The Cat Hunter

by Krishna Ahir

"Might be," he replied, finishing the message and pocketing the device.

  "How is Maddie, anyway?"

  "She's good," Christopher said, with a smile. "Lectures are same as usual, and coursework is fine. She's been talking to me a lot about things she's been reading, and they all seem pretty interesting."

  "That's good to hear," Barbara replied, a content expression passing across her face.

  "How was your night?" Christopher asked, turning the question back onto her. "You and Dan went out somewhere, right?"

  "Just to Parkridge again. We went around to a few of the shops; had a look at some things. He's fishing to see what I want for my birthday. Problem is he's not very subtle about it, bless him."

  "Did you at least give him some good hints?"

  "Concert tickets," Barbara laughed. "Not exactly something you can buy in a shop though, so last night was kind of pointless." Keeping her humorous tone, she flipped the conversation back onto Christopher. "So how about you? You doing alright since I last checked in? Any strange goings on, or just another night in the life of Christopher Douglas?"

  "I had the police round for a visit... So that was fun."

  Barbara's eyebrows traced an arc on her forehead, as they lifted into surprise. "What did they want?"

  "It was about what I saw last week," Christopher replied, scratching at the side of his head. "One of the guys on the case came round to check and see if I'd missed anything. I answered a couple of questions, but he wasn't there long... Wants me to come back to the station after college to fill out a written statement."

  Barbara bit at the inside of her cheek, pulling it in concern. "Do they think you saw something important?"

  "I don't think so. I think it's more just that they want to cover everything. Be thorough, you know?"

  "I guess so," Barbara hummed. "You gonna be alright? Or did you want me to pick you up and make sure you're safe?" Her voice took on a teasing tone, as she tried to cheer him up through their own personal vintage of sarcasm.

  "Only if you make sure not to go inside," he quipped back. "God knows what they have on you. You might wind up in a cell."

  "Oh ha ha," Barbara laughed, mockingly, as the pair strode through the college gates and formed part of the swarming crush of bodies. "You know one of these days I might take offence to the things you say about me."

  "Get in line behind me," he laughed. "For every one thing I say to you, you know you've got a truckload more."

  "I'm afraid I have to plead ignorance on that," Barbara flapped, airily.

  "Plead anything you want, you know it's true."

  "I can assure you that it's not," she replied, half-chuckling. "I am a pleasure and a delight. No idea when I could have said something offensive to you."

  "Alright Mother Theresa. Or would you prefer Gandhi?"

  "Either's fine. Just as long as you're acknowledging the truth."

  Breaking off from the crowd, the duo entered the college building on their left through a wide set of doors and began to move through the hallway.

  "So what time do you think you'll be finished tonight?" Barbara asked, continuing the vein of the conversation from earlier. "Just so I know what time to pick you up from the Police Station."

  "I dunno..." Christopher replied, hesitantly. "I don't think I'll go right after college. I'll be there probably closer to five. Just so I have some breathing room."

  "So you want me to take you home at six?"

  "Yeah, that sounds good," he said, with a smile. "I don't think I'll be there for a whole hour, but six sounds best in case it overruns."

  "Well if you need me earlier, just drop me a text."

  "Thanks for that... You didn't need to offer that."

  Barbara laughed and looped her arm around his neck. "I know that. Something tells me you needed it though. Not that you'd ever admit it."

  She was right. Never typically one to ask for help, he had secretly hoped that she would offer to drive him home. Not because it was far, or he thought that he would be tired, but because he knew he would need to see a friendly face. Something to take his mind off of the memory of the cats that the statement would dredge up.

  "Oh no," Barbara chuckled, craning her neck up to peer over the students that littered the hallway. "Here comes trouble."

  Wading through the crowd, his thick mop of curly hair bouncing as he moved, Eric DeWhitt was slowly making his way towards the pair. Initially moving to meet the young man with a smile, Christopher's expression faded as he noted the somber look on Eric's face. Typically lighthearted and jovial, he now bore a restrained look of concern.

  "Are you alright Eric?" Christopher asked, knitting his brows together as the other boy approached. "You look a bit down?"

  Eric hesitated as he moved within arm's reach of Christopher, and flicked his eyes nervously away. "Hey, sorry if this is a bit weird but... You haven't heard from my sister, have you?"

  Christopher stopped for an instant and pulled a confused expression.

  "What?"

  "I know it's stupid to ask you," Eric carried on, "but my Mum is really worried. The last time Maddie messaged her was Thursday and she's really freaking out. She doesn't text home that much, but it's been a while and Mum hasn't heard anything. I tried calling her myself but I didn't get an answer. Dad didn't either."

  "Oh, yeah," Christopher flustered and pulled out his phone, waving it about as he spoke. "We started messaging Friday, and it's been pretty nonstop since. I didn't know she wasn't talking to you guys, though. Do you think something happened? I can ask her if you want?"

  "Thanks man." Eric broke into a slight smile and swept his hand back through his long corkscrew curls. "I figured they probably had a falling out or something. And me and her don't really get on too well, so I guess it makes sense why she didn't pick up when I called." He laughed once, his face finally starting to brighten somewhat.

  Despite his assurance, both when they had first spoken on Monday, and just then, that he and his sister weren't exactly close, it was clear to Christopher that Eric had been worried about Maddie. Finally hearing that she was at least talking to Christopher seemed to have lifted his spirits.

  "Yeah, yeah," Christopher said, punctuating the lull in conversation with a delayed statement. Unlocking his phone, he pulled up the messages and prepared to type out one to Maddie.

  "Whoa," Eric laughed. "Paragraphs or what. Who even texts like that?"

  "Yeah, your sister isn't exactly normal is she," Christopher replied with a chuckle.

  "What? Maddie doesn't text like that."

  The statement was short and offhand, but something about it sent a pulse through Christopher's body. Almost as if he had jammed his finger into an electrical socket. His spine stiffened and his body lurched bolt upright.

  "Huh?"

  Eric pulled out his own phone and searched through his own messages. "I said Maddie doesn't text like that. Look. Fucking emojis everywhere."

  "No, no, that isn't right," Christopher laughed nervously. "She sends paragraphs. Full punctuation and everything. Has done since I got her number on Friday. Look."

  Rapidly, he swiped his finger down and cycled back through the seemingly endless stream of messages.

  "Jheeze, you two talk a lot," Barbara teased, over his shoulder.

  "Shut up," he laughed, dismissively.

  "That's really weird," Eric commented. "Maybe she gave you the wrong number and you've been texting someone else? Shit, I mean it's happened before."

  "Nope," Christopher said. "I watched her type it in and everything. Here, give me your phone. I bet you it's the same number."

  The two compared the digits and stared down at the crystal screens of their phones. As Christopher predicted, the numbers were exactly the same.

  "Huh..." Eric muttered. "I'll be damned..." He looked up at Christopher and shook his head slightly. "Never thought I'd see her type like that. Maybe it's something you brought out in her." He laughed ever so slightly. "Either way, it's weird and I d
on't like it."

  "Do you want me to text her, then?" Christopher asked, readying his thumbs over the touch screen.

  "If you could, please," Eric smiled. "Even if it's just asking her what's going on. That way I could at least tell Mum something."

  Christopher nodded and tapped out a brief message. No sooner had he done so, the small tick icon indicating that the message had been "seen" appeared at the bottom of the screen.

  However, while Maddie's responses were usually fast, Christopher was left waiting for a reply.

  Even when he went to his first period, Maddie hadn't gotten back to him. He told himself that she must have had to go to a very important lecture and that she couldn't reply. As of Second Period, he thought that maybe she had forgotten to send him a text back. He decided to prompt a reply by sending her another message reading simply: Are you alright?

  Lunch came and went, and he still hadn't heard anything back. Lost in his own thoughts and theories, he barely paid attention to his friends. Their words were white noise, coming to him as if through some kind of thick filter.

  Christopher began to grow concerned.

  Within the span of an hour, he sent two more texts. Self-conscious and not wanting to appear clingy, he restrained himself from sending any more.

  He ended the junior college day walking home, his phone burning a hole in his pocket, and a sinking feeling tugging at his stomach.

  Chapter 18

  His feet dragging limply across the path, Christopher walked back towards his house. He walked almost the entire journey in silence, only speaking up and breaking from his distracted stupor to bid Barbara goodbye.

  Offering him a friendly smile and reminding him that she would pick him up later, Barbara waved him off and disappeared down her own turning.

  The rest of the way, he barely moved his eyes. Shock still and facing ahead, they were glazed with distant thoughts. He saw things, but didn't necessarily take notice. The pigeons that fluttered their way along the drains, fishing for discarded food, might as well have not existed. The same could be said of the cars that passed him; the silver, black and blue paint flashing by and barely existing to him, save as a reflection in his hazel iris.

  The puddles from that morning remained, despite no further rainfall during the day, yet he did not dodge them as he had done on his way to junior college. Instead of dancing around them, to save the cuffs of his trousers, he instead walked straight through, scattering a cluster of water droplets up his legs.

  Finally reaching his front gate, he permitted himself a quick glance down the street. Empty save for the cherry red Nissan Micra parked against the curb across the road, the road didn't hold his attention for long.

  Christopher slipped the key to his front door into the lock and kicked off his shoes.

  His mind so addled by thoughts of Maddie, he barely paid any notice to where he was going, and promptly walked into the banister to his staircase. Swearing loudly, he rubbed tenderly at his side and shook his head.

  He needed a shower. Hot water to help clear his head and wash of the nervous sweat that had built up during the day.

  Then he would head down to the Police Station and give his statement. Hopefully by the time he was done, Maddie would have gotten back to him. And if not, he would still at least be greeted by a friendly face.

  He considered asking Barbara if he could spend the night at hers.

  It would be nice to have a meal not cooked by himself, or fresh from a packet, and he hadn't seen her parents in a long time. They were good people; always treating him like another member of the family. He had even gone on holiday with them, a number of years before.

  Trudging up the stairs, and unbuttoning his shirt, he reached for the light switch. As the day had dragged on, the previously grey clouds and fog that had veiled Grand Stone Bay had transformed into a dense and sinister black. The upstairs windows of his house facing away from the setting sun resulted in almost the entire top floor of his residence being dwarfed in shadow.

  The lights didn't come on.

  Still half distracted, Christopher tried the switch two more times before he realized the power was out.

  No power meant no hot water.

  And no hot water meant no shower.

  Running back down the stairs, he moved for the kitchen. The fuse box was located inside a cupboard, around the bend of the L-shaped room, beneath the slope of the ceiling where the stairs cut into the structure.

  As he moved, he heard a faint dripping sound. The steady rhythmic splashing pervaded the air, picking up Christopher's senses. Figuring it to be the tap, he made a mental note to check it once he'd reset the fuses.

  Ducking down under the incline of the ceiling, Christopher reached out and gripped the handle of the small cupboard door. As soon as the wooden barrier swung open, a pungent smell hit him full smack in the face. Strong and suffocating, it carried a metallic twang to it, like freshly cut copper.

  Christopher's eyes widened in horror.

  " Crystal...?"

  Hung by the tail, from the right angle of one of the stairs, his cat swayed in the air. His fur drenched in coagulated crimson blood, he barely resembled himself anymore. His legs hung at odd angles, jutting out from his body and bending in ways that shouldn't have been anatomically possible. Bent backwards and twisted almost completely around, Crystal' head stared back at Christopher through bulging, accusing eyes.

  Choking on a breath, Christopher felt tears well in the corners of his eyes. More than anything else, confusion flooded his system. He couldn't understand what was going on. How this had happened.

  He felt sick.

  So gripped by the horror of what he was seeing, Christopher didn't register the sound of footsteps approaching him from behind. Soft and light, they pattered over the tiles of the kitchen floor.

  He only began to turn when he felt the warmth of body heat behind him.

  But by then, it was already too late.

  Fireworks exploded in his vision as something incredibly hard smashed into the back of Christopher's skull. His body locked up and tensed, the neurons in his brain firing off a burning pulse down across his limbs. Pain roared through his face and red creeped into his vision.

  Toppling sideways, everything came to him as if in time-lapse. One second he was standing, half turned away from the alcove; Crystal' broken body in his peripheral. The next, he was laying on the floor; the image of shoes dominated his tinted vision.

  A warm, sticky, sensation crawled around the side of his face and he realized that he was bleeding.

  Attempting to lift himself, Christopher felt the strength leave his arms.

  Five seconds later, he had blacked out.

  ________________________________________

  Flicking absent-mindedly through his notes, Drake attempted to fill the empty space left in the wake of Osborne' departure. Clocking out at half four, the burly man hadn't even bothered to say goodbye when he traversed the room and left through the panel glass door. Poor at conversation, though he was, the man was at least some form of company.

  Now, without him, the Incident Room was empty. Wilson and Sydney were out chasing a lead, and Byron and Caroline had long since gone home. Drake was left on his own, contemplating the case and waiting for Christopher Douglas.

  Through their conversation the night before, Drake decided that he liked the boy. He reminded him a bit of himself when he was younger. More so in confidence than in other personality attributes. Christopher didn't mind talking to people, and seemed to relate well through conversation. It was something Drake had always thought of as a good quality in himself, and was happy to be on the receiving end of it.

  Even more positive was the fact that the young man seemed more than willing to help them out in any way that he could.

  Drake was thankful for that.

  Other evidence and dump sites aside, he had a strange feeling about the college as a choice of location. It was the first place chosen by the Cat Hunter as a
set piece in their horrific drama, and that was significant. Any aid he could gain from Christopher could be more than helpful. Even if it didn't seem that way at first.

  In an earlier meeting with Harold, he had been told: "Evidence is only relevant if you look at it with the right eyes. Something that seemed insignificant before could turn out to be exactly what you were looking for."

  Checking the time on the clock above the door, Drake placed himself at almost five o'clock. The boy would be arriving at the station soon, to give his statement — if he hadn't already. He considered heading down to the front desk, either to meet him or to at least check he had been seen to.

  Casting a brief gaze over the evidence board, his eyes picked out incomplete lines; residue of erased board marker. They were all that remained of the previously erased title.

  "Pussy Hunting"

  If he hadn't been so invested in the case, he would have almost found it funny.

  Rising, he traversed the room and hit the green wall-mounted button, to disengage the magnetic lock. His footsteps rang down the corridor, regular like the rhythm of a metronome.

  Drake reached the entrance to the station in good time and poured himself a paper cup of water, from the cooler next to the reception desk. Due to the overhead clouds, the lights in the entryway had all been switched on, leaving everything with the faint glow of artificial illumination.

  Asking if Christopher had arrived yet, he was met with a polite shake of the head from the girl behind the counter.

  Figuring that the young man must have been running late, he settled down onto one of the squat sofas in the waiting room and conversed with the receptionist, all the while periodically checking the time.

  His wait was long, and time passed at a crawl. The forty-five minute wait felt more like several hours. By the time it was nearly six o'clock, Drake rose to his feet and began to make his way back to the incident room.

  Through the glass of the front doors, he saw movement and expectantly moved towards them. Upon his arrival, however, he did not see the young man he was waiting for. Instead he saw a car, driven by a young woman with dark hair, pull up outside and settle into an empty parking space.