Claws

by Ricky Sides

  He watched as Talbot started punching in the number to make the call, but then his cell phone rang. Stepping away from Talbot’s desk, he answered the phone. He listened briefly, and then he said, “Stay inside. Lock yourself in the bathroom. Stay away from the door. I’ll be there in minutes.”

  Hanging up his cell phone, Jerry turned and ran to the door.

  As he ran across the parking lot, he called the sergeant and ordered the men to stop patrolling the city and meet him near Patricia’s house.

  ***

  When Jerry left, Patricia went to work cleaning up her kitchen. She had washed most of her pots and pans after putting the food in the bowls, but she still needed to do the dishes and wipe down her stove and kitchen table. She was putting dirty dishes in the sink when she thought she spotted movement in the yard outside the window over the sink. She leaned closer for a better look, but the light in the kitchen made seeing outside in the darkness difficult.

  She was about to resume washing the dishes when a large form hurtled out of the darkness, landing on the sturdy wooden shelf outside the window that held her potted plants during the summer. The large cat thrust its face toward her, bumping its head against the window and causing Patricia to stumble backward in fright.

  Frustrated by its inability to get to its prey, the cat sat up and placed its front paws against the window. It glared at her maliciously, laid back its ears, and hissed.

  As she stumbled backwards, she bumped into the kitchen table and stood rooted in place for a moment. Then she heard the sound of another cat clawing at her back door. She darted to the back door and flicked on the back porch light. Parting the curtain, she looked out and saw two cats pacing back and forth on the porch. She knew there had to be a third cat present, because she could still hear the sound of a cat clawing at the door.

  Leaning her body closer to the window, Patricia tried to see the animal that was scratching at her door. Her eyes widened in alarm as she saw splinters of wood that the big cat was gouging out of the surface of the door. Evidently, the cat had found a weak section in the door and was trying its best to claw its way through the door.

  She was still looking out the window when one of the other cats leaped toward her face, rebounding hard off the window. Gasping in surprise, she let go of the curtains, letting them fall back into place as she moved away from the door.

  Patricia turned and ran through the house. She grabbed her coat, cell phone, and car keys, and then moved to the front door. Pausing, she threw on the coat and zipped it up. It was bitter cold out, and by zipping the coat, she ensured another layer of protection from the cats if they caught her heading for her car. However, the moment she parted the curtain to see if there were any cats there, she knew she wouldn’t be leaving. There was also a cat on the front porch, pacing back and forth, its tail swishing from side to side in excitement.

  That animal sensed her presence and looked up at the window. A moment later, it sprang at the door. The impact of its body rattled the door in its frame.

  Patricia backed away from the door. Several of the cats had effectively trapped her in her own home. Spinning in place, she looked through the living room doorway to the kitchen back door. Her eyes widened in alarm as she saw that a small hole had been clawed through the lower section of the door.

  She decided she needed to call for assistance, and almost called the police, but the memory of Deputy Cook’s encounter with two of the animals caused her to pause and reconsider. Jerry had told her that his men were better prepared to deal with the threat. She darted to her desk, glanced down at his cell phone number, and then called him.

  Patricia punched in the number. Her eyes returned nervously to the widening hole in the back door. She saw a paw reach through the hole as if seeking prey, and then Jerry answered his phone.

  Patricia quickly told him what was transpiring. When he gave her his instructions and hung up, she went straight to the bathroom and closed the door. “Oh hell!” she said in alarm as she discerned that the bathroom door was a cheap inside door, which was hollow with two thin pieces of veneer separated by a wooden frame. Unless she could devise a way to keep them back away from it, Patricia knew the door wouldn’t hold the cats long once they located her.

  She started to open the door and go to the kitchen for one of her carving knives, but even as she opened the door, Patricia heard the sound of breaking glass come from the kitchen. The woman quietly closed the door and locked it.

  That had been the sound of a glass breaking on her kitchen floor. In her mind, Patricia imagined several cats fighting for the leftover food on the table. She tried to remember what was left. “Not enough to keep them for long,” she thought.

  Moments later, she learned that she was right when the sound of clawing began at the thin bathroom door. Patricia backed away from the door and looked around the room for anything she might be able to use to drive the cats away from the door.

  There was a one-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. If she could insert something through that gap, then she might be able to drive the cats away from the door for the few minutes it took Jerry to arrive.

  Jerking open the cabinet that contained some cleaning supplies, her eyes roamed the contents, but nothing struck her as appropriate for her needs. She closed that door and then opened the door to the section of the cabinet that contained her hairspray and perfumes. Her eyes fell on the hairspray and she remembered that it was extremely flammable. But she would need an ignition source. A non-smoker, Patricia didn’t carry a lighter or matches.

  Glancing around desperately, she saw nothing that she could use to light the hairspray. Shrugging, she decided to try it anyway. If she could manage to spray them in the face, it should act like a mace. Even spraying their legs might startle the animals and gain her a few minutes.

  The scratching outside the door was rising in intensity, as if the cats sensed the weakness of the barrier between them and their prey. Patricia knelt down on the floor near the gap beneath the door. She made certain to remain out of reach should one of the cats reach through the gap. Shaking the hairspray vigorously, she then turned the can on its side, held it as close to the gap as she dared and depressed the nozzle that released the chemical. As the spray initiated, she moved it closer to the gap, moving it back and forth.

  Outside, the cat clawing at the door felt the spray hit its hind legs and begin to set. Confused by this, the animal moved away from the door and licked one of its legs. Irritated by the foul taste, the animal shook its head vigorously.

  Another cat, eager to get at the prey beyond the door, ran up to take the first cat’s place. It spotted movement beneath the door and lay down to peer at it with interest. It was thrusting its forepaw toward the movement when the spray hit it full in the face. The spray burned the animal’s eyes. It jumped up, ran a few feet away, and then it pushed its face into the carpet in an attempt to remove the sticky spray, but that just added lint from the carpet to the cat’s problem.

  The third cat, having seen what happened to the others, stayed back away from the spray, but the moment it stopped, that cat renewed the attack on the door.

  Inside the bathroom, Patricia had run out of hairspray. She jumped up, darted to her bathroom vanity, and grabbed a container of perfumed bath powder. Returning to her former position near the door, she knelt and scooped a handful of the powder into her right hand. She flung that powder into the gap as best she could.

  Outside the bathroom, a portion of the powder struck the cat’s legs, and the remainder landed on the floor. When it struck the cat and the floor, a good portion of the fine powder billowed up into the air. The milling cats inhaled this fine mist of powder. It stuck fast to the sticky areas left by the spray they had encountered only moments before. However, the animal clawing at the door was largely unaffected. That feline continued in its efforts to reach the trapped woman.

  Patricia threw additional powder at her attackers, which did discourage the other two animals
and kept them at bay. Unfortunately, the cat at the door remained beyond the reach of the billowing clouds of fine powder.

  She had just run out of powder when Patricia saw the first signs that the animal was beginning to claw through the door. She could see a small section of the surface of the door seeming to wriggle. Looking around in desperation, the woman grabbed a towel and a bottle of perfume.

  Patricia knew that Jerry should arrive at any minute, so she only needed to hold off the animals a little while longer. She held the perfume spray bottle near the weakening section of the door and waited as calmly as she could.

  A minute later, the cat’s claws broke through the surface. Two minutes later, there was a one-inch hole in the door. Patricia sprayed perfume through the hole, but that hardly affected the cat at all. If she could spray it in the face, she knew that the perfume would be more effective, but to do that she would have to wait for the animal to begin to try to climb through the hole.

  Patricia considered that plan much too risky. Instead, she decided she would wait until the hole got a bit bigger, and then she would try to plug it with her towel.

  ***

  Jerry’s team was parking their van by the curb around the corner from Patricia’s street when the lieutenant pulled up behind them. They didn’t pull into Patricia’s drive for fear that the animals would see the vehicles arriving and flee. It was important that they kill or capture the animals while they had the chance. He jumped out of his car and met the two men in front of the van. One of them handed him his silencer equipped twenty-two caliber pistol. Jerry checked to ensure the weapon was loaded, and then he said, “Her house is around the corner, two houses down. Let’s go.”

  The three men moved quickly, but quietly, along the street. When they rounded the corner, Jerry picked up the pace. As they came within sight of the front porch, they spotted two cats clawing at the door. The animals were so intent on what they were doing that they didn’t notice the approach of the men.

  The sergeant looked to Jerry and signaled a question. Using their hand signals, the man asked if Jerry wanted to try to take the two felines alive for study. Jerry signaled that they would try, but if the animals turned on them, they were to terminate them. They were simply too large and dangerous to take excessive risks in an attempt to capture them.

  The sergeant and the corporal removed their heavy winter coats. They planned to try to bag the cats with the coats, and then take them to the van where they had cages that could contain them. The two men moved cautiously toward the cats, but when their shadows touched the door, the animals spotted them and spun on the men as one.

  The sergeant lunged at his target and succeeded in bagging it with his coat, but the corporal’s animal lunged to the left, evading the man. Jerry’s pistol coughed quietly and the cat that was attempting to flee was struck and killed.

  “You two get that animal caged and get back as fast as you can,” Jerry ordered his men. “I’m going around to the back. Patricia said one of the cats was almost through that door earlier. Move it!”

  The two team members moved away to follow their orders. Jerry saw that the sergeant had a firm grip on his bundle, but he knew that it would prove dangerous for the man to transfer the animal to the cage, and that was why he was sending both men.

  The lieutenant moved around to the kitchen side of the house, seeking the cat she had referenced on the plant shelf, but it was nowhere to be seen. He moved in a crouch with his pistol facing forward. As he rounded the back corner of the house, he spotted the back door. A cold fear tore into his stomach as he raced toward the door. The cats had already gotten inside Patricia’s house.

  Ignoring the danger, Jerry knelt on the back porch and thrust his hand through the hole in the door. He had to strain to do so, but he was able to reach the lock on the inside knob and unlock the door.

  Getting back to his feet, Jerry opened the door and hurried inside the house. When he reached the kitchen, the lieutenant heard Patricia shout, and thought it sounded to him as if she were in pain. Jumping over the broken dishes on the floor, he moved out of the kitchen and into the living room.

  He was about to enter the bedroom when he heard his men at the front door calling his name. The lieutenant turned to the door and unlocked it. He took a moment to pull it open, but then he heard Patricia shriek, and this time there was no mistaking the pain in her voice.

  Jerry, his men a step behind him, entered the bedroom. They immediately detected the presence of the three cats, one of which had succeeded in partially getting through the bathroom door.

  His men moved to fire at the animals, but Jerry suspected that Patricia would be just on the other side of the door, trying to prevent the momentarily vulnerable animal from making it through the barrier. Pointing to the door and shaking his head, he then signaled the men to move toward the animals and shoot them on a sharp downward angle.

  The three men approached the cats cautiously, well aware that they could turn on them in an instant. As they approached the animals, one of them turned in their direction. It voiced a startled meow, but then it launched itself at Jerry.

  The lieutenant stepped to the side and lashed out with the pistol, attempting to stun the cat so that they could capture it. His blow landed, knocking the feline to the floor, but it only partially succeeded in stunning the animal, which tried to get up and get away.

  The corporal threw his coat over the cat, trapping it.

  The sergeant had to shoot the other cat when it leapt toward his face.

  Jerry raced past his men, toward the animal that was currently stuck in the door. He grabbed the cat’s back legs as the feline was about to squeeze its back end through the hole in the door. He held on tightly as the animal began to thrash around wildly. “Is the door locked, Patricia?” he asked in a loud voice.

  “Yes, and I can’t get near it. The cat’s almost through the door!” she shouted in reply.

  “I’ve got it. It can’t come through now. If you can unlock the door, I think I can contain this one without having to kill it, but I can’t pull it out backwards. That would probably kill it.”

  “Okay, I’ll get close enough to unlock the door,” she stated.

  “Just be careful. I don’t want you hurt!” he responded.

  A moment later, the door edged open slightly. Jerry held on tight to the struggling animal. The sergeant moved around with his coat held out before him. He tried to capture the front end of the furious feline, but the cat fought back savagely.

  Jerry felt his grip on the animal’s hind legs loosening. “I’m losing it!” he warned.

  Frustrated, in his efforts to capture the animal without harming it and knowing that in a moment he would be forced to shoot the feline, the sergeant lashed out with his pistol. The silencer struck the animal on the top of the head and stunned it. “I’ve got it now, sir. Let go and I’ll extract it from the door and bundle it in my coat.”

  Moments later, that animal had been contained. “Go get the van, Corporal,” Jerry ordered.

  “Yes sir,” the man said. He started to leave with his bundled up cat.

  “I’ll take the cat. I don’t want you attempting to cage it alone,” Jerry said.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. I was wondering how I could accomplish that and still keep all my skin,” the grateful corporal responded and handed Jerry the bundle containing the angry feline. He could feel it squirming about when he took the bundle.

  “You guys got all six of the cats?” asked Patricia.

  “No. We got five,” the lieutenant stated.

  “Then there may be another in the house,” she replied. A shout from the living room punctuated her sentence.

  “Damnit!” the lieutenant shouted as he ran for the living room with the bundled up feline under one arm and a pistol in his hand. He saw the corporal battling one of the cats.

  The cat had apparently jumped the man from behind. It had its front claws embedded in his shoulders and was trying its best to climb up his ba
ck to reach his head and neck, but the corporal had reached behind him and grabbed one of the cat’s hind legs and its tail. Thus far, it was a stalemate. The cat couldn’t climb any higher, but the corporal couldn’t let go of the feline.

  The lieutenant walked up to the struggling pair. The animal turned and hissed at him with its ears laid back. The cat in the bundle under his arm heard the hiss and renewed its struggle to escape. The lieutenant used his pistol to club senseless the enraged cat on the corporal’s back. The animal almost fell to the floor, and he would have if the corporal hadn’t had such a good grip on its extremities.

  “Patricia, we need something to contain the animal until we can cage them,” the lieutenant requested.

  “I’ll get something and be right back,” she said and disappeared into her bedroom. She returned a moment later with a thick winter coat.

  The corporal wrapped the cat up inside the coat, and it was none too soon for the animal was showing signs of reviving.

  “Can you hold his cat while he gets the van?” Jerry asked Patricia.

  “Yes, I can. It’s wrapped up nice and tight, so I shouldn’t have any trouble holding on to it.

  A few minutes later, Jerry’s team had safely loaded the cats into cages in the back of the van. “What will you do with them?” Patricia asked curiously.

  “They’ll be transported to a base. Later, they’ll be taken to a research center in a remote location where they can be safely studied. Hopefully, the aggression and ravenous hunger will pass in a few days,” Jerry explained.

  Turning to his team, he said, “Alright, let’s sweep the house. I want every place of potential concealment examined. If a cockroach can get in it, I want it checked.”