Nine Deadly Lives

by Livia J. Washburn

  “Please, stop stalling and just spit it out already!”

  Officer Williams coughed and took a deep breath to steady himself. “You see, sir, when the responding officers answered the call that a car had been found in the ditch, there was a rather large feral cat colony in and around the vehicle. I’m afraid…I’m afraid there wasn’t much left of your wife for the coroner to autopsy.”

  My room started to spin and my knees buckled. Had I not thrown out a hand to catch myself on the back of the recliner, I just might have collapsed at the officer’s feet. “Please leave,” I told him feebly. “I really need to be alone right now.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Cochran, I understand and I am very sorry for your loss. There is just one more thing.” Officer Williams reached into the small case he had been holding. “When the officers found your wife, they found this clasped in her hand. I thought you might want to have it.”

  I looked down at the object the officer had just handed me. It was a well-worn, slightly crumpled photo of our wedding day. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered, as the officer discreetly showed himself out and shut the door behind him.

  Staring at the photograph, I sank into the recliner. Gone. She was truly gone. I couldn’t believe it. Yes, times were rough these past few years, and there were times that I couldn’t stand the sight of her, but deep down, I’d never stopped loving Francine.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the happy couple in the photograph, beaming widely at the unseen photographer. God, but Francine was beautiful. Clad in her mother’s heirloom wedding dress with the high lace collar, her fiery red hair cascading in waves around her face, her piercing green eyes, her dazzling smile. And now, she was gone forever. I put my head in my hands and began to weep.

  “Mew.” The noise came softly from the other side of the room. “Mew.”

  I looked up to see the little calico cat sitting on the couch, staring at me. “Mew,” she said again.

  A dawning realization struck me at that moment. Her time of death was thought to be Monday around 4:30, not long after she walked out of my life, and only a few hours before this cat entered. There had not been a sign of a struggle. Francine had always loved cats and would go out of her way to avoid harming one. There were feral cats all over the area where her car had been found.

  “You,” I uttered in a low growl. “You did this. You ran out in front of her car, causing her to swerve! You killed my Francine!”

  I lunged at the cat, who darted from the couch with a loud screech. I chased the demon into the kitchen, where I grabbed the first knife I could find.

  “You killed her!” I screamed. “Why did you do it? Who are you?”

  The animal escaped my attacks with the ease known only to cats, disappearing from the corner of the cabinet, and then reappearing on top of the kitchen table. I knocked over pots, pans, and chairs in my lumbering attempt to exact revenge on my wife’s murderer. I took a giant swing at the table, and she disappeared again.

  “Daddy!” screamed Candice in horror as she hurried into the room. “What are you doing? Don’t hurt the cat!”

  Startled, I swung around to face my daughter and began to walk toward her. At that moment, I felt soft, tickling fur pass across my shins, toppling my balance and sending me sprawling, the knife flying out of my hand. I heard a sickening crack as my right ankle twisted and snapped, the pain shooting up my leg and instantly becoming unbearable. I landed on the floor with a thud, heaving and gasping as I attempted to catch my breath through the pain.

  “Agh!” came the cry from across the room. There stood Candice, eyes wide in disbelief, clutching desperately at the knife that protruded from the middle of her chest in a growing stain of blood. “Daddy…?” Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slumped to the floor, lifeless.

  “Candice! No!” I reached helplessly for my daughter, knowing there was nothing I could do for her.

  Sitting on the floor, just far enough out of my grasp, was the little calico cat. She simply stared at me, almost smirking, peering into me with her piercing green eyes. As I stared back into her eyes, my room once again began to spin.

  They used to be worshipped for their alleged metaphysical attributes.

  I’m never coming back until I take this house!

  Francine with her never-ending love for cats. Francine with her new, almost obsessive interest in the metaphysical. Francine with her piercing green eyes. Oh, my God.

  “You,” I said once again to the cat. “You…you didn’t kill Francine, did you? You are Francine!”

  The cat blinked at me, looked deliberately over at Candice’s body, then back at me, again with that almost smirk on her face. She had finally come between me and my daughter. She had won. With a twitch of her tail, the calico skipped gracefully out of the kitchen.

  “Come back here, you wretch! I’m sorry I ever loved you!” I screamed after her, attempting to belly crawl my way into the living room. The pain was so immediately intense, all I could do was lay my sweat-soaked forehead onto the linoleum and sob in despair. “I love you, Candice. Daddy will always love you.”

  The doorbell rang. Knowing I couldn’t answer it even if I wanted to, I ignored it, praying they would go away. Moments passed before it rang again.

  “Knock, knock!” a singsong voice lilted into the house. “I rang the doorbell but no one answered. You know, it’s really not safe to leave your front door unlocked…”

  The sentence was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream as Charlotte stepped into the kitchen. She looked from Candice, to the knife in her chest, then to me with a look mixed with shock and disgust.

  “You monster!” she shrieked. “How could you murder your own daughter? Did you think in some sick way that this might win Francine back? How could you?” She raced from the kitchen to the telephone in the living room.

  “Charlotte, no! Wait! You don’t understand! It was the cat!” I called after her. But it was no use. There was no way she would ever believe me.

  I heard the frantic murmur of Charlotte on the telephone from the other room, explaining the situation to the police. “Come quick!” I heard her yell before she slammed down the receiver. Once again, I knew all I could do was lower my head to the floor and wait.

  Within minutes, the sound of sirens filled the street in front of my house. Paramedics rushed in with two stretchers, one for my beloved Candice, who was quickly covered with a sheet, and one for me. Officer Williams himself handcuffed me to the railing while he read me my rights, the whole time staring at me as if I was a disgusting slug he had found on the bottom of his shoe. I only half-listened, resigning myself to my fate. After all, my wife and daughter were both gone. What was left for me now, anyway?

  As Charlotte stood by to watch the circus in my kitchen, the little calico cat slipped into the room and jumped into her arms. “Ooh!” she cried out in surprise with a coo in her voice.

  “Hi there, little girl! Ohhh, you must be so upset and scared with all this excitement. And now your daddy is going away for a very long time, and you’re worried no one will take care of you. Don’t you worry, little sweetheart. Auntie Charlotte will stay here with you, and she’ll bring all her cat friends with her, so you’ll always have someone to talk to!”

  As the paramedics wheeled me out of my house toward the ambulance, I stared into the piercing green eyes of the little calico cat one last time.

  I’m never coming back until I take this house!

  I guess Francine was the one who got the last laugh.

  About the Author—Brandy Herr

  Born in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area, Brandy Herr attended the Pennsylvania State University where she received her Bachelor's degree in public relations. Her book, Haunted Granbury, was released in February 2014 by The History Press. She is also the co-founder of the Granbury Ghosts and Legends Tour and is a member of Research and Investigation of the Paranormal, with whom she has participated in many ghost hunt investigations. Brandy has a passion for
animal welfare causes and currently lives in Granbury with her husband, their two rescued dogs, and two rescued cats.

  Angel

  Angela Crider Neary

  Don't get too close to Angel or you might get burned!

  Chapter 1

  She had been given so many different names over her nine lives that she couldn’t keep up with them all. She recalled a few, although they weren’t very original: Snowball, Ivory, Pearl, Frosty, Powderpuff, Angel. She had white fur, you see, and was also very transient, so she had had many owners/caretakers over the years. She was partial to Angel. She thought it suited her best, so that’s who she thought of herself as, no matter what she was called.

  Angel was a brilliant white color with a medium to long fur coat. She had a pert, pink nose and large, sapphire-blue eyes, making her irresistible to cat lovers—and even non-cat lovers, in most instances. She had the moves down, and could purr, frisk, and frolic when the need arose to impress someone. She could also gaze intently at someone, reflecting a sadness and need in those big, blue eyes, causing the hardest heart to melt into a puddle and making the target putty in her paws. She had learned quite a few survival skills during her life. Angel was generally a stray, since the fire that took her mother and entire litter when she was a mere kitten. Her mother had been a stray, herself, and, when she was heavily pregnant with Angel’s litter, had been taken in by a kind-hearted old man who had traveled around in a trailer and lived wherever the moment took him. Mel, the old man, was a lonely sort who happily welcomed the pregnant cat and was ready with a cozy box and warm blankets when she gave birth.

  After they had had several weeks of nursing, Mel began providing canned food and water for the kittens, as they were gradually weaned from their mother. Mel surprised the kittens with little toy mice to play with, and they gamboled and romped all over the tiny trailer together, hunting for these mock foes. “Now, ain’t y’all a bunch of cutie-pies!” Mel would always remark, with a big smile on his craggy face.

  Although Mel was kind to all the cats, Angel decided that she was his favorite. Maybe it was because of her glistening white fur and large, blue eyes that set her apart from the other kittens in the litter, who were mostly gray or orange tabbies with green eyes. He let her sit in his lap while he rocked in an old ruby-red recliner. The springs were sticking up through the worn fabric of the chair’s seat, and the lever that released the foot rest barely worked anymore, unless you put the right amount of juju on it, but Mel knew how to do it—and he loved that old, red chair. He would rub Angel’s ears, neck, back, and belly until she purred with delight. Mel would rock back and forth rhythmically while listening to old George Jones albums and smoking his favorite cigarettes.

  Angel didn’t know that this was considered a disgusting habit—the cigarettes, not the George Jones albums—and the smell of the cigarette smoke comforted her since, to her, it was the smell of Mel.

  One smell Angel didn’t particularly appreciate, although it was also Mel’s smell, was the odor that emanated from Mel after he cooked up and consumed his favorite culinary specialty, beanie-weenie. “Okay, kitties,” he would announce, chuckling, “who wants me to cook up a batch of delicious beanie-weenie?” He was never discouraged by the fact that the cats just turned their heads and pretended not to understand. They preferred to stick to the kitten food.

  Mel got up from his recliner one night after making one of his beanie-weenie announcements and started bustling about the kitchen, turning on the pilot light on the gas range, getting out his pots and cans of beans and weenies. He also liked to throw a little Tabasco sauce into his concoction for flavor and a nice little kick. He was parked in Louisiana, after all, so he liked to pay homage to the state’s spicy sauce.

  Angel saw the signs of what meal was about to be prepared, so she jumped up onto a storage shelf above the kitchenette cabinet, and then leapt out one of the skylights, the screen to which had long since fallen out and been discarded, to get some fresh air. Mel didn’t let the kittens outside without supervision since they were still so small, but Angel would sneak out now and then to explore the trailer park area. The skylight was just barely open a few inches, and when Angel leapt out, she hit it with her back and it banged shut, barely missing her tail, so she didn’t know how she would get back in. Maybe she would have to mewl at the door until Mel heard her and came to her rescue. She knew he could never get mad at her.

  o0o

  Mel poured the aromatic ingredients into the pot and stirred it around real good. “Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm,” he mumbled, breathing in the flavor, his eyes closed and a smile on his face. He then went to heat up his succulent supper on his tiny stove, his stomach starting to growl and rumble at the anticipation of the treat that was to come. To his surprise, however, there was no flame. “Well gol-darnit!” he said, tilting his head to the side and peering at the burner. “I thought I turned this danged thing on.” The range was ancient, and it often took a while to get it to light. He set the pot on the counter and decided to have a cigarette before messing with it anymore.

  Mel puttered around the trailer, looking for his smokes. “Now where did I put those things?” he asked no one in particular, except maybe the cats, who never answered him. Mel could never remember where he left his cigarette pack the last time he had a smoke. He often thought he might just quit the habit one day, simply because he couldn’t find his cigarettes. To further complicate things, the cats would often bat the pack onto the floor and then under the table or couch, making it even more difficult for Mel to locate it. When he couldn’t find it on the dinette table or the side table next to his recliner, he knelt down to try to look for it on the floor and in any nooks and crannies it could have gotten to. He was a little hesitant to do this since there was always the risk these days that he wouldn’t be able to get back up. He wasn’t as spry as he used to be, back in the day, when he had been a pretty hot number, if he didn’t say so himself.

  Just when he was about to give up and go back to tinkering with the range, Mel spotted the white and silver package of addiction in the back corner under the couch. He sat up on his knees and looked around the room for something to use to retrieve the cigarettes. He noticed the broom, luckily within reach, and used the handle to fetch out the smokes. He slowly stood up, using the broom and the couch to get fully and creakily to his feet. Was it really worth all this? he wondered. Well…yeah.

  When he finally steadied himself, he patted the almost-new pack of cigarettes on the heel of his hand several times, withdrew one of the cigarettes, and inserted it between his lips, ready to suck in some yummy toxins. “Now, where is that darned lighter?” he asked. The cats did a collective eye roll, but Mel didn’t notice. Mel repeated the whole process of searching for the lighter, and finally located it, surprisingly right where he had left it. As Mel put his thumb on the lighter and pressed down to flick the switch, an enlightening thought that must have been hidden in his subconscious while he looked for the cigarettes popped into his head, but it was too late. His fate, and that of his feline charges, was already set in motion.

  o0o

  Angel had meandered over to an area of the trailer park that contained a sandbox for trailer community kids to play in. She encountered a pretty impressive sand castle made with stacked pails of sand that even had mini American flags flying from the turrets. Angel decided this would be a regal and refreshing place to do her business. Mel kept a litter box in his trailer, but it had to be shared by all the cats and Mel wasn’t too fastidious about cleaning it out. And besides, it wasn’t very private, and a girl needed her privacy every once in a while. There was no one around the sandbox at that moment, so it was the perfect opportunity. Angel was just squatting down in the moat to enjoy some open-air relief when she heard and felt the explosion that rocked the entire trailer park like a comet ripping through the atmosphere.

  Angel immediately and instinctually sensed the immense loss, and galloped as fast as she could toward the ball of fire that used to be h
er home and sole source of comfort and happiness. She ran as close as she could to the flames that jumped higher and higher into the sky and licked out at her like serpents’ tongues, searching for Mel and her feline family, hoping that one or more of them had miraculously escaped, but no such luck. Although she could not really comprehend what had happened, she knew in her heart that she would never see Mel or her cat family again. At that moment, something shriveled up and died inside her, her heart turning hard, cold, and black, crumpling like the burning shards of Mel’s trailer. Angel finally gave up her fruitless searching, and just sat staring at the golden flames, their light reflecting in her glistening blue eyes, strangely drawn to the fire that had just taken her joy and life as she knew it.

  Chapter 2

  “Come ’ere, Earl!” shouted Birdie, excitement in her voice, after most of the smoke and ash had cleared and the fire trucks had finished with their bleak business, slowly and sadly rolling out of the trailer park to leave behind a soaked and blackened hole where their neighbor’s trailer had been cozily nestled only hours before. Earl and Birdie had recently retired, Earl after finally selling his small-town dental practice, and Birdie from working the counter at the Bad Moon Diner—nothing but Creedence on the juke box, 24/7—Earl’s favorite lunch spot and the place they had met 38 years ago.

  Earl had wanted Birdie to quit her job at the diner after they had married and maybe work in his dental practice doing the books, or some secretarial work. But Birdie had refused, as she was the outgoing type and enjoyed the socializing and people watching that the Bad Moon offered in spades. She had come by her nickname, Birdie, as a child. Her parents noticed that she chattered nonstop, like a cardinal, they said. She still wore the little red cardinal pendant her parents had given her every day, as a totem by which she remembered them.