Cat's Cradle (2 page)

Boston police were still baffled and no closer to solving the more than a dozen brutal and grotesque murders that had occurred the past month. Surely a madman was on the loose.

A fiend.

“I’ll not have that filthy animal in this house,” the matron of the orphanage told the dark haired, dark eyed little girl. “I didn’t want you here to begin with. You’re a trouble-maker, girl. The other children shun you. But I’m a good Christian woman, and I’ll not turn you back out into the street. But you must get rid of that cat. Throw it out. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the child said.

That night the orphanage burned to the ground. A dozen children and the matron died in the blaze. The police were able to determine that many of the bodies had been killed prior to the fire. And gnawed on.

Some said that they saw a young girl carrying a cat in her arms leaving the building just before the fire consumed the place. Others said they heard hideous screaming coming from the place before the fire started. But neither could be substantiated.

The killings seemed to be tapering off. But for several weeks the city had been in the grip of a near-panic. While no one had yet to print the word, many citizens believed a vampire was on the loose.

“Where did she come from in the first place?” the director of the orphanage asked.

“She just appeared off the street,” the head nurse said. “Three weeks ago. She was dressed in a garment that was out of style twenty-five years ago. She was very pale and sickly. And the cat appeared to be near death. Now both are robust. And inseparable. And we all have reason to believe she leaves the home at night. With the cat.”

“And several of the children have become very ill.” It was not put in question form.

“Extremely ill. And we don’t know from what. One is so weak she can barely raise her head. And she’s so
pale.”

“Are you suggesting this new child has something to do with the sudden rash of illness here?”

The nurse hesitated. “I ... don’t know what I’m suggesting, sir. Only that all this illness started after the girl came here.”

Neither of them noticed the cat sitting on the window ledge outside the office. Four stories up from the ground level. Had they seen the cat, they might. have noticed its eyes had changed colors. They were no longer yellow. They were dark. Like the girl called Anya.

The cat appeared to be listening. Very intently. Its head was cocked to one side, the dark eyes staring and unblinking.

A knock came at the door.

“Come,” the director said.

A large woman entered the office. She was dressed in whites. She had a worried look on her broad, pleasant face. “Mrs. Bradford?” she said, looking at the head nurse.

“Yes?”

“Young Missy has died.”

Director and head nurse stood up. “Of what?” the man asked.

The nurse looked frightened, confused. “Sir, there doesn’t appear to be any blood left in the poor child.”

The cat disappeared from the ledge.

Neither the cat nor the girl named Anya were ever seen at the orphanage again.

The unexplained killings had tapered off, much to the relief of the NOPD, who had, to date, been unable to solve a single one. And they had been more than just killings. These were macabre. Grotesque. Blood-sucking and cannibalistic.

The big street cop stood trying to catch his breath. The little girl sure was fast on her feet. He looked down a dark alley; thought he caught a glimpse of something moving very slowly. There! Right next to that building.

What the hell was it? Holy Mother! It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t animal. It seemed to be a combination of both.

The cop stepped closer, blinked his eyes, shook his head. Stared.

The cop stepped closer and froze in fright and horror at the sight before his street-hardened eyes. He again blinked. What he was seeing was impossible.

But there it was.

It was a big cat. No! It was a little girl. No . . . Oh, my god! It was . . . they were . . .
joined.

The cop had caught the pair in their most vulnerable moment; that instant when cat reentered feline shape and girl was once more taking human form.

They both were covered with blood.

The cat and the girl looked up as the cop clicked on his flashlight, the harsh beam reflecting off bloody teeth that snarled at him.

The big cop screamed in terror and ran for the lighted street. He heard the sounds of feet and paws behind him. He heard the low growling and snarling and fear made him very swift.

The footsteps and paw paddings were getting closer.

The cop said a silent prayer and began really picking them up and putting them down.

“Murphy
!” he screamed at his partner, standing across the street, chatting with a lady of the evening. “Murphy! Kill it. For God’s sake—
kill it
!”

Murphy pulled his service revolver and looked wildly around him. The lady of the evening hauled her ass, looking for a john to sell it to.

“Kill what, Rufus?” he yelled. The street was empty.

Patrolman Rufus Gremillion chanced a glance over his shoulder. He stopped in the street and looked in all directions.

There was no one behind him. No creatures. No monsters. Nothing.

Rufus bent over, trying to ease the stitch in his side. He caught his breath. “No more booze for me, Murphy,” he proclaimed. “That’s it. From this moment on, I’m taking the pledge. No more booze. Ever.”

“What did you see back there, Rufus?” Murphy asked. He had almost shit his pants when his partner started hollering.

“A glimpse of hell, Murphy. A glimpse of hell.”

And he never spoke of it again.

The killings stopped.

The girl and the cat were both getting fat and lazy, for food was plentiful in this city, and they were feasting each night. It was well, though. For soon they would have to enter their twenty-five year cycle of rejuvenation. And the time was getting close. And they still had not found a suitable place for their long rest.

It was none too soon. The residents of New York City were getting edgy, even more fearful than usual of traveling alone at night. Too many blood-drained and gnawed-on bodies were being found.

Tonight would be the final night of feasting in the city, and then the child and the cat would move on to find a suitable place to sleep.

The girl had noticed something else, too. As the years rolled by, it was not only customs and language and dress that changed-that was easy to cope with. But it was becoming more and more difficult for a young girl to travel the country alone. Almost impossible unless one moved at night, and even then, one had to be very careful.

No telling what problems the next life-cycle would bring.

1

 

“Dad?”

“Ummm?” Dan Garrett looked up from his paper at his son. The boy—no, that wasn’t correct, the father amended-his son was a young man; junior at the university.

“What were you doing in 1965?”

“Walking the floor at the hospital, waiting for you to be born.” He grinned and winked at his only son.

Carl Garrett laughed. “Come on, Dad! Get serious, will you?”

“All right. What, specifically, about ’65, did you have in mind?”

“New York City.”

“The Big Orange,” his father said, his grin spreading.

“Apple, Dad,” his daughter corrected. “It’s known as the Big Apple.”

“I knew it was some kind of fruit.” Dan winked at his wife.

The daughter grimaced. “You’re impossible.”

Carl looked at his sister, Carrie. “If you’re
quite
through? Thank you. I’m doing a paper on the great unsolved murders of the past one hundred years, Dad. There was some really neat murders in New York City back in ’65.”

“Really
neat
murders?” Dan questioned that.

“Were,” Carrie said to her brother.

Carl cut his eyes. “Huh?”

“There
were
some really neat murders,” Carrie said.

“Was
is correct,” her brother said, sticking to his statement.

Father stepped in. He wasn’t sure himself and he was afraid he’d be asked. His wife, a teacher at the local high school, smiled at him. He knew she was hoping he’d be asked to settle it. “You’re a trouble-maker,” he said to his wife. Cutting his eyes back to his son, he asked, “What about those murders in the Big Grape?”

“Apple, Dad,” Carrie said. “And it’s
were.”

“Shaddup, Dink,” Carl said, calling her by the nickname she detested.

With her hand held behind the magazine so her parents could not see what she was doing, Carrie flipped Carl the rigid digit.

He laughed at her. “Naughty, naughty.”

Dan looked around the room at his family. “Did I miss something?”

Both kids laughed.

“What is going on!” Dan said, a tone to his voice that both brother and sister knew only too well. Cool it. Enough is enough.

“The murders in New York City,” Carl brought it back. “You see, they were all drained of blood.”

“Gross out!” Carrie said.

“Carl,” his mother cautioned. “We just finished supper. If you don’t mind?”

The boy grinned. It was just too good to miss. “No, I didn’t mind at all. It was good.”

Dan looked at his son. “Whoa, boy.”

That was the time to back off, slow down, take it easy, WYM-time. Watch Your Mouth.

“Sorry, Mother,” the boy took the vocal cue from his father.

“Fine, Carl.”

“Anyhoo,” the boy said, “back to the Vampire Murders.”

This time, Dan folded his paper and laid it aside. “The what?”

“That is what the NYPD named them. The Vampire Murders. I’m serious about the bodies being drained of blood. And that’s not all.” He grinned, doing his best Vincent Price imitation.

“You look like Pat Boone,” his sister shot him down.

“Drop the other boot, boy,” Dan said.

“The bodies had been partially eaten, too.”

“That’s all,” Evonne Garrett said, rising from her chair and moving toward the front door. “Come on, Carrie. Let’s go out on the porch. It’s nice and peaceful out there.”

“No way, Mother,” the just-turned-seventeen year old said. “This is getting good in here.”

“Yukk!” the mother said.

“What’s the matter, Vonne?” Dan said with a laugh. He winked at her. “Every time a scary movie comes on the tube, you can’t be pried away from it.”

“That’s different, Dan. That’s a movie. This is real.”

Dan chuckled as his wife left the room. He looked at his son. “Go on.”

“Well, in 1965, Dad, what were you doing?”

“In ’65, son, I was with the FBI. Five years later I got shot and put out to pasture. I came back home to Ruger County and joined the Sheriff’s Department. Then I ran for sheriff. To my surprise, I won. The rest is history.”

“And you never heard of the Vampire Murders?”

“Carl, I probably did at the time. I’ve just forgotten about them.”

“Were you in Washington back in ’65?”

“I was all over the United States between ’65 and ’69.”

“Working on civil rights cases?”

“I didn’t do much of that. I was with a ... special Bureau team.”

And the son and daughter knew the father would not tell them what it was. And they knew not to push it.

“Shot up and Presidential decorated,” Carl said with a smile, “and the man doesn’t remember the murders of the century.”

“Chalk it up to old age, boy.”

“You said it, not me.” Carl and Carrie laughed.

“Have you stopped discussing Jack the Ripper?” Vonne called from the porch.

“Yes, dear,” Dan said. “You may come in now and clean up the gore.”

From the front porch, came the rubbery sounds of the wet raspberry.

* * *

Ruger County, Virginia is located in the center of the state. Rolling hill country, rich with history and tradition. Lots of old homes. Ruger County is, for the most part, a quiet, peaceful county. The largest town is Valentine, which is the county seat. 3600 population. There are three incorporated towns in the county. Bradford, Ashby, and Callaway. The county population stays right about 10,000. Real violence is rare; that’s not counting the occasional fights between husband and wife.

FBI agent, then deputy, and finally sheriff of Ruger County for the past ten years, Dan Garrett and his deputies keep a loose but steady hand on the pulse of Ruger County. They know who the trouble-makers are, and can usually intervene before anything of a deadly nature occurs.

Not always, but usually. And in the field of law enforcement, that’s a pretty good average.

The town of Valentine holds the county’s only hospital. Small, but extremely well-equipped and fully staffed with highly competent personnel. Old Doc Ramsey built the original facility back in the mid-’30’s. His son, Doctor Quinn Ramsey, took over in ’65, building a brand new hospital. Quinn is the county coroner. His wife, Alice, is the county’s expert—one of many-on Virginia. More specifically, her own family tree. And, so the rumor goes, and goes, if one is ever foolish enough to be trapped at a gathering by Alice’s rapid-fire interlocution, one is left with the disconcerting sensation of having one’s eyes bug out, dry mouth, rapid pulse, and one’s shoes seemingly welded to the floor.

One of their friends actually passed out while talking to Alice one day. On the phone.

“Goddamn woman could rot a fence post,” a local farmer was once accused of saying.

He stoutly denies it.

But really, Ruger County is a very serene place to live and raise a family. A lot of proven but so-called old-fashioned ways are still clung to. And many people are wising up to the fact that many old ways were and are the best.

One movie house. That’s in Valentine. One drive-in theater. That’s in Bradford. A few honky-tonks. Damn few. Beer only. Buy your hard liquor at the state-owned stores. A lot of out-of-staters don’t like that system; but it suits the residents of Ruger—most of them-and it’s their county.

No radio or TV stations located in the county. Get lots of music and TV out of Richmond—seventy miles away, or from Charlottesville or Lynchburg. And if that’s not good enough for you, stick a satellite dish in your back yard and prop your feet up.

There are a few small factories in the county. All but one of them located in and around Valentine. Couple of small lumber mills.

The whites outnumber the blacks, and for the most part, both sides get along well, with only a few agitators on both sides. Those people are, for the most part, ignored. Every now and then some minor racial trouble will flare up, usually in the form of nigger-baiting or honky-hating. If the sheriff’s deputies get there in time, all concerned are going to the pokey. White and black.

Best thing to do is just try to get along.

About 9950 pretty good folks live in Ruger County. Fifty-five cronks. And one colossal bore.

Alice.

The tallest mountain in the county is Eden Mountain. 1200 plus feet. The government is mining something out of Eden. They’re taking the mountain down from the top and won’t tell anybody what they’re taking out of there. Top secret hush-hush stuff and all that stuff. People in the county are used to it. Nobody ever went to the damned ol’ mountain anyway. People have been known to get lost in there. Damn place is full of caves. Local drunk got lost in there ’bout fifteen years back. Lost for two days. Scared the hell out of him. Got religion in there, too. Went in a wine-head and came out a born-again Baptist. Hasn’t touched a drop since then. Hair turned gray in spots. Claimed he saw a dark-haired little girl and a cat in there. They were sleeping and he couldn’t wake either of them up.

They weren’t dead; they were sleeping.

Of course, nobody believed ol’ Eddie Brown.

Yet.

* * *

The rumbling and grumbling and grinding and blasting and roaring of equipment woke the girl and the cat. They were both disorganized and confused and irritable. Their rest cycle had been disturbed far too soon. And worse yet, if they could not find a new resting place, they would not be able to return to sleep. Unless ... this was their final destination. Perhaps.

Anya and Pet looked at one another in the darkness of the cave. Light or dark meant nothing to either of them. They saw the same whether it was day or night. They would wait out the rumbling until it stopped, then they would attempt to find another refuge. If it wasn’t already too late. And they both felt that might well be the case. If so, they would have to endure a human-like and child’s play-pet existence for a time. It had happened before; they knew how to deal with it. But neither of them liked it. It increased the chances of discovery. Unless this was the home of the Old Ones. Perhaps.

No one had told them their reign on earth would be easy. No one had told them anything. They knew only they must survive. And search. Try to find the source. The Force.

And now that they were awake, they were hungry.

Voices drifted to them. Lights flashed in the darkness. That made the child and the cat even more irritable. How
dare
anyone interrupt them.

“Hold it, Jimmy. Whoa! We’ve hit another cave. Back off.”

“’Bout quittin’ time anyway. You wanna check it out now or wait ’til morning?”

“Let’s do it now. Help me enlarge this hole and we’ll get some light down here.”

Anya and Pet were trapped. The miner was blocking their escape route. A roaring filled the cave as the hole was enlarged. Heavy boots hit the floor of the cave. They heard the clicking of the flashlight. It would not come on.

The miner flipped the switch several times and cussed. He shook the flashlight. “Get me another torch, Jimmy. This one won’t work.” He sniffed the close, stale air. “Jesus, what is that smell?”

It smelled like ... like, unwashed human bodies. Stale flesh. And something else, too, but the miner couldn’t pinpoint it. Then the man found the words he sought: Old blood. And evil.
Evil!
Why would he think that?

Heavy flashlight in hand, the engineer inspected the immediate cavern for serious breaks or instability. Everything looked good.

“You okay, Al?” Jimmy called.

“Yeah. But God, what a horrible smell down here.”

“Gas?”

“No. It isn’t gas. I don’t know what it is.”

He heard a very slight rustling sound coming from the right angle turn in the cave. He froze, listening intently. Silence greeted him.

Rats, he thought.

He shone the light into the darkness of the cave. The beam picked up nothing human or animal. He stepped toward the sharp bend in the cave. That terrible odor once more assailed his nostrils. He slowly made his way around the bend and lifted the light.

Sudden fear rooted the man to the spot.

The powerful light froze a young girl in place. She held a cat in her hands. The girl’s dress was tattered and torn and filthy. And out of style. Years out of style. It was really no more than rags hanging from her slim body. The child couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. And she was half-starved looking. The cat in her arms looked so thin Al couldn’t tell if it was dead or alive.

Then the cat opened its eyes. The cold yellow reflected back into the light.

“Girl,” Al found his voice. The one word echoed in the cave.

Both the girl and the cat screamed at the man. The inhuman-sounding yowling jarred the engineer. He took several steps backward.

“Goddamn, Al!” Jimmy yelled. “What in the name of God was that?”

“Get down here, Jimmy! Now!”

“On my way. Hang on.”

The girl and the cat jumped at Al. The girl’s eyes were black embers glowing in the harsh light. She knocked the light from Al’s hand as long, dirty fingernails dug grooves in his face. The blood leaped from the deep slashes. The cat landed on Al’s head, digging in, its front paws slashing at the man’s face. One clawed paw ripped an eye from a socket. Al’s hard hat was knocked loose. In his pain and confusion and fear, Al stumbled backward, losing his footing in the darkness. He fell heavily, smashing his head on the rock wall.

Then purple darkness took him, swallowing him. He thought he heard laughter, very hollow-sounding, very evil. Demons filled his mind. They were horrible.

Then, in his mind, he saw the face of ...