Cat's Eye

by William W. Johnstone

  The doctor sighed. “It can all be explained.”

  “Yes. I just did.”

  Darkness now walked around the house, shooing away the last vestiges of light.

  “Not to satisfy my mind, you didn’t,” Cal said, challenging him.

  Scratch. Purr.

  “I suppose the wind—which isn’t blowing—is causing that noise,” Carl said with a smile.

  None of the three men said anything.

  “There is another thing you have to worry about,” Carl said. “The press. I’m surprised they aren’t in here now. One more mangled body and they’ll be swarming all over this county”

  “We aren’t going to release the name of the latest... victim,” Cal said. “He was a bachelor who lived along the ridges. I’m not sure he even had any relatives.”

  “That’ll work for awhile. But the killing has just begun. Killing is only a part of what you’ll be up against. Just a scratch from one of these creatures can cause a horrible metamorphosis in humans. Believe me, I saw it with my own eyes in Ruger County. So did my mother and sister, Captain Taylor of the Highway Patrol, Doctors Bennett and Goodson, and a lot of other people. You may call me a liar, but all of us can’t be lying. Think about it.” Before they could respond, Carl added, “And if you’re so sure I’m fabricating all this, Doctor Bartlett, come out tomorrow morning and take a stroll in those woods over there.” He pointed.

  Cal said nothing.

  “Can you explain the cells you viewed under a microscope?” Carl asked, challenging him. “You’ll find the same cells in the bits and pieces of the man killed today. Burn those body parts, Doctor. Destroy them before they destroy you.”

  “That is ridiculous!” Cal snapped. “Nonsense. I’ve got a call in to a forensic lab in Richmond. A friend of mine will be coming in early tomorrow. He’ll get to the bottom of this very quickly, I assure you of that.”

  Carl spread his hands. “I tried,” he said softly. “You’re just going to have to see for yourself.”

  Jim stood up. “We’ll not speak of this outside this house, gentlemen. Word gets out about . . . spooks and hants and hobgobblins and the supernatural, we’ll have a panic on our hands. Worse than that, we’ll have all sorts of nuts and kooks and so forth coming into the county. I don’t want that. First order of business is to catch whoever is killing these folks.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about doing that, Chief,” Carl said without getting up. “They’ll find you. Bet on that.”

  “Superstitious nonsense!” Cal said, and walked out on the porch, Jim right behind him.

  “We’ll see you and Judy tomorrow night, Mike,” Dee said.

  “We’ll be here.” The young deputy walked out to join the chief and the doctor. He closed the door behind him.

  By his car, Jim said to Mike, “I want everything you can get me on Carl Garrett and what happened over there in Ruger County.”

  “You’re not buying any of that crap, are you?” Cal asked.

  “I don’t know—yet. But you’re not going to tell me that head didn’t talk and that hand didn’t grab at my dork and that middle finger didn’t wave at both of us.”

  Mike stood by silently. He’d only heard about the head that talked and the hand that grabbed at Jim’s dick a few minutes before, in the house. As far as he was concerned, he believed Carl Garrett.

  And he had a hunch the chief deputy did too.

  “Jim, I don’t know what to believe; except I most adamantly do not believe all that voodoo-monster business Garrett was trying to hand us.”

  “That’s too bad, Cal.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. ’Cause I just made up my mind. I believe him.”

  Mike sighed with relief.

  * * *

  As soon as Cal unlocked the door to his lab, he stopped and Jim ran right into him.

  “What’s the matter?” the chief deputy asked.

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “Well, turn on the darn lights and let’s see what it is.”

  Cal fumbled for the switch and flooded the lab with brightness.

  Both men stared in silent disbelief.

  The door to the slide-out cooler that had contained the various pieces of Ermma Barstow was shattered open. The head and hands were gone.

  “How?” Cal managed to say.

  Jim pointed to a security window set high off the floor, near the ceiling. The glass was smashed. “That’s how.”

  “But why would somebody want to break in here and just steal body parts?”

  “Nobody broke in, Cal. If that was the case, the way that window is shattered, there would be busted glass on the floor.”

  “What are you telling me, Jim?”

  “Look at the door to the cooler. See the way the door is U’d. That means it was broken out of, not into.”

  Cal started stuttering.

  Jim patted him on the shoulder. “You wasn’t busted into, Cal. You was broken out of.”

  * * *

  “They didn’t believe you?” Dee said.

  “Mike did, and so did the chief deputy, if I read him right.”

  “And what will tonight bring?”

  Carl cut his eyes from her to the window. “Terror.”

  * * *

  The domestic animals in and around the town of Butler were the first to sense that something was very wrong. Dogs and cats that usually roamed for an hour or so before returning to the porches and doghouses and yards of their owners remained at home. And as is so common among pet owners, who generally take their pets for granted, the men and women and kids did not notice any difference in their animals.

  The evening meal over, the families began settling down in front of TV sets, unaware of the evil that lurked and slithered and moved on silent paws just outside the squares of light the windows cast feebly upon the night.

  But the dogs and cats noticed. Dogs and cats who normally hated and fought each other now lay together on porches, under porches, in doghouses, and in bushes around their owners’ homes. And they were silent. No barking, no growling or hissing. They lay together in silent but very attentive wait.

  The chief of police of Butler, Max Bancroft, stepped out onto his front porch for a breath of fresh air. He dearly loved boiled cabbage and cornbread, but it sure stunk up the house. He almost tripped over his dog, Beau, who was lying close to the front door.

  “What’s the matter, boy?” Max spoke gently to the animal. “You getting too old for the nightly chase?”

  The setter looked up at him.

  Max then noticed the animal’s food bowl. The food was untouched.

  “Off your feed too, huh, Beau?” He took a deep breath and grimaced as a foul odor filled his nostrils. “Jesus Christ! Ten times worse out here than in the house.”

  A scream of agony cut the stillness of the night.

  Max jerked in surprise and stepped back into the house, getting his pistol from the holster that always hung on a peg just inside the door.

  “What was that awful sound?” his wife, Doreen, asked, coming out of the kitchen.

  “Sounded like a scream. I’ll check it out.” He held the door open. “You come inside, Beau. Stay in here. I’ll be back in a few minutes, Doreen.”

  He stepped off the proch and began walking up the sidewalk, toward where he believed the scream had originated. Neighbors had gathered on porches and in the front yards.

  “Just stay close to home,” Max told his friends and neighbors. “If I need help, I’ll give a holler. I don’t want a bunch of people out here; I might shoot the wrong person.”

  “What’s this I hear about another body being found up on the ridges, Max?”

  “Yeah. It’s true. We got a nut on the loose. That scream come from the Geason house, didn’t it?”

  “Sounded like it.”

  “Stay put. I might want you to call in and get a unit over here.”

  “I’ll do ’er, Max. I’ll stay right here in the yard and listen for you.”
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  Max Bancroft was not above fixing a ticket for a friend, or taking a fifth of whiskey as a gift. He knew that Sheriff Rodale was a jerk and law enforcement in Reeves County was a joke, but it wasn’t a joke in Butler. Not to Max. Max was a pretty good cop. His town force was small, but they were nearly all good people. With the exception of Benny Carter. Benny was pretty much a jerk, with more muscle than brains, and liked to bounce people around. The only reason he still wore a badge was that the people he hammered on were white trash and troublemakers who usually deserved it. But Max knew that someday Benny would bust up the wrong person and there’d be hell to pay. He would have fired him years ago, ’cept he felt sorry for Benny’s wife and kids. Max didn’t think Benny could do anything else other than wear a badge. And that was a pretty sorry reflection on the profession.

  But someday Benny would go too far with the wrong person.

  Max stopped in front of the Geason house. Some kind of funny noise seemed to be coming from inside. He listened. The damn night was hot, and very oppressive; hard to breathe.

  Max couldn’t figure out if the noise was coming from a human or an animal.

  Something crashed inside the house. Maybe Ralph Geason was beating up on his wife, but that wasn’t very likely. Ralph was such a mousy kind of guy. Could be that Alice was whippin’ Ralph’s ass. That was more like it.

  They were some kind of related to a family over in Ruger County. Had a young woman visiting them. Linda something or the other. Good-lookin’ young woman, but sort of strange-acting. Beau didn’t like her at all. Growled every time she walked past the house. And that wasn’t like Beau. The setter usually liked everybody and everybody liked him. Even the cat didn’t like the visiting young woman. Arched her back and hissed and spat whenever Linda came into sight. A fellow could add all that up and it come out to be strange.

  A crash followed by a moan drifted out to Max. “Call the station, Bob!” Max yelled. “Tell them to get a unit over here right now!”

  Max hesitated for a couple of seconds, then said to hell with it and plunged alone into the unknown.

  * * *

  Mayor Purdy stepped out of his house to stand for a moment on the front porch; let that wonderful meal his Meg had cooked digest. They had colored help around the house during the day, but Meg insisted—despite their wealth—on preparing the evening meal herself. And now that the kids were all grown up and moved away, she insisted that they dine together.

  Then that awful smell he’d experienced down at the jail wafted to his nostrils.

  “Phew!” He fanned the air with a hand, thinking that it couldn’t be just coming from the sheriffs department. No one could stay in the building long enough to get anything done ... not that much got done anyway, he thought.

  Something flitting through the shadows by the shrubbery turned his head. Wilber squinted his eyes. “What the hell was that?” he muttered.

  The tall, thick running hedge had been planted behind a six-foot brick and wrought-iron fence; brick built up two feet off the ground and the wrought-iron fence extending four feet above that. The individual bars were four inches apart. Take a mighty skinny fellow to slip through that.

  But Wilber had a moment of fear thinking that what he’d see was not human. What made it stick so in his mind was the additional thought that it wasn’t animal either.

  But it had to be one or the other. Didn’t it?

  Scratch. Purr.

  The sounds turned Wilber around and around on the porch, looking in all directions. Their two house cats had taken off like a shot, diving under a low wicker table, and from all indications, they weren’t about to come out anytime soon.

  That fleeting, flickering shadow slipped in and out of what light shone out from inside the house.

  “Meg!” Wilber called. “Bring me my shotgun, will you, honey. And a handful of shells too.”

  Wilber always kept the shotgun loaded up, but without a round in the chamber. He chambered a round and shoved another into the tube. That brought him up to five three-inch magnum rounds. Double-ought buckshot. “Go on back inside, Mother,” he told his wife. “And get ready to turn on all the outside floods when I holler.”

  “What is it, Will?”

  “I don’t know, dear. Go on. Sing out when you’re ready.”

  Wilber Purdy stepped off the porch and into the foul-smelling darkness.

  * * *

  On the other side of town, Sheriff Rodale pushed back his chair from the supper table and belched loudly, causing his long-suffering wife to cringe as she stood by the dishwasher in the kitchen.

  “Fine eats there, Betty May!” he hollered. Then he lifted his leg and farted.

  The dog got up from the dining room floor, a pained expression on its face, and left the room.

  In the kitchen, Betty shuddered. Why, she asked herself—had to be a million times, at least—had she ever married that slob?

  She’d known for years of his womanizing. He always had him a high-yellow gal stashed someplace in the county. She and Ned hadn’t shared the same bed in more than ten years. He was a womanizer, he was totally obnoxious when he drank—which was every night—and he was a thief. Only God knew how much he’d stolen over the years and carefully hidden away in airtight jars in a dozen locations around the county.

  And he was a slob. A redneck, white-trash slob. Had the manners of a hungry hog come slop-time. And he also beat Betty periodically. To keep her in line.

  That was the main reason she hadn’t left him. If she did, he had warned repeatedly, he would kill her.

  And she believed him, for she knew there was a lot of blood on her husband’s hands. Back in the early days, his enemies, real and imagined, had had a nasty habit of just disappearing, never to be seen again. All that had stopped a long time back, but the memories were still long and strong, and the hill people in the county pretty much did what Ned Rodale said. That was where his base was—through a combination of fear and the fact that he was one of them. The townspeople always voted against him.

  Her husband had kept records over the long years. He knew who was behind in payments to whom; and he was always there with a little money to, as he put it, “hep out.” He knew who was runnin’ around on whom, and certainly was not above blackmail to get himself a piece of prime pussy every now and then.

  Ned Rodale knew where the working stills were, and got his share, either in votes or money; ditto with what gambling and whoring went on in the county.

  Wilber Purdy really wasn’t much better than Ned Rodale; he just had more finesse about him. The two had run around together as boys: the rich kid and the sharecropper’s kid. Ned would always fight Wilber’s battles for him, and a common bond was formed.

  But Wilber had, she knew, seen the writing on the wall. If the county was to progress, Rodale had to go.

  But that was all right. Ned didn’t have any hard feelings toward his lifelong friend. He was realist enough to know that he couldn’t change no more than a dog could stop pissin’ on tires or chasin’ cats.

  Scratch. Purr.

  Ned looked up, facing the dining room window, and began screaming.

  The bodyless head of Old Lady Barstow was up against the window, her long red tongue licking the glass and her hands hovering just under and on each side of the head, the fingernails scratching at the glass. The eyes were wild.

  Ned Rodale’s bowels relaxed, filling his underwear, and the man passed out, tumbling to the floor.

  Chapter 9

  Max kicked the front door open and went in low, ducking to his left as soon as he was inside and flattening against the wall, down on one knee, his pistol in his right hand.

  Place had a funky smell to it. He’d crawled up in a recently vacated bear’s den one time as a kid. The smell was something like that. A wild, gamy odor.

  He could hear hysterical sobbing coming from somewhere in the house.

  “Alice? Is that you, Alice?”

  Scratch. Purr.

  Max could
n’t figure that out at all. The scratching was too heavy for a house cat and the purring was more like it was coming from a big leopard.

  Then the scratching and throaty purring stopped.

  “Max?”

  “Yeah, Alice. It’s me. Where’s Ralph? Where’s the damn light switch?”

  He fumbled around and found the switch, filling the room with light.

  “Jesus Christ!” Max said, looking around him at the wreckage. The room looked like a tornado had hit it. Couch and chairs overturned, drapes pulled down, telephone lying in pieces in one corner.

  A city unit squalled up, lights flashing.

  Alice and Linda staggered into the room, both of them trying to piece together their torn clothing. “He went crazy, Max,” Alice sobbed. “I stepped out to visit across the street, and when I came back he had beaten Linda almost unconscious and was raping her.”

  “Who?”

  “Ralph!”

  “Ralph?”

  “Yes. Then he attacked me. He took me like . . . an animal. You know. It was filthy and degrading and he hurt me. He ran out the back when I tore the gag loose and started screaming.”

  “Check the back,” Max told the city patrolman.

  Max stood alone in the littered living room of the house while the women went off to change clothing. Every fragment of cop’s intuition within him screamed that this was all wrong. Ralph Geason was probably the most honorable man Max had ever known, the type that holds a community together. Good husband, wonderful father; the type of man you could always count on to lead some charitable drive and the one who would work the hardest.

  Ralph Geason went off his nut and did something like this?

  Max just could not accept it. The chief had been a cop all his life—except for two years in the Army, where they had made him a cook—and knew that in the law-enforcement business anything was possible.

  But this . . . situation just didn’t set right with him. Linda had refused to meet his eyes; and he would have sworn there was a smirk on her lips. And what in God’s name was that funky smell?

  Something was all out of whack here.

  Wilber Purdy was tracking the furtive movements of whatever it was on his property, staying between the hedge and the fence. He hadn’t called for the floodlights because he did not want it to see him.