The Cat Hunter

by Krishna Ahir

  Having recently come back from three months sick leave, this was the last thing he needed. His doctor had told him to avoid unnecessary stress and confrontation. Even with his pills, the mood swings still hit him. One minute he could be on cloud nine, only for something to suddenly snip the wires and send him plummeting back down. He sometimes wondered if the pills even worked at all.

  The heat he was feeling dismissed the curiosity. A side effect of his medication was increased body temperature, and at that moment he felt like there was a furnace inside him. Set onto his desk, the miniature fan whirled away, blasting cold air into his face.

  "But if one of the cells inside the battery is burnt out, it ruins the circuit," Dale said, reaching over and taking the laptop. Unhooking the battery from its port, he checked the power cable before flipping the device back over and hitting the 'on' button. The screen immediately lit up. "See. Without the battery the power goes in a circular route instead of a figure of eight."

  "So does that mean we only need to order a new battery."

  "Yeah. Yeah. I mean we may not even have to do that." Dale placed the laptop down on the floor and fell back into his chair. "John's got a couple of spares laying around; you could probably get away with just using one of them."

  Adam nodded. He was glad that the problem was a simple one. Easy to resolve. All he would need to do was wait until his other colleague returned from the job he was on. Then Adam could have him unlock his desk drawer, to get at the spare parts.

  A chime filled the room, cutting through the hum of the computers and the whoosh of Adam's fan, as they both received the same email.

  "Got another one," Dale muttered, spinning his chair around to face his monitors.

  "What is it this time?"

  "Bob's having problems with the desktop in the security room. For some reason, when he came back from his lunch, it was turned off and wouldn't come back online."

  Adam's simian face crumpled. The freckles set onto the tanned skin around his eyes disappeared beneath the scrunched folds, the motion magnified by his glasses. "That ain't right. That computer never should have been turned off."

  "I know. Look, I'm really busy imaging these computers here so could you head upstairs and sort it out?"

  Grumbling under his breath, Adam pushed his glasses back on top of his shaved head and folded his arms across the flat of his chest. "Can't we just leave him to it. He probably just knocked the socket or something." Grasping a handful of mints from the tub next to his keyboard, he shoveled them into his mouth.

  "Don't you start getting complacent," Dale said, wagging his finger at the larger man. "You're a lot better than you used to be, but that doesn't mean you can start cutting corners. That's how you fall back into old habits. Even if Bob did accidentally turn it off, that security room is important. Without the computer they can't view the video feed, or store the recordings."

  "Okay, okay." Giving in, Adam threw his hands up and heaved himself out of his seat. "I'll be back in a minute. Did you want me to check the printers on my way back?"

  Dale checked his watch. "Nah, best leave that for now. It's nearly time for the period six change over. I don't want you getting caught up in the rush of kids."

  Adam exited the office, through the conjoined IT classroom, and started making his way upstairs. As he walked his eyes trained on a number of black domed security cameras, positioned along the ceiling. They were located all over the junior college and fed live video to the computer in the security room. The recordings were stored digitally on the mainframe. However, if the desktop controlling them went down, the cameras were little more than expensive pieces of glass and plastic.

  In the security room Bob Henderson, the junior college's caretaker, was sat uncomfortably at the sole desk. A tall man of fifty two, his powerful build was crammed into a set of black khakis and a matching fleece. He rubbed one large hand backwards through his thinning white hair, and glanced over at Derrick through his half-frame glasses. In front of him, the three separate monitor screens were a solid and unmoving black.

  "I don't know what it is," Bob said, indicating the hardware with a wave of his right hand. "I came back from my lunch break, and it was just dead."

  "Alright," Adam said. "Let's have a look at it."

  He checked the socket first, just to make sure that the power was in fact turned on. After finding no problems, he grunted and sank down to his knees, to check the back of the console. There was always the possibility that the cable connecting the monitor had come loose.

  What he found was far more than just a loose wire.

  Every single cable had been yanked out of its port. There was no way that this had been done by accident. Someone had purposely unplugged them.

  Adam's job, however, did not revolve around the why or even the how. His job was to fix what was broken. Plugging everything back in, he hefted himself onto his feet and tried to power on the computer.

  The screens came to life, flashing blue light across his and Bob's glasses.

  "That should do it," Adam said, watching the display and moving the mouse to test that the cursor was working.

  "Cheers mate," Bob replied. "Would you mind just staying until the system comes back online? I don't want to have to call you down again in five minutes, if anything goes wrong."

  "Yeah, sure thing."

  They waited in silence for the software to resurrect itself. Adam wasn't known for his conversational skills, much preferring to distance himself from the rest of the faculty. As such, he was often at a loss of exactly what to say during such encounters where he had to hang around for an extended amount of time.

  "Okay, just give me a second." Bob leaned forwards and began to type on the keyboard, moving the mouse in several sharp motions. "I'm just going to bring up the display of all the video feeds, just to make sure that they're all working, and-"

  "What's that?"

  "What's what?" Bob looked up over his shoulder at the Technician.

  Adam reached out and pointed at the screen on the left. "That there, third row down."

  Confused, the caretaker turned back around and double clicked on the small moving thumbnail. As the image filled the screen, he felt his stomach lurch up into his throat.

  "What the fuck is that?"

  _____________________________________

  Mr. Delvin Murdock taught his class in a manner vaguely reminiscent of his sex life: Boring and monotonous, yet with an ever so slight amount of humor. His voice droned and dragged, leaving the air thick and heavy. Most of the students dotted around the room struggled to fight off the drowsiness induced by the sound. Just as they were about to completely nod off, however, he would drop a pun so terrible that the students would have to wake up, just to cringe.

  A relatively squat man, Mr. Murdock's most striking feature was his nose. Long on knobby, the slope jutted out of his face and into the open air.

  Chewing on the corner of his lip, Christopher allowed his eyes to lose focus. During these sections of the lesson, he could afford to slip into a daze. Period six on a Wednesday was typically reserved for watching videos of psychology case studies, interspaced with sections of class discussion. The video, currently streaming from the front-facing projector at the back of the class, allowed him the chance to daydream unnoticed.

  The blinds had been drawn for the entire lesson, throwing the room into shadow. The beam of light from the projector sliced through darkness; particles of dust rendering it visible.

  As the final video clip of the class finished, Mr. Murdock flicked the light back on and took his position at the front of the room. "Well, that was educational wasn't it?"

  When he received no response, the teacher glanced around the room at the group of blank, disinterested faces staring back at him.

  Just as he was about to open his mouth to pose a question, however, a piercing sound filled the air. The bell, signaling the end of the lesson, cut him off.

  Not even waiting to be dismissed, the s
tudents all rose to their feet and stuffed their things into their bags. Making their way towards the door, the chatter of conversation filled the room.

  "Hey! Hey! Christopher!" Mr. Murdock called after him.

  Stopping in his tracks, Christopher turned around and looked down at the older man, from his taller standing height. "Yes, sir?"

  "Would you mind giving me a hand with the blinds? You've got a free period next, right?"

  Christopher always made a point of helping the teacher, whenever he was able. More often than not, he found himself moving textbooks, rearranging tables or, as was currently the case, helping with the blinds. "Yeah, sure thing."

  Walking towards the window on the far left, and grasping hold of the knobby white cord, Christopher tugged hard.

  What he saw, as the blackout blind rolled out of view, caused his stomach to churn.

  Piled in clear view of the window was an indefinable bloody mass. Patches of sticky and mottled hair stuck out in various directions, crimson beads rolling down them and glinting in the light. Flashes of pink flesh and white bone could be seen, through bright red lacerations, like stained teeth and tongues through red lips. Every so often a grey jelly-like substance, that Christopher could only assume was brain matter, had globed together. The thing that most gripped his attention, however, was the eye. Set down at least three feet away from the pile, the eggy yellow orb stared towards him, through a single slit pupil.

  "Jesus fucking Christ..."

  __________________________________

  The sound of sirens carried up the road and entered Drake's car, through the open sliver of his window. The flashing blue lights followed closely behind, flickering over his windshield and reflecting across his mahogany eyes.

  He knew he was off duty that he wasn't obligated to stop, but something convinced him otherwise. The fact that the origin of the light show was the junior college may have had a hand in it, but all in all it was something more than that. It was a feeling; an ominous sense that told Drake that he needed to stop.

  Slowly, with every inch he edged down the road, his thoughts began to unspool. Like the strands of his thoughts were connected to the hubcaps of his car, unwinding while he drove.

  As he drew closer, he could see two patrol cars in the visitor section of the junior college car park. Neon green and muggy white clashed against one-another, the difference in color becoming more and more pronounced as Drake's car drew closer to the scene. Turning left, he drove through the wrought iron gates and pulled into a vacant space.

  Exiting the car and approaching the closest of the two cruisers, he noticed a strange scent in the air. Mildly pungent and sour, he recognized the smell as that of nervous sweat. And it was coming from him.

  There was no logical reason for him to feel nervous. It was almost as if his body knew something that his mind had not been privy too. Like all of his organs had organized a meeting amongst themselves and purposely not invited the man upstairs.

  Drake knew that, as soon as he opened his mouth, his voice was going to waver. Rapping against the window, to gain the attention of the Officer in the car, he attempted to cover his anxiety with humor. "Ello ello ello, what's all this then?"

  The other Officer didn't respond well. "Are you takin' the fuckin' piss?"

  "Oh! No! Sorry, mate, just having a bit of fun." He fumbled out an apology and pulled his warrant card from the back pocket of his trousers. "I'm with the Rosefield Station. Was driving past and wondered what happened."

  "Nothing like anything I'd ever seen before..." the man muttered and stared out of the windshield, towards the entrance to the main junior college building.

  "What is it?"

  "Fucked up is what it is."

  A cocktail of thoughts stirred through Drake's mind. Within a split second numerous hopeful theories poured through him, filling his head to the brim and daring to spill over. A curious mixture of intrigue and fear gripped him.

  He lifted an eyebrow, prompting his associate to elaborate.

  "Got a call from the caretaker about thirty minutes ago, said he'd seen something on the security cameras," he answered. "Said it looked like a load of dead bodies. One of the guys from tech support was with him too; he was the one that first noticed it. Poor bastard. Sensitive soul. Don't think he ever thought he'd see anything like that in his life. Threw up everywhere. Fuckin' mess. He's on his way down the station now, along with the kid."

  "Kid?"

  "Yeah. Around the same time, a student opened the blinds for his class. Got a real good look, up close."

  "How had no one else noticed it before that? And why so few now?"

  "Whoever dumped it picked a good spot," the Officer said, lowering his brows and staring vacantly into the distance. "It's outside an annex on the south-facing side of the building. Only one room has windows facing that direction, and according to the teacher, the blinds are always closed on a Wednesday, from 1:05 to 1:50."

  "That was pre-meditated," Drake confirmed, joining the man in staring at the building.

  "Yeah. We think whoever's responsible came in through a gap in the fence, and made the dump." He started to pick at his fingernails. "Must have carried it in a bin bag or something."

  "Sorry for all the questions," Drake said, before coming to his main point of interest. "But... You said the caretaker thought it was a load of dead bodies."

  "Yeah?"

  "Well... Was he right?"

  The man sighed and leaned back in his car seat. His head rolled backwards and he started to rub the thin stubble that gripped his throat.

  While he waited for a response, Drake's thoughts whirled out of control. They thrashed inside his skull, like centipedes scurrying about.

  Dead bodies. Dead bodies. It meant that there was more than one. And, based on the way his comrade was talking, they were assuming that one person was responsible. Coupled with the lack of CID personnel and a proper restriction of the site, it meant that the deceased clearly wasn't human.

  Behind his ribcage, Drake's heart skipped in an avian flutter.

  "Officially we don't know yet. They're mangled beyond recognition. Personally? I'd say they look a hell of a lot like-"

  "Cats?" Drake interrupted, unable to contain his thoughts any longer.

  "How'd you guess that?"

  The curious mixture of conflicting emotions that he had felt earlier in the Vets slammed into him with all the force of an air compressor. His stomach wound itself into a tight knot, while a strange sense of elation floated up past his ears. He had to stop himself from both smiling and grimacing.

  Luck and chance was a curious thing.

  Most police work operated through a mental state that most of Drake's fellows referred to as 'the machine'. A state of mind that embodied efficiency, it was how most investigations and inquiries were resolved. The machine reached conclusions through sheer persistence and mechanical tenacity.

  However even the most well-oiled machine was nothing compared to luck. To spontaneous instances of divine grace; where all of the pieces just magically fit together.

  If he hadn't gone out of his way to buy his wife flowers, he would never have stumbled across this. It was exactly the break that he needed, and given how serious the situation had become, Drake was sure that he'd be allowed to pursue it during his work hours.

  Thank you, Elaine, he thought. I swear to God I'm going to buy you so many flowers. Shit, I'll buy you the whole fucking florist!

  "It's something I've been looking into. If you wouldn't mind, could I get the number of the Chief Superintendent of the Grand Stone Bay Station?"

  Fishing around in his glove compartment, for a card with his boss's line extension, the Officer squinted his eyes. "What d'you need it for?"

  "There's been a lot of cats going missing recently... Dozens of them." Inside his pocket, Drake's hand started to tremble. "And I think you've just found some of them."

  Chapter 5

  The Sergeant about to interview Christopher bore
a number of conflicting aspects to his appearance; the most striking being his stature. Tall and broad, Cliff Horgen's body was trim and extraordinarily muscular, much like that of a rugby player. His raised shoulders and straining biceps sprouted out of his tree trunk of a body and were so large that he found himself incapable of holding them at his sides. The enormous limbs ended in a matching set of massive hands; so large in fact that Christopher figured the Officer would be able to wrap the fingers of one hand completely around his head. His physique, however, failed to match his face; and similarly, his sense of style clashed with both. Framed by a wide pair of wire-frame glasses, his eyes were coal black, yet bore a comforting reassurance to them. His expression was sympathetic and caring, emphasized by the way he subtly moved the thick lips of his mouth. As they parted to speak, Christopher recognized the distant twinkle of a gold tooth.

  "Now son, I don't want to pressure you into anything." He spoke with a slight twang of a Hungarian accent. "If you want to tell me what you saw, then that would be great. But if you don't feel up to it, then we can take as much time as you want, until you're okay. How does that sound?"

  Cliff was a calming and considerate man. The sound of his voice rolled gently, like swaying wheat in a field. It soothed and settled anyone he talked to into comfort, whereby he would simply need to wait for them to ultimately reveal what was stirring away inside their head.

  His penchant for waiting and patience had been forged through numerous years working for the Police Service. In his earlier days, before he had grounded himself as an established member of the Grand Stone Bay community, he had often been targeted by a number of unsavory individuals who "[wouldn't] let no fuckin' cop tell [them] what to do." Needless to say, they had eventually come around. Not through physical force, or intimidation of stature, but through a calm and personable tone.

  When he received no reply from Christopher, Cliff clasped his hands together on the table and gave his head an understanding tilt. "Would you prefer if we waited for your parents?"

  At the mention of his family, Christopher became more respondent. "No, it's okay. They're... They're on holiday at the moment. I stayed behind to look after the house."