Catnip

by J. S. Frankel

  Chapter Eleven

  Through the Woods We Go…

  They ran through the storm and didn’t stop for a second. With each passing step, Harry’s breath became more ragged and he felt that his heart would give out. Occasionally lightning split the night and illuminated the area and when it did, every shadow looked like Ivan, gigantic and menacing and unstoppable.

  Finally, his muscles seized up and his lungs could take no more air in. He fell, clutching his leg, and his computer bag went flying over his head and landed on a pile of wet grass and leaves. His girlfriend stopped beside him, her breath coming out in faint pants. “What is it?”

  “Can’t…go…any further,” he gasped, his chest rising and falling sharply. His breath came in ragged pulls of air. “Go. Hide.”

  His girlfriend pulled him up. “No, we have to keep going. I’m not leaving you, not now.”

  For the first time in their ultra-brief relationship, Harry got truly pissed off. He clutched at his leg, trying to massage the fire out of his muscles and he wheezed out, “Listen, you can run faster than I can. That thing wants me…and it’s already killed Doug, so let it get me. At least you can get away.”

  She started to cry and grabbed his shoulders. “Let him kill you? No, not happening. You’re the only link I’ve got left, the only link I ever had. Who else is gonna make me normal again?”

  As they sat on the grass, water streaming down their faces, Harry realized he didn’t want to be without her, either. You had to show balls at least once in a relationship. Now was the time, and with an effort he stood up. Anastasia put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him. “I’m sorry about Doug, too. He was a good guy, but we have to think of what to do now.” She wiped her eyes and then sniffed the air, her whiskers and ears twitching, and added, “I can’t smell Ivan. Let’s get going.”

  “But…”

  “We go together,” she said firmly. “I won’t leave you. We go together or not at all. Besides, the rain will cover our scent.”

  She retrieved his bag and they continued their journey. Harry stopped occasionally to massage his aching and cramping muscles, and after two hours of slogging through the rain they could go no further. “Where are we now?” he asked. It was still pitch black, but Anastasia took his arm and guided him through the forest.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied, still stepping quickly but carefully around fallen logs, tree stumps, and circular piles of animal dung. He stepped where she did and soon they found themselves on a small ridge. Below them was a creek. She suddenly stiffened. “There are probably other inns and cabins down there.”

  Anastasia stopped and shook herself all over, the movement sending glittering drops of water through the air. “That was an implanted memory, wasn’t it?”

  Harry peered through the darkness. “Maybe so, but I can see a few lights still on. You were right about the cabins being down there. Should we go?”

  “Let me scout around first.”

  He found refuge in a clump of bushes while she dropped to all fours and tore off into the night. While waiting and trying to get his breath back, he wondered if she was somehow leading him into a trap. Nurmelev lived here…maybe. Was he the scientist who’d experimented on them? Maybe…there was no way for him to know.

  He also thought about the changes going on. How much longer would it take until…?

  No, I’ll find a cure, I’ll help her, he thought. I’ll help her and we’ll be…

  “Harry?”

  She’d come up quietly to his left and through the rain. Her face peered at him, the fur matted down. “What is it?”

  “I found somewhere to stay. It’s not a cabin. It’s some kind of storage place.”

  She stood erect, took his hand, and carefully led him down the hill. The grass was slippery and he fell more than once, but finally they reached the bottom. A small shed made of metal stood out from the night and the raindrops made faint pinging sounds as they bounced off the roof. Anastasia wrenched the lock open and once inside she shook the water off her body and instantly started to groom herself. Harry looked around and let out a gasp. “What kind of place is this?”

  Hooks—large, nasty looking meat hooks—hung from the ceiling, knives of all sorts lay on a table along with spools of thread and…animal skins, the smell of which still permeated the stale air. Anastasia suddenly stopped her grooming chores and cast her eyes up to stare at the pelts. “You think this was one of Callaghan’s side jobs?” she asked, her eyes shining with a touch of fear in them.

  “I hope not.”

  As he looked at all the weaponry there—even in the dim light the bloody streaks stood out clearly—Harry got a very bad feeling and he definitely didn’t want to know who the owner was. “We’ve gotta get dry.”

  Now the cold started to get to him, and he started to shake. Anastasia searched the shed and came up with two musty blankets. Even though they smelled from age and mold, they were better than nothing. He wrapped one of them around his body and then around Anastasia. As he lay down on the cold ground, he had a macabre thought. Even if Ivan didn’t kill him, he’d probably catch pneumonia. Killed by a bug and not a bear—the thought made him laugh.

  Anastasia didn’t seem to find the situation funny and her practicality surfaced. With a quick movement of her shoulders, she shrugged off the blanket and pulled him up from the floor. “You have to keep warm,” she said. “Get out of your clothes.”

  He stared at her and realized she was right. Girlfriend or not, shyness overcame him, and he pivoted around and stripped down. She deftly plucked his wet clothes from his hand, wrung them out, and hung them from one of the hooks on the ceiling. He got back under the covers, still shivering violently.

  “Feels better, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  Without waiting for him to answer, she spun around, slipped off her clothes, and hung them up as well. God, she had a great body, he thought. Dim light or not, he saw the gentle curve of her hips and lower back, the graceful way she moved, and the utter lack of concern she had for him seeing her naked.

  In a quick movement, she slipped under the covers and lay next to him. Harry’s heart began to speed up into the red zone, and although he didn’t sweat—a first for him—he also didn’t know what to think…or do.

  Still, the warmth of her body, the curves and the almost-primal smell of her…he turned his head away. Anastasia gently pulled his head around to face her. “Something wrong?” she asked. “Is it because I’m…?”

  He felt too embarrassed to answer. She thought it was because of her animal genes and he shook his head. Fumbling for words, he managed to get out, “No, it’s not that, just that I, uh, I’ve never, you know…”

  “You can hold me,” she said, her voice gentle, and he knew she realized that he had no experience with women. Could it be any more obvious? The fact shamed him and she touched his face. Her fingers moved gently over the folds and contours of his skin and he relaxed. “Harry, it’s okay. I also got soaked by the storm, you know? I just want you to hold me. That’s enough.”

  Was it? He thought—perhaps the same thing every young guy thought—his first time with a woman would be in a quiet—or at least, dry—setting, the mood would be perfect, the weather, warm…it was a romantic notion at best and it wasn’t going to happen here.

  Then another thought occurred to him. “We could die right here and right now,” he said, his teeth chattering. “Do you just want to hold me?”

  Anastasia’s yellow eyes sized him up and she smiled faintly. “Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t know if I’ve ever been with anyone.” She shook her head. “I wish I could remember. Maybe I knew some guys before or maybe not. But right now, all I want to do is sleep with you. I mean, just sleep?” She arched her eyebrows to underscore her point.

  He wanted to say something, but the cold invaded his body once more and he couldn’t stop shaking. She clutched his body to hers, stroked his hair fondly, and murmured, “We’ll get through this, and when it’s ove
r and you’ve cured me, then we can talk about it, okay? I want to be with you, only you, and no one else. That’s my promise.”

  Her voice, soft and low, gave him a measure of comfort and he kissed her. Warm now under the covers, they ignored the sounds of the storm and went to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

  The next morning Harry awoke dry and comfortable. He yawned and looked around, but Anastasia wasn’t in the room. “Hey,” he called out, “where’d you go?”

  No answer came, so he took his clothes from the hook and got dressed. They were still damp, but as he stepped outside, he figured the summer heat would dry him off soon enough. He felt slightly sore and achy all over, but overall his mood had turned a bit more positive. Sleeping together with Anastasia had been just what he needed.

  Outside, the early morning sun shone warmly and illuminated the area around him, forested and green. He heard only the buzzing of some insects and the chirping of the morning birds. A shack stood about a hundred yards away with smoke coming from a chimney. Perhaps Anastasia was there.

  As he started to walk in the direction of the shack, he caught sight of her. She was on all fours and holding something red in her hands. Going in for a closer look, he stopped in his tracks and stared in shock. Anastasia was holding a rabbit and feeding on it. Apparently she hadn’t heard him come up and he hastily retreated to the storage shed and sat down on the blankets.

  The changes were happening faster now and it seemed her animal instincts were starting to dominate her being. Cats were natural predators and killing the rabbit had simply been an act of instinct. He couldn’t hold it against her, but at the same time he felt a sense of being abandoned.

  He’d never had a pet, but he’d heard from other people who did how cats were supposed to act. By turns they could be loving, kind, and then capricious, changing their affections in an instant from one person to another.

  Did the same hold true for Anastasia? Would she forget what it was like to be human and seek company with her own kind? His mind reeled with sadness at the thought of losing her and he chastised himself for not having come up with a solution earlier on. He’d had the proper equipment back in New York, and if only…

  “Harry, I’m back.”

  Looking up, he saw Anastasia standing in the doorway. She’d gotten a bit shorter now, her spine curved upward ever so slightly, and her arms seemed a little shorter and more bent. Her features also seemed even more feline than the day before. She smiled at him and then frowned as she noticed something red on one of her claws—blood. Hastily, she cleaned it off with her tongue.

  He forced himself to smile back at her. She put her arms out as if to embrace him, and then let out a gasp as a shadow came up from behind her and something hard and metallic smashed down on her skull. Her eyes rolled up and she pitched forward, fell without a sound, and lay still. “Anastasia, no!” he yelled.

  At first he thought it had been Ivan, but the bear-man wouldn’t have used a weapon. He’d have simply torn through her. This attacker was a different kind of predator.

  “I gotcha!” a voice croaked out.

  Harry quickly went over to see if his girlfriend was still breathing. A bit of blood came from underneath her hair, but then it seemed to suddenly dry up and stop. He put his ear to her mouth and her breath came out in slow and regular exhalations. “Anastasia,” he murmured and stroked her hair. “You’ll be okay.”

  “I knew that thing was the spawn of the devil,” the voice said. It sounded like a scratchy record being played backward and Harry knew he’d somehow stumbled yet again into the mouth of madness.

  Getting to his feet, he saw a short, middle-aged and immensely fat woman wearing a pair of overalls over a torn blue workman’s shirt and heavy boots stood in his way. She must have weighed in excess of three hundred and fifty pounds. One of her meaty hands held a shovel which had Anastasia’s blood on it. The other held a lethal looking pistol. It was pointed straight at his heart and he slowly raised his hands above his head. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Granny Tillman,” the woman answered. She had a pronounced twang in her voice and nodded with almost every word she uttered. Her eyes were two tiny black holes lost in folds of flesh, and she smiled at him, a smile with more than a few teeth missing, either due to gum disease or lack of proper care. After seeing that the remaining teeth were green, Harry decided to go with both possibilities.

  However, this wasn’t the time to contemplate dentistry and the problems of gingivitis. “What do you want?” he asked.

  The smile switched off and a look which could only be described as craziness crept in, craziness and pure malice, crept in. “You’re on my property and this abomination is an affront to my eyes,” she answered. “If you want to live then you’ll tell me who you are and you’ll do it right quick!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Over the Hill to Grandma’s House

  Tillman reached down and grabbed Anastasia by the scruff of her neck. In a surprisingly quick move, she hefted the limp body, slung it over her shoulder and motioned with her pistol to Harry to walk in front. “Move it, young man. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”

  They marched him down the hill to her shack and she prodded him with her pistol when he faltered. The day had turned out hot and sweat streamed down his face as he trod along. Just his luck, not a soul in sight, and why couldn’t someone come out to pick apples or take in the scenery? Tillman whistled an off-key tune as they went along. Finally, after ten minutes, she told him to halt. “My place is just up ahead.”

  From the outside, it looked like a shoddily built lean-to with irregularly shaped windows papered from the inside, warped wood, and a chimney with smoke curling out of its top. For a second, he had the impression a strong breeze would knock it down, but Tillman grabbed the door, wrenched it open, and the walls didn’t shake. It was a lot more solid than he initially thought. She motioned him inside, and once there, she unceremoniously dumped Anastasia’s body into the corner. “Sit down,” Tillman ordered.

  As he sat beside Anastasia, he reached out slowly to touch her neck and check her pulse. It came back steady and strong. A smell hung in the air, his nose registered it as being noxious, and he turned his attention to the small wood-burning stove. There was a pot on top with something bubbling in it. It was the cause of the stink. For a second he thought of asking Tillman what she liked to eat and then figured she’d say “Granny’s vittles,” so he decided not to ask.

  The rest of the room’s contents consisted of a crudely fashioned sofa, bed, and a table in the center with an oil lamp on it. What kind of person was this Tillman?

  His answer came when he saw what lay above a fireplace in the far right corner. Paper covered the windows, but some light shone faintly through and made out a very large wooden cross which sat above the fireplace mantel. There were a number of small crosses all over the place, but what got him most were the stuffed animals and bloody animal skins on the table and the smell of blood in the air. It was a musky, pungent smell of death and it made his stomach turn. Something had to be very, very wrong here, and he now knew this person was more than a little dangerous.

  Tillman put the shovel down, but maintained her grip on the pistol. “Young man, you’d better start explainin’ who you are and what that is.” She pointed to the limp form of Anastasia. “You’ll do it now or the Lord will wreak havoc upon you and it will be of a most hurtful kind.”

  Oh, great, I had to run into a religious nut, he thought. He just hoped she wasn’t the shoot-first-and-never-ask-questions type…then again, after seeing the glint of madness in her eyes, he knew she’d blow his head off if he came out with anything other than what she wanted to hear. The fact that she only wanted to hear herself speak meant he was screwed big time.

  “My name’s Harry Goldman,” he began. “The girl’s name…”

  “That’s a girl?” the woman interrupted, her eyes flinty. “She is an abomination and an affront to the Lord.”

  Mo
re God talk and Harry knew there’d be no reasoning with this person even though he had to try. “Ma’am, she was a girl—once. Someone experimented on her and made her this way. I’m trying to help her change back.”

  The woman considered his words, and then pulled a chair over to her position. It groaned when she sat down on it. “Your name is Goldman?” she asked and then leaned forward to study his face. “I never heard of you before. I know most of the people up here, and while I don’t keep company with them or share their views on religion, I know who they are. They are all godless heathens if you ask me, but at least they give me my privacy and that’s something I respect.”

  “If you’ve been watching television…”

  She waved her hand at the mention of the word, as if it were some kind of annoying pest. “I don’t watch none of that there television. I don’t have one and I don’t want one. When I lived in West Virginia—I come from the old country—my folks didn’t have it, my late husband didn’t have it, and I don’t want it. The devil is in that infernal machine. Most machines are infernal.”

  Old country…dislike of machines…godless heathens…Harry felt he’d really lucked out on finding this kook—not. He wanted to say something in his defense, but Tillman slapped him on the side of his head to get his attention and indicated his bag with a meaty index finger. “What’s in there?”

  “It’s my computer.”

  She snorted, a heavy, wet sound, and stared straight at him, her gaze unwavering. “It figures you’d be carryin’ another infernal tool of Satan with you. I can tell you’re from the city, the way you speak and all. The devil seduces your mind with computers and television. Those shows put strange ideas in your head. Then to make sure, Satan sends his minions to do his work for him. Cats are what he sends most of the time.”