Cat's Cradle Read online

  “The cat people, Mike?” Carl persisted.

  “Gods and goddesses, ol’ buddy. High priests and all that type of stuff. I’ll tell you a truth. There really isn’t that much known about them. Like I said, a secret religion. The religion, cult, whatever, supposedly began when the Sahara was green.”

  “The Sahara Desert? It was green? What are you talking about?”

  “Fertile. Like Virginia. I don’t mean with oaks and hickory trees and stuff like that. But, well . . . fertile. Like in the ability to grow things. The Sahara began to die about seven to eight thousand years B.C. That is well documented by wall paintings in a sandstone plateau in the Tassili N’Ajjer. That is about the time the cat people were really getting down and doing their thing. When the desert began to die, they moved on ... somewhere. No one knows for sure because it was all very hush-hush, and those not affiliated with the religion were scared to death of them.”

  “What did they eat?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, well, were they cannibalistic?”

  “Oh, yes. Bloodthirsty. They were a savage, barbaric group of nutsos. It’s written-somewhere, I forget where I read it-that only the high priest could impregnate the chosen woman. Thus insuring that she would deliver twins, a girl baby, and a cat. But they weren’t successful all the time. Really hideous monsters and creatures could be birthed. And it’s all tied in with the devil-or something very much like the devil. The bite of the girl or the cat could produce some strange effects on the human body. Changing it. Some say that when the girl and the cat were nine or ten years old, they were entombed alive. But they didn’t die. They could come and go at will. Especially if they were called upon.”

  “That’s wild, Mike. How come I never heard anything about this bunch?”

  “Because it’s unproven. Myth. Personally, I think it’s all a bunch of shit.”

  Carl looked at the report of the murders. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”

  * * *

  The bodies-what was left of them—of Billy Mack and Mary Louise were body-bagged and taken to the hospital. Doctor Ramsey, with Doctor Goodson assisting, both of them gloved, gowned, and masked, began the autopsy. Gruesome things at best, this one was particularly difficult for Doctor Ramsey, for he had delivered both young people. Both men were shocked to discover the hearts were missing from both young persons. The entire stomach cavity had been eaten. The eyes, lips, and much of the tongue was gone. And from the size of the bites, the human bites, both doctors were certain the attacker was a very small person; no bigger than a child. But a very savage child. Surely insane. What other explanation could there be?

  Quinn lifted his eyes, meeting the eyes of Goodson. “Lycanthropy, perhaps?”

  “I thought of that,” Goodson said. “But which definition of it?”

  “Are you serious!” Quinn blurted the question.

  “Quite.”

  Lycanthropy is a form of insanity in which a person imagines himself to be a wolf or other wild beast. The second definition is the assumption of the actual form of a wolf by a human being.

  A werewolf.

  “Assuming such things actually exist, which I doubt,” Quinn said, “what about the second set of bites? A wolf and a cat teaming up?”

  “I am merely attempting to exhaust all possibilities, Doctor,” Goodson remarked. Something, some old memory was nagging at the man. He could not bring the memory into mental light. Perhaps it would come to him.

  The doctors scrubbed and changed into street clothes. In the hall, Quinn met Dan Garrett and Sergeant Langway.

  “Have you notified the parents yet?” Quinn asked the men. Goodson had returned to the lab.

  Both lawmen appeared to be in a mild state of shock. It was not fear. Not the fear of physical harm to themselves. Both men had used their service revolvers more than once. Each had killed in the line of duty. They had both seen the mangled remains of traffic victims. They both had witnessed the horror of the worst kinds of child abuse, from incest to savage beatings that resulted in the death of the child. They both had seen the best and the worst of humankind.

  But neither had ever seen anything like what had happened this night. And both feared it was going to get much worse before getting any better.

  They were correct in thinking that.

  Quinn cleared his throat. The lawmen looked up. Quinn repeated, “Have you notified the parents yet?”

  Langway shook his head. Dan sighed, saying, “What do we tell them, Quinn? How can we tell them they can’t view the bodies when the car was not involved in any type of traffic accident? Do we tell them the truth? And have you considered the ramifications of doing so? How about the press? How about the panic among the citizens if we level with the press? We’d have every nut from five states converging on us. You want that?”

  “Not to mention every citizen in the county shooting at shadows,” Langway said.

  “Yes,” Dan agreed. “I’m not going to lie to the press. But for the sake of those kids’ parents, I am going to stretch the truth a bit. They were murdered; that’s a fact. They were badly mutilated; that’s a fact. Quinn, I’m leaving it up to you to see that the funerals are closed casket services. You and Ed Hathaway at the funeral home have shared a few secrets, have you not?”

  “Certainly.” He looked at Langway. “When will your lab people be through here, Sergeant?”

  “Couple of hours. They’ll coordinate with you about releasing the bodies.”

  Dan said, “Scott, have your people finished going over the car?”

  The trooper shook his head.

  “Then impound it,” Dan said. “And cover it carefully before moving it. I don’t want anybody who isn’t directly connected with this investigation to see that car. Hell, what am I saying? I don’t have to tell you the drill.” The trooper nodded his head.

  Chief Deputy Chuck Klevan said, “We’ve got to buy ourselves some time. Some breathing room.”

  “For a fact,” Langway agreed.

  “How is the miner who whacked his arm?” Dan asked.

  Quinn cringed at Dan’s wording. “Serious but stable. He’s in shock. Lost a lot of blood. But his action seems to have stopped the aging process.”

  “Let’s hope so . . .” Langway murmured.

  4

  Anya and Pet found shelter in a deserted house near a patch of woods. They could go no further that night, for both were bloated from gorging themselves on the young people. Both knew they were in trouble; but both were confident they would survive. For they knew they were at the source of their searching. The Old Ones were here. They had made a mistake in seeking the Source in the cities. They had, for years, taken the easy way in their searching. And they had been wrong. But now everything was right. But they had to buy some time. A few more days. That was critical. Anya had been receiving messages. Their search was over! They were so close to freedom.

  The girl and the cat looked at one another in the darkness that was light to them. Messages passed between them. Messages and memories they and they alone shared. Ancient messages and reminiscences. But one was not so old-not to them.

  They had been asleep for hundreds of years. No one had called them to come forth. And now they knew why. They knew they were very nearly the last of their kind. There were others, but they were scattered and few in number. And none knew where the other was.

  Then the British explorers came to the old lands, with their shovels and picks and brushes, digging in the sands. And they disturbed the resting place of Anya and Pet.

  Those archaeologists had learned the terror of disturbing that which should have been left alone. That expedition had vanished from the face of the earth, with no trace left on the sands that were forever shifting, forever silent, except to those who knew the ancient tongues.

  Anya and Pet had surfaced into a world that bore little resemblance to that in which they had been born and reared. Released from their underground entombment, with no one to guide t
hem, they had made their way to the sea, stowing aboard a ship that had taken them to England. From England, they had traveled to America. America had been much less crowded. They felt they could survive here, for as long as they were meant to live.

  And neither knew just how long that might be. Only that they must endure and survive until the voices called them home for their final rest. Neither Anya nor Pet could comprehend that what they were doing would be construed as evil. They were from another time, another place, and were doing only what they had been born to do.

  Anya and Pet rested for several hours, then a light mist covered them, a living shroud while they shifted beings, changing shapes and forms, Pet becoming Anya, Anya becoming Pet. On silent feet, the cat padded out of the house into the woods, passing several homes after careful inspection. The cat finally came to a home with a bedroom window open. And no dogs. The human cat slipped the hook on the screen, slipped through, and silently prowled the quiet sleeping home, coming to a child’s bedroom. There, the cat found jeans and underwear and shirts and tennis shoes that would fit its counterpart. One by one, the cat carried the articles of clothing to the open screen and dropped them to the ground. Once more outside, the cat patiently carried the clothing into the woods, making several trips, hiding them carefully. Then the cat returned to the deserted house and slipped under the mist that had covered that which was but really wasn’t. They once more became female human child and feline.

  They rested.

  * * *

  “Who in the hell are you?” Dan questioned the young woman.

  “Mille Smith,” she replied.

  “Shit!” Sergeant Langway muttered.

  “The Mille Smith?” Quinn asked.

  “The one and only,” she said with a smile.

  All present, with the exception of the youngest Virginia trooper, knew all about Mille Smith. And they knew that smile was as phony as a shark’s smile. Mille was very pretty, very shapely. She was tanned, with short brown hair and dark eyes. She had won a Pulitzer at the tender age of twenty-two. She had garnered more literary accolades (some of them so far to the left she walked crookedly after receiving them), covering Somoza’s fall in Nicaragua. She naturally had taken a hard line position against Somoza. She had roamed Central America, filing story after story, always subtly taking sides against her own country’s policies.

  Mille was a hard-nosed, not always fair, investigative reporter who had many more enemies than she did friends. She could be brash and vulgar and extremely obnoxious. She was also cunning and tough. Like many reporters, she was always highly critical of the police, believing them all stamped from the same mold, regardless of country.

  Had she been of age, she surely would have been a revolutionary back in the ’60’s.

  All the men present in the hospital corridor wondered if Mille had heard enough of the conversation to pique her curiosity.

  “What can we do for you, Ms. Smith?” Doctor Ramsey asked.

  “Tell me what’s going on, for starters,” the woman replied, meeting the man look for look.

  “What gives you the idea anything is going on?” Sergeant Langway asked.

  She laughed at the trooper, not knowing, or caring, that she had, at that instant, made another enemy. “I was traveling through this county,” she said. “On my way to Richmond, before you ask, even though it’s none of your business where I was going, when I saw all the flashing lights. I hung around, followed you all here when you came back to town. Now what’s going on. I’m a member of the press, I have a right to know.”

  Sheriff Garrett said, “Well, for a normally quiet county, Ms. Smith, we’ve had a mining accident that killed one man and badly injured another. Then on top of that, we had two young people murdered tonight. In Ruger County, that’s a lot of goings-on for one year, much less one night. That’s the trouble.”

  “Really, Sheriff?”

  “Really, Ms. Smith.”

  “Sheriff?”

  “Yes, Ms. Smith?”

  “I don’t know whether you’re lying, or just full of shit!”

  Dan rose to his long, lean, lanky height and faced the woman, towering over her five foot, four inches. “Ms. Smith, I don’t know what you’re really doing here, or even why you want to waste your time looking into the events of this night. But you, or no one else talks to me like that. Now I have no beef with the press. Print or electronic. Past or present. You may talk to Pat Leonard of the local paper. You may speak to the people at the News Leader or the Times Dispatch in Richmond. You may speak to any reporters from the TV or other newpapers that serve this area. When you do, you will find I cooperate fully with them. But don’t you get hard-nosed with me.”

  “Is that a threat?” Mille yelled.

  “This is a hospital, young lady,” Quinn said. “Keep your voice down or I’ll have you ejected.”

  Mille flushed and cut her eyes back to Dan, towering over her. God, she hated cops! Even hicktown cops.

  “No, that’s not a threat, Ms. Smith,” Dan said. “But it is a warning. Now, if you are here legitimately seeking a story, that’s fine. If I can release any information to you, I will. Openly and willingly. But if I feel any part of that information will jeopardize whatever case I might be working on, I will not release it.” He looked up as Pat Leonard, owner and editor of the local weekly paper entered the corridor and joined the group. Pat’s eyes widened as he caught sight of Mille and recognized her.

  “Are you quite through preaching and lecturing me, Sheriff?” Mille asked.

  “For this evening, yes.”

  “How wonderful,” she said sarcastically.

  “Is it true about Billy Mack and Mary Louise, Dan?” Pat asked.

  “Yes. I’m afraid it is. But I haven’t notified their parents, yet. So hold up until I give you a call, okay? ”

  “Sure, Dan,” Pat said.

  Mille looked at the man. “Since when do reporters take orders from cops?”

  Pat looked at her, sighed, and shook his head.

  “You’re a real pussycat, aren’t you?” Mille said. She swung her gaze from Pat to Dan. “How old were the kids?”

  “Both sixteen, Ms. Smith. Born and reared here in Ruger County. We all knew them.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Just one big happy family, right? How about the third victim?”

  “He was a miner working on Eden Mountain. I can’t give you his name because we have not yet been able to locate next of kin. Is there anything else, Ms. Smith?”

  And with a reporter’s intuition-much like, although Mille would never admit to that—a cop’s sixth sense of trouble, she knew the sheriff was lying.

  But why? she questioned. What in God’s name would they have to hide here?

  “No, Sheriff. Not a thing. I’ll just be on my way.”

  “Good night, Ms. Smith.”

  Mille looked at Pat. “Come on, Tiger. You can buy me a hamburger.”

  She turned and walked away, Pat Leonard leaving with her.

  Nice ass, the youngest trooper thought.

  “Think she bought it, Dan?” Langway asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But if I had to make a guess, I’d say no. Damn! The last thing we need at this moment is a lot of press people snooping around.”

  “I concur,” Quinn said. “But we have yet another problem.”

  “The dead engineer,” Dan said.

  “Precisely. I suggest we keep him in cold storage until the CDC people get here.”

  “Yes,” Doctor Goodson said, making his first appearance out of the hospital’s small lab since the autopsy. “I know the people from CDC; old and good friends of mine. Gentlemen, we’ve got serious problems. And I mean, serious problems.”

  All eyes swung toward the doctor.

  “I’ve been testing saliva from the wounds of all three victims,” Goodson said. “There are two points I’d like to make. But before I do, let me say this: I have never seen anything like what I’ve been looking at for the past hour. Nev
er. They could have come from the same person, or thing. But of course, we all know that is impossible.”

  Sergeant Langway looked confused. Hell! He was confused. “What are you saying, Doctor?”

  “Point one: The saliva is neither human nor animal. It’s ... I don’t know what it is. Two: Assuming that both a human and animal was involved, they . . . well, they’re one and the same.”

  “That’s impossible!” Quinn said.

  “Goddamn!” the young trooper said softly.

  “Yes,” Goodson said thoughtfully. “I am fully aware of that, Quinn. That is why I checked and rechecked, time after time. The results came up the same. But while it is highly infectious, it is not airborne. So we can all relax a bit on that point. Gentlemen, the murders of the kids cannot be held back from the press for very long. Once the parents are notified, it’ll be news. I wish us all good luck after that. Sergeant Langway will have to inform his superiors as to the events of this night. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll have seventy-two hours before the press gets wind of this. They always do. The state police are through with the bodies of the young people. The man from the funeral home can pick them up. I’m told he can keep his mouth shut and the caskets will be sealed as soon as the young people are ready. That isn’t exactly kosher, but it would be best for the parents not to know all the gory details of what happened to their children. I’m an old man; I’ve got to get some sleep. I suggest that you all do the same.” He rubbed his chin. “This isn’t over. This is national news stuff, boys. And it’s going to hit the news.”

  “Should we inform the governor?” Langway asked.

  Goodson shrugged. “That will be up to your superiors, but I’m sure he’ll be kept up to date before this thing is all over.”

  The old doctor turned and walked away.

  “Optimistic type, isn’t he?” Langway said.

  “I think that he knows more than he’s telling us,” Quinn said.

  “Well,” Dan said. “I’ve got to go tell the parents the bad news.”