Inflictions

by John McIlveen

  “Cat … cat! Mee-yow, cat, ngyow!” Cassie sings in an elfin voiced litany of adoration.

  Smokey feels Cassie tense at the sound of movement outside the bedroom door. He remains where he is, sensing no threat, only the child’s unease. Cassie sits up, unsettled, until the sister enters the room, her face puffy and flushed with the lingering dregs of sleep. Smokey rubs his head reassuringly against the child’s back as she wiggles her rear end, trying to get relief from the raw sting of the too-long sodden diaper. He can taste the child’s pain and links it with the smell of the fresh urine that irritates her soft skin to the point of bleeding.

  “Hi,” the sister says. Her name is Julie, another word Smokey does not understand, but he senses kindness in her voice and tries to encourage her by purring louder.

  “Up, up!” Cassie says. Her arms rise in supplication as Julie extracts a diaper from a generic-labeled package. Smokey leaps to the floor while Julie lifts Cassie from the crib and has her lie on a small, threadbare scatter rug. He sits near Cassie and gratefully accepts a pat on the head from Julie as she proceeds with her mother-in-proxy duties. Smokey never lets the mother touch him.

  Julie actually seems quite fond of Cassie, and Smokey smells her sadness when the mother hits the child, but she also smells her fear, which is probably why she does not try to stop her. During those times when the mother is asleep or away, Smokey senses mother-love in Julie. She administers small affections and bestows attention when needed in the short moments until the mother returns, then her fear-smell returns and Julie again regards Cassie with the indifference of an affable stranger.

  Julie wads up a thoroughly soaked and soiled diaper and exits to dispose of it in the kitchen. She returns with cornstarch to sprinkle on Cassie’s angry rash. “You’re lucky I saw Mrs. Harvey do this to her baby,” she tells Cassie, her friendly voice a comfort to Smokey’s ears. Cassie, Julie, and Smokey play quietly for nearly an hour before the dead-body scrape of the mother’s feet ignites Cassie’s fear like smoke in the cat’s nostrils.

  Julie guides Cassie to the kitchen, Smokey following close behind. She prepares breakfast which consists of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and half a banana each. Smokey curls on the worn green linoleum under the high chair. He will not receive any mishandled treasures. When Cassie eats, far too methodical for a child of two, there are no messes; the mother will not allow it.

  After breakfast, Smokey follows Cassie loyally and watches while she plays by herself. They enjoy whatever entertainment Cassie’s two-year-old mind can conjure up, which usually means playing with her few toys, or gazing longingly out windows. This is a fine pastime for Smokey, but the girl’s loneliness is an ever-present phantom. Smokey butts his head consolingly under Cassie’s chin. He watches her eyes as she looks out at the grass and trees of the back yard where he enjoys running with Cassie within the confines of the fence. The yard is their playground where they play, hopefully unacknowledged by the mother, and try ever so carefully not to interfere with or irritate her in any way.

  The mother reclines on the once-sumptuous couch, which is now a faded blue, and displays a history of mishandled food, cigarettes, and men. With a newspaper on her lap, the mother chain-smokes while she half-heartedly reads and watches talk shows. This puts Smokey on edge. This is quiet time, when Cassie is not to be heard from—the time that Cassie is usually beaten.

  Generally during quiet time, Cassie follows Smokey around the house with hardly a thought or glance from the mother and Julie. Smokey leads Cassie into her bedroom, her haven, and looks back at her, making sure she follows him. She seems unaffected by the barren walls. She has no need for adjustment; she has probably never seen the room any other way. He follows her to a small cardboard box pushed absently into the corner and looks on tranquilly as Cassie searches through a small assortment of toys. They are either handed down from Julie, or obligatory Christmas presents, a “perfect mother” performance to conceal the hideous truth.

  Cassie lifts up a small doll and shows it to Smokey who sniffs it objectively and rewards Cassie with a token sneeze. It is her favorite toy. It is from mother.

  A squeal of delight perks Smokey’s ears as Cassie, upon lifting another treasure from the box, comes across something new. Her excitement provokes Smokey. He purrs loudly as she eagerly extracts a small book and regards it from different angles. The colors seem to draw her in—so many pretty colors—all so magical to her untainted eyes. Cassie runs from the bedroom in her unsteady toddler’s gait with Smokey steady at her side.

  “Mama! Book! Book! Pretty!” She cries, waving her newly attained wealth. Smokey slows, sensing the mother’s instant irritation veil the house.

  “Can’t you see that I’m trying to read the damn paper!” snaps the glowering mother. Her acidic words splash over the child, stopping her in her tracks. Smokey edges forward to stand beside the child whose fear quickly becomes as pungent as the mother’s anger.

  The mother glares dourly at the child and the book. “Isn’t that your copy of Snow White?” she asks Julie and blows a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want it anymore,” answers the girl, her eyes reflecting her fear for Cassie. “I gave it to her.”

  “Book?” Cassie ventures hopefully.

  “Yeah, I can see it’s a stupid book,” says the mother, dismissing her, waving her painted red nails like bloody talons. “So get lost and go read it already!”

  Cassie turns back for her room. Smokey follows, tasting defeat and despair in her wake, feeling the pain of how her heart must feel weighing heavy in her little chest. She hides in the corner of her closet with her humility and Smokey close at her side.

  “Book … pretty book,” she says. The pages turn to hide the falling tears.

  Smokey accepts a hug, smelling the sweetness of Cassie’s breath mingling with the heat of her tears. Recovering within a few minutes, pushing the incident aside as she has so many times before, Cassie again leaves her room. Through the living room they walk, Cassie’s eyes glued to the floor as she steers wide of mother and stops in front of Julie.

  “Boddle. Djoose?” she asks Julie, her eyes ricocheting fearfully to mother and back to Julie.

  Julie leads them through the dining room and into the kitchen, fills both the cup and Smokey’s bowl with milk, and quickly returns to the living room. Smokey loses himself to the luxury of the milk while Cassie carries hers to the dining room window, which offers an unobstructed view of the birds as they frolic in the yard. She sets the cup on the window ledge and watches in horror as it topples to the floor where it bounces once, displacing the cover and releasing a swath of milk across the floor and onto the rug. Immediately overcome with fear, Cassie waits for mother’s outburst. Sensing her terror, Smokey hurries to her side, sniffs at the condemnatory spill, and laps at the liquid.

  Mother does not come.

  Smokey pulls back as the electric atmosphere of terror burns his nostrils, making his fur stand straight along his spine. Cassie stares at the pool of white in a blind panic. She steps in the center of the spill and spins aimlessly, unsure whether to hide or go to mother in repentance. Suddenly she stops, looks at him thoughtfully, and then darts into the kitchen. The sudden change in atmosphere is somewhat of a relief, yet confusing to the cat.

  “Sweep, sweep, bwoom,” Cassie mutters from the kitchen.

  Smokey crouches warily under the dining room table, watching as Cassie wrestles the broom free from between the garbage basket and the wall and drags it back to the incriminating spill. She grapples with the broom, her little hands trying to position it properly within the mess, but only managing to spread the liquid.

  Then a terrible thing happens—the broom handle knocks into a shelf laden with decorative plates. Smokey dashes deeper under the dining room table and stares at Cassie as she stands paralyzed. The destruction is resounding to Smokey’s ears, yet muffled by Cassie’s black and overpowering fear. Plates roll and fall to the floor, peppering t
he child with ceramic chips. Smokey mewls, sharing his terror as Cassie’s fear-numbed legs fail.

  “WHAT THE HELL?” mother screams. She catapults from the couch and rushes into the dining room where Cassie holds the broom, sitting in a pool of white amidst the wreckage of a dozen shattered plates. Smokey emits a low, throaty growl, watching as the mother grabs the child brutally by the arms, and lifts her so their faces are mere inches apart.

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” she hollers, brutally shaking Cassie.

  Chin quivering, Cassie’s terrified eyes stare in shock at mother, too frightened to release tears. Smokey wants to flee, but some form of instinct tells him he must stay.

  “DO YOU HAVE TO WRECK EVERYTHING?” She squeezes her nails into Cassie’s arms, shaking her more. The tears Cassie seems so desperate to find finally come forth.

  “Ma, don’t!” Julie pleads tearfully from the living room archway. Her panic adds to the flurried chaos of emotions overwhelming Smokey’s senses as Cassie’s head is snapped forcefully back and forth.

  “SINCETHE DAY YOU WERE BORN, YOU JUST HAVE TO RUIN EVERYTHING!” Smokey moves closer, still under the table, but advancing toward the mother. He feels something is seriously astray and out of control.

  “IT ISN’T ENOUGH THAT YOU SCARED YOUR FATHER AWAY, YOU LITTLE SHIT?” she roars. “SCREWING UP MY MARRIAGE ISN’T ENOUGH FOR YOU!”

  “MA! STOP! YOU’RE KILLING HER!” Julie screams, but mother does not hear.

  “YOU WON’T BE HAPPY UNTIL YOU RUIN EVERYTHING, HUH? RIGHT?” She demands with a final violent shake, but Cassie is beyond answering and beyond feeling. Her eyes stare back at mother, empty, unseeing … dead.

  Mother drops Cassie to the floor, backing away from the atrocity she has just committed. Julie sobs from the doorway.

  Smokey walks carefully out from under the table. He has sensed this coming, the enveloping darkness that surrounds the most heinous transgressions.

  It is time.

  Smokey pads to the sprawled form of Cassie, her leg folded beneath her like a discarded doll, motionless yet still beautiful even in death. Sniffing at the porcelain skin, Smokey learns what he needs to know.

  “GET AWAY FROM HER!” shrieks mother. She kicks at the cat, suddenly protective in her guilt … too late. Smokey lashes out at the woman, drawing four long and satisfying furrows down the back of her leg. As the mother falls to the floor, anguished by her depravity if not by the death of her daughter, Smokey escapes by way of the kitchen’s screen door.

  Smokey does not look back, he is content, his work here is complete. He will never go back, for a cat knows the balance. She will get what is coming to her; she will pay her dues in time. He felt the spirit leave the child. He has taken it with him as he had with the two other children from different homes, where he had different names.

  If Smokey could comprehend the aphorism “nine lives” it would possibly amuse him—or maybe not.

  With Cassie, he now has three lives. A fourth is calling out to him from a distance from another home. He will answer as he has before. How many more, he does not know.

  Why? He does not know the answer to that either. Maybe he is a vessel to lead them to safety, as Charon upon the River Styx. Maybe he is the ferryman for their journey beyond the darkness of child abuse.

  Smokey knows none of these things. He knows no answers, nor does he have the capacity to even think in such a way. It is what he has to do. It’s in his nature, his calling.

  With him—within him—they may not have much of a freedom, but it is a greater, kinder freedom than these children have ever known.

  Even Smokey knows that.

  Roundabout

  He didn’t know why he killed them. Patrick Dewire loved his wife and daughter with his whole being. He would have given his own life to protect them without pause. It was something beyond his control and nature that drove him to it. The reason eluded him. The horror of it devastated him.

  He had murdered his family.

  He knelt near their bodies, sobbing and rocking to and fro, the knife clenched in his left hand.

  It wasn’t the first time he had considered killing them. He had many times before … usually at night. The nights were the worst. He would lie awake, listening to the silent words replay inside him, kill them … kill them … kill them. How he had despised those thoughts. Many times he had questioned his sanity, but it is said, if you are sane enough to question your sanity, then you are sane.

  Yet …

  He had always resisted it, but tonight it was the right thing to do. Anne and Melissa needed to die.

  Like any married couple, he and Anna had fights. Some were nasty, others laughable, but never violent … until tonight. His anger was without foundation, almost ludicrous, but Anne’s and Melissa’s voices had agitated him more than usual. The words that previously haunted him only at night teased him throughout the day, like some bothersome fly, darting around him, always near but just out of reach. Every word Anne or Melissa said lit violent synapses within him that accentuated their actions until the mere sight of Anne and Melissa fueled his urge to strike out at them.

  He could not remember killing them, only fishing the knife out of the kitchen drawer and swinging it in dramatic arcs, fantasizing about the feel of it slicing through their yielding flesh.

  He had to do it. There was no question about it. The powerful demand for their deaths slammed against the walls of his will, despite his desperation to fight it. It seemed that there were two minds within him, fighting for the prize of life or death, rage battling compassion. It wasn’t especially violent. He stabbed each of them only once, violence regulated by love. After all, he was the father and the husband.

  The authorities were surely on the way. Patrick had been caught in the act. Anne Dewire was a vibrant and affectionate woman who laughed openly and loved sincerely. Madelyn, the family maid, had been privy to frequent displays of attachment around the house, as Patrick and Anne embraced, danced, and passionately kissed without shame, so she wasn’t instantly concerned when she walked into the den to find Patrick holding his wife. When she noticed how Anna’s slack body, thick with child and into her final days of pregnancy, listed awkwardly in Patrick’s arm, Madelyn, thinking Anna had fainted, had rushed forward to help. She stopped suddenly when her distraught eyes locked on Patrick’s hand firmly holding the knife handle in Anne’s back, blood running over his fingers, falling to the floor in dime-sized drops.

  Madelyn fled the room with her screams, but Patrick did not pursue. Her initial shriek had awakened him to the ghastly truth. He released his wife and backpedaled as her body hit the floor, her auburn hair fanning around her head like a halo … his angel.

  To his right, the body of his five-year-old daughter lay where he set her on the chaise longue chair, a slight smear of blood on the arm of the ocher upholstery. She could have been sleeping, and it seemed she would at any moment open those dancing blue eyes, and say in her pixie voice, “Hi, Daddy.” He longed for her to hop into his arms, to smell those glorious strawberry-blonde waves that always carried the scent of baby shampoo.

  Broken by anguish and loss, he dropped to the floor and yanked the condemning knife from Anna’s back. Lying on the floor near her body, he embraced Anna, buried his face in her neck, and wailed bitterly until he heard footfalls behind him. Patrick reclined facedown on the floor, waiting for the cold steel of a police revolver pressed to his head, but realized he hadn’t heard approaching sirens, engines, or the opening of doors.

  From the floor, Patrick scanned the room. A man stood behind Patrick, towering over him. His face was impossible to see in the darkness of the mahogany-paneled den. He was not old, just about Patrick’s age, yet he wore an expensively tailored dinner jacket reminiscent of the Truman era.

  “Stand up,” ordered the man. His voice was cold and as sharp as the knife blade that had severed Patrick from his family.

  “Who are you?” asked Patrick. Feeling frightened and vulnera
ble, he quickly sat up, lifted the knife from the floor, and edged away from the man like a cowering dog.

  “Stand up!” the man repeated with an authoritative snarl.

  “I didn’t want to hurt them,” Patrick said, rising from the floor. He faced the dark man, but refused to meet his eyes.

  The man was shorter and smaller in stature than Patrick, but hatred and malevolence radiated from him like heat from a furnace, so intense that Patrick had to turn away.

  “Look at me,” said the man.

  “I can’t.”

  “Look at me!” he said again. His thick, sonorous voice demanded a response.

  Patrick reluctantly met his eyes and gasped at the face he encountered. Although every fiber of his being resisted, but Patrick couldn’t look away. He was sucked down into the depths of anguish and wretchedness. In the stranger’s eyes he saw insanity and death, grief and murder.

  “What do you see?” asked the dark man.

  “Madness,” Patrick said breathlessly, terror etching his features.

  The dark man huffed out mirthless laugh and then asked, “Who am I?”

  “I don’t know who you are! Why are you doing this to me?” cried Patrick. He covered his ears and tried to look away, but the man controlled Patrick’s will as if it were his own.

  The man reached forward, touched his finger to Patrick’s forehead, and pushed. With a gentle, dry, brushing sound, the man’s hand penetrated Patrick’s forehead all the way to the wrist. Patrick convulsed as his vision blurred. In his mind, horrific images were born in haziness, undulation slowly, but gathering momentum as it gained form and focus with astounding clarity.

  Patrick saw three figures before him, shrouded in darkness. A woman and a young girl, both naked, lay on their backs on a polished wooden floor, the child barely visible beyond the swell of the woman’s nearly full-term abdomen. A robed man knelt on the floor beside them, both hands tightly clenching the handle of an ornamental knife, which he held above them. Patrick bellowed as the knife descended.