by Sam Haysom
As the cat approached the bowl, Tim had a sudden sense that something bad was about to happen. He couldn’t say just why or what, but in that moment he knew that if he didn’t do something the cat was going to be hurt in some way. He started to get up, then stopped when he felt his dad’s hand clamp down on his shoulder like an iron vice.
Tim froze.
‘No, don’t move,’ his dad whispered. ‘She’s going to come to us.’
Mr Stevens pursed his lips and began to make wet, kissing noises. The sound made Tim feel ill. The tabby had been sniffing around the bowl, but now it looked up and stared at them both with its large orange eyes. Tim willed the cat not to come, he concentrated every ounce of his brain on telling it to turn around and run off down the end of the garden, but it didn’t work. The tabby took two tentative steps towards them, and then stopped again.
Mr Stevens reached into his right pocket and brought out a small brown biscuit in the shape of a fish. He tossed the biscuit onto the grass, a few metres in front of the cat, and then resumed those wet kissing sounds.
Tim’s body was itching all over. He wanted to jump up and scare the cat away, but he knew if he did that his dad would be angry. Maybe he’d tell Tim another bedtime story, an even scarier one than all the others put together.
Or maybe he’d do something worse.
The tabby was only a metre from the patio now. It stopped one more time, staring up at Mr Stevens as if trying to guess what he had planned. Its tail flicked back and forth.
Run away, Tim thought. Run away while you still can.
If someone had asked him, Tim wouldn’t have been able to explain why he felt something bad was going to happen – aside from the stories Tim’s dad told and the fact he sometimes made Tim’s mum cry, Tim had never seen him actually hurt anyone – but the feeling was there nonetheless. That deep, hard knot of dread, nestled far down in the base of his stomach like a lead weight.
Tim watched, frozen, as his father’s hand disappeared into his right coat pocket again. He watched as the hand came out holding another of those little brown fish, pinched carefully between his thumb and forefinger. Mr Stevens lowered his hand down towards the patio, and a second later the tabby took its last two steps forward.
If he hadn’t been so scared, Tim would have been almost in awe of how fast his father moved. As the tabby leaned forward to sniff the biscuit in his right hand, Mr Stevens’ left hand shot down and gripped the cat hard by the scruff of its neck. It yowled and tried to jerk away, but Mr Stevens held it in a tight grip.
‘Steady, steady,’ Mr Stevens muttered. The cat tried to scratch at his right arm but he lifted it up so that its flailing paws couldn’t reach. His mouth had fallen open slightly, and Tim could see thin rows of white teeth in the darkness behind his lips. For a second before it was over, Tim thought he saw something else in his dad’s face. Some subtle change that he couldn’t quite place. It might have been his cheeks, which suddenly seemed to droop down more than they usually did to give his skin a slack, flabby look, or it could have been his eyes. For just a moment his eyes had seemed more yellow than brown. Tim was reminded of how his dad looked when he used to perch at the end of Tim’s bed and tell him stories. How the bedside lamp had made his eyes appear yellow then, too.
Then Mr Stevens was dropping the brown biscuit and fastening his right hand over the cat’s screeching head, and Tim’s attention was drawn to what his hands were doing as they twisted first right and then left, sharply, like he was trying to twist the lid off a particularly stubborn jar, and suddenly the cat’s body went limp and when Tim looked back at his father his face seemed normal again.
It must have been a trick of the light, Tim thought, and then he leaned forward and threw up his morning Cheerios onto the patio.
He stared down at the mess in front of him and felt the blood pounding in his neck, and he knew his dad would be angry with him, his dad hated mess and weakness, but when he worked up the courage to look at his father – who’d laid the cat’s body onto his lap with something close to tenderness – he was surprised to see that Mr Stevens was smiling.
It might just have been the fact that the sun had slipped behind a cloud again, but Tim thought he also looked less tired than he had before.
The cat, Tim thought. He just killed Mr Talbot’s cat.
He felt his stomach clenching and thought he was going to be sick again, but this time he managed to keep it down. His eyes drifted up to the fence at the bottom of the garden, the fence with the little wooden gate, and for a moment he imagined himself getting up and running. Running through that little gate and off down the road, away from his father.
I could just be one of those people that hates their parents, Tim thought. Plenty of people are like that. Sally Graham at school always says she hates her mum, and Charlie Higgingshasn’t seen his dad in years. It happens all the time, it—
The thought cut off as Mr Stevens’ hand touched Tim’s arm. Slowly, Tim looked away from the gate and back at his father.
‘I don’t want you to worry,’ said Mr Stevens. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. The fact is this is just the start of your training, and it’ll get easier the more we practise.’
Tim nodded because he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t want to look at that cat again, so he kept his eyes on his father’s face.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Mr Stevens smiled. ‘I promise.’
Far up in the blue sky above them, the sun peeked out from behind its cloud. The light lit up the garden and reflected off Mr Stevens’ glasses, which flashed like two rectangular discs.
7
Tim thought about the cat as he finished packing up his rucksack. Or rather, he thought about the cats. Had it been seven or eight of them in the end? Or more than that? Tim couldn’t remember. He didn’t really want to remember.
He could picture Mr Talbot’s tabby clear as day because that had been the first, and he remembered the ginger stray they’d cornered in the alleyway between Charlotte Street and Hemingway Street, because that was the first one he’d done without his dad’s help. His father had been smiling after that, really smiling, and despite the fact that Tim had felt like he wanted to throw up the whole time he’d been doing it he actually felt a strange, distant sense of pride when his dad ruffled his hair after they were finished.
He’d never ruffled Tim’s hair before.
‘Your mother doesn’t think you’re like me,’ Mr Stevens had grinned. ‘But I think she may be wrong about that.’
Sometimes after they’d killed a cat they’d leave it where they found it, but every now and then they’d cut bits off it or send the body back to its owner. Mr Stevens said it would throw people off the scent, because they’d link mutilation to a teenager with mental issues. He always made sure they left gaps between training sessions, too, and he drove them out to different parts of Yeovil so they wouldn’t have to go back to the same places twice.
One day in April, Tim had been on his way to school when he’d caught sight of the local paper on a stand outside the newsagent’s. The whole front page had been dedicated to Yeovil’s ‘cat serial killer’. Despite the anxiety he felt when looking at that headline and the heavy sense of dread and guilt that had been following him around for the last few months, Tim couldn’t deny the small pinprick of excitement that went shooting through him. It was a secret he and his dad shared, after all. Just theirs.
Tim couldn’t remember the exact moment when he realised his father wasn’t human. It was certainly a long time before the final cat, when his dad got sick, but looking back he couldn’t pin down a specific moment of realisation. Probably it just came as a gradual understanding, like so many things do at that age.
Either way, whenever his father killed a cat Tim was always careful to watch his face. He soon realised that the subtle change he’d seen in their back garden wasn’t a one-off; in the moments building up to the kill and straight after it Mr Stevens’ face would slacken and droop as though
his skin had started to melt; his mouth would pucker open and his eyes would change from brown to yellow. It only ever lasted 10 seconds at most, though, and then the change would stop. The cat would be dead and his father’s face would look normal again.
Tim used to pray that he’d never, ever see what his father looked like if the change went all the way through. And up until the last cat they killed – just before his father became ill and then disappeared for the next three years – Tim didn’t have to.
Now, standing on the moor next to his rucksack in the wind and the light drizzle, Tim could see it all too clearly in his mind. His father’s face drooping down and the mouth hanging open wider and wider; his yellow eyes lengthening and squeezing out at the sides, like the magnified eyes of some nightmare insect; his jaw stretching open to an impossible size, opening on a dark void ringed by multiple rows of tiny white teeth–
‘He’s not there!’
Tim was snapped out of his unpleasant daydream by the sound of a voice. Seconds later Matt and Tramper came bursting back into the clearing, their faces red and their eyes wide. James bent down and put his hands on his knees, breathing heavily, but Matt jogged over to Mr Stevens, who was busy adjusting the straps of his rucksack.
‘He’s not there,’ Matt panted. He stopped a few feet away from Tim’s dad and pulled in a deep breath.
‘What do you mean he’s not there?’ Mr Stevens’ face was a mask of surprised concern.
‘We checked all down the path, both sides, and we were shouting his name. It’s just like with Gary, he’s gone, he’s fucking disappeared.’
Tim flinched and glanced at his father, but Mr Stevens was frowning and looking at his watch. ‘There’s a storm due to come in later,’ he muttered. He glanced from Matt to James, then back to Matt again. ‘Are you sure you checked properly? He can’t just have vanished, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Yes, we jogged down the path for 10 minutes and checked every side track that led to the river. We were shouting his name the whole time.’
James sat down heavily at the edge of the clearing and let out a shaky breath. Tim saw without much surprise that he’d started crying.
Mr Stevens frowned and ran a hand through his hair. He looked at his watch, then stooped to rummage in his rucksack. He brought out his map of Rutmoor in its plastic pouch, adjusted his glasses, then stooped to look at it.
Everyone watched him without saying anything.
After a minute or so, Mr Stevens frowned and looked at Matt. ‘Okay, this is serious now boys. Unless this is all some clever joke you’re all playing – and I really, really hope it isn’t – then we have to start moving now so we can get some help. We’ve got two members of our party missing out on the moor somewhere and a storm is due to hit tonight. If we set off right now, we should be able to reach Creek Lane by nightfall. I’ve been there before and it’s possible to get a phone signal, so I can call 999. Right, get your packs on and we’ll move out.’
‘Wait a second,’ said Matt. ‘What about Tom? He wandered off down that path five minutes ago and you’re saying we should keep going without him?’
Mr Stevens paused, and for a second Tim thought he was going to do it right then and there. But when he reached out a hand towards Matt seconds later, it was only to place it on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Look, Matthew, I understand you want to help your friend,’ he said. ‘But you just told me yourself you’ve run for 10 minutes down that path shouting his name, and with no luck. Isn’t that right?’
‘I suppose, but maybe we didn’t go far enough along, or…’
‘If Tom’s got himself lost or he’s fallen down somewhere and hurt himself, we need a team out here looking for him as soon as we can,’ said Mr Stevens. ‘If we can make it to Creek Lane by nightfall we can get people out here tonight looking for him, storm or no storm. But if we go down that path now ourselves, we risk being caught out in the bad weather. And besides, there’s Gary to think of, too.’
Matt paused and bit his lower lip. ‘But when I last looked on the map, Creek Lane was still 10 miles away. Will we really make it there tonight?’
Tim, who had been watching the exchange between Matt and his father with a growing sense of dread, felt a sudden flicker of hope. Matt was clearly sharper than his father had given him credit for. He glanced at Mr Stevens, and saw without much surprise that the old crocodile smile was now covering his father’s face. Mr Stevens lowered his voice but kept his smile fixed.
‘Keep your voice down, please,’ he said. ‘Your friend over there is upset, and I don’t want him to know how far we’ve got to go. The fact is it’s going to be a struggle, you’re right, but if we make good time we will be able to get there. And it’s the best chance we’ve got of finding your friends.’ Mr Stevens paused. ‘You wouldn’t want to be responsible if we were to waste time looking here, find nothing and then get ourselves caught in the storm with no way of getting help until tomorrow, would you?’
Matt didn’t say anything for a while. He was staring down at his feet, biting his lip, and for a moment Tim thought he might be getting ready to disagree with Mr Stevens. He felt another brief flare of hope, which immediately guttered out when Matt looked up and shook his head.
‘Okay, let’s get moving,’ Matt mumbled.
Mr Stevens nodded, stuffed the map in his bag, and hoisted the pack onto his back. Matt went over to James and helped the boy up to his feet. James wiped his eyes and his nose as Matt whispered something to him, and then they turned and watched as Mr Stevens looked at his watch again.
‘Right, this way boys,’ he said. ‘Matthew, if you lead the way down this path here and you follow him, James, then Timothy and I will bring up the rear.’ He paused and looked at them all. ‘We’ll get help and get everyone back safely, I promise.’
Matt took James by the arm and led him down the path that Mr Stevens was pointing to, out of the clearing. As they disappeared around the corner, Mr Stevens turned and winked at his son.
Tim nodded.
As his father turned and walked ahead of him out of the clearing, Tim thought once more about the rock by the river.
2015
Friday, Part One
When the horn beeps outside his house on Friday morning, he’s already prepared. He says goodbye to his mum, hoists his rucksack onto his back, and carries his other bag – the important bag – over his shoulder.
Then he steps out the front door.
It’s a clear, warm day, and he’s glad he’s only wearing his Helly Hansen base layer. He walks down the garden path and sees the familiar Peugeot 206, idling on the gravel pull-in just outside his front gate.
He raises his hand and waves at the muscular young man sat hunched behind the wheel. He still finds it hard to believe, sometimes, that the James Tramper of 2015 is the same James Tramper as the chubby, nervous boy that used to get picked on by Gary back in secondary school. 2015 Tramper is about six foot one, broad shouldered, and with arms thick from seven years of lifting weights in the gym. James says he got into it at uni – joined the gym with his housemates in Freshers’ Week on a whim, and hasn’t been a week without going since. Looking at him now, you can believe it.
As he approaches the car the passenger window rolls down.
‘Hey Matt,’ says Tramper.
Only now it’s not Tramper or Trumper or Slim Jim, or any of the other stupid nicknames he had back at school. Now the guys at his office call him Trample. They say it with grins on their faces as they go to high five him, and James grins right back.
What a difference 13 years can make, Matt thinks, and he almost smiles.
‘Hey, James.’
James pushes a button on the dash and the boot clicks. Matt walks round to the back of the car and opens it up, slinging his rucksack off his back and into the boot next to James’. He keeps his other bag in his hand and walks back to the passenger door.
Once he’s in the seat next to James he leans over and hugs his friend.
Matt laughs. ‘You sound exactly like my mum.’
‘How is she?’ asks James, grinning back.
‘Yeah, she’s okay. Worried about me, as usual. She gave me a proper interrogation when she picked me up yesterday. Am I getting enough sleep, all that stuff.’
‘You do look tired, though.’
‘Been working long hours, I guess.’
For the last four or so years, since he finished a postgraduate course in journalism up in Sheffield, Matt has been in London working for various papers. He started out as a Junior Reporter for a local rag in Croydon, and he’s gradually worked his way up the ladder. For the last couple of years he’s been an investigative reporter for a large national. He likes the job a lot, but the hours aren’t exactly sociable.
Then again, he thinks, glancing down at the brown bag in his lap. It’s not been the job that’s caused you to lose sleep over the last year.
James presses some buttons on the GPS stuck on the windscreen in front of him, then pulls away from Matt’s house.
Matt glances back, and finds himself wondering if he’ll ever see that house again. If he’ll ever see his mum again.
We got lucky once, he thinks, but maybe we won’t be so lucky this time around. He feels a sudden lurch of fear in his stomach which he does his best to ignore.
As the first 10 miles slip past, James and Matt make small talk. They catch up on James’ career at PWC, Matt’s job at the paper, girlfriends, friends, people from school and what they’re doing now, and pretty much anything that saves them from talking about the thing they’re going off to do. The thing they have to do.
After they run out of things to talk about, they sit in silence for a while.