed up tight against the bars on the outside. Inside, the black leopard sat, looking quite calm, with his jaws clamped on Joe's arm at the elbow.

"My God!" Oliver breathed.

Joe turned his head as far as he could manage and looked at him. The young man's face was waxen with pain and incipient shock.

"Help me!" His voice was hoarse and barely recognizable. "Help me!"

Alice came running up beside Oliver and stopped suddenly. "Jesus, the cats got him!"

"Stay here," Oliver said under his breath. He started toward the cage, moving slowly, keeping his hands in sight so he would not alarm the leopard. The big cat watched his approach intently, the yellow eyes bright.

"Take it easy now," Oliver said. "Just take it easy." He was talking as much to Joe Creigh, obviously on the brink of panic, as he was to the leopard.

When he came to within six feet of the cage Oliver saw the electric prod lying inside on the floor and deduced what had happened.

"Shit," he said to himself, and took another step toward the cage. The leopard growled softly and bit down a little harder on Joe's arm.

The young handler squealed in pain. The front of his denim pants darkened, and a pool of urine spread at his feet.

Alice had moved up cautiously behind Oliver on the grass. "What can we do?" she whispered.

"Go get the tranq gun out of the truck," Oliver said. "I'll try to keep things together here."

As though the cat had understood his words, he began backing away toward the center of the cage, with Joe's arm still firmly clenched between his teeth.

"Oh my God, it hurts," Joe moaned. "Make him let go of me."

"Oh!"

Oliver turned at the sound of the new voice. Irena was standing at the head of the path that led off toward the zoo proper.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

"I heard the leopard." Irena's eyes were huge, watching the cat with the man's arm in its mouth.

The leopard gave its head a jerk. It was just a tiny movement, but it brought popping noises from Joe's armpit.

"Oh, Jesus, no no
no!"
Joe screamed.

Oliver could not wait for Alice to come back with the tranquilizer rifle. The big cat was going to destroy the man's arm. Oliver sprang forward, wrapped his arms around Joe's waist, and fell backward, hoping to jerk the other man free of the bars as he had Irena the night he found her here.

The leopard responded by crunching down on Joe's elbow and pulling harder into the cage. Oliver knew he could not hope to win a tug-of-war with the powerful beast.

He let go of Joe, who was now slobbering incoherently, and ran back behind the cage. There, in a wooden box bolted to the outside cage wall, was a carbon-dioxide fire extinguisher. Oliver had talked Bronte Judson into installing a dozen of them around the zoo just six months before. He snatched the extinguisher free of the spring clips that held it and prayed that the C02 cartridge still held its charge.

When Oliver raced back to the open side of the cage, the leopard was standing with all four feet braced, worrying the arm with savage shakes of its head. The floor of the cage was spattered with blood. Joe Creigh stood squeezed against the bars, grunting with agony every time the cat jerked his arm.

Oliver moved along the bars until he had a clear shot at the cat, shoved the black nozzle of the extinguisher into the cage, and hit the trigger. A cloud of white smoke billowed into the cage. Under the hiss of the C02 Oliver could hear a thick tearing, cracking sound.

Joe Creigh stumbled backwards, his face greasy white. His left arm flapped wildly in the air. His right arm was not there any more.

Oliver cut off the C02 and started toward Joe. The young man whirled on the grass in a wild dance of pain, blood spurting like a crimson fountain from the ragged, empty shoulder socket.

Alice came running out of the woods carrying the tranquilizer gun. When she saw Joe, she dropped the rifle and turned almost as pale as he was.

When the cloud of gas dissipated in the cage they saw the black leopard sitting in the center of the floor, shaking its great head back and forth. The two ends of Joe Creigh's right arm flopped at either side of the cat's mouth as the bone and muscle were ground into a pulp by the cruel teeth.