Ghost Cats of the South

by Randy Russell

  She explained to them that she couldn’t take Samantha to school because the mean kids would laugh at her. There were no mean kids around a campfire at camp, she told them. That’s why she and Samantha loved being there.

  Other girls agreed. In turn, they stood and told their own stories of pets they loved that had died. They spoke softly of loss. Sometimes, a tearful camper would find the courage to speak of a deceased parent or sibling.

  Everyone felt closer after Katie talked about her porcelain cat at campfire. The Black Mountain camp for girls awarded white feathers to campers who showed leadership skills and were well liked by the other campers. Every year at camp, Katie and her porcelain cat won a white feather. The blossoming young lady wore the feather proudly around her neck in honor of her childhood cat.

  Her last year at camp, when Katie was sixteen, they changed the name of her cabin to Samantha Cat.

  Katie remained friends throughout her life with women she had met at girls’ camp. She and a few others pooled their resources and sponsored the cost for a girl from an economically challenged family to attend camp free each summer.

  Katie died in her early thirties in a car wreck. She had loved nothing more than camp. Her memories of camp were her favorite of all.

  Soon after Katie’s untimely death, her parents visited the mountain camp at the end of summer. Katie’s ashes were placed in the final council fire, along with the ashes from Katie’s porcelain cat. It was the most emotional final campfire in the sixty-year history of the girls’ camp.

  Since that time, a friendly white cat with brown spots has been showing up at the camp. The cat is usually seen in the daytime sitting in the stables or walking by the tennis courts. At night, it has been witnessed sitting in the shadows of trees behind the campfire.

  The cat is as real as can be. It is such a gentle, loving cat that it makes friends easily with the young girls. One of the girls will pet it until it purrs happily. Then the cat will scamper off to see what other groups of girls are up to. A few of the older girls know the story of Katie and her porcelain cat. They think the cat is Samantha.

  One or two are braver than that. They believe the white cat with brown spots is Katie coming back to girls’ camp.

  Someone usually lets it in at night, and the cat almost always ends up on a camper’s bunk bed, where it is cuddled and spoiled with attention. The cat has large green-gold eyes. The girl petting the cat notices its brilliant eyes. And in the cat’s eyes, at night, is always a reflection of a young girl standing behind the camper. When the girl turns around, no one is there.

  No one she can see is there, that is. One or two of the older campers know the truth. This time, it is Katie’s cat returning the favor by bringing her young mistress to camp.

  Some cats aren’t brought to sleep-away camp by fellow campers. The cats in Otter Creek Park were already there.

  Several troublesome cat ghosts are known to haunt a girls’ camp there. They all came from the same location, a small homestead cabin somewhere in the twenty-six-hundred-acre wilderness just outside Louisville, Kentucky. The cabin no longer stands.

  An old man lived alone in the cabin with a family of cats. Leaving the cabin in a blizzard to cut more wood for the fireplace, the old man grew lost in the blinding snow. He wandered in the wrong direction. Dazed and confused, he collapsed from the cold and died. His body wasn’t found until spring.

  And neither were the bodies of his cats. The man had latched the door against the winter weather. The fire went out, and the cabin grew quickly cold. The cats called for the old man. No one came. Eventually, the family of cats ended up in the fireplace, but the warmth was gone. The ashes were cold. The flue was open only slightly to allow the last of the firewood in the cabin to burn slowly. The cats had no way out. They froze to death, falling into their final drowsy sleep curled together in the fireplace.

  Eventually, the cabin fell into ruin from neglect. The roof caved in. The stone fireplace and chimney collapsed. The floors rotted away.

  Years later, stones from the tumbled-down fireplace were used in the circle of rocks around a campfire at the girls’ camp nearby. That’s when the trouble began.

  Cats that have died from the cold can never quite get warm again. That was certainly true of the old man’s blizzard-bound cats.

  Year after year, as flames leapt from the campfire in Otter Creek Park, the rocks surrounding the fire warmed up quickly. Young campers have said they saw small clouds of mist rising from some of the rocks. Others have heard faint meows as the rocks grew hot from the fire.

  The cat ghosts from the frozen cabin live in the rocks from the tumbled-down fireplace. They are always cold once they spring from the rocks. Year after year, summer after summer, the chilly cats scatter, searching for something to keep them warm.

  The cats are seen throughout the duration of the camp, always at a distance, from along the woodland trails. They move silently among the trees and rocks of Otter Creek Park. It looks to startled campers who cross their path as if the cats are wearing the wrong fur. Sometimes, the cats seem to be wearing wigs. Other times, it looks like the animals are wearing fuzzy capes of matted fur that are never the same color as the cats.

  Late at night, girls in their camp cabins wake up with a start.

  “Ouch!” the girl with the longest hair says first. “Someone pulled my hair!”

  Throughout the night, the cats move from cabin to cabin collecting as much human hair as possible, as much as they can get away with, to keep them warm. Other people camping in Otter Creek Park in the summer have similar experiences. But the lost ghost cats prefer the girls’ camp. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. After a day of endless activity and excitement, nobody sleeps more soundly than young girls at summer camp.

  When the last fire of camp is extinguished and the rocks cool, the cats return to their tumbled-down stones and wait for summer so they can get warm again.

  TUNICA, MISSISSIPPI

  Eat-Your-Face Cat

  It has long been a tradition in the South to name your children after somebody or something. Beale Roberts was named after a street in Memphis. His grandmother Magnolia was named after a tree. People who met Beale for the first time thought his name was Bill. Many still do.

  Magnolia grew up in Sugar Ditch, so she didn’t take much stock in names. There was nothing sweet about Sugar Ditch. Magnolia’s daddy and her third husband died on the same day.

  They died in a motel fire in Arkansas. The men had been working strawberries over there. A Memphis lawyer went to court over the fire and earned a bunch of money for Magnolia. She moved her two boys and one daughter to a brick house outside town. She kept her husband’s car.

  But that was some time ago. Magnolia had her children late in life. Beale’s mother was just a little girl. The boys were older. The boys moved to Memphis, one at a time, to good jobs in the hospitals there. When you were raised in a good house, you learned to want better things in life than Tunica, Mississippi. Beale’s mother stayed behind until she grew up. Then she went to Memphis. She worked as a waitress on Beale Street till five in the morning, got herself pregnant, and came right back to Tunica to find someone to marry her. That was Beale’s daddy. He thought Beale’s name was Bill, too.

  Having her children late in life was a mistake on Magnolia’s part. She might as well have been their grandmother. Magnolia ended up living alone. The money was gone, but she still had her house and the old car. She kept the car up because she needed it for church and the stores.

  When her health failed, she adopted a cat advertised on the church bulletin board as needing a home. The cat was her family then. She named the cat Robber because he stole food from Magnolia’s plate the first day she brought him home. She fed Robber more than she should have because she didn’t like eating alone.

  Robber didn’t mind eating alone, but he died anyway. Right after Magnolia did.

  That Monday morning, she put Robber in the car for a trip to the grocery stor
e in town. Her heart felt fluttery. When she climbed into the car and closed the door, Magnolia went dizzy from her head down to her feet. Her heart stopped. It was done.

  Robber chewed on her purse the first day. He walked all over that car looking for a way out. There was none.

  The second Sunday Magnolia missed church, the preacher came by. He found Magnolia and Robber in the car by following the bad smell in the yard. The cat had chewed off most of Magnolia’s face before he died of thirst.

  The funeral was a closed-casket one. After Magnolia was in the ground, one of her sons drove the car to his house in Memphis. Everyone agreed that Beale would inherit his grandmother’s car when he was old enough.

  When Beale was fourteen, he fell in love with girls and cars at the same time. In bed at night, he practiced shifting with his right hand in the standard three-gear H configuration. He’d have to know how in order to get a license. If he got it wrong, the examiner would laugh at him. He moved his left foot from the imaginary clutch, then back again. Beale lifted his right foot off the gas while shifting. He made motor sounds. He switched to a four-gear configuration with Reverse down to the side. His bedcovers were a mess by the time he finished driving.

  Beale’s mother brought him to her brother’s house in Memphis to see the car. His uncle took him for a ride across the Mississippi River and back. The 1956 two-door Chevy Bel Air sparkled like new. There wasn’t a scratch on it. Not a single speck of rust. Its V-8 engine had plenty of power.

  “Always sat in your grandma’s garage,” his uncle said. “Runs like new. When you get your license and a job, you can drive it home.”

  “A job? I’ve had plenty of jobs.”

  “A real job, Beale. Have you tried applying to the casinos yet? They hire in the kitchens at sixteen, don’t they?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well, you get a job to help out your momma at home, and we’ll see if your grandma’s car will start up for you. It won’t start for just anyone.”

  Beale was eighteen and working full time at one of the casinos in North Tunica when his uncle finally said he could have the Bel Air. Beale couldn’t wait to be rid of the secondhand Dodge Shadow he drove to work and back.

  He sat in his grandmother’s car in his uncle’s driveway in Memphis and admired his hands on the red steering wheel. The insides of the doors were red tuck-and-roll upholstery. He rolled down the driver’s window and stuck his elbow outside.

  “Start her up,” the uncle said.

  The 1956 Chevy purred. His uncle grinned. He’d be glad to get rid of it. The car gave him the creeps.

  “Before you drive home, there are some things you need to know, Beale,” he said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  The chrome hood ornament looked like an airplane. It sparkled in the sunlight. Beale couldn’t wait to take off.

  “Well, I guess you know how your grandma died. She died sitting in this car. That cat ate her face. Ate her face clean off. You know about all that, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t know how, but that cat is still in the car. You’ll hear him making noise when you’re riding around. Backseat, front seat. I don’t know how. He’s just there.”

  Beale thought his uncle was nuts.

  “I worked two shifts one weekend at the hospital, and when we had a break I lay down in the car in the parking lot. I was going to sleep through my lunch hour. I started to doze off, and that cat bit my ear pretty good, Beale. I thought a bee had me, so I swatted at it. My ear was bleeding, but it didn’t hurt too bad. I tried to go back to sleep, and each time I dozed off that cat ghost took a bite of my face.”

  Beale nodded slowly, trying not to laugh.

  “I have to tell you this. I know it doesn’t sound quite right, but I have to tell you. Don’t be sleeping in the car, that’s all. That cat will eat your face off if you do. He’s a hungry little ghost, Beale, with razor claws and sharp teeth. If you fall asleep, that cat will think you’re dead and will eat your face off. I’d have given you the car sooner, but I didn’t know how to say it to you.”

  “Won’t be any sleeping done in this car,” Beale promised.

  On the drive south to Tunica, Beale supposed everyone in the small towns along the Mississippi believed in ghosts. Every bayou had one or two walking around in it at night, if you listened to the old folks. They were all crazy about ghosts. There was supposed to be a woman out by Anderson Bayou who walked across the road at night, carrying her head under one arm. When you drove by her, the head would end up in your backseat and start talking to you. But that was only when the moon was full. Beale guessed his uncle was no different from the others, to believe in such things.

  Beale loved his grandma’s Bel Air. When he parked the classic two-door at the casino, people of all types would come over to talk to him about it. When he got off work, Beale found notes tucked under the windshield wiper from people who wanted to buy the Bel Air. They wrote down their phone numbers.

  Nights off, Beale ate at Church’s Chicken but parked at the Sonic Drive-In to show off the car. He sat with his elbow out the driver’s window. Sometimes, he ordered a Coke. The local girls circling through would honk. A car filled with high-school girls would pull up alongside him in the next slot.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” they’d ask.

  Then one of them would get into Beale’s car to go for a ride.

  Beale liked driving them on Beat Line because it had good lights and everyone could see he was with somebody. He’d put his right arm across the back of the front seat and drive with his left elbow out the window, keeping his fingers on the steering wheel. He’d cross over to the old Main Street and drive real slow up past Magnolia, then circle the block at Edwards Street and do it over again. His favorite trick was to drive with his lights off in Kestevan Alley. He’d ease on up to Café Marie’s, where he’d pop the lights on and turn back to Main. The girls thought that was dangerous.

  Everyone in town parked at the Sonic at night when it closed. They stayed there to talk. The girls would walk from car to car, showing off their hairdos and their clothes. They stayed there until the police drove through, then everyone divided up into cars and went back to Main.

  One night, the girl at Beale’s passenger door was almost too drunk to stand up. Her name was Amber, and she’d ridden with Beale before.

  Amber said she wanted to go for a ride. He didn’t mind. When she was drinking, Amber liked to neck, and that was just fine with Beale. She told him she liked his car because it had big seats.

  When girls like Amber were in the car, Beale had a place to drive way out behind the bayou off Fox Island Road.

  “Beale, do you ever think of marrying anyone?”

  “No,” he said. He’d seen women at the casino he would like to have married, though. Most of them already were.

  Amber shrugged. “I guess no one thinks that way anymore.”

  Her boyfriend in Memphis didn’t want to get married. Neither did her boyfriend in Arkansas. Neither one came to Tunica as often as they used to. Amber leaned her head against the window and felt the motor vibrate the car as they drove through the darkness until Beale found a place to park.

  He left the car running while they were parked on the old briar road behind the bayou. It was where people came to pick wild blackberries in summer. The air smelled like fish. The exhaust pipes hummed. Beale raced the motor once or twice in Park, then let it idle. It drowned out the noise from frogs and bugs.

  By the time Beale climbed back into the driver’s seat, it was after midnight. Amber stayed in the backseat, straightening her clothes.

  As soon as he was on Fox Island Road again, Beale felt Amber kick the back of his seat.

  “Stop that,” he said,“or I’ll end up driving us off the road.”

  When he looked over his shoulder into the backseat, Beale saw Amber curled up asleep. She slept on her side with her knees drawn up, dead to the world. She must have passed out, he guessed. She’d
been as drunk as he’d ever seen a girl. Beale glanced back once or twice more, hoping she’d be able to walk when it came time to drop her off. He didn’t plan on keeping her all night.

  He finally got a better look as he neared the edge of town. That was when he saw Amber’s face. Long, bloody cuts had been scratched into her face from eyebrow to chin. Her mouth was hanging open. Her tongue was gone.

  Beale pulled over to the side of the road as quickly as he could. When he opened the driver’s door, the dome light came on. Then the worst of it happened. Amber sat up in the seat in a sudden rush. She wanted to wake up, but it was too late. Her mouth was filled with blood. She tossed her head from side to side, and pieces of her face came away.

  As pieces of her face were bitten off, they disappeared. Her nose came off. A bloody hole was above her lips.

  Beale yelled for it to stop. He pushed himself quickly out of the car. He nearly fell over backwards on his bottom but held the door to right himself. Beale wanted to pull the driver’s seat forward to get back there, but he froze in place. His hand wouldn’t move to help her. He couldn’t make it move.

  Her lips came off in little bites that spread quickly across the rest of her face. It happened as fast as a car going ninety down the highway. It was as if a hundred cats were eating Amber’s face. Her eyeballs came out of her head. They made little popping sounds. Bitten in half, they were quickly gone. Her ears, the same.

  It stopped for a minute when her face was gone. Beale pulled the driver’s seat forward and stared into the back, mortified. Her face was a bloody pulp with no skin at all. He could see the bone edges where her upper teeth fit, and the bare bone at her jaw. Amber looked like she was smiling without a face.

  Beale shook her by the arms. He heard a cat meow. But when he looked for the cat, nothing was there. He stared hard at Amber again. Either she was dead or he was dreaming. For only a moment, he didn’t know which.

  The car was still running. Amber was dead.

  Then the eating started again. Amber’s fingers came off her hands. He could see it happening. The flesh of her fingers disappeared until her hands were only bones. Her neck ripped open, and the flesh curled away. Beale let go of her and backed away from the car. He sat down hard on his rear end, his eyes staring wide open at the 1956 Bel Air.