The Cat Hunter

by Krishna Ahir

  Barbara Beatrice swung her car into an empty space outside the Grand Stone Bay Police Station. Curling her fingers around the key, she killed the engine and lay back, staring through the windshield. Opening the window a crack, she allowed the cold air to wash over her skin.

  Barbara loved cold weather. She always had done. The freshness of a cool breeze was stimulating and calming to her. Even in the winter Barbara always slept with her window open a crack.

  Christopher had always been the opposite. He preferred hot weather and more temperate climates.

  She'd always argued against his preference, consistently stating that it was easier to warm up than to cool down. If you were cold you need only put on more clothes or turn up the heating. Being too hot was a different matter. Worse still, heat made you sweaty and sticky; something that Barbara hated.

  Closing her eyes, Barbara thought of other things about her and Christopher that were different. She couldn't think of many. Ever since she had first met him, over her Grandparents' fence, they had always been so similar it was almost eerie.

  If anything was different about them, it was how they reacted to things.

  Christopher was sensitive and easily shaken by things, but when it came to recovering and dealing with it, he was stronger than anyone she knew. While, on the other hand, Barbara was harder to hurt. The problem was that when it did happen, she didn't know how to deal with it and get over it.

  They helped to balance each other out. To give their opposite exactly what they needed, when they needed it. To help each other through their issues.

  That was how she knew, with utmost certainty, that Christopher would be able to make it through giving his statement. Even given the mood he was in after Maddie started to ignore his messages. He was resilient and tough. Even when he didn't like to think so himself.

  Clicking her eyes open, Barbara checked her phone for the time.

  Having just turned six o'clock, she figured that Christopher would be finished soon. And if he did look shaken, he could always come to her house and stay the night. When she asked her Dad to borrow his car, so that she could pick Christopher up, he had offered the come along. Her parents were good like that. They cared. And Christopher was like the brother that she never had.

  If her parents had their way, then she probably would have been dating him.

  The thought elicited a slight smile across her thin lips. Whenever anybody suggested anything of the sort, she always had the same reaction. She admired Christopher, and she loved him. But she wasn't in love with him. Barbara figured that the same was true for Christopher. They had a connection, but it wasn't the romantic kind.

  Not that anyone looking from the outside would think something different. They bickered like an old married couple.

  A side effect of her knowing Christopher for so long, and being so close to him, was that they both knew exactly what to do to wind each other up. The one thing she couldn't stand him doing was when he would dislocate the fingers on his left hand.

  After an accident in their childhood, he had nearly lost the ring finger on his left hand. The resulting scar was something that he joked was like their own kind of wedding ring. That, Barbara found funny. It helped her feel better, despite knowing that it was because of her that he had been hurt. What she didn't like was that he had since been able to pop the fingers out of their sockets at will. It grossed her out and sent a chill down her spine every time he did it.

  Just thinking of it caused her to unconsciously flinch.

  Keeping her phone unlocked, she looked back through photos of them together. In most, Christopher was covering his face with his hand, or hiding behind his hair. One in particular made her laugh.

  She had used a marker pen to draw "tattoos" down her arm. When Christopher asked her what she was doing, Barbara had pinned him and used the same pen to draw whiskers onto his face. Before he had a chance to stop her, she had snapped the photo.

  Recovering from the unexpected laughter, Barbara looked up at the Police Station in front of her. Cool electric light seeped out of the mostly glass structure and fell on the car park, illuminating her car in a pale glow.

  His shadow etched into the entrance, she watched the form of a man pacing back and forth across the entryway.

  She checked the time again.

  6:15pm

  "Come on Christopher..." she muttered under her breath. "Where are you...?"

  ________________________________________

  Chapter 19

  Christopher awoke to a find himself face down in the middle of a dimly lit room. The rough carpeting beneath him scratched at his cheek, and a dull pain throbbed across the back of his skull.

  As he attempted to lift himself up, he found his body sluggish and heavy. His limbs ached and moved slowly; the joints stiff. It felt as if he hadn't moved for hours.

  Trying to raise his head, Christopher felt a sharp twinge of pain race across his scalp. Reaching back with his left hand, searching for the source of the pain, he wound his fingers through the locks of his hair. They felt damp and sticky, clumping together and clinging to his fingers.

  "What is this...?" he muttered his mind as slow as his movements. "Sticky..."

  As Christopher's fingers grazed along exposed and tender flesh, he winced in pain.

  "Hurts..." he groaned, flinching back from the contact. "Someone... Someone hit me...?"

  Christopher's head swam as he struggled to right himself into a sitting position. He felt disoriented and vacant; almost as if it wasn't him controlling his own body.

  His eyes still not having adjusted to the dull gloom around him, he squinted and attempted to place himself. He didn't recognize a thing.

  Fear and unease began to well up inside his clouded mind. It felt as if he were falling, and he didn't know when he would hit the ground. He felt as if he had just tripped over and was trapped in the limbo of not knowing if he was going to catch himself or fall on his face.

  Again, pain shot through the back of his head.

  Desperately trying to figure out where he was and what was going on, Christopher attempted to think through everything that he could remember. He remembered arriving back at his house. He remembered the lights being out. So he had gone to the fuse box, and that was when he found the-

  "Cat...!" he gasped. His stomach churned and his throat burned. Vomit dared to surge up and out of his mouth, but he fought it back.

  Retching once, Christopher bent forwards and held his left hand up in front of his mouth. The instant his skin touched his mouth; he was hit by a strong smell. Deep and musky, it carried a metallic twang to it. It smelt like a bag full of old copper coins.

  Removing his hand, he peered down through the half light at his fingers and identified a dark liquid shine.

  "Blood..." he muttered, as if he didn't really believe it himself. His voice was slow and jaded. "Oh... From... My head..."

  The longer he sat, the more his anxiety grew. The fog was gradually lifting from his mind, and the clearer it became the more his terrified feelings built.

  Christopher had no idea where he was. Nothing about the room was familiar. His head hurt and his hands were starting to shake. His breathing began to speed up and grow ragged. He could feel the beating of his heart grow faster and faster; every pulse of his blood sending a sharp shot of pain through the wound on the back of his head.

  This had something to do with all the strange events that had been occurring. The peculiar feelings he had been having; like he was being watched. Everything that the police officer had told him to trust his intuition on. The cats disappearing, the strange note, the seemingly unfounded feelings of paranoia.

  Even in such a stressful situation, his intuition told him that much.

  As the fear clouded his mind, he struggled to figure out who was behind it. Who would do something like this. His thoughts fell into a void; scattered images and fragments of conversations started filling Christopher's head. Everything was jumbled, everything
was distant, everything was passing him by and leaving him stumped. Everything except the pain that he was feeling.

  Almost as if by sheer chance, he caught onto something. Like he was falling into a deep ravine and through luck alone had managed to grab at a branch extending out of the rocky wall. Christopher remembered an episode of an American crime show, though he had long since forgotten the name. One scene in particular played over and over again, until he could practically recite the words:

  'The perpetrator is almost always someone close, someone overlooked. They're pleasant and charming and when they're eventually caught, you always hear everyone that knew them saying how shocked they were; how it could never in a million years have been them that was responsible.'

  "If it meant that much to me, then I would have locked you up somewhere."

  Georgina's words from three days earlier slipped through his mind, like water leaking from a faucet.

  As he relived the memory, every bad feeling Christopher had ever felt about the girl returned full force. Every strange comment she had ever made; every time he had caught her staring at him; every time he had looked over his shoulder and found the girl seemingly following him; the time she had turned up unannounced at his house. All of it led him to the conclusion that she was behind this.

  A burning urgency tore through him, racing through his limbs at lightning speed and vibrating, as if his entire body were filled to the brim with bees. He needed to get out, escape the unfamiliar surroundings, and flee. The only question was how. There were no windows, only one door, and given the situation it was more than likely locked. He didn't even know where he was.

  Christopher placed his hands flat on the floor to steady his swaying body and again felt the dull scratch of carpet. Carpet. Carpeting meant a home, somewhere residential. Good for him; it meant that if he did manage to escape, he wouldn't have to go far to get help. That is unless this was one of the cottages that lay nestled into the countryside that bordered both Grand Stone Bay and Rosefield. If he was being detained in one of those properties, it meant crossing at least a half mile of countryside before he came across another residence.

  Assuming that he was able to escape at all.

  He staggered to his feet, but soon felt something hard slam into his knees. Much to his lucid surprise, Christopher realized that it was the ground and that he had fallen. His legs were unsteady and full of too much sensation, the loosening blood flooding his limbs.

  Gasping in a large lungful of air, he tried once again to stand. He was unsteady at first, but soon managed to anchor his feet and steady himself.

  Stumbling forwards, he made for the door ahead of him. It was slow going, each footstep taking far longer than it should, but in the end he made it.

  Resting one hand on the door handle, to steady himself, Christopher was stunned as the door gave way and swung away from him. Perhaps owing to the gloomy half-light, he had assumed that it was locked. To the contrary, it was even open.

  The prospect of freedom fluttered in his chest and gave him hope. Hope that he could escape whatever wretched place he had found himself in.

  Slowly stepping forwards into the maw of the blackened hallway, Christopher reached for the wall. Capable though he was of standing, pins and needles had begun to take over his legs, and he could feel the muscles starting to stiffen and cramp. Once or twice he staggered, but his hand managed to find purchase against the plaster of the wall. It was enough to steady him. To keep him upright.

  It was then, as he pulled himself back to balance, that Christopher noticed the sound. Grainy and distant, he could barely identify it over his own heavy breathing. But it was there all the same.

  Escaping through the crack of an open door ahead of him, was music.

  His senses now returning to him body, Christopher's head grew clearer. His feet found their bearings on the ground, and the haze that formerly gripped his mind was beginning to lift.

  With the revival of his senses, his hearing sharpened too. And, before long, he was able to distinguish the music that was playing.

  He knew the song well. It was one of his mother's favorites. But something about the context left him feeling wrong inside. As if the content didn't match the tone.

  Now closer to the door, the sound of Louie Wilson's soulful voice was all he could hear.

  The words struck at him and left him terrified.

  Because if they were right, then he knew exactly why he was there.

  Let me tell ya, your love (your love keeps lifting me)

  Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)

  Higher (lifting me)

  Higher and higher (higher)

  I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)

  Keep on (love keeps lifting me)

  Lifting me (lifting me)

  Higher and higher (higher)

  Thinking of nothing more than shutting off the music, Christopher swung open the door and stepped into the room.

  The windows had been completely blacked out, sealed shut with wooden boards that let in no light, leaving the room illuminated only by a small lamp set down in the far corner. Beside it, plugged into the same electrical outlet was a small CD player (no doubt the source of the music) and a set of speakers.

  However, that is not what Christopher took notice of.

  Dominating his vision, as if it bore some kind of magnetic force, was the chair. Set in the dead centre of the room, it swallowed his attention.

  Because, sat on this chair, was a person.

  A girl.

  A girl with honey blonde hair, and eyes like the sea after a storm.

  Georgina Bell sat facing him, her arms bound to those of the chair by a pair of belts. Red ringed her throat, staining her pale skin and bridging the gap between her jaw and the cut.

  He could see her windpipe.

  Icy fingers gripped his heart, seizing it and freezing the air in his lungs. The thought of not being able to breathe leapt in his head. His vision blurred and he started to tremble uncontrollably.

  Christopher realized, to his further terror, that he was having a panic attack.

  Falling forwards, he blindly reached out. Clamping down on Georgina's arm, he was horrified to find her skin cold and clammy.

  His thoughts tumbled into a void as fear overtook his system. Black took over his eyes, and breaths came to him short and sharp.

  As if a million miles away, he could still hear the echoing of the song.

  Christopher blacked out.

  It was only recently that I came to the realization that I wasn't the only one at fault. I deserved the punishment, yes. And because of that I took it, expected it when I did things wrong. Even Daddy accepted punishment. Whenever he would make mistakes Mum would hit him; much the same as she did to me.

  But Mum never accepted when things were her fault. When she made mistakes, and did things wrong, who was there to reprimand her the same way that she did me?

  Nobody.

  And that wasn't right.

  I remember coming home from college, the same way that I always did. I walked through the new housing estate, past his house, and caught the bus at the end of the road. The route had recently been changed, so the journey was quicker than I was used to. The bus wound through the roads of the countryside and swept past fields and bushes and trees. More than anything I remember how astoundingly and vividly green everything was that day. How bright and strong the colors felt as they danced through my nerve endings. Perhaps they knew; knew that I was about to find clarity in everything. The colors were telling me what to expect when I arrived home.

  I saw him coming out of the door as I walked up the lane towards my house. His shirt was not tucked in and he had a smear of pale lipstick on his neck, poking up from out of his collar. I stood and watched as he bundled himself into his car and waved through the windshield. Waved at my Mother, who stood in the doorway of our house. Her usually immaculate hair was tussled and messy, and her skin was a hot and searing pink.


  Mum being home this early was nothing out of the ordinary; she worked part time so this must have been one of the days that she had off. But it was the presence of the man that I found strange. I had never met him before, and I thought I knew all of my parents' friends. After all, they didn't have many.

  Waiting at the end of the driveway, I stood just out of view, behind our hedge and watched him leave in his car. Once I was sure that Mum had gone back into the house, and the man was a good distance away, I stepped out and entered our house. Mum would have gotten angry if she had seen me lingering and not introducing myself. It would have been rude. So I didn't say anything, for fear of getting into trouble and having her hit me again.

  It was later at dinner that it happened.

  Daddy had gotten back from work shortly before the meal and was busy setting plates down on the dining room table. As usual I helped him, not saying a word. Mum always told me that good girls were seen and not heard.

  She asked Daddy how his day had been, and what work had been like. I can't quite remember what he had replied with, but I know that it was something mundane. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  It was when he asked what she had done that day that everything changed.

  "Nothing much," she had replied. "I didn't go out at all, and was on my own all day."

  The urge to speak dwarfed my fear of a beating.

  "What about that man that I saw earlier?" I asked, innocently.

  As Daddy was about to ask what I was talking about, she appeared in the dining room. Silhouetted by the doorway to the kitchen, she was every part intimidating as she was beautiful. Her face was set like stone as she told me there was no man there earlier.

  Again, my mouth ran away from me. "No," I said. "I saw him. Why are you lying Mum? You always tell me that I shouldn't tell lies."

  She hit me so hard and fast that I didn't even realize what had happened at first. It was the hardest she had ever hit me. It wasn't like all of the times she struck me before. She had always hit me with an open hand, but not this time. This was a punch. I saw her balled fist in my peripheral vision as I fell back against the table.