Cat's Eye

by William W. Johnstone

  “Couldn’t do it, could you?” the minister asked.

  “No,” Carl admitted, knowing instantly what the man meant, and sensing that he and the priest had the same thought in mind. “Could you? Either of you?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “We were starting to work the block over from this one,” Chuck told him. “That’s when we saw Miss Conners’s car; we knew you were driving it.”

  “Does Jim know you’re out?”

  “We left him a note,” Speed said. “Dear God in Heaven, I know what we had in mind, what you had in mind, is what God wants us to do, but we can’t do it.”

  “Well, I couldn’t either,” Carl said, a sour taste on his tongue. “I thought I’d psyched myself up to where I could. So much for that.”

  “The leaders;” Chuck said.

  “What about them?” Speed asked.

  “What would happen if the leaders were . . . disposed of?”

  “The movement here in town would probably fall apart,” Carl said. “But that’s just a guess. The real leaders are in the woods out by Dee’s house. But there is no way of getting to them. The woods somehow disorient you, confuse you. We’d be dead meat before we got five hundred yards inside the timber. Believe me, I’ve been in those woods and don’t care to go again.”

  “You have a plan to destroy this Anya and Pet?” Pastor Speed asked.

  “Yes. I don’t know how good it is, but it’s a plan. First we have to neutralize the town, take away the base of support.”

  “Which brings us back to square one,” Chuck said.

  “Yes. We can’t arrest them all. We don’t have the people to do that and no place to keep them even if we could. Whatever we do, we’re going to have to make up our minds about it and get going. I—”

  “Hey, Preacher!” a woman called from the next house up the line. “You want some pussy?”

  Pastor Speed flushed and raised his rifle, the muzzle lifting in her direction.

  “You can’t kill someone just for asking you a question, Chris,” Chuck said.

  “She’s evil.” The pastor pushed the words past tight lips. “She reeks of it.”

  The woman opened her robe. She was naked under it. “You don’t want some ta-ta, Preacher, I got another hole.”

  Speed turned his eyes from her.

  She laughed at him and began making the crudest of suggestions.

  “I have to keep believing that she doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Chris whispered.

  “She knows,” Chuck told him. “She’s a lost soul. She’s given her heart to Satan. But I still can’t shoot her until she makes some hostile move toward us.”

  “Maybe that’s the way to go,” Carl suggested. “We ignore them and make them come to us. Time is on our side in this game. They’ve got to make a move and make it fast. The next twenty-four hours ought to do it. Come on. Let’s go check out the clinic.”

  At the clinic the cats were gone. But the shit they’d left behind them covered the roof and the grounds, the odor lingering in the air.

  “Jim and his bunch held last night,” Doctor Bartlett told them. “But Mayor Purdy, Rodale, and their wives are dead. The house was torched.”

  “Man,” Daly said. “I thought the night would never end. Those cats just about got the best of me.”

  The men inspected the clinic. Every piece of wood had savage claw marks deeply imbedded. Shingles had been clawed off the roof in the cats’ frenzy for blood.

  “Among other things that puzzle me about this entire mess,” Tolson said, “I’d like to know where the cats went after they left here.”

  “Not far,” Carl said, his words offering no soothing balm for badly bruised nerves. “You can bet that most of them are watching us right now. So be careful.”

  “You’re just a bundle of joy in the mornings, aren’t you?” Daly said, only half kidding.

  “Have any of you seen any sign of Janet?” Doctor Bartlett asked.

  Carl shook his head. “No. The other side probably has her. Those Devil babies are important to their movement. They’re probably keeping her under heavy guard. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in the Conners Woods.”

  “She told me she would never have that baby,” Doctor Jenkins said. “She said that since it meant her death either way, she would not be responsible for birthing a child of the Devil.”

  “I’m sure she meant it.”

  A savage yowling and hissing wheeled the men around. Across the street, two very large groups of cats had appeared and were locked in death battles.

  More cats and dogs were running up the street, to do battle with those cats that were coming out of hiding from under homes and out of trees.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Daly said, awe in his voice as he watched the death struggle.

  “What does it mean,” Doctor Loring said.

  “It means the battle is on,” Carl said. “The same thing happened in Ruger. Good versus evil even in the animal kingdom.”

  The cats and dogs that had returned to town appeared to be winning the savage struggle. Many of the cats that for whatever reason had become pawns of the Devil were lying bloody and dead or dying in the street and on the lawns. Many others were retreating, with the dogs and cats that had just reappeared from out in the country hard after them, catching them and killing swiftly.

  “I feel like cheering,” Pastor Speed said. “Hooray!” he yelled. Others started applauding the victorious animals locked in deadly combat across the street.

  Carl checked his 9-mm and stuck it back in leather. “Cheer later,” he said, checking the .380 he carried in his back pocket. “Right now, let’s go to work.”

  Daly checked his .357. “We start eliminating the coven leaders?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Carl told him.

  “You want to explain that?” Chuck asked.

  “We try to take as many people alive as we can. We kill only if attacked.” He pointed to the bloody street and yards, littered with the bodies of cats. “That tells me the animals have sensed something that we can’t: The end is not far off. We may be wasting our time in trying to help the coven members; we probably are. But something just occurred to me: Where are the young kids? The subteens? Has anyone seen any young kids?”

  The men looked at each other. Pastor Speed was the first to speak. “Why . . . no, I haven’t seen a one.”

  “Dear God,” Chuck said. “You don’t suppose they killed them?”

  Carl shook his head. “No. But they either hid them or got them out of town. I’ll bet they hid them.”

  “I cannot and will not harm a child,” Pastor Speed said flatly.

  “Nor can I,” Carl agreed. “But we can find them and try to help them. Even though, as I’ve said, it’s usually a waste of them.”

  “Deprogramming?” Daly asked.

  “Yes. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn’t. Not when the Devil’s had a hand in shaping young minds.”

  “Reshaping,” Pastor Speed corrected. “A child is born without sin.”

  “If we find the kids, will they attack us?” Tolson asked.

  “Yes. With anything they can get their hands on. So be careful with them. Don’t trust them. They’ll con you every step of the way”

  “A part of me doesn’t want to see this,” Chuck said.

  “I do know the feeling,” Carl told him. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 35

  Janet had freed her hands and untied the ropes around her ankles before she was spotted by a guard. He screamed a warning as she was getting to her feet. She had made up her mind what she was going to do and had spent the past hour psyching herself up to take her own life.

  “I love you, Gary,” she said, running across the clearing. “And I love you, Lord.”

  Hands grabbed for her. She twisted away, running awkwardly because of her rapidly growing Devil’s pregnancy.

  Pet and Anya had awakened slowly from a deep sleep; they still were far from at
taining full strength. They could but watch in dread as the girl ran toward a branch growing straight out from the trunk of a tree. It was almost dead and totally leafless. And waist high.

  “Stop her!” Anya screamed, knowing then what Janet had in mind. The charred and blood-leaking devil cat beside her ran awkwardly toward the teenager. But it was no contest.

  “Praise God in the highest!” Janet screamed, and leaped for the branch.

  The branch struck her in the stomach and the force of her jump rammed the branch deep into her belly and tore its way out her back, the tip of the branch leaking her blood. Janet died with her arms around the small tree. She shivered in death as the legs of the demon child within her sprang out of her torn womb and the hideous head ripped through the flesh of her branch-pierced belly.

  The branch had torn through the black heart of the Devil’s own child.

  It was dead.

  Savage, violent, and spiteful lightning lanced across the blue of the sky. But this time, a hard clap of thunder echoed over the mountains.

  Pet and Anya and the others, of this earth and the sulfuric world beyond, looked up toward the sky, fear in their eyes. Pet hissed and yowled and arched her back while Anya cursed in a language dead for thousands of years. The Old Ones ran around the clearing, snarling and snapping their great jaws in fear.

  The born-of-this-earth coven members, those privileged few from Butler who’d been admitted into the inner circle of the darkest and most evil of Satan’s followers, sensed the fear of the others and reacted in kind. They moaned and called out for the Prince of Filth to help them in their fight against the small band of Christians.

  Lightning again pockmarked the blue of the sky with streaks of red and orange and yellow. But with each wicked slash of lightning, thunder boomed in a seemingly never-ending barrage, overriding Satan’s furious attack with God’s invisible artillery barrage.

  The lightning ceased, but the thunder continued unabated, rolling and crashing and shaking the timber known as Conners Woods.

  The charred and blood-leaking devil child and her shapechanger other-being friend and companion in evil, the cat, Pet, cursed and yowled and hissed and fought to contain their fear.

  The thunder abruptly came to a halt. God’s message had been heard and understood, as had the wicked words from the dark side. God had overruled the voice from the netherworld.

  Pet and Anya and the others were alone in this fight. Sensing another defeat, the king of the burning world of sinners had bowed out.

  Pet and Anya locked gazes, messages passing between them. If anything was to be salvaged from this debacle, one thing was certain: Carl Garrett had to be destroyed, and if Anya and Pet had to finally and forever die, condemned to the stinking world of burning darkness and pain in order for that to be accomplished... then so be it.

  * * *

  Edgar Conners knew from the outset he would lose the argument, but he gave it his best shot. Now his daughter was riding in the back seat with him, heading toward town, Terrell driving and Gabe riding shotgun. Three other men were in the company’s pickup truck that Carl had used to transport material from the city, and four others were in a car borrowed from one of the teenagers. All were heavily armed with automatic weapons and semi-automatic pistols. The small caravan pulled up at the clinic just as Carl and the others were preparing to leave.

  Dee ran to Carl and threw her arms around him, kissing him while her father looked on, approval in his eyes.

  “You shouldn’t have come into town,” Carl told her. “It’s far too dangerous.”

  “You mean you’re not glad to see me?” There was a twinkle in the young woman’s eyes.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She stepped back and inspected his face. He had not shaved in two days and the stubble of beard made him look ruggedly handsome. She told him so, and laughed when he flushed at the compliment.

  “There will be lots of time for smooching later,” Edgar said, walking up, smiling at the look his daughter gave him. “Right now, let’s talk about some plan of action to wrap up this mess.” He looked at Dee. “Now I’m going to give you an order and I expect you to obey it. You stay here at the clinic. I’ll go with Carl and the others.”

  His daughter told him what he could do with his order—very bluntly.

  Terrell and Gabe both tried to hide their smiles. Pastor Speed looked shocked at the words coming out of the young woman’s mouth.

  “Let’s clear a two-block area around the high school,” Carl suggested. “That’ll give Jim and the others some breathing room and we can use the building as a command center and holding facility for the kids.”

  “Kids?” Edgar said. “What kids are we talking about here?”

  “The children of the adult coven members,” Carl told him. “And it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  * * *

  They found two dozen kids in the basement of a house, being guarded by the obscene and evil shape of an Old One.

  The children were pulled and dragged kicking and screaming and cursing from the house while the Old One was literally shot to bloody stinking pulp, which stopped the howling and snarling creature while the kids were being pulled away. Then Carl set the house on fire with Molotov cocktails and watched it burn down around what was left of the ancient evil.

  “That thing must have taken a hundred rounds,” Terrell said. “And it never went down. Jesus Christ! I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “I have,” Carl said grimly. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of work to do and it’s got to be done during the day. Tonight will be the finale. They’ll throw everything they’ve got at us as soon as the sun goes down. We’re winning now, and Anya and Pet know it.” He looked away, his eyes distant. “Janet is dead. She killed both herself and the demon baby.”

  “How do you know that?” Dee asked.

  Carl just shrugged and walked toward the Jag.

  “That young man spooks the hell out of me,” Daly admitted.

  Pastor Speed smiled. “Good. Let’s hope he can do the same for the town.”

  * * *

  The teams went from house to house, clearing a two-block area in all directions around the high school. Some of the coven members gave up, surrendering without a fight. But those types were few. Most of them, when the word went out about what was happening, chose to flee into the country, leaving behind them what they had spent a lifetime working for.

  “Satan has them in a very powerful grip,” Father Vincent said. “Had I not witnessed this with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.”

  “Nor I,” Pastor Speed said. “I can tell you all that from this point on, my sermons will be undergoing a drastic change in content.”

  “I haven’t been inside a church in twenty years,” Keller, one of the quartet of men Conners first sent in undercover, admitted. “Yet I haven’t felt any desire at all to worship the Devil. And I’ve certainly been in town long enough to get infected, or whatever the hell has happened to these people.”

  “I don’t think it happens overnight,” Tolson said. “It’s got to be a gradual change in a person. And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I really want to know how it happens.”

  Tolson turned just as a rifle cracked. The highway patrolman sat down on the grass, a hole in the center of his forehead.

  “Praise Satan!” a young man yelled, appearing on a front porch.

  Daly shot him in the belly, knocking him back against the house. As he struggled to lift his rifle, Daly shot him again. He fell off the porch and lay still.

  “Then you go praise the son of a bitch,” Daly muttered. “And take our damn stupid governor with you.”

  The lieutenant of Virginia Highway Patrol looked down at the man who had been his partner for years and shook his head.

  Pastor Speed knelt down and closed Tolson’s eyes as Chuck quietly prayed.

  Daly punched out the empty brass and reloaded his. 357. “I’m losing patience,” he said. “I’m ti
red of this mess and these godless, murderous bastards and bitches.” He looked at Jim Hunt. “No more fucking around, Jim. No more playing patty-cake and giving these people all the breaks the lawyers say the Constitution guarantees them. We don’t have any lawyers and judges looking over our shoulders. As far as I’m concerned, it’s open season on people who spit in the face of decency and love of God. They want to go to Hell? Fine with me. Let’s send them there.” He walked to his car, slung a bandolier of shotgun shells over his shoulder, picked up a twelve-gauge riot gun, and began walking toward the next block.

  Pastor Speed hesitated for just a second, then started walking after the man. Chuck followed, then Mike, and finally Jim Hunt and Max Bancroft.

  Carl turned to Dee. “Go back to the house, Dee. We’ll have the town cleaned out by dusk. I’ll be out there shortly after dark. Tomorrow we take the woods.”

  She lifted her eyes and glared at him. “Is that an order?”

  “That’s an order.”

  Edgar smiled and waited to see who would blink first in this battle of wills. He had never known his daughter to back down from anybody or anything. And he would have bet a hundred dollars that Dee would tell Carl to go take a flying leap.

  Terrell and Gabe were covering Tolson’s body with a blanket, pretending to be unaware of the silent battle of wills between the boss’s daughter and the young man who appeared to have nerves made of steel cable.

  Suddenly, in the midst of death and terror, in the middle of Satan’s playing field, love blossomed into a full flower.

  “However,” Carl said, a smile creasing his lips, “I could make that a suggestion.”

  “I’m always open to suggestion,” Dee replied, then kissed him. “I’ll see you at dusk.” She turned and walked to a car, three of her father’s security men going with her.

  Edgar winked at Carl. “You’re learning, boy.”

  Two booming blasts from Daly’s shotgun shattered the moment.

  Carl clicked off the safety of his M-16 and walked toward the sounds.