The Big Miaouw

by Adam Skye

  I saw him slicin’ one guy open before I had my own to do — a rat jumpin’ at my face, teeth first. I ducked, he went over my back, an’ I went for the guy comin’ up behind him, slashed him across his spine, leavin’ him useless, turned back to the first, punched a claw into his belly an’ ripped upwards.

  I felt rats jump on my back an’ I span, slashed one, had to roll to shake another off my back. I rolled an’ crushed him, came up, pinned the rat, bit his head.

  Rats kept comin’. I felt teeth bitin’ into me, useless along my body because the fur was thick, but occasionally I’d feel real pain from a bite to the back of my legs. I knew the rats were countin’ on numbers, lookin’ to weaken us gradually, takin’ a little piece at a time, notchin’ up bites, knowin’ that it all added up. There were bodies all over. Blood ran in the gulleys between the tiles, an’ the terrace floor was black and shiny. Some wheezin’, bleedin’, dyin’ rats scratched at the tiles tryin’ to crawl away, but always, more came, snappin’ at our eyes, bitin’ at our ankles an’ throats, leapin’ on us, weighin’ us down. Stabbin’, tearin’, pinnin’, slashin’, bitin’, rippin’, jumpin’, dodgin’, flippin’ an’ rollin’, swipin’ rats from each other’s backs, Sam an’ I fought, tryna get to Marcus an’ the MOONrats huddled by the hole in the wall. Max was tryna get things movin’ — pointin’, pushin’ an’ slappin’, shoutin’, “Go!” an’ “Get in the hole!” to Marcus an’ the MOONrats. Marcus was laughin’.

  “An’ miss this? Get outta here!”

  An’ still rats came at us, leavin’ the protective wall an’ runnin’ at us, keepin’ us away from the hole. I slashed an’ pounced, swiped at the rats comin’ at us unceasingly. I had blood in my eyes, in my mouth, all over my fur. I heard Marcus sneer.

  “Dah. These two chumps are dead. Let’s go.”

  I watched him clamber over the rat-pile to stand in plain view, his soldiers between him an’ us, a single claw silently raised in our directions.

  Sai gaped at the pitched battle at the top of the terrace, barely registering Max’s slaps and shouts. Sai heard Max order another wave of rats forward, saw them break away and sprint towards the two cats, looking, this time, as if they would be enough to swamp them. As the rats neared they jumped, landing on back and flank, some grabbing at legs, hanging on to immobilise the terrible claws on the end. The cats shook, thrashed, but the rats held on with tooth and claw, weighing the cats down. Sai saw the grey, flat-faced cat staggering under a covering of rats, saw him lurching and, finally, falling over.

  He heard Marcus, still viewing the battle, saying admiringly, “Wait a minute... Maaaax, I’m gonna make you a General.”

  Then there was an explosion, a roaring,

  RRRR-UUUUFFFF!

  A window sprayed onto the terrace, shattered glass spinning and glinting, showering MOON, tinkling on the ground, crystal musical notes. A huge, shaggy, snarling dog hurtled through the blizzard of glass and landed on the terrace, then rushed at the rats tearing at the prone cat. Then Sai felt the building shake as a second dog, a monster of muscle, landed ahead of him and tore into scampering rats with hideous, terrier-like skill, heading them off when they ran for the hole in the wall.

  The guards ran in any and all directions, looking for an escape that Sai knew did not exist. Max didn’t move — he watched the battle turn against him with stoic calm. Marcus’s eyes darted this way and that, seeking a bolthole. Sai looked at the wolf-like dog: stooping, biting, tossing dead rats aside, peeling away the outer layer to the body beneath, the ginger cat thrashing to get out from under, shouting, “Sam! Sam!”

  Schaeffer landed and sprinted to where he could see a ginger tail poking out of a coat of rats. Behind him he heard Rott landing, the first crunch and the wet noise of a rat bursting. He tore up to the edge of the terrace and bit into the rats gnawing at Frr, plucked them off dead, threw them aside, carried on ‘til he heard Frr gasp, “Sam! Sam!”

  Schaeffer barked, “Rott!”

  He ran to cover the escape hole as the big cop lumbered over to the mound of rats. Schaeffer saw Frr laying into the rats swarming over... who? Saw him stand aside for Rott. Rott’s bite was a one-shot stop every time: rats splattered when he bit, flew when he tossed them aside, landed dead, ripped and saggy. Rott chomped and snapped, tearing off rats until a blood-stained grey cat emerged from beneath the covering of brown fur. The cat twitched, staggered upright and started lashing out blind at rats that weren’t there, then fell.

  Rats fled in blind, squealing panic. They ran into Rott, or Schaeffer, or Frr, and died against walls, pinned to the floor, or bitten near in half.

  Schaeffer barked, “POLICE! Give yourselves up NOW!”

  And they did it.

  “In the centre! In the light!” ordered Schaeffer.

  They headed for the circle of fat rats. Schaeffer scanned and sniffed the MOONrats, made the scared-looking, well-fed (but not that well-fed) one for Marcus... and the fat ones... incredible — sooo fat... from the moon. Easy to believe.

  Schaeffer looked at Frr, streaked with blood, eyes glazed, mouth agape. Frr was trying to speak, shaking his head, trying to come out of the daze. Schaeffer heard a gasp, leaned in closer.

  Frr said, “Four of them... said ‘no.’”

  Schaeffer turned and looked at the eight very fat rats cowering in the corner.

  For a while it felt like I couldn’t’ve killed another rat to save the world. I was giddy, sick with killing, gorged on blood an’ I wanted to throw up. My head was spinnin’ an’ my eyes kept playin’ tricks on me: I saw dead rats risin’ up an’ comin’ back for more.

  Sam was in bad shape. Bites all over his body, his ears nibbled away, one of his eyelids punctured an’ bleedin’, swellin’ up an’ half-blindin’ him. He lay in a corner too fragged even to lick his wounds.

  Schaeffer’s big friend, square an’ heavy like an apartment block, stood guard over the fat rats, Marcus, Max an’ whatever guards had managed to give themselves up.

  I looked around: dead rats everywhere. The floor was slick, stank.

  I watched Schaeffer interrogatin’ Marcus, his big-bark bad-cop routine gettin’ nowhere because Marcus knew Schaeffer wouldn’t bite if he didn’t get answers.

  Questions: Who voted yes? Who killed the canary?

  Marcus, straight-faced, said he didn’t know. Schaeffer couldn’t, or wouldn’t, force it, just kept repeatin’ the questions ‘til all I heard in my head was “WHO KILLED THE CANARY?”

  My head was spinnin’. I felt sick. More head tricks. I heard canary song an’ the rage I’d thought I’d burned off sparked up...

  I walked over to Schaeffer, burned-out calm.

  “Excuse me, officer...”

  I nudged past him, rammed a paw under Marcus, flipped him onto his back an’ pinned him down.

  “Those who voted yes. Who killed the canary. NOW!” I leaned in close, whispered, “Or I’m gonna eat your balls.”

  And Marcus spilled, pointin’ and squealin’... Marcus ratted everybody out.

  “Him! Him! Him! And her! And Max killed the canary! Max did! Max did!”

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  I looked over at Max.

  “That true?”

  “Yes.”

  His voice was totally flat.

  “Why?”

  “Orders.”

  “Whose?”

  No squeal. Max shrugged. I understood, Whose do you think?

  I looked down at Marcus, squirmin’ an’ grinnin’ uneasily. I smiled at him.

  He smiled back, very twitchy.

  “Is that true?”

  “Erm...”

  “I see,” I said, an’ bit his balls off.

  The terrace flinched, then groaned when I spat them out. All there was from Marcus was a thin gasp. His eyes were in the top of his head. He was totally frozen, doubled-over, claws clutched over his wound. I took him by the scruff in my jaws, not gently. I lifted him up an’ heard him cry weakly. I carried him to the edge
of the balcony, listenin’ to his agonised whimpers. Another weak cry of pain came when I jumped up onto the ledge, bangin’ him against the bricks. Marcus’ mouth was open to scream, but his dyin’ was almost soundless... just the hiss of the air goin’ out of him, slow.

  Thinkin’ of the canary, I held him over the drop then let him fall. I think he was maybe too far gone by then to know. Maybe.

  I stood on the edge of the balcony, dizzy, one thing left to do.

  I filled my lungs an’ put it out on The Big Miaouw.

  “DEAD RAT IN THE PLAZA!”

  And then I turned back for Sam.

  The sled rumbled through the darkness, making its strange music in the echoing duct. Its passengers, Mir, Max and Sai, were silent.

  Sai tried to make sense of what he had lived through and witnessed over the past three days, but his mind was still reeling. The three days shrank to two terrible minutes where he had watched death rage in front of him, then stop before it touched him: a death that had averted the end of... warm life.

  In shock, details flashed through his mind, impressions not wholly understood.

  Dog justice — police dog justice — a blind eye turned to summary execution.

  Cat justice — blood-spattered floor and walls — perhaps ninety bodies.

  Dog justice — “Not everybody, Frr. Only the guilty.”

  Cat justice — Marcus’s life for the canary’s. Kaver’s, Alvix’s and Domus’s for Sam.

  MOON — shivering witnesses.

  Cat justice — Max, spared.

  The bodyguards who gave themselves up — spared.

  Sai, Mir, Athena and Libo — spared.

  Luxor — spared.

  “Mir, Max,” Sai suddenly asked, “how is it that we’re still alive?”

  But the question fell away behind them in the tunnel: neither answered.

  How long did I watch my death for? wondered Sai. Why did it stop, and not touch me? What held the cat back? Luxor’s acquittal — an act of mercy amid merciless retribution.

  An image of the cat flashed in Sai’s mind: drying blood stiffening his fur, standing on the balcony, screeching into the plaza. The look of completion and contentment turning to horror when the cat jumped back down onto the terrace and tried to rouse his companion... closing his eyes to block out the awful truth of the other’s death. Opening them again and facing MOON...

  Unspoken — the cat’s price.

  Domus: pleading — silenced.

  Alvix: dour dignity — no pleading, no begging. No complaint as the cat bit through his head.

  Less calm, Kaver — not too young to die, evidently.

  The sled rolled on, the rat-team pacing themselves for the long haul. Max had ordered them to make for the port. Sai was going with Mir, wherever that was.

  The sled trundled on, ultimate destination unknown.

  Louie reckoned he was finally going to fill out. He was eating well, sleeping deep and getting strong climbing. There was even a chance he could get fat, if he worked at it.

  The ship was full of cheese. It was always night-time in the cargo holds and there was no ship’s cat. Engines hummed to you all day and all night, and the floor rolled with the ocean, rocking you to sleep when your stomach was full. There were other rats — blacks and browns of every shade and size — but nobody cared what colour you were because there were holds full of food. If it ever started to run short, reckoned Louie, things might be different: rats might not be so nice to each other. But there wasn’t much danger of that.

  “Biggest hill of cheese this side of the moon,” laughed the old-timers, and raised crumbs in each other’s direction, toasting the good times. Ship-jumpers all, each had a tale of dry-land woe and of starving in holds full of coal or steel before finding their floating rat heaven. Sea-farers’ tales was what you got instead of music. Sometimes someone shooting the breeze would mention MOONrats. Louie’d shiver, keep his mouth shut.

  He’d go up on deck, whenever the dark of the holds became the dark of the sewer, to breathe in the sea air and feel the sun’s warmth. He’d peer up, squinting at the wheeling gulls, looking for a pigeon. He missed Sax bad. Nights on deck he’d look up at the stars in the sky and hope to see the same configurations that hung out over the big city rooftops where he and Sax used to sing and dance. But the sky was different, like everything else... And maybe the big city didn’t exist anymore, anyway.

  Gazing across the vast sea-night, Louie’d get an ache worse than any he’d felt, even the one in his claws when he crossed the tunnel-arch climbing out of the sewer, death sucking hard from beneath. Fear would say: “Think Nice Thoughts!” and Louie couldn’t find any. You can take the guy outta the sewer, but...

  It still got bad, remembering, sometimes. That was when the Voice would come, rare these days now that there was so little to fear: Maybe nothing happened, Louie. That cop dog... he was smart... And behind the Voice was a gust of hot dog breath, and it would warm Louie to his heart.

  In his head he’d hear music, see the emerald greens shimmering over the golden tonsils of the world’s best friend and singer:

  A fur-raising shiver would slide down his spine like a long, warm wave.

  Louie’d dance on the deck with tears in his eyes.

  Procedure: turn yourself in — police dog thinking.

  Instinct: save your ass — street cat thinking.

  Going down.

  The awful scene behind him, Schaeffer walked slowly down the stairs. Rott lumped unsteadily at his side at the same pace. His ears were droopy. No-one spoke. Frr moved in silence, but Schaeffer could smell him beneath the sharp stink of rat blood. Plenty of that in his own fur too.

  Going down.

  Outside — the plaza. Schaeffer’d been away for two days, figured the square buried under dogshit by now.

  I used to be a poop-policer, he thought. Now I’m a cop. Correction: ex-cop. Any way the stick lands — shit — splat!

  Think!

  Options: two — both ugly. Report to Captain Dobie and have your ass chewed off, or live in the street. Full Report too incredible to believe: routine murder follow-up, leading to... AWOL, association/partnership with known felon, intimidation, abuse of rank, exhorting fellow officer to dereliction of duty, B&E... More, line-of-duty killing for the first time — rat blood — real police work — nasty taste in mouth.

  Averted: what? “Attempted Metrocide”?

  UNBELIEVABLE.

  Sole corroboration: Bone.

  UNBELIEVABLE.

  Scrap to toss to Cpt Dobie: Marcus dead, but figure replaced.

  “Well done, Schaeffer.”

  UNBELIEVABLE.

  Dog-house.

  Believable.

  Foot of the stairs.

  Think!

  Blood-stained... Rott my partner... tell him anything. Fatso in the plaza... street cat thinking... YES!

  They came to the last flight, claws ticking, no-one speaking. When they reached the foyer, the door opened from outside: a two-legs, drunk, staggering and staring.

  The cops and the cat filed past. The guy got out of the way, pronto.

  Schaeffer stepped outside, breathed deep, sat down, looked over the plaza at the teeming crowd drinking in the summer late, late into the night. Dogs, action, night-pigeons, a prowling cat, a prowling police unit...

  Schaeffer bent down low to lick, felt his head clearing with the soothing strokes of his warm wet tongue.

  Here comes Fatso.

  “Rott!”

  “Duh. Yeah?”

  “Two things. One: you found me in an alley.”

  One ear twitched, wobbled, and poked up.

  “Two... that’s all.”

  Boing! went the other.

  Cop car crawling closer...

  Schaeffer looked round: Frr was gone. Schaeffer got up, started limping towards the car, a three-legged fakeass hobble with matching whine. The unit turned the corner. Schaeffer got in its path, dip-beams either side of him. The unit stopped. The doo
r popped. Fatso clambered out, soppy smile on his sweaty face. Schaeffer whimpered, limped. Fatso crouched, threw his arms around Schaeffer’s neck, big hug... smelly like take-out cartons and ashtrays. Happy noises, rough-friendly fur tousles... This worried expression as he noticed the blood and made a what-the-hell-would-he-know-anyway once-over of Schaeffer’s fake leg trouble. What?! You’re a vet now, asshole? Fatso nose-to-nose with Schaeffer: Fatso’s breath soooo bad, please don’t lick me! Pat pat pat — dog tag tinkles — stroke stroke stroke... get that ugly face... yeuch!

  But get the smile on Fatso’s chops.

  YES!! Faked it.

  Schaeffer could have howled.

  Partner, sucker, let him square things with the department.

  Schaeffer, tasting rat blood and his own asshole in his mouth, dishing happy-dog face-licks to Fatso, slurp slurp.

  Sam’s death was out on The Miaouw by sun-up. I don’t know who found him but by midday the word on the street was that Sam had taken nearly a hundred rats with him. I hadn’t realised just how popular Sam had been or just how big his family was ‘til I heard the singin’ from the terrace: a city of cats wailin’ mournful and choked and screechy-sad: a street-cat requiem.

  Tears runnin’ down my face. Sobbin’.

  All my fault.

  My obsession, me gettin’ caught up in the flow of mad events and draggin’ Sam into it: my curiosity.

  I went down to the port, to where Sam and I had napped and fished only a few days before. I looked beyond the harbour to the wide ocean and the horizon, wishin’ I was a fish, or a bird, so I could just... go. Go. Leave it behind.

  Saving the city: just a dream. Nobody would believe it.

  Schaeffer — back in the plaza now. I go there sometimes just to look at him. I don’t speak, I just look. To know that he’s real, to know IT was real... if I didn’t I’d go mad: ghosts comin’ at me in the alley, rat bites all over them...

  Can’t take the alleys no more. No friends left there.

  There’s no music now: Sax flew the coop. The Combo ain’t no more. Ya hear me? There ain’t no music.