“Not my son!” Bill yelled, and went to the barn doors. He pulled them open, went inside—
Mary yelled, “Bill, no!”
—and came out with the hoe in his hands.
Mary ran across the gravel. “He’s your son, Bill!”
“He ain’t human!”
“He is your son!”
“Not anymore!”
Bill ran toward Tommy, lifting the hoe, as the boy tried to scamper away and fell, then struggled to get back into the weeds to hide.
“Bill!” Mary screamed.
She heard the screen door bang closed behind her but did not look back at Jim.
Bill screamed, “Go back where you came from!” and brought the hoe down as hard as he could.
Tommy tried to roll out of the way, but the blade caught his left hand and cut it through the middle, leaving the fingers and thumb in one piece on the small stones.
“Go back where you came from!” Bill lifted the hoe again.
Mary screamed and tried to grab him.
Tommy was almost in the weeds, but the force of the hoe blade hitting him knocked him back down. There he lay, panting, yellow eyes hot, with his left side sliced open and muscles showing, and his heart or lungs, his organs.
Mary screamed, “You killed Tommy!” and knelt beside her son.
She tried to lift the boy, but doing so threatened to pull him completely open. So she stretched out beside him and sobbed and sobbed and pressed her wet cheek to her son’s face.
Tommy closed his eyes, then opened them.
Looked past his mother and watched Bill with those fierce yellow eyes.
Bill was still holding the hoe.
“Tommy, Blackie, don’t die,” Mary sobbed.
Bill said in a thick voice, “Mary, stop it.”
Tommy’s head fell back. The yellow eyes moved from Bill to Mary, looking at her, looking into her—
Bill dropped the hoe.
Behind him, he heard Jim Peck say, “Dear God.…”
Bill said, “Mary, he ain’t human.”
The yellow eyes…the brilliant yellow eyes, fading…going out.…
Mary sobbed and coughed and didn’t try to talk anymore.
She was looking at Tommy, staring at her son as his head dropped completely loose against the ground.
Mary made a sound in her throat.
Bill tried again. He said quietly, “Mary, please. It’s not my fault!”
His wife lifted herself onto her hands and knees and turned around that way to stare at Bill.
“Mary!”
Her eyes were yellow, brilliant yellow, and as she crouched on all fours, she stared with those incredible eyes as though daring Bill to move, as though trying to stop Bill from moving. She bared her teeth and hissed at her husband.
“Mary!”
Hissed.
“Mary!”
“Mreee-owwwrrr! Ssssssss.…”
And jumped.
TATIANA, by Mary A. Turzillo [Poem]
Tatiana understands human words.
While she grooms her whiskers of blood
she listens intently
if imperfectly
to the gossiping keepers
how an old tiger was found dead and dissected
in a zoo in China
the cubs stillborn and in a freezer,
how another sister ripped out the bowels of a keeper
formerly beloved
who said the wrong thing, moved too fast,
moved too slow.
How a tiger, little older than a cub,
was found fettered by a bicycle chain
along route 18
shot five times in the head.
Tatiana understands.
Tatiana understands gravity;
she’s been testing it her whole life.
She’s heard them talking
of a sister who leapt up on the back of an elephant
attacked a cameraman
(she understands cameras)
and wondered, what happened?
what happened?
Did the sister eat the cameraman?
Was his liver fat and tender?
She measures the breadth of the moat.
She measures the height of the walls.
She is bored.
She understands.
Tatiana understands boys;
there are many of them,
fat meat, slack in the face,
chattering, playing, throwing her pinecones,
throwing the little red light from their fingers.
Tatiana has seen a thousand boys
though Tatiana’s limited words
do not give her means to measure thousands.
Only that there are many
and that they are fat and careless.
Tatiana understands space, and air,
and Tatiana springs high, exploding, an arc of flight,
delighting in release of her hams.
And once over the wall, she springs again.
because that is what Tatiana was born to do.
She springs at the boys and they fight back,
which is what boys were meant to do.
And the one beats her face with a rock,
so she turns and trots off,
seeking the one she saw before
the one with the sharp voice.
Tatiana understands blood and softness and slow ineffectual prey.
She understands scent and tracking,
and she has long eyes and huge hearing.
And she knows what he wore, how he smelled,
and there, there he is.
He goes down,
light as a calf, victim of gravity
of which she is adept.
The boy screams like a monkey
and Tatiana rips, her jaws impassioned,
her soul inflamed.
Tatiana does not understand guns;
Her mother might have explained, but didn’t.
Tatiana only understands
the hard jolt, the bee-sting,
the slow draining of light,
draining, darkening,
until she begins at last
to understand.
LIN JEE, by Mary A. Turzillo
The morning after our wedding night, Lin Jee woke us yowling over a sock she had killed.
Almost immediately, Eric, Tom’s best man, appeared in the door. “Somebody’s broken in!”
Our wedding had been pretty modest, family and a handful of friends, and we stayed in the old farmhouse the next night, before departing on our honeymoon.
Lin Jee hadn’t killed a sock in a long time. She used to kill mice and (what can I say?) the occasional blue jay. Like the farmhouse, she was part of the “dowry” my Granny had left me in her will. As a kitten, Lin Jee had once gone after a rat bigger than she was. I suspect she’d have killed it, if Granny hadn’t snatched her up.
But Granny had passed away ten years ago, Lin Jee’s fur had turned cinnamon-dark with age, and the old Siamese curled like a fur croissant in a nest near the furnace, and hunted nothing, not even socks.
And I had just married the most wonderful architect in Burton, Ohio.
That same architect, Tom, was standing in his boxer shorts in the middle of our bedroom holding a gray sock. When Eric appeared, Tom tossed the sock to me, and it landed, soggy and cold, in the middle of my chest.
Eric’s eyes were wild. “That cat woke me up. God, what a voice.”
My little brother Bobcat, who had apparently slept in his clothes, appeared in the doorway behind Eric. “What’s up, Sis?” I looked for signs of drug abuse, although Bobcat had been in a twelve-step program for two years now, since a spectacular car crash on his nineteenth birthday.
Lin Jee ambled over to the bed, scrambled up, and presented her creamy belly for petting.
Tom pulled on his jeans, his only change of clothes since he’d flown in from the base in Hawaii for the wedding, the rest
of his gear being at his folks’ house until he moved in. I grabbed a long tee shirt, and we all rushed downstairs.
“The back door was standing open,” Eric said. “I thought it was just Bobcat, sneaking a cigarette. Then I saw all the gifts gone.”
I rushed into the parlor, still clutching Lin Jee, who purred her satisfaction at having played watch-cat.
Martha, my oldest friend, and matron of honor, floundered out of the front downstairs bedroom. Great with child, she probably was the only person who didn’t have a hangover. Her husband, Charlie, was a cool guy, but he had a weakness for beer. He followed her out and headed for the john.
Eric ran to the back bedroom, where he had slept alone.
It was all too true. My mother had polished up Granny’s sterling and put it gleaming into its velvet-lined case. But the case was no longer displayed on the coffee table in the living room. Nor were the food processor, the silver candlesticks, the linens, the crystal vase, the expensive espresso-maker, the internet-enabled flat-screen TV my parents had given us.
And the envelopes in which money gifts were enclosed were gone. But then I remembered Tom had hidden the checks and cash in the Blue Willow vase in the china cabinet.
I ran to the china cabinet, only to discover the vase gone.
Eric came back from the bedroom. “My Rolex is gone! How could I have slept through that? What the hell did you guys put in the punch?”
Bobcat stumbled to the door and looked at it. “There’s some scrape marks around the latch. They must have broke in.”
“I think that’s from where I forced the lock last summer,” I said. “I locked myself out, and I didn’t want to call Mom or Dad to drive all the way over from Champion.”
“You’re insured, aren’t you?” Charlie asked, reappearing and zipping his pants. “Has anyone called the cops?”
“I’ll do it,” said Eric. “You guys catalog what’s missing.”
Shaking, I went into the bedroom where Martha and Charlie had been sleeping, to my bill-paying desk. As I was rummaging for paper and pen, Martha took my arm. “This worries me, Mary. Charlie is just pretending to be hung over. He didn’t drink any more than I did.”
I looked at her, amazed. “You’re saying—?”
“He’s been worried about bills.”
“But he just got a great new job at the bank, and—”
“Listen to me, girlfriend. The insurance doesn’t kick in for six months. And the baby—”
“Is due in a month. But he wouldn’t—?”
She hunched her shoulders and looked at me wide-eyed. “He asked if you had insurance.”
Sure, we had insurance. But it didn’t cover antiques, like the silver.
From the front bedroom, I could see out into the yard. The brilliant sun made the grass sparkle with dew, the lilac tree was blazing purple, and the tulips were just beyond their peak. My little brother Bobcat was running up the driveway as if fiends were after him. A moment later, he burst into the bedroom. “My van is gone!”
* * * *
The police arrived ten minutes later. Sergeant Belkor was saying, “You’re saying the thief took a beat up, ancient Econoline van, and left Eric’s BMW, an almost-new Scion owned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles, here, and the Prius, ready for the newlyweds’ honeymoon. And did they jump-start it, or did you leave the key in the ignition?”
“I don’t understand why they took it,” moaned Bobcat. “But I know how. I left my keys in my jacket, hanging in the hall.”
Sergeant Belkor shook his head. “So the burglar needed a van to get away with the loot, and your keys happened to be handy. Bad luck, son.”
Bobcat banged his head with his hands. “And I don’t have any insurance except just liability. How’ll I get to Burger King for my Monday shift?”
Sergeant Belkor’s partner, Citrus, took a call on their radio, said something to Belkor, and left the house. “And the cat. You say the cat woke you up. How did the burglar get a chance to get all that stuff out of the house if the cat was playing watch cat?”
“She’s probably senile,” muttered Eric.
Bobcat picked Lin Jee up and petted her. “Don’t say that. She’s a genius cat. That’s what my great grandmother said, and my great grandmother was a very smart woman.”
Of course Granny also claimed Lin Jee could speak English, but that her Siamese cat accent was so bad nobody could understand her.
Sergeant Belkor smiled tolerantly.
“I think I can explain,” I said. “She’s got a little arthritis, so it probably took her a little longer to climb up the stairs to the bedroom.”
Tom said, “Tell them about the sock.”
I laughed nervously. “When we stopped letting her outside to hunt, she took to bringing us socks, pretending they were prey. She hasn’t done that in two years, but for some reason, this morning—”
Sergeant Belkor stroked Lin Jee between her chocolate velvet ears. The Siamese narrowed her eyes and turned up the volume on her purr. “I’m a cat man myself. Could I see this sock? Might mean something.”
Just then Sergeant Citrus returned. “Well, the van mystery is solved. It’s parked behind that tall hedge, on the road. Key in the ignition. Engine’s still warm.”
Bobcat jumped up, but Citrus restrained him. “Not so fast. We found this in the bed of the van.” He held out a shard of china: the roof of a bright blue pagoda, fading into exquisite white.
Bobcat turned pale. “That’s a piece of my great granny’s vase. She left it to my sister.”
“Mmm,” said Sergeant Belkor. “You want to tell us what happened to the rest of that vase?”
Bobcat looked down at his bare feet and said, “Sir, I have no idea.”
Belkor looked at me and Tom. “Are you going to press charges, even if this turns out to be an inside job?”
I swallowed hard. Lin Jee, tense in my arms, had stopped purring.
Tom came downstairs. “The sock is gone. I looked all over the bedroom for it.”
Charlie made a pshawing noise. “Cat hid it again.”
I didn’t think so. Lin Jee had been lazing in my arms since Tom had tossed the sock at me.
“I will press charges,” I said, “if my husband agrees. But first I want you to hold everybody in this room, while your partner brings out their shoes. And their socks, too, if he can find them. Especially any gray socks.”
“Why?” asked Charlie.
“I would recognize the sock. I think it belongs to the thief.”
Lin Jee started purring again.
Sergeant Belkor tried to hide his smile, but I could see he was planning to go along with me.
* * * *
Ten minutes later, Citrus had assembled four pairs of men’s shoes and two pairs of women’s on the marble-topped table in our parlor.
“And whose are these?” he said, holding up a pair of ladies’ lavender-dyed silk pumps.
Martha said, “They’re mine. And that pair of white athletic socks and the Nikes are mine, too. I can’t tell if those are my pantyhose. They might be Mary’s.”
“Those are my pumps,” I said, “The white ones. And the off-white pantyhose. Uh, I assume you didn’t go into the closet and haul out all my shoes.”
“We assume you didn’t burglarize your own house for the insurance. But we did look through your bureau. You gave permission. You favor pastels and bright colors, right?”
“Right. And Tom hasn’t moved in yet. He only has the shoes he wore to the wedding, plus a pair of plastic flip-flops.”
Next, they turned to Eric’s shoes. A pair of black socks were folded neatly inside the left shoe. I felt them. Dry.
Then, Charlie’s. He too, wore black socks, and though the toes were worn through, they didn’t look like the sock Tom had thrown at me.
Bobcat’s boots contained no socks at all.
“You came to my wedding with no socks on?”
“Aw, Sis, nobody can tell if you’re wearing boots.”
“B
oots? To my wedding?” How had I not noticed?
Belkor turned to me. “I’m afraid this doesn’t look too good. I have to wonder if your brother has hidden the sock you think the cat brought to you as evidence, plus its mate.”
“I didn’t!” Bobcat wailed, startling Lin Jee, who jumped out of my arms and ran to hide. “Somebody stole my van and used it to transport all the gifts, and—”
“And who was that someone?” asked Belkor. “Listen, I think your sister might be willing not to press charges, even though I made her promise to do so, if you’ll just tell us where you secreted the loot.”
“And what you planned to do with it,” said Eric.
Bobcat looked stricken. It was one of the darkest moments of my life. “Honey,” I said, “If you need money, I mean for anything besides drugs, you know we’d loan it to you.”
“Heck,” said Tom, “We’d give it to you.”
Bobcat straightened and got a hard look. “This just tops it. Not only do I have to work this lousy job to pay off my debts from that car accident, but—Mary, you’re my own sister. Are you turning against me?”
The conversation was interrupted by a terrifying Siamese yowl. Lin Jee stood in the middle of the hall door, blue eyes blazing from her velvet mask, a gray sock at her feet.
“That’s the sock,” I picked it up. It was damp. “The sock Lin Jee brought us was gray. Lin Jee, tell me where you got that sock.”
The next few moments were a blur. Lin Jee leapt on Eric. Eric slammed her against the wall, toppling a lamp. Bobcat gathered her up and held her defiantly against himself. “Don’t hurt my sister’s cat!”
Eric looked at me, breathing hard. A slash of red oozed across his cheek. “She attacked me for no reason.”
Lin Jee’s tail fluffed to twice its size, and she emitted a terrifying growl, far too big for such a tiny cat.
I went over and examined her. Her eyes were blue, sharp with intelligence, and ablaze with hate. She flinched a bit when I touched her right front leg, but she didn’t cry out again.
“Put her down, Bobcat. See if she can walk.”
Bobcat put Lin Jee on the floor and she limped toward the back bedroom. The room where Eric had stayed.
Eric lunged for her, but Bobcat twisted his arm and the two struggled until Belkor separated them.
We followed Lin Jee.
The other gray, damp sock, was behind the radiator.
The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 20