Tooth and Claw

by Stephen Moore

  “OOWWwww . . .” she squealed.

  “For pity sakes, lass. You’ll be giving me deaf. You’re alive aren’t you?” the voice said coldly. “You beat that flood didn’t you? I don’t know how you did it, but you did. So you’re not going to die of a few busts and bruises.”

  “OOWWwww!” Bryna cried out again, deliberately loud. Slowly, she turned her head and tried to focus properly on the cat’s face in front of her. The face stayed obstinately blurred. But there was something familiar about it all the same . . . something about its size that made her remember a garden, and a dead bird, and another strange cat who had called her names. “Grundle—?” she began.

  Tak-ak, tak-ak, the cat laughed. But it was a laugh with a hole in it, not sounding quite right, as if it was really a question. “Grundle, do you say?” the cat laughed again. “That’s some name for a house-cat to be throwing about.” She stopped laughing and licked her front paw thoughtfully. “Well, I’m no Grundle. My name’s Beacon,” and she added as an afterthought, “welcome stranger.”

  Bryna did not answer her. Instead she decided that, pain or no pain, this time she really was going to stand up.

  “Hang on – you’ll be doin’ for yourself.” Beacon threw herself at Bryna, knocking her back to the ground.

  “Miaow!” Bryna tried to turn from under her attacker, to find ears with her teeth.

  “Can’t you see! Can’t you see at all!” Beacon cackled. “There’s a ruddy great river right there in front of you. And if you don’t start behavin’ yourself I’ll bite your ruddy head off. You see if I don’t.” Beacon used the whole weight of her body, in an easy practised way, pinning Bryna where she lay.

  Bryna could only cry and spit, and wait for the blows she was sure would follow. She was right, only they weren’t quite the blows she was expecting; the scuff was soft and damp and . . . and . . . Beacon was washing her. Licking and pawing, cleaning her up, just like a tiny kit. “MiaOW! OW! My eyes! That hurts!” Bryna cried, embarrassed, flustered.

  “Of course it hurts – there’s river and muck and blood and all sorts in them eyes of yours. And if you don’t stop wriggling about I’ll never get them clean.”

  “OW!” Bryna cried again, but she gave in to the indignity of the wash. Her eyes stung worse than ever as the wild cat worked her tongue and closed paw across her face. Piece by piece, fragments of something hard and dry began to break off and were washed away, and slowly, very slowly . . . Bryna began to see again.

  First there was Beacon. She was all pink tongue, and great big glowing green eyes, eyes far too big for her head (even though it was at least twice the size of Bryna’s). The rest of her was far less impressive. Her fur was an indistinct muddy colour, and her body – though heavy and muscular – was squat and ugly. But those eyes . . . she was well-named.

  After Beacon there was the soggy newspaper and the tats of wool. Somehow, during the storm-flood, it had all been caught in a hollow on the wire roots of a broken concrete fence post. It had wrapped itself so successfully around her during the night it had left her trussed up like a parcel, kept her warm, saved her life even. It was all shreds now where Beacon’s claws had cut it to pieces.

  After the paper and the wool and the fence root, there was just the river. To her horror Bryna discovered she really was sitting on the very edges of its southern bank. A steep, new bank, cut out of the land by the flood water. She had been going to walk right off the edge when Beacon had pinned her to the ground. The wild cat too had saved her life.

  Bryna looked down into the waters of the river. It was so calm, so quiet now. Just like it had always been, its water gently tickling the rocks and plants in its shallows as it passed by. Had there really been a great storm, the wild beast of a flood?

  Oh yes . . . It had taken Bryna to its very heart. Dragged her from one bank, and spat her out again upon the other bank. And where the flood beast had risen it had devoured. In front of her a bridge had been bitten clean in two. Where the crumbs of its stonework had fallen, a broken line of rocks – like a giant’s stepping stones – lay across the water. Where there should have been a huge mountain of rubbish, and an old iron drum tipped on its side, there was nothing. Just nothing. In the water the odd leg of a chair, or plastic bag, or cardboard soap box tipped and ducked, bobbed and bopped like so many drowned animals.

  “Treacle!” Bryna suddenly cried out. “Treacle?”

  She would have been in the water this time, if Beacon hadn’t knocked her down again.

  “There’s nowt to find out there lass, nowt but muck and dead bodies,” and then more gently, “and no way back for you either. Least ways, not ’til you get your strength back; you’d not get halfway across those fallen rocks. Come on, let’s see if we can’t get those legs of yours working. There’s some family of mine who’ll just be dying to see that pretty collar of yours . . . And we might find something to eat while we’re about it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Hole in the Town

  Beacon led Bryna away from the swollen river. They moved uphill, always uphill, through a pickle of streets, gardens and back lanes almost identical to those on her own side of the river. Until that is, the buildings suddenly stopped. In front of them opened up a huge, gaping green space. A hole in the town full of . . . full of nothing to Bryna’s eyes. The green was the green of grass. It was as if all the gardens in all the town had been joined together in one place. Here and there a tarmac lane had been allowed to cut across it, following the broken lines of ancient hedgerows. And at its edges there ran an endless barbed-wire fence that seemed to be trying to keep the rest of the town out.

  “What is it?” Bryna gasped, refusing to move another step. “What have they done with all the houses?”

  Beacon began to purr with laughter, but seeing Bryna’s worried face, thought better of it and instead said gently, “That’s fields, lass. You know, just fields. It’s called the Town Moor . . . Come on, it’s dinner-time.” She set off confidently across the open grass. “Come on.”

  Still Bryna refused to move. There were huge four-legged beasts lolloping about the open fields of the Town Moor. Beasts with legs as thick as lampposts, and big patches of black-and-white hair splashed across their massive bodies that seemed to blot out the daylight. Their smell was heavy and stale, but strangely sweet at the same time. And there was another puzzle; these were not wild animals, but not pets either. No, something far more worrying . . . animals resigned to their fate. They all stood, heads in the grass, jaws endlessly chewing, their enormous brown eyes gawping ahead of them without interest. Bryna had smelt their scent often enough on a night wind, but somehow had never quite believed in them. They were the strange giants of old cat’s tales, whose only desire in life was to offer themselves up as food for men. Could there really be such an animal?

  But if the animals weren’t worrying enough, there was something else. Standing further off, there were trees. Not small, sensible, garden-sized trees, standing prettily on their own; but huge great tall trees as big as buildings, and all packed tightly together in one great lump. Like an army. And there was a second barbed-wire fence, wrapped tightly around them, as if it was trying desperately to hold them all together.

  “Oh, come on . . .” Beacon cried out, “cattle don’t bite, and neither do the trees of a wood. At least not the ones I’ve ever met.” As she spoke she circled around and behind Bryna, and gently bullied her forwards across the open fields.

  Beacon kept bullying until she had brought Bryna to the very edges of the trees. There was a series of low buildings hidden in among the outer fringes of the wood. The wild cat encouraged Bryna to take water from a shallow wooden trough that leant against the gable wall of a small stone-built house. “This here’s what’s called a farmyard,” said Beacon. “And that there’s what’s left of the chickens.” She nodded towards some dried-up brownish-black stains that spattered the concrete yard and the wooden gate of the farmhouse garden. “It were the dogs who had the m
ost of them, lass. All in one go too. Greedy beggars.” There were stains, and there was a peculiar smell – the petrified death smell – heavy with panic and fear, and . . . and there were the thinnest of grey shadows strutting backwards and forwards across the yard. Bryna felt her fur stiffen across her back, and strangely, saliva began to drip from the corner of her mouth.

  “Can’t eat ghosts, lass,” said Beacon. Bryna stared at her in wonder.

  “Then, then you can see them too? I knew there were others, but—”

  “Me? Oh no, lass, no, not me. Right down to earth I am. Got myself the sharpest pair of eyes in the whole world, but I only see things that are really there.”

  “Then, then how did you know?”

  “I know a spooked cat when I’m looking at one. And anyway, it doesn’t take much guessing,” she laughed, almost mockingly. “You called out Grundle’s name when we first met, like you knew him. Like you knew him special.”

  “But I, I did. I do – sort of.”

  “Ha! Well, there you are then. He’s been dead these last four seasons. Aye, dead. Long before you were even a twinkle in the eye of some dirty old tom cat. And I should know. Grundle was my mate. Come on, let’s go and pay him a visit.”

  Bryna licked her haunches, frantic with shame and embarrassment. “He was so real. Not just shadows, like these chickens.” She stopped licking, and eyed Beacon suspiciously. “But if you know he’s dead, how are you taking me to see him?”

  Beacon laughed again. “I’ll leave that for you to work out yourself.” She ducked under the wire boundary fence and disappeared in among the trees.

  “Wait, please, I don’t understand . . . And I don’t like all these trees so close together. It’s not natural.” Reluctantly Bryna followed Beacon under the wire, kept her backside firmly in sight, and tried to ignore the way the wood seemed to close in around her, cutting out what little winter light there had been.

  “Grundle,” Beacon mewed softly. “Grundle, here’s a friend to see you.” Bryna’s ears stood up on end. She tried to use her eyes to focus upon the dead, and stanced herself for the shock of pain that would fill her head as the ghost appeared . . . Nothing happened. There were just trees, and the shadows of trees, and something lying, entangled in the grass close to where Beacon now stood. It was a skull, a cat’s skull, large and broad, and still armed with a terrifying pair of fangs that seemed to bite into the ground where it rested. For all that, it was just an empty skull. There were no eerie phantoms. It was nothing more than a cat’s waymark now. Bryna stayed silent, unsure of what was expected of her. Beacon stared at the skull, lost for a moment somewhere in the past, and then she began to laugh, “I expect he’s lost a bit of weight since you last saw him.” Bryna laughed too – only to find their laughter split by the rude cackle of a new voice.

  “Mother – what have you brought back with you this time?” A sleek black cat, a young, full-grown female, stepped out of the shadows of the trees. “This is a house-cat,” she protested loudly, eyeing Bryna with a mixture of contempt and barely disguised ridicule.

  Bryna opened her mouth to argue only to be beaten to it by Beacon’s snarling mew. “Dart, use your eyes. Can’t you see the sorry state she’s in? Or would you have had me leave the lass to die where I found her?” Beacon glared at her daughter.

  Bryna opened her mouth again. Wanted to say she had not been about to die. And that anyway, even if she had been about to die, she could look after herself!

  “But a pussy-cat!” snarled Dart, her fur beginning to bristle, “a pet.” She threw out the last word like she was sicking up a hair-ball. The tails of both cats lifted and twitched, signalling their anger.

  Bryna felt sure she should be joining in, taking a bite out of some cat. She never got the chance, because just then, from out across the open fields behind the trees, there came a long low triumphant howl. Then there were growls and snarls, and the yap-yapping of a sudden pursuit.

  “Dogs,” spat Dart. “Bloody dogs on to a scent.” She instantly forgot her argument with her mother and stared accusingly at Bryna as if it was somehow her fault.

  “They’re out on the hunt again,” said Beacon. “Now that their human nursemaids have disappeared. Now that there is nothing left for them to scavenge from their dirty streets and smelly dustbins.”

  Again Dart looked accusingly at Bryna. “And I know exactly who they’ll be hunting—” Without finishing she took off with a bounding leap, disappearing into the trees at a speed Bryna had never seen in a cat before. Dart, like her mother, was well-named.

  “You must forgive my daughter’s anger. It’s just her way, lass,” Beacon said. “But be certain of this – if there’s trouble heading our way, she’ll be the first to see it off.” Beacon lifted her head and sniffed at the air anxiously. “Come, quickly, follow me, they are getting close.” At that Beacon launched herself up the nearest tree. Its trunk was as straight as a lamppost and had no branches within a cat’s leap, and yet with seeming ease she clawed her way up to its highest branches. There she squatted, the muddy-grey colours of her fur a natural camouflage against the bark.

  “Come on then—”

  Bryna tried to follow. She leapt at the tree. Her claws struck the bark, held there for a moment, only to tear free again, sending her sprawling to the ground.

  The howling of the dogs sounded very near now. Perhaps even within the woods. The heavy dog scent began to foul the air. Bryna jumped at the tree again, made an extra stride, then two, just to fall back again.

  “I can’t climb it. I can’t,” she whined her eyes searching for an easier way of escape. The undergrowth was thin and uneven. There was nowhere to run but up.

  “Have you forgotten all that is your nature? You’re nobody’s pet now, lass,” Beacon hissed. “You’re a cat. A ruddy wild cat. So jump with all your heart. Jump for all your life’s worth.”

  The cries of the dogs filled Bryna’s head. They were so close now she could almost tell one bark from another. Frantic, Bryna turned a full circle, took a run, and leapt. Leapt for her life. Up she went, and this time she did not stop.

  “Lay yourself out flat, lass. Say nowt, watch carefully and stay out of sight,” Beacon said, pulling the frightened cat down across her branch. An instant later Dart burst out of the undergrowth and sped past their tree at full flight. Charging after her, almost on her tail, came a huge Great Dane. Further off, to her left and to her right, there were other dogs – unseen as yet, but their smells unmistakeable – shadowing her mercilessly.

  “We must get down. We must help her,” Bryna hissed.

  Beacon reached out a paw and gripped Bryna by the scruff of the neck. “No, lass. You stay where you are.” She was purring quietly to herself. “It’s Dart who is helping us.”

  And so they lay, and waited. Slowly, agonisingly slowly for Bryna, the sounds of the chase began to fade into the distance. Just as the noises faded away completely Bryna suddenly realised – although she was sure she had never taken her eyes off the ground – there was a cat sitting quietly at the base of the tree. A tom, not big, but a full-grown sleek-furred ginger. He looked strangely familiar, except . . . except she knew she had never seen this cat before. His front left leg was missing from paw to knee, but it was an old injury; his fur had grown neatly over the stump disguising the worst of the wound.

  And then Dart was at the stranger’s side. “Ki-ya, my brother, you are safe.” She licked frantically at his face as if he was her kit, before suddenly remembering Bryna. She turned away from him and scowled up at the treetops. “Here, kitty-kitty,” she said, mockingly. “You can come out now.”

  PART THREE

  Dread Booga looked about its dark pit, awake now. Gently stroked the bones of its long-dead mate, and remembered loneliness.

  Then it felt the pain of hunger biting at its belly, and that other thing; that strange, pulsating force that burned between its fingers. Its injured head made no sense of either, but at least the dead weight of men’s thoughts
was gone.

  Nervously, the creature began to look for a way out of the darkness . . .

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Living with the Wild Cats

  In the days that followed Bryna changed. Beacon and her full-grown offspring, Dart and Ki-ya, fed her on meat that was freshly caught; the young of a strange long-eared animal that was almost as big as she was. “Rabbit,” Beacon called it. “We’ll show you how to catch your own, lass. Once you get your strength back.” And her strength did come back, and old wounds healed. And somehow, the freedom, the fright of life lived hand-to-mouth – even after the dogs, and her time spent with Lodger in the iron drum – seemed to bring her more alive. More alive than she had ever known.

  They lived among the trees, in roughly hollowed-out earth dens, or under ancient fallen tree-trunks; even in the treetops themselves when needs be. Wherever suited, wherever came to hand.

  Each cat spent much of its time alone, coming together only to hunt, to talk, or, more rarely, when there was a need for those still times of quiet companionship.

  Outwardly Dart never softened towards Bryna. Always protective of her younger brother she would mock and skit the house-cat endlessly. But Dart was always the first there when help was needed. Always the first to the hunt, and the first to return triumphant. And always – however grudgingly – always willing to share her kill.

  The three younger cats took to prowling together. Not in a tight pack, but at a distance, keeping only within earshot of each other. Dart would always be off ahead somewhere.

  “I can’t wait around for invalids and useless amateurs. We’d get nothing to eat all night,” she’d moan, giving Bryna filthy looks, before running off on her own through the wood. It was then that Ki-ya would turn his head oddly on its side, and the sound of his deep gentle purr would rise up in his throat, as if he was saying, “Don’t mind her, don’t mind her.”