Cat's Cradle

by William W. Johnstone

  Dan looked at the man, the priest’s face, red-hued from the flames of the burning home and grounds.

  “Well then, Father. What are we going to do?”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” Denier replied honestly.

  * * *

  The young couple sat up in bed. At first they thought the scratching they had heard was the wind pushing a branch against a window screen. But now the scratching seemed to be covering the entire roof and much of the outside walls of the two story home. They listened more intently. Whatever it was seemed to be not only outside but downstairs as well.

  “Honey? ...” she said.

  “I don’t know what it is,” he said, getting out of bed and pulling jeans over his pajamas. He stuck his feet into house shoes.

  “You don’t suppose it’s termites?” she questioned.

  He looked at her to see if she was serious. She was. “Well, if it is, I sure don’t to come face to face with one.”

  “Oh, you!” she giggled.

  He reached over and cupped a young breast, the scratching almost forgotten. They had been married for only six months; still honeymooning. Still playful. She hadn’t told him yet, but she thought she might be pregnant.

  Then the scratching intensified.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “You be careful,” she cautioned him.

  “It’s just the wind,” he replied. He opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the hall. He looked back at his wife and winked at her, then closed the door.

  She sat in the middle of the king-sized bed, naked from the waist up, hugging a pillow close to her.

  She waited for what seemed to her an eternity. About three minutes.

  Once she thought she heard a muffled cry. But it was not repeated.

  Then she heard the most hideous scream she had ever heard. She stiffened in bed. The scream came again. “Larry?” she shouted.

  He screamed again. The sounds of running feet came to her. A thumping sound. Loud. Like a body falling. That was followed by a wild sort of screeching. It sounded like ... like cats fighting.

  “No!” her husband screamed. “Oh, God, no!”

  “Larry! Where are you? Answer me. This isn’t funny a bit, Larry.”

  A door slammed. Was it the hall door or a hall closet door. She couldn’t be sure.

  “Sylvia?” Larry called, very weakly, very faintly. “Don’t come out here. Please. Lock your bedroom door. Call the police.”

  “Larry? What is it, Larry?”

  But that screeching sound was all she could hear, and it was getting louder. Then it seemed to die out. A very faint dragging sound came to her. Her husband howled outside her door. She knew it was Larry. She also knew she had never heard any human being howl like that.

  “Larry!” she screamed.

  “Lock ... door,” he mumbled. His words were just understandable; a slurred sound.

  Purring drifted through the closed door.

  Sylvia reached up with a shaking hand and locked the door. That purring noise was louder, and something was scratching at the door. Through panicked eyes, she looked down at the rug beneath her feet. The carpet was changing colors, the beige changing to a deep dark red, slowly covering the bottoms of her feet.

  She was standing in blood.

  She began screaming.

  * * *

  Dan had pulled in all his deputies, with the exception of Herman and Frank. They were still at the burn site. He had called in his few auxiliary deputies and briefed them. He allowed them a few moments to call home and tell their families to lock the doors and stay inside. Don’t leave the house for any reason. Don’t let anyone in unless you’re sure who it is. No one.

  “All this has to do with that engineer out there on the mountain, don’t it, Sheriff?” one of the reserve deputies asked.

  “Yes. It has everything to do with it. All right, you people, listen up. I want this town, and the county, working three miles outside the city limits, covered by you people. Use the speakers on your cars to warn the people to stay inside. Lock their doors and pull down their windows. I . . .”

  “Sheriff?” the dispatcher called. “Sylvia Quitman’s on the phone. Hysterical. Something about her husband being attacked. Inside their house. That’s eight-oh-eight Poplar.”

  “Susan, you and Woody handle it. Stay in contact at all times. All times. Take your handy-talkies. Move out.”

  Dan paused. He just could not order his people not to use their weapons if attacked. He just couldn’t. And something else was nagging at him; something he’d read, or learned at the university. But he couldn’t bring it to the fore. Father Denier had said the Old Ones were flesh and blood, but more energy than anything else. Very well, next question: what was energy? What stopped energy? What kind of energy was their make-up? Potential energy? Kinetic energy? The Old Ones for sure were not mechanical energy. All right. Fine. It was coming to him now. That left electrical, heat, atomic, and chemical. And all those forms were transmutable.

  “You all right, Sheriff?” Langway broke his thoughts.

  Dan looked at the sergeant. “What? Oh. Yeah. Deep in thought, that’s all.” He looked at Chuck. “Take over here, Chuck. Captain Taylor, Father Denier, let’s go into my office, please.”

  In his office, the door closed, the men seated, Dan looked at Denier and said, “You said the Old Ones are flesh and blood and energy. Right?”

  Danier nodded.

  “What kind of energy?”

  “Ageless energy,” the priest replied, not understanding where the sheriff was going with this line of questioning. “They have been here forever.”

  Dan waved his hand; a gesture of impatience. He knew time was running out, the hands of the clock moving toward disaster. “No, no, Father. You’re not following me. Let me try it this way: energy, in physics, is defined as the ability to do work, right?”

  “Ah!” Denier said. “Yes. All right. I’m with you, Dan. Go on.”

  “We can certainly assume with some degree of accuracy the Old Ones are not mechanical, so that leaves electrical, heat, atomic, and chemical, That Old One at the Service house set Dodge afire with some sort of intense force, right?”

  “It was the force of Satan, Dan. We’re not dealing with anything . . . any power really understood here on earth. Please bear that in mind.”

  “Yes, I know that, Father. But everything has to have a source, right?”

  The priest leaned back in his chair. “Yes. Perhaps even the Old Ones. Interesting concept. I’ve always used a religious angle in pursuing this. Go on, Dan.”

  “Father Denier, Taylor, I have nothing to base my idea on except a gut feeling. I’m going to place the future of this county on a hunch it isn’t atomic energy. I’m betting it’s a mixture of chemical and electrical.”

  Captain Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “Virginia Power boys, Dan?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, we’re on the same track. But what if you’re wrong?”

  “We’ll only have a split second to feel sorry about it,” Dan replied.

  Denier looked first at the trooper, then at Dan. “What are you two talking about?”

  Dan sidestepped that with a question of his own. “Father, these Old Ones have a leader here on earth, right?”

  “Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. The girl. Presuming she is actually here.”

  “Let’s say she is. They—the Old Ones—would go where she goes, right?”

  “I would imagine so.”

  “Then we’ve got to find her. Okay, we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight, boys.” He caught himself. “Excuse me, Father.”

  Denier smiled. “Just one of the boys. That’s fine with me, Sheriff.”

  * * *

  The Quitman house was dark except for one lighted window on the second floor. Susan and Woody got out of the car, carrying shotguns. They walked slowly up the sidewalk to the small porch and knocked on the door. Nothing. Woody tried the doorknob.
Locked. A slight scratching sound from the roof caused Susan to look up.

  She paled.

  “Woody,” she said softly. “The roof is covered with cats.” She took a deep breath, calming herself. “Look through the glass in the door and tell me what you see in there.”

  Woody looked. He swallowed hard. “The whole damned house is filled with cats, Susan. All of them are just sitting still on the floor, looking at the door.”

  “Well, Woody,” Susan said, raising her voice a bit. Woody looked at her strangely. “I guess nobody is home, or else we got the wrong house. Let’s drive on up the street.”

  She stepped off the porch, Woody right behind her. Susan said, “I’m about ready for a cup of coffee, Woody. How about you?”

  “Yeah. Me, too, Susan.” He followed her, wondering if his partner had lost her mind?

  They made it to the car and got in, closing and locking the doors. His heart racing from the sight of hundreds of cats, all staring silently and savagely at them, Woody said, “What the hell was that all about?”

  She glanced at him. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Woody blinked. “You mean . . . I mean . . . you think those cats understood what you were saying? Come on, Susan! That’s wild!”

  “Yes, I do believe it.” She reached for the mike and called in. “We’re at the Quitman house. The roof is covered with cats and the inside of the house is filled with cats. That’s probably what got Mr. Quitman. Advise calling Mrs. Quitman on the phone. Tell her to stay inside . . . whatever room she called from and to lock the door. Don’t open it for any reason.”

  “Ten-four. Here’s the sheriff.”

  “Susan? You and Woody stay in the car until help arrives. No heroics, now, from either of you. What? Okay. Susan, dispatch has reached Sylvia Quitman. She’s all right. She’s in their bedroom and has the door locked. Father Denier is talking with her now, trying to keep her as calm as possible. She says there is a lot of blood oozing under the door. She guesses it’s her husband’s blood.”

  “Good guess, I’d say.” Susan looked up at the lighted window. “She’s looking out the window at us now, still talking on the phone.”

  “I’d have Father Denier tell her you’re friendly; standing by until help arrives.”

  “Sheriff? Exactly how are we going to get her out of there?”

  She could hear Sheriff Garrett sigh. “I don’t know, Susan. I honest to God don’t know.”

  “Sheriff, I ...” She looked up at the window of the Quitman house. Lifted her eyes. The cats were gone from the roof. They had left as silently as they had come. She put the car in gear and drove slowly up the driveway, her lights on high beam.

  “Susan! What’s wrong?” Dan’s voice cracked out of the speaker.

  “Everything is fine, Sheriff,” she assured him. “The cats are gone from the roof. It’s completely clean.” She looked in her rearview as lights flashed on the drive behind her.

  “Backup’s here.”

  “I can’t tell you how to play this, Susan,” Dan said. “I’m not on the scene. Play it by ear, but for Pete’s sake, be careful.”

  “Ten-four.”

  The backup consisted of Deputy Ken Pollard and Virginia Highway Patrolman Lewis. Both were armed with shotguns in addition to pistols. Susan and Woody met them in the front yard. All around them, they could hear the sounds of loudspeakers, telling the residents of Valentine to stay indoors, do not come outside, lock your doors and windows, don’t open them unless you know the person. It was repeated over and over.

  All around them, in the houses nearby, they could see the frightened and confused faces of men, women, and children looking out of lighted windows.

  The four officers clicked on their flashlights and searched the dark pockets where their high beam car lights did not reach. There was not a cat to be seen. But the odor of cat excrement was sharp in the hot night air.

  “It’s a hell of a lot warmer tonight than it was last night,” Ken observed. “Temperature’s not much different than this afternoon.”

  “Yeah,” Woody said. “You’re right. Weird things going on in this county.”

  “How about the front door?” Ken asked.

  “Locked,” Woody said. “I tried it.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Susan said, “I don’t think Mrs. Quitman would object to us kicking it in.”

  “Let’s do it,” Lewis said. He added, “After we check the house for cats.”

  While the cops checked the house from the outside, inside the house, locked behind her bedroom door, Sylvia huddled on the floor, a few inches from the thick stain of blood on the carpet. Her husband’s blood. She knew that; accepted it with silent tears and shock.

  Something scratched on the door.

  She muffled a cry of fear.

  The scratching came again, and it did not sound like cats.

  Sylvia listen more intently. There it was again. Whatever it was was scratching on the door.

  A low bubbling moan drifted to her. That was followed by a choking cry.

  It was Larry. She just knew it was. “Larry?” she whispered. “Larry? Is that you?”

  More moaning drifted to her. That was followed by more scratching. And grunting.

  She pressed her cheek against the door and listened. She could hear ragged breathing. She put her hand at the bottom of the door. She could feel breath coming from under the crack between door and carpet. Hot breath.

  “Larry?”

  Grunting and moaning whispered from the other side of the door. Downstairs, she heard the sounds of glass and wood breaking, footsteps hard on the floor.

  “Mrs. Quitman!” a a woman’s voice called. “Stay where you are. The cats are gone. We’re coming up there to get you.”

  “Cats are gone!” Sylvia whispered, her voice ragged. She was on the verge on shock and hysteria. “Cats! What cats?”

  That dry scratching once more rasped at the door. Sylvia unlocked the door. The scratching became more urgent. Gruntings became louder. Sylvia slowly opened the door.

  A hand fell through the space. Sylvia screamed in horror. The hand had been stripped of all flesh. White bony fingers dug into the shag of the carpet. Through eyes that were approaching madness, Sylvia opened the door wide. She looked at the whiteness of skull bone; a face stripped of all flesh. The eyes were gone, the lips gone. Blood leaked out from under what remained of the scalplock.

  From the lipless mouth, the woman heard moaning, grunting sounds. She crawled out of the bedroom and squatted by the man. She did not look up at the approach of the cops. Larry’s feet shone red/white in the dimness of the hall. Bloody white bones stuck out from under his jeans. What had once been her husband died on the carpet in the hall, his bony fingers digging into the carpet as his bones clacked and rattled in death.

  Sylvia began shrieking. And rocking back and forth in the hall. She banged her head against the wall as her eyes grew wild with madness. Drool slobbered from her mouth as her mind snapped.

  Then she could remember nothing. And never would.

  5

  Mille and Kenny had heard the sounds of shouting outside, all around the huge terminal complex, but neither knew what was going on. They both had shouted at the guard who was supposed to be just outside the door. They had received no reply. They both had listened at the door. Neither could detect any sign of life outside.

  “I think he’s split,” Kenny said. “Boy! It’s hot. What’s happening around here?”

  “I don’t know,” Mille said. “It’s miserable. Get the lock, Kenny.”

  Using a stiff piece of wire, Kenny went to work. It did not take him long to open the cheap lock. “Piece of junk,” he said.

  “Here goes nothing,” Mille whispered.

  They opened the door a crack and looked out. Hot winds hit them in the face. The huge open sided building seemed void of life. They slipped out and closed the door. The door locked automatically behind them. They made their way cautiously and carefully th
rough the huge, empty old building. They would occasionally catch the silver streaks of flashlights darting and bobbing in the outside night. They paused, squatting down near the open front of the building, trying to get their bearings.

  “Where is Hoyt?” the shout came out of the night.

  “Those things got him. He just opened the door to the trailer and was covered with those maggot-looking things. They brought him down and stripped him bare in half a minute. I never saw anything like it in my life.”

  “I’m gettin’ outta here!”

  “Goddamnit!” the harsh voice of Lou Lamotta came ripping through the turmoil and confusion. “Get yourselves together, people. You’re trained agents. Get those drums of gas over there and flood the ground around the trailer with it. That’ll kill those vermin. Do it!” he roared.

  A woman screamed, shaking the night. “Get them off me!” The scream changed to one of agony. “They’re eating me alive!” she wailed.

  “Somebody shoot that lady and put her out of her misery!” Lou yelled. “Move.”

  A single shot blasted the hot air. The woman’s screaming ceased.

  Kenny and Mille squatted in the darkness of the cavernous old building, neither of them understanding what was going on around them.

  “Maggots?” Kenny whispered. “Did she say maggots?”

  “I think so. Listen!” Mille hissed.

  The echo of the gunshot had died away. The faint sounds of munching took its place.

  “Whatever it is out there is eating that woman,” Mille said.

  “Oh, wonderful!”

  “That mummy-man is gone!” a voice shouted.

  “So is the deputy,” another voice was added to the confusion.

  “Gone!” Lou screamed in anger. “What do you mean? Gone where?”

  “How do I know?” the man yelled. “What am I, Lamotta, a fortune-teller?”

  “Hey, Carson!” Lamotta shouted. “You watch your mouth. Don’t get too cute with me.”