Ghosts, Monsters and Madmen
Page 16
Humans once possessed this ability but they lost it when they attained their words, their tools, and their powerful ideas. Ideas so strong it allowed them to build a world that wasn’t there before, but also masked from them a world that always was. A human can see a building not yet built… but that same gaze, powered by his own understanding of the world, will annihilate a bogey or a woolly-booger before the human has a chance to really see it.
This has driven the small eldritch pests to the shadows along the edges of the world, where we cats hunt them while they strive to avoid the human’s gaze. It is a role we take seriously, even though humans have long forgotten that aspect of our nature.
Now I lay quiet, comparing tonight’s performance against some of the better ambushes my forebearers had executed. I drifted through their memories, over stone castle hearths and under log cabin rafters. They chased rabbits, and boggins, and rats, and sprites…through the heather of distant moors and along the banks of ancient rivers. They were all there, waiting for me to wear their fur and walk in their pawprints.
Tonight I chose to relive my many times removed grandmother’s hunt for a dust sprite through the basement of some old mansion. She slunk through the sheet shrouded shapes of covered furniture, ears alert for the tiny scrabble that would betray her prey. The stone felt cool under the pads of her paws, as she crept her way deeper into the gloomy basement. An old veteran of such hunts, she moved with slow patience, leaving it to her unsuspecting quarry to betray itself with some small motion. The room darkened further as the sun must have passed behind a cloud, causing the scant light from the two high tiny windows to dim even further. A tiny flit of motion under a far dresser caught her eye.
She froze, not a whisker moving. For a moment nothing stirred, then the faintest of scrabbling came from behind the leg of the dresser. Her ears swiveled, pinpointing the sound with precision. In an instant, she put a sheet hanging from a table between her and the dresser leg, and used it to make a concealed approach. Reaching the other end of the sheet, her ears once again placed her prey behind the leg of the dresser, now only inches away. She gathered herself for a pounce, her legs like coiled springs. Whether rat or sprite, the creature on the other side of that dresser leg had a surprise coming. Her eyes narrowed, her ears laid back, and she launched herself toward the darkness under the dresser…
…and that is when I woke to the sound of birds screaming.
###
I came off the back of the couch, every piece of fur standing up on end. Whirling to locate the source of the din, I saw Chipper fly out of the dark hallway and head for the back door. He came to a stop with his nose pressed up against the glass, looking out into the back yard. His hackles rose, and the faintest of growls escaped him.
The sound came from the back yard.
“Minke! I need your eyes!”
The plea from Chipper unnerved me, but not as much as the noise coming from outside. The times Chipper has asked something from me are rare indeed. On the other hand, while I have heard birds chirp, squawk, chatter, and screech… I have never heard them scream.
Joining Chipper at the back door, I gazed through the glass into the backyard. Moonlight flooded the open grassy sections of the yard, while large puddles of blackness were formed by the shadows cast by bushes and trees. For me, visibility was excellent and I located the source of the disturbance immediately.
A long time ago, The Lady’s mate brought home a large birdhouse as a gift. It was made of wood, and looked like one of the huge houses some humans like to live in. It could easily hold many more nests than I had claws. I almost purred with delight when I first divined its purpose but then the maniac put it on top of a tall pole, well out of my reach. Once I realized the futility of any attempt to reach it, I chose to delete it from my notice.
Now it once again became the center of my attention.
Like a thing possessed, it shook and swayed atop its pole. Feathers fell like black snowflakes from the structure, and the screaming emanated from within. Something hellish was happening inside that house, but I saw no clue as to what it could be. Twice, I saw birds escape from one of the holes and go shooting off into the darkness, but I got the definite impression that most of them never made it out. After a few more seconds the din started to fade. Soon only one lone voice shrieked from inside the structure before it too fell silent.
The swaying quickly stopped, and peace once again descended on the moonlit yard.
“Minke, what did it look like? What did you see?” Chipper almost whined. What on earth could be wrong with him?
“I saw little, Friend Dog, merely the house of birds swaying atop its pole. Perhaps a raccoon has gained entrance and feasted amongst the nests.”
Chipper sat in silence for a moment, staring out through the glass. There remained nothing to see out there but the grass in the moonlight. In the distance, a couple of other neighborhood dogs started howling. For a moment, it appeared he might join them but he collected himself and chose to answer my musing instead.
“No,” he finally replied, “that is no raccoon out there.”
“Then what, pray tell?”
Chipper continued to gaze out into the yard, his solemn demeanor revealed by the moonlight shining through the door. He looked both troubled and lost in thought.
“Something worse,” he answered in a distant manner, “something much, much worse.”
“You task me, Friend Dog. Stop speaking in mysteries.”
Chipper rose and shook himself, casting another look at the darkness outside the glass.
“I don’t know, Minke.” His posture radiated unhappiness, “I sense it…and I sense it is a Dog Matter…but I don’t know.” He shook himself again, and then started a desultory walk back to the hallway and down to The Child’s room.
Dogs straddle the worlds of cats and men. They possess varying degrees of ancestral memory. Some, like Chipper, have very little but hunches and feelings left...while the feral dogs that scavenge the garbage bins of the world sometimes retain almost as much as a cat. On the other hand, they are more comfortable in the world of words, and understand many themselves. They still see the world of the eldritch, but focus on different things than cats.
They can see the dead, and it almost always upsets them due to their own ideas about the order of things. Cats couldn’t care less about ghosts, so they are “dog matters”. These days dogs concern themselves with the ghosts, poltergeists, and other haunts of the eldritch world…leaving cats to manage the sock eaters, hanger tanglers, and pencil thieves.
It’s a thankless job, but somebody has to do it.
This time I followed Chipper down the hall, but parted ways at the end rather than following him into The Child’s room. Instead, I leaped up on The Lady’s bed. Taking a few seconds to make out her contours under the sheets, I walked across the empty side of the bed and curled up against the crook of her knees. The Lady was a sound sleeper, and seldom tossed or turned. This meant I could relax and ponder the events of the evening in peace.
If tonight’s uproar constituted “Dog Matters,” then I no longer needed to concern myself with the affair. I hoped Chipper felt better about it in the morning, but other than that I put the event out of my mind.
Closing my eyes, I tucked my nose under my tail and slept.
###
I spent most of the next day in The Lady’s bedroom window.
It is a large affair that juts out into the backyard, and has spacious shelves intended to hold plants. My Lady is wise, and put it to much better use by laying a small blanket on the top shelf where I can stretch out and soak up the sun while surveying my backyard domain. One of these days she will finally understand the signals I send her way, and put the food and water bowl up here within easy reach. Until then, I suppose I shall just continue to suffer the arduous trudge across the room to get my meals.
On this particular afternoon, I lay flattened by a rather heavy sunbeam. Lacking the energy or desire to even raise m
y head, I settled for cracking one eye open as I lay on my side and watched Chipper roam the backyard. He spent the day gazing at the birdhouse, sometimes from his doghouse in the back corner of the yard, and sometimes circling the pole beneath the house itself. Whatever he sensed up there seemed to worry him badly.
It being a dog matter though, meant it no longer existed as a concern of mine, and it behooved me to put my mental energies to more practical uses. I closed my eyes and lounged under a foreign sun, in a land of colorful stone buildings and people who worshipped cats as gods.
The very pinnacle of human civilization.
Humans never worshipped dogs as gods, a fact I never failed to find an opportunity to point out to Chipper. Gods that slobbered on shoes would just be gauche.
I dozed the day away.
Afternoon fell into evening, and the house came alive as The Lady came home with her young one in tow. Lights came on and tantalizing smells started developing as The Lady performed her magic in the kitchen. Chipper came in through the doggie door in the laundry room to join the camaraderie, and to defend his spot under The Child’s chair where the food tended to fall.
“Welcome back, O Greediest of Dogs,” I huffed while moving to another spot under the table, “I see your appetite has not suffered from worry.”
In truth, I noticed earlier how his food bowl in the laundry room remained untouched. He was, in all honesty, that worried. Regardless, his newfound appetite meant I now found myself reduced to rubbing against The Lady’s leg in hopes of the occasional gift of chicken from her plate. It’s been known to happen, but not as often as the food falling from The Child’s place at the table.
“Minke,” Chipper looked so serious it brought me to a halt, “whatever is in that bird house is bad. Very, very bad. Sleep lightly tonight, because I sense danger.
The dining room table sat next to two windows looking into the back yard, and I turned to peer out from my place under the table. Out there in the dark, the birdhouse sat silhouetted on its pole by the rising moon. A night breeze whipped a few leaves past it, and it swayed on its tall perch. As I continued to peer out at it, I got the most unsettling feeling that it glared back at me. Something inside returned my gaze. It looked into our bright cheery window from out there in the windy night, and it looked with hunger.
“Vexing beast!” I growled with a shake of my head, “Now you have me seeing evil in the shadows! Good night, to you.”
I stalked off to The Lady’s bedroom. Little in the way of chicken had been making its way down to me anyway, and now Chipper seemed determined to trouble me over dog matters. Leaping up onto the foot of her bed, I curled into a tight ball with my back to the bedroom window.
The wind outside made a soothing background noise, and my muscles relaxed as I drifted off into sleep. Later, I barely woke when The Lady came to bed, before repositioning and falling back into a dream about a kittenhood duel with a scorpion on the bathroom linoleum.
I relived the feints and attacks, even then instinctually aware how my opponent did not offer mere play. My fur bristled as I lunged and retreated, watching that dangerous little tail with all my attention, every nerve tight as a wire. I sensed it could hurt me, but the fear intensified the thrill of the hunt. I circled the thing slowly, placing each paw with care, as it turned to face me with raised claws and tail held high. That tail needed to be pinned, and I would just have one chance at it. Miss, and it would sting me. I felt as tense in that dream, as when the event actually happened…
…which is why Chipper should count his lucky stars he still owned a snout to draw back after he stuck his cold nose in my belly.
“Bothersome hound!” I hissed, “Have you entirely lost your wits!?” I knew I was puffed out as big as my fur would let me…something Chipper always found great hilarity in.
Not tonight.
“It’s on the roof, Minke. Let’s go.” He trotted toward the bedroom door.
Curiosity got the better of me. I dropped to the floor and followed him, despite my fury at his rude intrusion. Turning my attention to the ceiling as I padded down the dark hall, I could make out a soft scrabbling on the shingles above. It sounded too big to be a squirrel, and all wrong for a raccoon. It also seemed to be making its way along the top of the roof. I paused to try and get a better fix on its location.
“Come on, Minke!” Chipper chuffed from the direction of the laundry room, “I need you to come outside and get a look at this thing. Maybe that will give me some clue as to what it is.”
“Pest!” I retorted, although heading for the laundry room. “This matter for dogs seems to keep involving one too many cats.”
Making my way through the dim laundry room, I watched while Chipper pushed his way through the doggie door. I waited till its swinging slowed before attempting it myself.
Easing my way out into the windy night, my senses came alive as the cool air crossed my face. The tree limbs above swayed in the wind, with their leaves creating a rise and fall of whispering cacophony. Those limbs cast twisting shadows across the moonlit yard, bringing the night alive. Chains rattled and creaked as the empty swings in The Child’s jungle gym swung freely in the nighttime gale. A hint of freshness to the breeze told me of rain somewhere in the distance, but unlikely to fall here. It also made a mess of my fur, which would require much attention later.
“Minke, where is it? Do you see anything?”
Turning my attention to the roof, I scanned it from one end to the other. Leaves skittered across the shingles like mice on sandpaper. A bed of leaves formed in one place where the roof of the house met the garage roof at an angle. I moved across the dark yard, trying to get as much of a vantage as I could. With only one tree overhanging the roof itself, it lay bare and easily visible in the moonlight.
“Minke, what do you see?”
“Nothing, Chipper. Do you hear it still? Come out here where you will have a better vantage.”
“No, I will stay where I can see the door. I don’t want it getting behind us and entering the house.”
That is when I realized our mistake.
Chipper is a dog, and dogs are creatures of the ground. He was thinking like a creature of the ground, and not taking other possibilities into account.
“You forget the hole up to the roof that leads from where the lady lights her fires in the winter,” I called back. “If this thing can climb yonder pole, perhaps the hole is also within its skills.”
For a split second, Chipper just stared across the yard at me in horror. Then he turned without further hesitation and charged back through the doggie door and into the house. I followed hot on his heels, only to catch the swinging door right in the face. Hissing in pain and frustration, I backed up to let it slow down, then pushed my way in.
As soon as I entered, I could hear bedlam breaking out at the other end of the house. The sound of Chipper barking and snarling was punctuated by gasping screams from The Child. Things were tumbling and getting knocked around, and I made out the sound of the little bookcase turning over. Chipper fought something with ferocious abandon. I raced into the living room in time to hear The Lady shout Chipper’s name and see her dim form cross the hall. The light in The Child’s bedroom came on, and all sounds but the cries of The Child came to an immediate halt.
Good. If this creature was indeed eldritch, then her gaze would have annihilated it before she even saw it. If not, then Chipper could finish it.
I heard The Lady start shouting. They were Angry Words and Fearful Words, and she came out of the room dragging Chipper by the collar. With great effort, Chipper ignored her as she ranted at him and focused on me instead.
“Minke! It was smothering The Child! It is after The Child!” He frantically communicated with me as The Lady dragged him down the hall, “The Lady’s gaze didn’t destroy it, but just banished it! It’s stronger than other eldritch, and it’s still alive outside somewhere! Stay with The Child, Minke! Protect her! Scream and wake The Lady if it comes back!”
I am not a protector: it is just not my first nature. Under certain circumstances a cat can be pound for pound one of the fiercest protectors there is, but that almost always involves our own kittens. Protecting humans is a dog matter, although cats do sometimes contribute in matters involving the eldritch. But never in something like this. We hunt pests, and keep the humans’ homes free of the gremlins who can make their life harder.
But this thing was different.
As The Lady crooned to her young one, I crept under a dresser and settled down for the evening. Soon, she had her asleep and then tiptoed out of the room. Darkness fell as The Lady switched off the light. I supposed it wouldn’t kill me to spend one night in The Child’s room. And if something nasty did come back, it would come as no effort on my part to scream as long and loud as possible. Either way, Chipper owed me big for this one.
Outside, the wind picked up speed and howled across the eaves…a cacophony of noise that made me strain my senses to the utmost in an attempt to recognize any threat. A couple of times, I heard the faint sounds of neighborhood dogs offering howls of their own to the storms night time symphony. My ears isolated the sound of the nearby tree scratching its branches across the shingles, in hopes of being able to distinguish the foreign scrabble of feet if such a sound should occur. Occasional patters of rain swept the roof, but the threat of a full downpour never materialized. Neither did the monster from the birdhouse.
When The Lady rose in the morning and tiptoed down the hall, I still hunkered down under the dresser, exhausted and frazzled to within an inch of my life. With the day begun, I could finally relax my vigil. Dragging my tired body out from under the dresser, I arched my back and started the process of unkinking my stiffened muscles.