I slipped into the Uncanny Wagon and sped along the empty roads, pulling to a stop in Oldstone some thirty minutes later. Missing posters blew past me across the tarmac, a paper tumbleweed.
Unfortunately, my plan for finding Boris—or any of the cats for that matter—had not progressed any from last time. I mean, how exactly do you find a cat that doesn’t want to be found? I retrieved the cat box and cat food from the back seat and readied myself for a long, dull wait while I watched my cunning trap.
The fox knew who I was.
That was the thought at the front of my mind. As I looked for Chloe, as I drove to Oldstone, as I placed a small pile of cat treats inside the cat box.
The fox knew who I was and he’d been looking for me.
I’d often fantasised about someone from my past turning up to say they knew who I was, but not once had that person been an axe-wielding fox. Was he telling the truth? It was hard to say as I hadn’t had much experience telling whether a talking animal was lying to me or not.
Then there was the homeless woman. She too seemed to know more about me than I did. The old me, at least. A talking fox and a fighty mad woman were, maybe, at last, the keys to unlocking my past. Now, if only they wouldn’t keep disappearing, maybe I could get a straight answer out of them.
I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket and pulled it out to see Chloe’s name.
‘Hello! Hello there. You. Hello you. It is me,’ I said. Smooth as mother-fornicator.
‘Hey, where are you?’ she asked.
‘On a cat hunt in Oldstone.’
‘Are you getting a pet?’
‘No, just helping out an old woman. How are you? I came to find you before heading off but Big Marge said you were having forty winks.’
‘Yeah, I just needed to crash for a bit.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course. Will you come over later?’
Hello...
‘Yeah, I can come over. There. To yours. Where you live.’
‘You don’t mind?’
I will literally crawl on my belly across poop-smeared shards of broken glass for this.
‘Of course not. I had a thing, but I can probably move it.’
‘You can?’
‘I can move it. Consider it moved. It was here, now it’s over there. Moved.’
‘Thanks. Thank you. I’ll be back a little after seven. Be there waiting for me?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Cool. Oh, and Joe?’
‘Yep?’
‘Bring a toothbrush.’
And then she hung up.
I stood statue-still for several minutes, the phone still glued to my ear.
Perhaps her own toothbrush was broken and Chloe was asking for a replacement? A friendly favour?
‘Will do,’ I replied in a tiny voice, several minutes after she’d hung up.
Well then. Well, well, wellity, well.
My cheeks ached from over-grinning. I had a few hours before I was due to loiter hormonally outside of Chloe’s front door, so I began to set my cat-nabbing trap at different places around Oldstone. I’d put the food-laden cat box down, watch from a discreet distance for half an hour or so, then move on to somewhere else. My mind should really have still been focussing on the talking fox and the fighty mad woman, but instead my mind was full of Chloe and my eyes full of hearts. So much so that, at the final place I rested the cat box, it took me almost twenty minutes to notice that I was sat, cross-legged on the grass, in front of a dead cat.
I might not have noticed at all if I hadn’t decided to stretch back, and found myself resting my head on a tiny, furry corpse.
After a suitable amount of yelping and shuddering, I got down on my knees and gave the deceased moggy a closer look. I wondered how many of the hundreds of missing cat posters pasted all around Oldstone featured this poor cat’s mugshot.
‘Bad luck, fella,’ I said.
It was sad, but a dead cat was not what I’d been looking for. I was looking for, well, alive cats. Boris specifically, but really any live cat would have done. I felt for sure that if the cats had all disappeared over the space of a few days, then it seemed likely all or most had ended up in the same place. For whatever reason. Be it the strange, uneasy atmosphere that hung over the village or, well, some other reason.
It was then that a thought struck.
‘Oh.’
The strange feelings during the aftermath of the attack on Janet and Mary.
The things I saw when I touched Detective Samm’s corpse.
Maybe a dead cat wouldn’t be so useless after all. Maybe it could tell me exactly what I needed to know.
The fox had said the real me was peeking out. You finally used your powers again. I didn’t feel powerful, and I’d no idea how I’d managed to make what had happened happen. Worth a shot though.
I looked down at the dead cat and let out a hard breath, preparing myself.
‘Okay, magic brain, I am your master, please do your insight thing.’ I punctuated my command with a little hand flourish that felt suitably mystical, then placed my hands onto the dead cat.
Which was gross.
Of course, a little earlier I’d been touching a dead man, but that had been an almost unconscious decision, this time it was all me. Really there. Choosing to put my hands on a dead thing.
Nothing happened.
I raised my hands to the sky. ‘Show me your death!’ I commanded, then grabbed the cat again.
Zilch.
Not a thing.
I didn’t have powers, that was absurd. There had to have been some other explanation for my earlier “insights.” The fox, perhaps. A talking fox is a pretty magical thing, maybe he had the powers and that’s what affected me.
But then why would he say that I was using my powers at last?
I grunted in frustrated confusion—not an unfamiliar emotion for me—and placed my hands on the deceased family pet without thinking. No daft commands, no great thought behind it or hand gestures, I just touched the thing with no expectations.
And that’s when it happened.
Scents, sounds, everywhere. A new world of information, so vivid, a feeling of poise, of strength, of hunger of...
Show me where, show me where...
I am low to the ground, moving at speed, need to hide, need to go back, fear. I feel fear. My heart is beating so fast. It’s not safe, not safe. I see the streets rush by. People, sounds, smells, the giant world around me, and something else, something else. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. Run, run, run. Back to the safe place. This is not safe. Back to the safe place—
I gasped as the connection was broken, my eyes blinking rapidly as I found myself in a different place to where I’d started. I was out of breath. I think I’d been running. I could see Oldstone a good half-mile away, and in front of me a large barn.
For a moment or two I let the fact that I’d just experienced the emotions, sights and smells of a cat wash over me. Because that’s weird. That’s very, very weird. And no fox around, so… it was me. I’d done that. I’d touched the dead body of a cat and been given a glimpse into its life.
That was exciting. Or terrifying. One of the two. I wondered what else I might be capable of.
The barn in front of me didn’t look like it was in use anymore, in fact it looked as though a strong gust of wind might reduce it to kindling. The door screeched a rusty-hinged complaint as I opened it and stepped inside to be greeted by a hundred glowing pricks of light. It was like I was looking into the night sky and stars were twinkling back at me.
I blinked, and as I became more accustomed to the gloom, I saw that these weren’t impossible stars, they were eyes, shining bright. The barn was absolutely packed to the rafters with Oldstone’s missing cats.
‘I don’t suppose any of you are talking cats and can tell me just why it is you’re all hiding out in this stinky barn? Daft question I know, but I have recently made the acquaintance of a very talkative fox.’
None of them answered.
Maybe they didn’t feel like a chat.
20
I was able to spot Boris amongst the crush, but having failed to bring my cat box with me, I settled for taking a picture or two as evidence. Of Boris, and of the rest of the cat-filled barn.
I still didn’t know for sure why the cats had run away from their homes, or why they’d felt the need to huddle together for safety, but at least I knew where they were.
I told the cats to stay put and headed off towards Mrs Coates’ home to bring her the good news.
I’d been an investigator of the peculiar for years now, but my ratio of solved to unsolved was pretty poor. By which I mean I rarely ever came out on top. That’s the thing with the bizarre and inexplicable, it rather likes to stay that way. So here I was with a genuine “solved” under my belt, and I’d done it all by myself. Just me and my brand new superpowers.
I walked towards Mrs Coates’ home with a spring in my step, I can tell you. Cats located, things of an adult nature waiting for me at Chloe’s later, the gratitude of a village of cat lovers, this was turning into quite a day.
So of course something had to come along and turn it all to dung.
It was Mrs Coates’ front door that did it.
As I pushed open the gate to her well-tended garden, bursting full of brightly coloured flowers and expertly manicured bushes, I saw that the door was slightly ajar. Now, this in itself shouldn’t be a cause for concern. Perhaps she’d been doing something in the garden and had stepped back inside for a moment. That’s a normal enough thing to have done.
So why was my heart starting to increase its rhythm? Why was a knot forming in my stomach? My body knew something was wrong, even if I had no real evidence for it.
‘Mrs Coates?’ I said as I reached the door. ‘Hello, Mrs Coates? It’s Joseph Lake, here about your cat. Well, all the cats.’
A cold, empty silence.
‘Mrs Coates?’
I pushed the door open and stepped warily into her home.
‘Hello, Mrs Coates? I’m just coming inside now. Is there any reason why my brain is telling me to turn tail and run for the hills?’
Staircase to my right, two doors on the left, and a third at the far end. Which way to go? Dealer’s choice.
I made my way towards the nearest door and stepped inside.
The front room was neat, but a riot of clashing floral patterns. The carpet, the wallpaper, the furniture. This woman liked her flowers. And a headache, if the way it was all affecting had anything to do with it. Perched on the fireplace was a picture of a much younger Mrs Coates and a beaming man. Ex-husband? I hadn’t noticed a wedding ring.
I left and made my way to the second room. This back room was more subdued than the first, and contained a couch, plus a desk with an old foot-pedal powered sewing machine on top.
Kitchen next.
‘Mrs Coates?’
There was a cup of tea on the kitchen table. I placed my hand against it. The porcelain was still warm.
I turned back and made my way to the staircase, peering up into the dark second floor.
‘Hello? Please say something reassuring so my stomach will stop doing somersaults, Mrs Coates.’
I began to make my way up the stairs, each one creaking under my weight. This was an old house. Well, all the buildings in Oldstone were old. Old Oldstone.
It was halfway up that I noticed the smudges of dark red on the stairs. Splatters against the pristine white of the staircase carpet.
Blood. Crumbs leading me up and up.
I stepped onto the landing and saw the door to one of the bedrooms was open. A foot poked out into the corridor, its sole facing me.
‘Mrs Coates?’
I ran to her, pushing the door open to find her stretched out on the carpet, her throat torn out and the strange occult-looking symbols daubed onto the carpet around her.
‘Oh, Christ…’
I crouched, feeling for a pulse as if the truth of the matter wasn’t self-evident. Mrs Coates was very, very dead.
I stood, reaching into my pocket to retrieve my phone and call the police, then froze as a dark shape twitched in my periphery. The thick, lined curtains were drawn, lights off, and much of the room was in shadow. A perfect place for a monster to lurk.
I backed away as an octopus limb curled out of the shadows.
‘Bastard. You bastard,’ I said, my anger at Mrs Coates’ death trumping my legs’ demands to turn and run. Instead, I stepped further into the room as though I’d meant to fight the creature that had killed this poor woman.
The monster screamed and lunged out of the black at me. I stepped back, my heel catching something, and realised with horror that I’d been tripped by Mrs Coates’ prone body.
I landed hard, bones jarring, wind jerked out of me, but there was no time to count my bruises. I scrabbled backwards on my hands and feet as the creature bent to grab at me, my boot kicking out and catching the thing in the head.
It reeled back, limbs thrashing in fury. Meanwhile, I turned, stood, and ran. The door at the other end of the landing erupted in a blizzard of wooden needles as a second octopus man burst from inside.
‘Shit—’
I bolted for the staircase. I was closer, I could make it, I could escape, I could run from the house and not stop running until I was back in the Uncanny Wagon, stomping on the accelerator.
The stairway greeted me. I placed one foot down, then a fleshy limb struck my back foot and the world turned over and over, hard edges assaulting me, until my painful whirl of a journey was brought to a sudden stop. My vision blurred and spat stars.
‘Up, get up, move,’ I said, my voice a slur.
I looked up, time now moving at a crawl, to see the two octopus creatures descending towards me, beaks snapping hungrily. One walked down the stairs, the other clung to the wall with its suckered limbs, making its way down.
‘Get up!’
Body aching, knees treacherous, I pushed myself to my feet and opened the front door to find a third monster stood in its frame.
I rocked back on my heels, one octopus man before me, another behind, the third now slithering obscenely across the ceiling above. I was a fly, caught in a web, as three spiders raced to claim me as their dinner.
‘Get back!’ I yelled, a pointless cry of defiance, as I knew full well I was dead. I was dead and that was that. There was no way out. This was it, three live monsters and one soon to be dead me.
The creatures were in no rush. Beaks wide, throats clicking, they moved incrementally towards me. Towards my death.
This wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right. None of it was. Who were these things to take my life from me?
‘I said, get back!’
The creatures jerked back as though I’d pulled a weapon. At first I was confused. What did they have to worry about? Here I was, a nice, fleshy, easy kill, just waiting to have my throat torn open.
It was then that I realised my hands were engulfed in bright, blue flames.
Flames meant fire.
Oh shit, I was on fire!
I stepped back, waving my arms around, trying to extinguish the flames and wondering why I didn’t feel any pain.
Apparently over their uncertainty, the creatures rushed me. My world became blue flames and writhing, suckered limbs, as death’s guillotine came crashing down on me.
21
I assumed I was dead.
Well, you would, wouldn’t you?
I was on fire and about half a second away from having three blood-thirsty creatures tear me to pieces.
I was dead.
I was an ex-Joseph Lake.
Which meant that I wouldn’t be going round Chloe’s later with a fresh toothbrush tucked into my coat pocket.
Damn.
In that moment, that was the thing that stung the most.
Not my death, not my murder at the tentacles of three complete bastards, but the idea that something just beginning, s
omething potentially wonderful, was about to be cut off at the knees.
I’d been infatuated, or in love, or in lust, or all three, with Chloe Palmer ever since I’d first laid eyes on her. It was a Tuesday. Just a normal, boring, run-of-the-mill Tuesday, and Doctor Alex Kurd was showing a couple of the new recruits around the hospital. I was up a ladder prodding at a light fitting as they passed by.
As she passed by.
We met properly the next morning, when I drove my car directly into the back of hers. She was stationary in the car park at the time.
She could have been furious. Should have been. But as I waved my arms around, trying to desperately inform her of the bee that had distracted me and caused the accident, she did the strangest thing. She began to laugh. She didn’t shout at me. Didn’t swear at me. Didn’t report me. She just laughed, and I found myself laughing with her.
I was too much of an awkward fool to ever do anything about it of course, so the years rolled on and I set up shop in the Friend Zone. Which was not at all pleasant at times, particularly when she’d choose to confide in me about her latest man. Her current bedfellow. Those times really slid a shard of ice in the old heart, but then I’d feel guilty for how happy I was each time those short relationships spluttered, coughed, and died. She’d be on the couch, red-eyed, stuffing ice cream into her face hole, and I’d be nodding sympathetically while my insides did a vigorous interpretation of Riverdance.
From time to time I got the feeling she was waiting for me to ask her out. To finally make my feelings known. But the longer time went on, the harder it became.
And then at last.
At last, at last, we’d gotten past all that. She liked me. She actually liked me and knew for sure that I liked her.
We’d done the kissing!
And now here I was, dead and massively annoyed that the great romance of my daft life was over before it could begin.
What rotten, shitty luck.
Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 88
