Cat's Cradle (13 page)

Neither Dan nor Taylor could believe the coldness of the man called Lou.

“What happens to her car?” Dan asked.

Lou’s grin spread. “You really wanna get into it deep, don’t you, Sheriff?”

Dan felt sick at his stomach. “Forget I asked.”

“Aw, come on, boys,” Lou said. “This is nothing. I worked in East Germany for two years. You should see some of the stuff that goes on over there. Hell, boys. The little lady is just one person out of two hundred and thirty five million. That won’t even make a blip on a stat chart. Hey! Where’s a good place to eat in this burg? I’m hungry.”

Dan and Taylor both noticed that on the back of the worker’s coveralls was the lettering: HPB TRUCKING. As they drove out to the site of the DB call, they saw several more of the workers, all dressed alike. They were shopping at a supermarket, picking up a paper, having lunch at a local cafe, making themselves a part of the community. Friendly, courteous, fitting right in. They would cause less suspicion that way.

“I wonder how often this scenario is played throughout the nation?” Taylor asked.

“More than the average citizen realizes,” Dan said. “I personally know of one government agency-which shall remain nameless, and it isn’t the CIA—that is into many, many businesses. They use them as fronts. And they all make money, too. That way, they don’t have to go to congress for additional funding when a project comes up they want a hand in.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Dead serious.”

“Why doesn’t someone blow the whistle on them?”

“People do try, from time to time. But it would take ten teams of accountants, working around the clock, ten years to even scratch the surface. By that time, the businesses would be gone. Besides, they’re run by civilians who don’t realize who their real bosses are. And it’s like the man said, ’everybody has dirt.’ Once it’s found, that person is in the pocket of whatever agency finds it.”

Taylor shook his head. “I suppose, in the long run, it’s necessary.”

“Most of the time. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I have to sleep like everyone else.”

“Yeah.”

Dan ordered the blanket removed from the cold dead body. This one was the worst yet. The body had been savagely gnawed on; pale white flesh from the blood sucked from it.

And Dodge was there. The men looked at each other. Dodge said, “You know this man, Sheriff?”

“No. From the looks of him, he’s a transient. Hitchhiker, probably. Did you go through his pack, Chuck? ”

“Yes. Dirty clothes. A paperback book about some sort of transcendental meditation. And three joints.”

Taylor grunted. “A dead
dumb
hitcher. The smart ones stopped carrying grass on them a long time ago.”

Dan looked at Dodge, glad to be taking his eyes off the mangled flesh of the man. “I guess you want what’s left of him?”

“I guess so.”

“I want a pass giving me gate authorization at the terminal any time of the day or night.”

“I’ll see if I can arrange it. No promises, Dan.”

“I understand.”

“HPB Trucking a real outfit?” Taylor asked.

“Oh, yes. Has a lot of government contracts. HPB pulls a lot of SSTs.”

“A lot of what?” Deputy Herman Forrest asked.

“Safe Secure Transports,” Taylor told him. “Nuclear stuff.”

They stood and watched as the body was bagged and loaded into the station wagon. The back windows of the wagon were slightly darkened. The sign on the doors read
HPB TRUCKING
.

As if reading Dan’s mind, Dodge said, “It’s better this way. Reduces suspicion. The regular hospital personnel handle the routine calls, using hospital equipment.”

“Didn’t they get suspicious; angry about being displaced?” Taylor asked.

“Not after being given a talk about national security and five thousand bucks apiece,” Dodge straightened that out.

“HPB must make a good profit,” Dan said drily.

“Oh, it does. The, ah, regular personnel are fully unionized and have good benefits.”

“Isn’t that just dandy?” Taylor said.

* * *

Two long trailers had been placed end to end, making one long fully equipped and staffed lab. Two other trailers were placed along side, one on each side, side doors facing and interlocking. One of the side trailers was the mobile hospital; the other the morgue, autopsy room, and small cold storage for stiffs. In case of a power failure, a huge portable generator would kick in ten seconds after any failure, maintaining a constant temperature inside the trailers.

Another long trailer sat, for the time being, idle. But it could be fully operational in minutes, if needed. It would be needed. Much sooner than anyone could possibly realize.

Denise lay on one of the two operating tables. Vital blood flowed through a needle in one arm; an antibiotic was going IV into her other arm. She was naked, her tortured youthfulness under the gaze of the doctors.

“What a mess,” one doctor said, working on the left side of the girl.

Goodson was observing. “She’s young and strong and healthy,” he said. “She’s got a fighting chance.”

“Sixty-forty,” another doctor said. “That jerk Lou gave us yet another problem we didn’t need by hosing her down.”

“Yeah,” another gloved and gowned and masked doctor said. “Pneumonia. I’ve told him a dozen times at least to take it easy.”

“This poor child needs to be in a hospital,” Doctor Goodson said.

Bennett, the chief of the OSS medical team, said, “Look around you, Doctor. You’re looking at ten million dollars worth of equipment. This is a completely sterile environment. This is a battle hospital. There is nothing a permanent hospital could do that we aren’t doing here, at this moment, for this particular case. We’re scientists, yes; but we’re doctors, too. If she can be saved, she will be. If you don’t like what we’re doing here, you are free to leave. You know to keep your mouth shut, and why. Careful with that stitch, Robert. One more. There. Good. No scarring. Nice work.”

“Your concern for the girl is touching,” Goodson said.

The doctor’s eyes showed humor above his mask. “Isn’t our work professional enough for you, Doctor?”

Goodson grunted. He had to admit the men were as good as he’d ever seen. Better than most. But damned if he was going to tell them so.

Goodson remained silent, listening to the OR chatter.

“BP?”

“Stabilizing. Looks good.”

“Pulse is strong and steady.”

“By God! I think she might make it.”

“I certainly would like to talk with her. It’s important we know something about the person who attacked her.”

“Tomorrow, perhaps,” Bennett said. “I want to study the pictures of those drawings carved in her skin. They are the strangest I’ve ever seen.”

Suddenly, Goodson grew weak-kneed as a white hot flash of recollection and old memories flooded the man’s mind. He had known they would; that had been one reason he’d stayed. The words from that old Egyptian came roaring into the light of full recall.

Goodson’s father had asked about what he had heard was the Forbidden Ones. Some sort of religion. He had asked that question of several hundred Egyptians. It had become an in-house joke around the Bedouin camps. Finally one old man had acknowledged that he had heard of such a thing. He had been the first to even admit that much.

“You are speaking of the Cat People,” the old man had said. “No one wishes to speak aloud of them. For no one outside of their group ever sees them and lives.”

“Obviously,” the elder Goodson had said, “you are the exception.”

“I was lucky, and it was a lifetime ago.”

“Who are they?”

The old man had looked fearfully around him. “They are of and for the Dark Once.”

“The Dark One?”

“You call him the devil.”

The old man had said he was dying, and knew it. It no longer mattered whether or not he kept his silence. The Cat People could do nothing to him. He had made his peace. Dying was something he did not fear. It was living that was to be feared.

The old man had then begun speaking in a rush of words, almost a babbling. He had spoken of human sacrifices, of human and animal being born of woman. Twins, a girl and a cat who would live and reign for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. The pair possessed strange powers and feasted on human flesh and blood. And their bite was highly infectious. The bite could produce rapid aging. It could infect and cause a mummy-like condition. It could change human life into a form of animal. The girl and the cat had powers over other felines. And the girl and the cat were carriers. If it stops there, he had added.

“Carriers?” the elder Goodson had questioned.

“That which causes dogs to go mad.”

Goodson’s father had not pursued the “if it stops there,” part of the old man’s statement.

Goodson stepped away from the operating table and walked into another compartment of the trailer. There, he removed his mask.

Not a religious man, Goodson rejected the concept of the devil. Let God, if He existed, combat the devil. The medical profession had something else to worry about in Ruger County.

Goodson sat alone for several minutes, deep in thought. With a sigh, he put his mask back on and reentered the OR. He could not keep this to himself. No matter how he detested what these OSS people were doing.

Bennett looked up, meeting Goodson’s eyes.

“There is something you all had best be aware of,” Goodson said.

“Oh, Doctor Goodson? Would you please enlighten us?”

“There was evidence of human bites on the girl, right?”

“That is correct. Savage bites on both inner thighs and on the stomach.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. We have yet another problem on our hands, gentlemen.”

The OSS doctors looked at him in silence, waiting.

“We might be looking at a rabies epidemic here in the county.”

Doctor Goodson stepped out of the trailer he was using as a home away from home. He looked up into the clear blue Virginia skies. He sighed. An old man’s sigh, from a man who had seen the best and the worst of what humankind had to offer. He had been correct in his assumption that Denise was a victim of a rabid bite. As far as it went, that is.

It was rabies, all right. At least a form of it. But unlike any type he had ever seen. There was no doubt the girl was infected. And there was nothing the medical profession could do about it.

It was spreading faster than a brush fire in dry country. Denise’s nervous system was showing signs of rapid deterioration.

Goodson looked toward the north. He muttered, “You idealistic young fool!”

The reason for that strange statement, and Doctor Goodson’s overriding reason for staying with the OSS people, with the project—his term for it-was because of his nephew; his brother’s son. Benjamin Goodson had opted for Canada rather than be drafted during the Vietnam War. Before he left, however, he had been a radical, taking part in bombings and other violence. He had been in Canada for years, living under a different name.

Of course the OSS knew about Benjamin Goodson. Of course the OSS had told Goodson if he didn’t keep his mouth shut about what was going on in Ruger County, his nephew would be hauled back to the U S of A, one way or the other, and prosecuted on half a dozen charges. And that meant prison. Of course Goodson did not want that to happen.

Dirt. Pressure. Rattling skeletons in the family closet. Everybody has a lever. The trick is in finding the handle and pulling it.

Doctor Bennett walked out of the mobile hospital and to Goodson’s side.

“The girl will be dead in twelve to eighteen hours,” he said.

“Mercifully so.”

“That is one way of looking at it.”

“How do you manage to sleep at night, Bennett?”

Bennett laughed. “Quite well, thank you. Goodson, everybody has a job to do. Some more distasteful than others. To some people. Ours involves national security. You have to look at it this way: if a few people are sacrificed to save millions . . .”

“Oh, shut up, Bennett!” Goodson said, considerable heat in his voice. “I don’t want to hear that horseshit. Goddamn you, Bennett. We’re talking about innocent people. This is not a war!”

Bennett chuckled, derision thick in his ugly humor. “Not a war, Doctor? You’re wrong. It most certainly is a war. Don’t you think we have counterparts in Russia? Of course we do. And they have more of them and are working much harder than we. If they got wind of this project, don’t you think for an instant they wouldn’t kill all of us to get it. And then isolate it, hone it, and use it against this country.

“Innocent people, Doctor? Really! How can a man of your experience and knowledge be so naive? Eddie Brown was a drunk. He hasn’t worked, contributed, to anything in his entire life. Milford and Hardy were in their twilight years. Mickey Reynolds was a petty, pompous official. The young cop was a nobody; besides, cops are paid to take risks. The girl in there?” He jerked his thumb toward the hospital trailer. “Is—or was—a spoiled, arrogant brat. Innocent? Don’t make me laugh, Doctor.”

Goodson glanced at him. Talk about pompous and arrogant and petty, he thought. “You believe in the devil, Bennett?”

“Eh? Don’t be absurd. Why are you asking me such a stupid question as that at a time like this?”

Goodson remained silent.

“All right,” Bennett said. “Do
you
believe in Satan, Goodson?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t until about an hour ago. Now I’m not so sure.”

Bennett laughed. “Well, Doctor, before you go to sleep tonight, be sure to look under your bed. Check carefully for ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night.”

He walked away, chuckling.

Goodson recalled the old Egyptian. “I think I shall,” he muttered.

* * *

“Just got a call from the same woman who called this morning,” Dan was informed. “The neighbor of Mickey and Betty Reynolds? She said Mrs. Reynolds and the kids are back home now.”

Dan looked at Taylor. Both men stood up. “She say anything about Mickey?”

“No, sir.”

Dan and Taylor rolled up to the curb and stopped. They got out of the car and walked slowly up the sidewalk to the Reynolds’ small front porch. Dan knocked on the door. Betty Reynolds opened it.

“Betty? Is everything all right here?”

The woman’s eyes seemed too big for her face. Her face was very pale. Circles under her eyes. She wore a long sleeve shirt, so neither man could tell if her arms were bruised.

“Is everything all right, Betty?” Dan repeated.

The woman blinked. Focused her eyes on Dan. “Why ... of course, Sheriff.” She spoke in the flattest sounding voice either man had ever heard. Eerie sounding. Taylor resisted an impulse to look around him for ... He mentally shook that thought away. He was just too damned old to be believing in ghosts and haunts and such.

“Ah ... sure, Betty. Of course,” Dan said. “Is, ah, Mickey home?”

“Mickey? Mickey? Oh! Why, no, Sheriff. He’s at the school.”

“At ... the ... school?” Dan said, very slowly. He blinked his eyes. Shook his head. Looked at Taylor. Silent cop talk. You take it!

“Mrs. Reynolds,” Taylor said. “I’m Captain Taylor, Virginia State Police. You called the sheriff’s office last night and reported your husband missing. Sheriff Garrett and I came over here this morning to talk to you. You were not at home. Your house had been ransacked. We thought there might have been a fight; some sort of trouble. We ...”

Betty Reynolds opened the door wide. The men looked in. The home was immaculate. Neat as that pin. Nothing out of place. She waved them inside.

Both men stood, too stunned to speak. Neither could quite believe their eyes.

Betty said, “You both must be mistaken. There’s been no trouble here. My husband came in just after I called the sheriff’s office. I’m so sorry I forgot to call you.” She paused. She seemed to have trouble making her lower jaw stay in place. Her words were slurry. A bit of spittle oozed past her lips. “I’ve been shopping in Farmville all morning. Just got back about a half hour ago.”

Dan sighed. He didn’t know what to say. She was lying, sure, but? ... Taylor said, “Do you, ah, mind if we look around?”

“Not at all, Captain.”

The entire home was neat. No paintings or drawings on the walls. No broken glass or litter. The toaster was back on the counter.

With a huge dent in its side.

The back screen door had been repaired. But there was no glass in the once shattered kitchen window.

The men excused themselves and left.

When the front door closed, Betty picked up the phone and called the high school. She seemed to understand the gruntings from the other end of the line. More spittle oozed from her mouth. She grunted into the phone.

Had the men returned to the house and looked in, they would have seen Betty Reynolds and her kids, ages fourteen through eighteen, standing in the living room, holding hands and humming. Their cat sat on the TV, swaying back and forth to the humming.

The house was a mess, littered and trashy, the paintings and drawings very much in evidence on the walls.

When the front door closed behind the cops, the toaster fell off the counter.

In the car, rolling toward the high school, Dan said, “She’s lying.”

“Hell, yes, she is. But why?”

“There is no way she could have straightened up that mess and removed all those drawings from the walls.”

“But she did, Dan! They’re gone.”

“Were they really gone, Tay?”

“Old son, don’t start with that. I’m goosy enough as is.”

“All right, let’s look at it like this: did we really see those drawings? Could it have been some sort of illusion? Or was what we just left some sort of illusion?”

Taylor shook his head. “What’s next, Dan? Calling a priest to perform an exorcism?”

Dan forced a smile. “We might have to. I don’t know of any Baptist preachers who would agree to it.”

A devout Catholic, Taylor had a good laugh at just the mental picture of that.

“That was blood running down the the wall this morning,” Taylor said. “Blood out of crayon.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Both men were then silent as they drove to the high school. Pulling into the lot, Dan said, “I don’t see Mickey’s car.”

They parked and sat for a moment, staring at the empty building, neither of them liking the vibes they were receiving.

Dan picked up his mike and called in, giving his location. “Send backup and roll silent, please.”

“Ten four, Ruger One. Rolling.”

Taylor said, “One of these days, someone’s going to come up with a code for a cop’s hunch, huh?”

“I sure heard that.”

The men got out and walked toward the high school. They tried the two double-doors in the front. Locked. Dan banged on the doors. Nothing. He looked through the glass of the doors. He could see only muted murkiness.

“I don’t like the feeling I’m getting,” Taylor said.

“Nor I. Let’s wait for the backup.”

The deputy’s car rolled up, tires crunching on the gravel. Dan waved Bowie to a halt. “See if the back doors are unlocked. Call us if one of them is open. Look in, but don’t go inside.”

Bowie nodded and pulled around back.

“Your staff is young, Dan,” Taylor observed.

“Yes. Most of them under thirty. I’ve been rebuilding since I took office. They’re all good cops, though. Not a hotdog in the bunch.”

“Ever have one of those?”

“Two of them in ten years. I fired both of them.”

“I heard that.”

Bowie got out of his car and walked up to one of the school’s back doors. Locked. He tried the next one. The doorknob turned in his hand. He opened it wider and looked inside. He looked to the right. Nothing. The gym was empty and silent. He looked to his left.

And looked into the face of hell.

* * *

Finished with his finals, Mike sat in his car on campus and finished reading the last few pages of the old, dog-eared book. It was one of the few copies left in print on ancient religions. He’d had the book for several years, but had forgotten it. When he recalled it, he’d had to spend several hours in the attic of his parents’ home searching for it.

The book had been published in the mid-1800’s, in England. It had never been reissued because none of the stories in the book could be substantiated. Most religious experts and historians had scoffed at the book, ridiculing the writer, sending him into oblivion.

But shortly after the book was published, the author had been murdered. His body gnawed on, drained of blood. Cat tracks had been found in the blood around the half-eaten body.

“Shit! Mike said, settling back in the seat and rereading the last story in the book. A chapter about a group called the Cat People. As he read, a cold, eerie feeling crept over him. Despite himself, he could not help but look up and glance around him.

“A child and a cat,” he read aloud. “The girl and the cat are capable of changing forms, one into the other. They must survive on human flesh and blood. The bite is highly infectious, and can produce strange effects on humans, from rapid aging to a rabies-like condition. In times of great stress, the child, always named Anya, after a woman who supposedly mated with Satan, forming the religion, is thought to have the ability to call on Satan or one of his minions. The religion supposedly originated in Egypt but is rumored to be worldwide.

“Shiitt!” Mike said.

“What are you mumbling about?” Carl asked.

Mike jumped up, banging his head on the interior roof of the car. “Oww! Damn, you scared me.”

Carl laughed at him.

“You all through with your finals?” Mike asked.

“Finished. What’s wrong, Mike?”

“You mind some company at your house?”

“You know I don’t. Mom and Dad are always glad to see you. Even if you do destroy Mom’s food budget,” he needled his friend.

Mike ignored the jab. He leaned over and opened the door on the passenger side. “Get in. I think I’ve found what your dad is looking for.”

“Do I have time to pack?”

“No.”

* * *

Bowie recoiled in shock and horror and screamed as the dark-skinned, wrinkled-looking creature leaped at him, riding him down to the gym floor. He threw up his arm, shielding his face. Raw pain ripped through him as the thing’s teeth tore great hunks of meat from the young deputy’s right arm. Blood slicked the gym floor. With his good arm, his left one, Bowie managed to get his club out of the ring. He hammered at the head of the creature. Dark stinking blood leaped from the cuts on the man-like creature. What had once been Mickey howled in pain and rolled away from the deputy, strange gruntings coming from his mouth. Bowie rolled the other way, his left hand fumbling for his .357. Mickey staggered and lurched across the gym floor, slipping and sliding in his haste. Bowie fired, the pistol awkward in his left hand. He missed, the lead tearing up a section of the gym floor, the lead whining off. Mickey ducked beneath the bleachers.

Dan and Taylor were moving before the sounds of Bowie’s screaming had echoed away. Together, the men kicked open the front doors of the school, running inside.

“The gym is in the back,” Dan said. “That way.” He pointed. “Bowie! Bowie! Sing out!”

“In the gym, Sheriff!” came the shout. “But Jesus God, be careful.”

Taylor took one look at the bloody deputy and ran out the back to the deputy’s car, radioing in for help and an ambulance. He jerked Bowie’s shotgun out of the clamps on the front of the cage and ran back inside.

“Where’d he go, son?” Taylor asked.

“Under the bleachers, Captain.”