Catnip

by J. S. Frankel

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the giant bear-man loom behind his girlfriend. Ivan’s eyes were dull and focused only on his master. What kind of job had he done before being turned into Nurmelev’s pet monkey? Probably a leg-breaker for the KGB or organized crime, Harry thought.

  Something else caught his attention. The exit was open. Why? Perhaps Ivan had gone upstairs to catch his dinner from the forest, or perhaps Nurmelev had gotten some supplies from the main room. The wheels in Harry’s mind started turning and an idea abruptly came through.

  Anastasia stood rigidly with her tail coiled around her waist. Harry gave her a quick wink and flicked his eyes at the door. She followed his lead, and offered a barely perceptible nod.

  “How are you progressing?” Nurmelev wanted to know after a few minutes of silence. He sounded somewhat anxious. “This matrix should be capable of enhancing certain aspects of the host’s strength and speed.”

  “Give me a second,” Harry replied. Fight back in different ways.

  He quickly typed in a few commands and turned to the nutty professor after giving his girlfriend another wink and a slight nod toward the exit. Fortunately, neither Ivan nor the scientist noticed. The nod meant get ready. “Just hit Enter.”

  Nurmelev hit the button and a loud beep came from the computer. Startled, he backed up a step. “What have you done?”

  “Hidden the information,” Harry replied, a grin on his face. “Try finding your code now.”

  Nurmelev shrieked. It was the sound of impotent rage and he raised his arms. Harry let loose with a punch that staggered the professor and he didn’t know who was more surprised, himself or the Russian. “You won’t find it,” he said.

  Ivan, sensing something was wrong, took a step forward. Mistake number one, as Anastasia jumped up and whipped her tail against the back of his head, which sent him sprawling. The creature immediately got up and uttered a ferocious roar. He spread his arms wide and got ready to charge which turned out to be mistake number two. Anastasia jumped forward and raked her claws across his face which simultaneously blinded him in one eye and shredded his face.

  As Ivan screamed in agony, Harry grabbed her hand and they tore out the door, up the stairs, through a very drab-looking and perfectly normal living room area, and out of the cabin. Their blind dash to freedom took over the gravel road to the edge of the forest, and behind them they heard the professor yelling in Russian. No translation needed—the professor was ordering the bear-thing to hunt them down.

  “This way,” she urged, and they ran into the cover of the trees. The sun had almost gone down and a slight chill hung in the air. The trees branches and bushes crashed against their legs and faces, and they didn’t bother attempting to keep the noise down. This was a flight for their lives. The duo kept running and soon found themselves surrounded by pines and poplars.

  Harry stopped to catch his breath and breathed heavily in and out while his girlfriend sniffed the air. “He’ll be coming soon,” she said. “He’s got our scent. What do we do now?”

  He scanned the area, and suddenly an idea popped into his head, something he’d read in a book. “We need to find a pit.”

  Anastasia raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

  “Trust me.”

  Harry outlined his plan, and although Anastasia seemed initially dubious, she told him to wait and ran off to find what they were looking for. A few seconds later, she came back and grabbed his hand. “Did you find it?” he asked.

  “Yeah, follow me.”

  Twilight had fallen and he couldn’t see much of anything while Anastasia’s night vision seemed perfect. He stumbled and fell a couple of times before she halted and pointed off to their right. “Over there,” she said.

  Their target turned out to be a pit around six feet deep, and her nose wrinkled at the stench. Harry also held his nose, peered in, and spotted some toilet paper and pink balloons. Oh wait, they must have been…

  “Never mind,” he said. “This is it.”

  His girlfriend appeared confused. “So what are we supposed to do? Wait until he falls in?”

  “Yep, that’s the idea,” he answered, and he set to work finding poles long enough to traverse the span and handfuls of leaves which he used to cover it. Anastasia seemed doubtful, but helped him anyway. Harry’s reasoning was simple. Neither of them could match Ivan’s power, but they could lure him into the trap and then beat him silly. At least, that was the plan.

  She kept muttering the scheme was silly, and shook her head when he asked her to find some thick sticks. “Do you want to tell me why,” she asked.

  “Weapons manufacturing 101,” he answered. “Get some thick sticks and sharpen them.”

  They went on the hunt and managed to gather ten sticks. Anastasia used her claws to slice the ends into wicked points. Harry took the sticks-turned-mini-spears, made his way down to the bottom of the pit, and dipped them into the feces. “These will be our Punji sticks,” he said.

  “What’s a Punji stick?”

  “It’s a stick with crap smeared on the end,” he explained patiently while stabbing them into the ground. “I read about it in a book. Enemy soldiers used them in wars. They put poison on the ends or frogs or crap. If you didn’t watch where you were walking, the stake would go right into your leg or right through you. Even if you survived, you got an infection. It might work on Ivan, it might not.”

  He hoped one of the stakes would go through the monster’s neck. That seemed to be the only weak spot he had. Anastasia’s eyes had a tinge of fear in them, but she said nothing. After covering the opening with branches and leaves, she crept across the poles and stood in the center. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “He needs bait,” she answered simply. “I’m the bait.”

  Harry suddenly had a bad feeling about all this. He cared for his girlfriend too much to see anything terrible happen to her, but she was the obvious choice. They waited, and soon they heard the sound of heavy feet stomping their way through the brush. It had to Ivan. For someone so large, he moved quickly.

  “Ivan,” she called out. “I’m over here.”

  A second passed, two more, and Harry heard a noise, something low and hoarse which rose into a shriek of rage and pain. Ivan came their way and he blundered his way clumsily through the bushes. He held one paw over his damaged eye while the other felt the air as if to gauge the way ahead.

  Good, Harry thought, his depth perception is off.

  The huge bear-man charged out of the darkness in his direction. Harry stood in front of the trap and trusted Anastasia to move when the time was right. She did. Just before the monster hit him he threw himself to the side and out of the corner of his eye saw his girlfriend leap away as Ivan went right past him and into the pit.

  An unearthly scream filled the night. Anastasia came over to him, and in the darkness he made out the immense figure of his would-be assassin impaled on no less than three sharp stakes, one of them through his shoulder, the second through his stomach, and the last one through his heart.

  “Bear down,” she said, and spit on the creature.

  Ivan didn’t stir and Harry took his girlfriend’s arm. “Just one more scumbag to take care of,” he told her.

  As quickly and quietly as possible, they made their way back to Nurmelev’s cabin. Near the structure, she halted, tested the air with her nose, and whispered they could enter. They made their way inside, through the faux living room, and at the top of the stairs they heard the sound of tapping keys. The scientist had to be in his lab, probably satisfied his protégé had taken care of the intruders.

  Noiselessly, they moved one step at a time, and at the bottom, Anastasia opened the door and they found Nurmelev inside, seated at his computer. He looked up in shock. “What…where is Ivan?”

  “He’s stuck in the woods,” Harry replied and wondered why he couldn’t have thought of a better cliché. “It’s over, Nurmelev. You’ve got the equations for reversing the process, at least the prelim
inary ones. Give them to me and I promise that my girlfriend won’t slash your throat.”

  The scientist’s eyes shone, and Harry realized the man had finally snapped. No, check that, he’d snapped a long time ago. Nurmelev hastily tapped a few keys on the computer and stabbed his finger on a button with an air of triumph. Behind them, the door swung shut and the sound of the lock closing came through.

  “You will get nothing, Goldman,” he stated, and his voice began to shake with rage. “I have managed to find the information you so cleverly hid. This place will explode in less than five minutes and you cannot get out of this room. If you give yourselves up to me, I will stop the timer. If you don’t, then we either die here or we flee in order to continue our lives elsewhere. It is your choice.”

  Harry ran walked over and shoved Nurmelev away. A picture of a stopwatch had appeared on the screen and it showed less than five minutes remaining. At the bottom of the screen he saw the animated picture of a bomb with a fuse slowly burning its way to the explosive. With trembling fingers, he started typing. “What are you doing?” Anastasia asked.

  “I’m trying to find the equation for you. I just need a couple of minutes.”

  Nurmelev tried to intervene, but she grabbed him and sank her claws into both of his shoulders. Blood spurted out of the wounds. He screamed in agony and tried to twist away, but she held him fast and hissed out, “You did this to me. You won’t do it to anyone else, so if we blow up then you’re coming with us, comrade.”

  Harry frantically kept typing, tried to bypass the firewalls, and suddenly realized the truth was right in front of his eyes. Nurmelev had files…and he found them. “Just thirty more seconds…”

  A roar from outside interrupted his thoughts. He whirled around as the door blew off its hinges. Ivan stood in the doorway, swaying unsteadily. Blood covered his face and upper torso, and he spit out more blood onto the floor before staggering inside and toward Anastasia with a snarl on his lips.

  She hurled the doctor into the far corner. He hit the wall, clutched his skull and screamed, “Kill them!”

  “Keep working!” Anastasia cried, and leapt at the bear creature.

  Wounded or not, Ivan was still strong enough to grab her in mid-air and he tossed her with ease into the opposite corner. She twisted, landed on her feet, and let out a hiss of rage. Harry kept at it, sweated buckets, and…there, he found it!

  After quickly tapping a few more keys, he hit the Enter button and quickly retreated as Ivan, bleeding profusely from his wounds, charged in his direction, blood and murder in his eyes.

  No more backing off, Harry thought, and he grabbed the only weapon at arm’s reach—the computer—and slammed it across Ivan’s face over and over. The monster roared and lashed out with a massive paw. The blow caught him right in the left side of his face, ripping it open. A wave of sickening pain flowed through him and he dropped the ruined machine, clutching at his cheek.

  Ivan grinned in triumph, blood running down the sides of his mouth and he leaned down to stare the smaller teenager in the face. “You…die… now,” he uttered in a guttural voice.

  Harry lifted his head. “Not yet,” he ground out.

  With the last of his strength, he launched a punch, the one punch he’d been saving all his life. His uppercut connected with monster’s jaw, snapped his head back, and it gave Anastasia all the time she needed. She leaped unbelievably high and somersaulted onto Ivan’s back, her claws fully extended. With a primal scream she reached around his bull-like neck and tore his throat open. Blood sprayed out in every direction, his eyes opened wide with disbelief, and he fell over, stone cold dead.

  “You are both insane!” Nurmelev screamed. He staggered to his feet and ran over to Harry, his eyes mad with rage and fear. “You do all this for her? She is nothing but a freak!”

  Harry belted the madman right in the mouth and knocked him on his butt. He ripped off his shirt, dragged the dazed scientist over to the computer and bound him to the chair. His face hurt like hell, but he shunted the pain to a distant part of his mind. “Your experiment is over,” he said. “Enjoy the final countdown.”

  With a quick movement, he grabbed Anastasia’s hand and pulled her in the direction of the door. “We have to go now!” he yelled.

  Together, they reached the door and made it outside just before the first bomb went off at the top of the stairs. The explosion hurled them back inside the room, and he realized there was nowhere else to go. Nurmelev cackled, “I am out of time, but so are you!”

  Harry looked around wildly. Yes, there was one place left! He yanked the door to the charnel room open and threw Anastasia inside, and then remembered to grab the bag that held his computer just before the second bomb went off. It did one second later, and the power and energy of the exploding gas filled the air with a bright light that almost seared his eyes out…

  Epilogue

  Harry thought he heard the sound of a car pulling up, but he’d been so engrossed in the figures on the computer screen he didn’t really pay much attention. It had been almost a week since the ordeal at the rebel doctor’s lab, and he considered himself pretty lucky he’d survived. A badly slashed face, some bumps and bruises from the assassin—it had been worth it.

  Anastasia had taken the brunt of the explosion in her chest and shoulders. After he’d tossed her inside the room with all the corpses of the previous experiments, she’d grabbed him and pulled him behind her. The door didn’t close in time, he heard the gas tanks blow, felt the concussion, a tremendous blast of heat, and then…nothing.

  When he woke up, she lay at his feet. She was bleeding badly, but still alive although barely conscious. “Why’d you push me out of the way?” he asked and tried very hard not to cry at the sight of his girlfriend’s torn up body.

  “You did for me,” she gasped out. “I can do for you.” Then she whimpered in pain, “I wish I couldn’t remember what it was like to feel pain. This hurts!”

  Her head lolled. He gently carried her up the stairs and outside, found the late professor’s car with the keys still in the ignition, and drove down the quiet road. Anastasia moaned in her sleep, slashed the air with her claws, and then passed out again. Fortune favored them as he found an unused cabin just three miles up the road.

  He kicked open the door, laid his girlfriend’s body on the floor, dressed her wounds, and let her sleep. After he’d dressed his own wounds with a torn up towel and some bandages he found in a medicine cabinet, the fatigue due to the events of the past few days hit and hit hard, and he slept beside her, slept deeply, and didn’t wake up until a day later…

  Now a knock came at the door, and it would have to disturb his daydream. The knock came again, this time more insistently, and then he figured it had to either be the owners or someone from the state department. Any assassin would have simply kicked the door open so he felt safe for the moment.

  Harry slowly walked over to the door. His injuries were still healing, but pain or no, he felt determined to finish what he’d started and the interruption annoyed him. “Who is it?” he asked. Just in case, he grabbed the crowbar he’d stashed beside the entrance.

  “It’s Miles Farrell.”

  He opened up and saw the tall and gaunt form of Agent Farrell standing there in his usual black suit, his right arm in a sling. Twenty feet behind him, the agent’s beaten up old Buick sat alone and unloved. “How’s the arm?”

  The older man shrugged and then grimaced. “I’ve had worse.” He cast his gaze around the plain cottage, noted the sparseness of the décor, just a simple wooden table with the laptop on it, the couch, and a small refrigerator in the corner. “Can I come in?”

  Silently, Harry waved him inside and they sat down. He placed the crowbar on the floor and shifted his body around to find a more comfortable position.

  Farrell eased himself down and scratched his head with his undamaged hand. “Well, it took some time to find you,” he began. “After I got out of the hospital, we started a manhunt al
l over Manhattan. It took us almost a week to find you. That’s a record for us.”

  His reply made Harry laugh. “It only took a week? They found Hussein in less time.”

  “That wasn’t our department,” the Fed said quickly. “We usually work faster than they do.”

  “So how did you find me?” Harry was genuinely curious. He thought he’d covered his tracks well, but then again there was always the chance he’d missed something and this time he obviously had.

  Farrell eyed him and shrugged. “You sent a message from Nurmelev’s lab to your friend’s computer. We already knew about Parham. He didn’t know where you were, so that was a dead end. Then we traced the phone call you made from someone’s cellphone up here. It wasn’t too difficult to lock on to your location after that.”

  Harry thought about Callaghan and he regretted that so many people had to die in order for the truth to be known. He was just grateful his girlfriend had survived.

  Farrell kept up with the explanation. “You told me to check on Nurmelev. On a hunch, I ran his name through Interpol and found out he was a professor at a Russian university, disappeared off the map more or less, and then,” he shrugged, “you found him.”

  “Actually, he found me,” Harry pointed out.

  The agent nodded. “Yeah, so he did. Anyway, after the explosion at his lab, we got a phone call and sent a team up. We figured you were dead, you and Anastasia, but the team found no bodies other than his and what was left of the bear-guy. We haven’t identified the latter suspect yet, but we will. There were also a lot of other body parts we had to collect. That’ll keep us busy for a while.”

  The agent continued his story and also mentioned the crazy mountain lady they’d interviewed. Harry laughed silently. Granny Tillman would have some story to tell…he doubted anyone would believe her, though.