Cat's Eye

by William W. Johnstone

  A meat wagon from the hospital sped by and Champ wondered what was going on.

  A low hissing came from behind him.

  Without turning around, Champ said, “Git outta here, you gawddam mutt!” Champ didn’t like animals of any kind. If he found a dog on his property, he shot it. No matter if it was wearing a collar with vaccination tag, he still shot it. And he hated cats even more than he did dogs.

  Scratch. Purr.

  That turned him around on the bench. But the sight before his drunken and bleary eyes amused him rather than frightened him. “Boy, you better git you some clothes on, you nitwit!”

  Ralph Geason hissed and growled, crouching naked in the gloom.

  “I’ll kick your ass!” Champ warned, as Ralph inched closer.

  Ralph roared and tried to stand upright; his stance was that of a great ape.

  Champ stood up, finally getting it through his head that this was no joke. He balled his hands into fists and raised them. “Come on, then, you silly bastard!”

  Ralph hissed and roared and jumped, the leap knocking Champ sprawling. Ralph was all over him, clawed hands tearing at flesh. With a scream of rage and pain, Champ slugged Ralph on the jaw, knocking the man from him. Champ got to his feet, planted them as firmly as he could, and gave Ralph a shot to the jaw, knocking the man down and momentarily out.

  Torn and bleeding, Champ staggered off into the night, trying to remember where he’d parked his truck. His head felt funny, and his jaws ached . . . kinda like he all of a sudden had more teeth than there was room for. But that was silly. He lurched around, found his truck, and cranked up, heading for the house.

  * * *

  Gary and Janet stopped at the chain-link fence. Both of them were footsore and tired . . . but they’d made it to the Conners place without encountering any more coven members. They stood looking at the big dog on the other side of the fence, who was looking at them. There seemed to be a lot of activity a few hundred yards from the house, and behind them, they could see the lights of the ambulance as it sped up the road.

  The attendants didn’t give them a second look as they jerked the gurney out of the back of the ambulance and ran toward the lights in the clearing.

  “Another body,” Gary whispered. “See it on the ground?”

  “Yes. Why are we whispering?”

  A horrible roaring cut short Gary’s reply. Both kids stood in silence, watching at what they thought was a dead man began thrashing about, fighting his bonds and screaming in a language unknown to them and to anybody else standing close to the scene.

  The screaming, roaring, fighting man was secured to the gurney and wheeled back to the ambulance.

  “. . . him to my lab,” the young people heard Doctor Bartlett say. “And stay there with him. Keep him strapped down tight and don’t say a word about this to anybody. I’ll be about ten minutes behind you.”

  The ambulance pulled out, heading back to town. The man was still screaming.

  “Hello,” Dee said, causing both the kids to very nearly jump out of their tennis shoes. “Sorry” Dee apologized. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “That’s all right,” Janet said. “It’s been a scary night. Miss Conners, could we talk to you and that coven-buster?”

  “Who? Oh. You mean Carl. Why, sure.” She hesitated, looked at the young people for a moment, then swung open the gate. “Come on up to the porch. Carl will be back in a few minutes.”

  Both Gary and Janet picked up on her hesitation. “It’s good to be cautious, Miss Conners,” Janet told her. “I guess you know what’s going on in town, right?”

  Dee glanced at the girl. “Perhaps.” She waved them to chairs and they both sat down with a sigh. “You sound tired.”

  “We walked from town.”

  “But that’s miles!” She had to smile as Janet took off one tennis shoe and began rubbing her foot.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gary said. “But we didn’t have much choice in the matter. We split from the coven and now Nick and the others are trying to kill us.”

  Was this a trick? Dee questioned silently. It could well be, but somehow she didn’t think so. The kids were obviously near exhaustion and they looked scared. They’d jumped about a foot in the air when she’d first spoken to them by the fence.

  “Will you swear warrants out against them?” Carl asked from the door. He had come in the back way after spotting the two strangers sitting on the porch with Dee and had heard Gary’s last few words.

  Dee stood up and introduced them, telling Carl all of what Gary had just told her.

  “It wouldn’t do any good to swear out warrants,” Janet said. “They’d all just lie and stick together. But I think I know where the bodies of Lanny and Dora were buried.” She put her hands to her face and began to cry. Gary put an arm around her shoulders.

  Carl waited until she had dried her eyes and blown her nose before holding up a hand. He concluded that not only was she telling the truth, she was also scared half to death. He wondered about Lanny and Dora—whoever they were. “I want to get Jim Hunt in on this—and the two state cops. You two just sit tight and relax.” He left the porch, heading for the clearing and the lights.

  “Come on,” Dee said to Janet. “I’ll show you the bathroom and you can wash your face. You’ll feel better.”

  By the time Janet returned to the porch, the cops had gathered and Dee was brewing a fresh pot of coffee.

  “A question, girl,” Jim said. “How big is the coven in Butler?”

  “They never let us know for sure. I do know that my group”—she looked at Gary—“our group, had about forty people in it. I think there are three groups in town, and one out in the county. Only the coven leaders are allowed to meet each other. My group was the senior of the young people’s group. The only time the younger members were allowed to join us was when a lot of sex was involved.”

  “An orgy?” Daly asked.

  “They’re never called that, but I guess that’s what it was. Everybody just sticks it in anything that’s available.”

  “Boys with boys and girls with girls?” Tolson asked, a disgusted look on his face.

  “Sure. If that’s the way you like it. There are no sexual hang-ups in covens. The rule is, if it feels good, do it.”

  “There are younger members?” Daly asked. “Younger than you two?”

  “Oh, sure. I started when I was twelve. And there were some lots younger than me. Whole families take part. You got some real perverts in covens. Dirty-minded men who say that sex before eight is great.”

  “Or that sex before seven is heaven,” Gary added. “It goes on all the time.”

  Jim spat on the ground. Daly softly cussed. Tolson looked as though he’d like to puke. “If you two will testify,” Tolson said, “we have a case.”

  “I’ll testify,” Janet and Gary said as one.

  “Jim, what do you know about this Lanny and Dora?” Carl said.

  “They disappeared just about two years ago. Manhunt went on for a long time. Finally it just petered out. We had absolutely no leads at all. I mean, not a one.”

  “They tried to leave the coven,” Janet said. “Did leave. But before they could get to the police, Nick and some of the others caught them. They were both tortured and raped and then sacrificed. Their hearts were cut out during a black mass. Then their bodies were cut up with a chain saw and buried way out in the county.”

  “Do you know where?” Jim asked.

  “Pretty close,” Gary took it. “We weren’t at the black mass when it was done, but we’ve both heard kids talk. They were buried right next to that little creek that runs north to south on this side of the mountains. By Flat Ridge.”

  “I know the spot,” Jim said. “I’m thinkin’, boys, that we may just be able to bust this whole thing wide open before the crap hits the fan full force.”

  “I’m thinking the same,” Daly said. He looked at the kids. “The DA, kids—what do you know about him?”

  �
��He’s part of it,” Janet told him. “Don’t trust him. There is a whole lot of adults in the coven. If I had to guess, I’d say two hundred and fifty adults and that many kids, all over the county. The way we hear it, Reeves County was gonna be the headquarters for the entire state. And the Old Ones are very nearly ready to come up from out of the earth.”

  “Have you ever seen one of these . . . Old Ones?” Tolson asked.

  “No, sir. But Linda Crowley has. She’s from Ruger County and is pretty much in charge of all the covens here.”

  “The girl I told you about,” Carl said, looking at Jim.

  “There is something else,” Gary said. “Another reason we came out here. We know who’s been making the obscene calls to you, Miss Conners. It was Nick and Linda Crowley and some adults. We were both there a couple of times when they did it.”

  “More charges,” Daly said. “I can get some warrants from the state. I’ll get a couple of dozen signed warrants and fill in the names as we go along. I’ll have to do some arm-twisting, but I can get it done.”

  Conversation stopped as Mike’s unit slid to a stop and the young deputy ran to the fence. Dee grabbed Dingo and held him while Carl let the deputy in.

  “Alice Watson’s been raped, Jim. The escaped cons grabbed her and took turns. They used her bad. And she’s changing real fast.”

  “Changing?” Daly asked. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not Alice Watson anymore. I don’t know what it is strapped on that bed, but she . . . it doesn’t even look human anymore. And I stood right there and watched her change. She’s . . . turned all scaly and ugly. She’s just a monster.”

  “Can she speak?”

  “Not anymore. Not in any language I ever heard before. And Doctor Perry is about to come unglued.”

  “Bartlett and Jenkins left about five minutes ago,” Jim said, glancing at his watch. “Mike, get on your way to town. Bump Dispatch and have a unit head the doctors off and warn them what’s goin’ down so they’ll be prepared for it. Daly, you get them warrants pronto. We want to hit these devil-worshippers just before dawn.” He looked at Janet and Gary. “You two got to be put under protective custody.”

  “They can stay out here with us,” Dee said. “They’ll be as safe here as anywhere . . . providing they don’t want to go home.”

  “Our parents are part of it,” Janet said. “They’d turn us over to Nick as soon as we walked in the door.”

  From deep in the darkness of thousands of acres of timber, the siren’s song began.

  Jim touched the butt of his .357. “I ever get that woman in gun sights, she ain’t gonna sing no more.”

  Chapter 17

  Upon awakening from unconsciousness, Ralph Geason snarled, growled, and ran toward the old two-story high school building. Somewhere in his mind he remembered its musty halls well, having graduated from that very building some years back. And he also recalled that young people liked to gather in the basement of the building to drink and, in more modern times, smoke dope. He headed for the basement of the building.

  * * *

  Champ Stinson sat in his overstuffed chair in his den and wondered how come it was he who felt so bad. His left hand had turned into an ugly clawed thing and his right hand was heading in that same direction. And the thoughts that were racing through his head had, at first, frightened him. Now he was becoming comfortable with them.

  Being the type he was—or had been; called white trash in some parts of the country—the thoughts suited him perfectly. The thoughts—dream-visions of things that had been and would be again, very soon, and for a brief period of time—were dark in nature and very primitive and very bloody. In his soon-to-be-reality Champ was a mighty hunter, of both animals and men: the apex of blood-sport. A real macho man.

  Champ stalked the land, killing for pleasure, killing anything that got in his way, and he took women where he found them, killing them after raping them. But no sooner had he killed them, they returned to life. Sort of. A dead-eyed, shuffling type of life. They followed him around, mumbling and making all sorts of strange hand signals that didn’t make any sense to Champ.

  Champ didn’t like that part of his vision-dream, so he mentally shifted gears and moved on.

  He was enjoying himself until his wife started squalling at him.

  “Lazy, drunken, son of a bitch!” Her voice cut through his visions and brought him back as close as he would ever again come to reality.

  Champ opened his eyes and stared at the woman he’d married twenty-five years back. Although why he’d married her escaped him at the moment. He opened his mouth and spoke to her.

  Her expression changed to one of bewilderment, then of anger. “What the hell’s the matter with you, you bum? Can’t you speak English?”

  Champ figured he was speaking English; sounded perfectly all right to him. He spoke to her again. But it only seemed to make her angrier.

  Then she made the last great mistake of her normal life on earth. She stepped forward and slapped him.

  Champ came out of the chair with a roar and belted her a good one, knocking the woman clear out the closed front door and sending her flying off the porch. She hit the ground screaming, scrambled to her feet, and tried to run off into the safety of the night.

  Champ loped along behind her, running in much the same manner as an ape, but with a lot more speed and endurance, laughing and grunting as he ran. He soon tired of the game, caught up with her, and broke her neck with one swift movement. He squatted by the body for a few minutes, grunting and poking at the cooling carcass. The headlights of a car approaching turned his head. Through the mist that had settled in his brain, he recognized the car as belonging to one of his sons. All four of Champ’s sons were at least two bricks shy of a full wheelbarrow load, but it was doubtful that this one, Keith, even understood the rudiments of operating a wheelbarrow.

  The car slowed and then stopped. Keith stuck his head out the window. He was stoned to the eyes, as usual. If dope could be smoked, snorted, swallowed, shot up, or stuck up his ass, Keith would be more than happy to oblige. Consequently, since what brains he possessed had been fried for approximately fifteen years, any type of conversation with Keith was something less than an intellectual experience.

  “Hi, there, Daddy!” Keith hollered.

  Champ grunted.

  “What’s the matter with the old woman?”

  Grunt.

  “She looks dead to me.”

  Grunt.

  “Is she dead?”

  Grunt.

  Since he had pulled up even with his father and mother, the headlights illuminating the road ahead of him, Keith could not clearly see his father’s face or hands and the change that had taken place. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” the son shouted at the father.

  Grunt.

  “What’d you do to Momma? She’s got to make biscuits in the mornin’.”

  Grunt.

  Keith started to get out of the car. Champ stood up menacingly. The son shut the door and rolled up the window. He knew only too well his father’s vicious moods. The gruntings now held a very ominous note. Keith jammed the car into reverse and backed up, the headlights catching the awful metamorphosis in his father. Champ ran in an awkward-looking lope toward the car. Keith floored the pedal and spun the wheel, spraying his father with gravel and dust in his haste to depart the scene.

  Champ stood in the road and shook his clawed hands and roared at the fading taillights of the car.

  For the first time in his life, Keith wished a cop was around.

  Champ slung the dead body of his wife over a shoulder and loped off into the now-friendly and all-enveloping darkness.

  * * *

  Bartlett and Jenkins stood and looked at what had once been the teenager Alice Watson. She resembled a very large lizard; everything about her had changed. Her skin was scaly; only a few tufts of hair remained on her head. Her fingernails and toenails were now long and pointed, feet and hands now clawe
d and curled. She could not speak, and her roarings emitted a very foul odor.

  Nelson Loring had joined the others, coming in with Doctor Perry. “What are we going to do with her?” Nelson asked.

  Bartlett glanced at him, a weary expression on his face. “Hell, I don’t know! I’m over my level of expertise here. My God, we all are.” To Mike: “Where are the state police officers?”

  “Gone to get warrants so we can round up as many of the coven members as possible.”

  “It’s a start, I suppose.” He looked at Jenkins. “You agree we have to sedate her and that . . . thing we brought in?”

  “God, yes! But how are you going to punch a needle through that hide?”

  “Let’s try injectable Valium. If that doesn’t work, we’ll jack them down with Thorazine.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “Try prayer,” the coroner said grimly.

  * * *

  “The traitors are hiding out at the Conners house,” Nick was informed. “The state police have gone into Richmond to get warrants for our arrest.”

  Like drug dealers all over the nation, the coven members had better and far more sophisticated communications equipment than the police.

  Nick waved that off. “They can’t prove anything. It’s our word against Gary and Janet. But let’s be on the safe side. Go back home and take down any posters and symbols that show our devotion to the Master. Hide the more obvious records and CDs. Most of our parents are in the older chapters, so let them in on what we’re doing and what the police are trying to do ... if they don’t already know, and I suspect they do. When are the police going to raid us?”

  “Just before dawn, according to the radio.”

  “We’ll be ready.”

  * * *

  “You want to bunk in the guest cottage or on the sofas in the house?” Dee asked.

  “I’m so keyed up I don’t think I could sleep,” Janet replied. “And I’d rather stay as close to y’all as possible, if you don’t mind.”