Cat's Cradle Read online

  “What in the name of God happened to that man, Quinn?”

  “We don’t really know what happened. And neither does the man who brought him in. They were both working inside Eden Mountain. Just about quitting time. Al—the man you just saw—dropped down into a newly found cave to check it out. Jimmy—that’s the man who brought him in—stayed top-side. Jimmy heard howling, then screaming. Whoever, or whatever it was, was gone when Jimmy arrived to help his friend. What we do know is this: the man has a severe concussion, one eye clawed out, and many deep lacerations on his face, head, arms, and chest.”

  Sheriff Dan Garrett, not known for being a profane man, startled the RN standing nearby when he blurted “But the man looks like a fucking mummy! He looks like he’s five hundred years old.”

  “Steady, Dan. I know, I know. Believe me, my reaction was even more profane than yours. His . . . condition is precisely why you wore gloves, gown, and mask, and viewed him through glass. He’s being kept in an absolutely controlled environment. You all right now, buddy?”

  “Yes. Sorry for the outburst. Quinn, how old is that man?”

  “His driver’s license says he’s thirty-two years old.”

  Dan felt the blood rush from his face. He was suddenly not all right. He took several deep breaths and cracked his knuckles—a habit he’d been trying to break. “When did the . . . ah, aging process begin?”

  “Apparently the instant whatever it was attacked him and drew blood. I have Doctor Goodson in from the university. He’s in the lab now. Doctor Goodson was . . . ah, shocked at the man’s appearance. First time I ever saw that man change expression. He was one of my professors in med school.”

  Dan shook his head. He didn’t know Doctor Goodson from a can of beans. “Who is Goodson?”

  Doctor Ramsey looked pained. “I’ll keep it in layman’s terms.”

  “Please do.”

  “Doctor Goodson wrote the book-or books—on aging. If there is anything he doesn’t know about it, it’s because it has not been discovered.”

  Dan said, “The university does have one of the finest med schools in the nation.”

  “The finest,” Quinn corrected.

  Dan smiled. “You wouldn’t be prejudiced, would you, Quinn?”

  “Of course not,” the doctor’s reply was stiff.

  Dan jerked his thumb toward the intensive care unit. “What did your expert have to say about that guy in there?”

  Quinn Ramsey once again looked pained. “Doctor Goodson’s exact words at first glance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit!”

  * * *

  The child and the cat made their way through the dark woods. The girl rained down ancient curses on the men who had disturbed their rest cycle. She and Pet had been awake too long now to again seek the sanctuary and safety of sleep.

  They were awake and that was the way it must remain. They had no other options. But where were the Old Ones?

  The only control they had over their destiny was to survive. And now, to search. The Old Ones must be found.

  But for now, they must eat, and eat well, in order to regain their strength. For the ordeal ahead of them would be severe. They knew armed men would be hunting them. They had been through it all before.

  The cat’s ears perked up. The pair stopped. The girl and the cat exchanged glances and thoughts. They both heard the sounds of panting. The cat leaped ahead, slipping through the woods, the girl following as silently as the cat’s light step, the rags of her tattered dress flapping. Moonlight glinted off a parked car. The car was rocking on its springs. A young man’s gruntings and a young woman’s moaning drifted through the spring air.

  The cat and the girl slipped as silently as death’s touch up to the parked car, one taking the right, the other the left.

  Within seconds, panting and moaning and grunting had changed to screams of terror and howls of pain. Blood splattered the windows and cushions of the car. Frantic thrashings rocked the vehicle. A cat’s yowlings and a girl’s grotesque smacking of lips filled the air. The rocking of the car ceased. The screaming bubbled off into nothing.

  Silence once more filled the woods. A bloody child’s face appeared in the rear window. A cat appeared by her side. Both were covered with blood. They looked at one another. They smiled in satisfaction.

  * * *

  Al the engineer died.

  “Died of what?” Dan persisted in his questioning. “Of what?”

  Goodson said, “Old age.”

  “But the man was only thirty-two years old!”

  Doctor Goodson sat looking at the table top. Doctor Ramsey sat looking at Doctor Goodson. Dan stood over the medical men, looking at both of them, expecting, demanding answers.

  Dan said, “Either you don’t know, or you’re not leveling with me. Which is it?”

  Goodson looked up at the sheriff. “We don’t know, Dan. I’ve never seen anything like it. And that is the truth.” He looked at Quinn. “How many people know of this?”

  “Of the rapid aging?”

  “Yes.”

  “The emergency room personnel. One RN. Doctor Harrison. The intensive care personnel who were on duty. You, me, Sheriff Garrett.”

  Doctor Goodson sighed, feeling his age. “I’ve got to get some people in here from CDC. We’re over our heads with this.” He looked startled for a moment. “Where is the man who brought him in?”

  “I sedated him and put him to bed,” Quinn said.

  “Did you notice any cuts or scratches on him? Think, Doctor.”

  “ . . . no. But . . . He wasn’t wearing gloves. What are you thinking?” Then it hit Quinn. “Oh, God!”

  “If that man had even the smallest cut and the blood from the engineer infected him . . . Damn!” He stood up. “Let’s go see him.”

  But Jimmy was gone. No one on the floor had seen him leave.

  * * *

  Jimmy looked at his hand and felt like puking. The hand had shriveled and now had no feeling left in it. It was like a part of him had died.

  It had.

  He had gotten out of bed to go to the john. That’s when he’d noticed his hand. He had panicked, not fully awake from the shot the doctor had given him. He had not known what to do. He had dressed in his dirty work clothes and walked out of the hospital. He hadn’t seen a soul in doing so.

  He knew he should go back to the hospital, get some help. But goddamnit, they hadn’t been able to help Al. God, he was scared. He had watched Al shrivel up and turn into some kind of mummy-looking creature right before his very eyes. Jesus God! He had seen it but had not believed his own eyes. What had happened to Al was impossible.

  He raised his cold, shriveled, ugly hand. But it wasn’t impossible. Christ, it was happening to him. And the aging had spread all the way up to his elbow. It looked like . . . it looked hideous.

  He had to do something. He had to think. He was shaking all over.

  Wild, unreasonable panic struck Jimmy. He couldn’t think straight. But he had to do something, and do it damn quick.

  What was that line in the Bible about plucking your eye out if it offends you?

  Something like that.

  All right, then. If it was God’s will, then that’s the way it would be.

  Jimmy went stumbling and falling around the line of trucks and equipment at the mining site. He fumbled open the lock on the tool shed, clicked on the lights, and began throwing tools around. Finally he found what he was looking for.

  A hatchet.

  Taking a piece of rope, Jimmy tied it as tightly as he could around his arm, just above the elbow, cutting off the flow of blood. He propped his arm up on the fender of the truck.

  He took a deep breath and gripped the wooden handle. He raised the hatchet. Moonlight reflected off the head of the small axe. He brought the axe down as hard as he could. The sounds of his screaming filled the quiet night. Half his arm bounced off the gravel.

  Through his pain, Jimmy heard dark laughter echoing
around him. Lightning licked across the sky. A heavy, sulfurous odor filled the air.

  Then Jimmy saw the face of ...

  He began screaming in his unconsciousness.

  3

  Sheriff Dan Garrett gathered his force of deputies around him in the now deserted hospital cafeteria. The deputies listened in shock and horror and all with some degree of disbelief as Dan explained what had happened.

  Then he showed them all the body of Al.

  There were no more unbelievers among the deputies.

  Dan described Jimmy and told his men, “Find him. When you find him, not if, when, don’t try to take him alone. Call for help. I mean that. I don’t want any hotdogs lone-wolfing it this night. And for God’s sake, don’t touch him. Repeating that: Don’t touch him. Just call in his location and stand back, keeping an eye on him. Move out!”

  When the deputies had gone, Dan sat in the room housing the hospital’s radio equipment. He would monitor from there. He looked up as boot-heels echoed hollow in the hall. Sergeant Scott Langway of the Virginia Highway Patrol stepped into the room.

  “Dan,” the patrolman said. “I got here as soon as I could. Big pileup east of here, right on the county line. Nobody seriously hurt, but traffic was backed up for two miles. What’s going on?”

  “I’ll let Doctor Ramsey brief you.”

  Doctor Ramsey brought the patrolman up-to-date, speaking quickly, but leaving nothing out. When he had finished, the highway cop stood very still for a full ten count. He looked at Dan, then at Quinn.

  “Is either of you putting me on?” he asked.

  “It’s no joke, Scott,” Dan said.

  “I want to see this man.”

  “Come with me,” Quinn said.

  Dan had no desire to view the mummy-looking man again. He used that time to call his wife. Her days married to a field agent with the FBI had stayed with her. She asked no questions. Just said she’d put a plate of food in the fridge for him to have when he got home.

  “Stay safe,” she said, then hung up.

  Dan sat down at a table and looked at the paper cup of cold coffee in front of him. He tried very hard not to think of the horrible possibilities of this . . . this situation. Tried, but failed.

  And as every cop with any time behind a badge at all has thought at one time or another, Dan thought: Why me? Why here? Why on my beat? Why?

  And as always, there was no satisfying answer.

  * * *

  Jimmy came awake to cold numbing fear and white hot pain. He looked at his mangled arm. Blood seeped past the tightly bound stump. The severed arm, from the elbow down, lay on the ground, a shriveled ugly thing. It made Jimmy want to puke just looking at the thing. He couldn’t believe he’d actually had the courage to do it.

  But now what? And what in God’s name had he dreamed?

  He sat up. He was weak, but not as weak as he thought he’d be. His arm-what was left of it—hurt like hell; but it was bearable. He looked up as headlights swept the parking area of the mine site. The car crunched over gravel and slid to a halt.

  “Freeze!” the voice shouted from behind the blazing headlights. “Don’t move.”

  Jimmy raised his bloody stump. “It’s okay, now,” he called. “I cut it off.”

  “Jumpin’ Jesus!” the deputy said. He fumbled for his mike, found it, dropped it out of shaky fingers, and picked it up again and called in. His voice broke. He hated, it that his voice was so shaky. He couldn’t help that. God, the nut case had whacked off his own arm. The young deputy felt like tossing his supper.

  “Stay right there,” Dan instructed his deputy. “I’m on my way.”

  In less than five minutes, a half dozen cars and one ambulance ground to a halt in the gravel of the parking lot. In one of the cars, behind the wheel, sat a still-badly shaken Sergeant Langway of the VHP. He had viewed the dead engineer. In a lot of ways, he wished he had not.

  Masked, gloved men approached Jimmy, sitting on the gravel, his back to a pickup.

  “Did I do the right thing, Doc?” Jimmy asked, his voice just audible. He was in shock, and losing ground.

  The now flat-topped mountain loomed dark behind the men.

  “I’m sure you did, son,” Quinn said, his voice slightly muffled behind his mask. He looked at the dead, shriveled arm and hand on the gravel. “Get that,” he told a medic. “And be careful.”

  Dan’s radio began squawking metallically. Dan stilled the tinny sounds.

  “All units to tach,” the dispatcher said. “Ten-thirty-five from Ruger nine.”

  Dan switched his radio to tach and to hell with the constitutionality of it all. “Go, Nine.”

  “I just found Mary Louise Turner and Billy Mack Evans out near Whispering Creek, on the old Hogg Road. Both of them naked. They’re in Mr. Evans’ car. Both of them are dead. Tore up real bad. Blood everywhere and the bodies have been eaten on. You copy this, Sheriff?”

  “Ten-four,” Dan radioed. “I’m rolling now. Stay with it, Nine.”

  Sergeant Langway met the sheriff’s eyes. “Going to be a long night, Dan.”

  “Yeah,” Dan replied.

  * * *

  None of the cops, county or state, or any of the doctors, nurses, or medics, had ever seen anything like what had been done to the young couple. After the initial viewing, Doctor Goodson had ordered the cops away from the mangled, eaten bodies and blood-splattered car. The medical people, all sworn to silence by the state police, viewed the carnage under harsh light from portable spotlights set up by the state police.

  Dan had given his tersely worded orders to his people; “Keep a tight lid on this. No press. None at all! Anybody leaks this, I’ll have his or her ass, roasted and served up. Understood?”

  They all understood, knowing full well that Sheriff Garrett meant every word of it.

  “Look,” Doctor Goodson said to Quinn, pointing. “See where the flesh had begun to age around the bites?”

  “Stopping the aging process at the moment of death,” Quinn said.

  “Yes. And the bites are both human and animal-like. We have, at least, a madman loose.”

  “Madwoman,” Dan said, peering over the doctor’s shoulders. He wore a mask and gloves. “Maybe.”

  Goodson looked around. “Why do you say that, Sheriff?”

  “By the size of the human bites. A small mouth did that. And those are not animal-like tracks. They’re paw prints from a cat.”

  Goodson looked again. “You’re right,” he conceded. “Very observant, Sheriff.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said drily. “A madwoman with a killer house-cat.”

  * * *

  “Did you know, my good fellow,” Carl’s roommate at the university said, “that in ancient Egypt, there once existed a secret religion who believed in cat people?”

  Without looking up from his books, Carl said, “If you call me ’your good fellow’ one more time, I’m going to jack your jaw, Mike.”

  “My word, you certainly are testy this evening.”

  “Busy, buddy, busy.”

  “You do recall the line about all work and no play, et cetera and so forth?”

  “Mike, you’re going to get your lazy ass tossed out of school if you don’t start bearing down. And you’d better damn well start realizing that.”

  “As Ol’ William once wrote: ’It maketh not a damn to me’.”

  Carl laughed at his friend. Built exactly like his father, Carl leaned back, away from the desk full of books, and stretched. Lean and lanky, the young man pushed back a lock of thick, unruly hair and rubbed his tired eyes.

  The last paragraph on the many-times-photocopied page caught his eyes. He leaned closer and read: The rash of murders that to this day remain unsolved in St. Louis held more than one macabre note. In addition to the human teeth marks there were found other marks that at first were dismissed as rat bites. Experts later testified the bites were made by a cat. The same cat had gnawed on all the bodies, as had the same small person. The human bites
are thought to be female.

  He looked at Mike. “What was that you said about cat people?”

  “Ahh! Got your attention, didn’t I? O-ye-of-little-confidence-in-your-ol’-buddy’s academic abilities.”

  “I have confidence in your abilities as a bullshitter,” Carl said. “Besides, I thought those people worshipped Ra?”

  “No, you heathen. Ra was a sun god of Heliopolis. A hawk-headed man. This was a very small group of men and women. No more than a couple of thousand at the most. The high priests and priestesses were thought, so it is rumored, to have supernatural powers. For instance, the cat and the goddess could change shapes, one becoming the other. They both were worshipped. And they were said to live for an incredible length of time. Hundreds and hundreds of years.”

  Carl shook his head. “Mike, you have such a fantastic memory. A recall that is awesome. Yet your grades are terrible.”

  Mike grinned. “You wanna be president of my fan club, Carl?”

  “Asshole,” Carl muttered. “Tell me more about these cat people.”

  “Are you serious? I thought you were going to be a pig?”

  “A police officer, Mike. Besides, pigs is beautiful.”

  “Oh, God!” Mike feigned great disgust. “Spare me. Why do you want to know about ancient religions? Pigs are not only beautiful, they’re notoriously stupid.”

  “Would you like to come home with me this weekend and tell that to my dad?” Carl grinned.

  Mike rolled his eyes. “Ah ... no! Besides, your father is an educated pig. There is a great deal of difference between that and an ordinary pig.”

  Carl laughed. He couldn’t get mad at Mike. He knew Mike was only putting the needle to him. His friend had absolutely no beef with the police. Mike was built like a big overstuffed teddy bear—a very wealthy teddy bear, and an enormously strong teddy bear. One of the feather-headed jocks at school had attempted to fight Mike once. Once. Mike had very nearly crushed the life out of the young man. Mike was six feet tall, and about three and half feet wide. He was even-tempered until provoked. When that happened-look out! He was also a genius, with only one love, and that one love was not the major forced on him by his parents. His father and mother had set up a very generous allowance, but Mike could not touch the principal until he was twenty-five, only the interest. And that was considerable.