Cat's Cradle

by William W. Johnstone

  5

  The remainder of that night in Ruger County was quiet, much to the relief of the lawmen and the doctors.

  The death car was covered with tarps, tied down, and moved to the Virginia Highway Patrol’s impoundment lot for that division.

  Friday morning’s dawn managed to push through the low-hanging clouds over Ruger County. Before Sheriff Dan Garrett had swung his long legs out of bed, the mist had changed to a very light, cold rain; very cold for this early in May.

  Sitting on the side of the bed, Dan rubbed his face as the events of the previous evening came roaring back to the surface. Returning in dead, gnawed-on, shriveled, bloody Technicolor.

  Dan pushed them from his mind, momentarily, and showered and shaved and dressed. He did not put on his uniform that day, choosing civvies instead. In the kitchen of the quiet house, with the light rain for company, Dan poured coffee, dropped bread into the toaster, and picked up the note his wife had left for him on the table.

  We have a teacher’s meeting after school. I’ll be late. Carrie is spending the night at Linda’s. Carl will be at Mike’s for the weekend. You mumbled and jerked and tossed all night long. Whatever you’re working on, I hope you wrap it up soon.

  Love

  “So do I, babe,” Dan said. “So do I. But don’t count on it.”

  Why do I think that? he questioned.

  He shook it away and buttered his toast and drank his coffee. He pulled on his boots and slipped into a shoulder holster rig, dropping his .38 Chief’s Special into leather. Locking up the house, he got in his car and drove to work.

  He turned on the radio and his mood improved as the DJ played a song from Dan’s high school days: Sam Cooke singing “You Send Me.”

  Dan was humming along with the golden oldie when his radio crackled.

  “Ruger One,” he spoke into the mike.

  “See Doctor Ramsey at the hospital, Sheriff,” dispatch said. “He just called for you.”

  He found Quinn and Doctor Goodson sitting with two men in the doctor’s lounge. The men were introduced as Doctors Alderson and Doucette. Dan shook hands, poured coffee, and sat down.

  “Give me the good news first, Quinn,” he said.

  The doctor shook his head. “There is no good news, Dan.”

  “Tell me. Okay. So give me the bad news.”

  “What happened to the engineers last evening is impossible,” Quinn said.

  Dan paused in the lifting of coffee cup to mouth. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What happened to the engineers is, medically speaking, impossible,” Doctor Doucette said. “We checked the dead man this morning; did some preliminary work in the hospital’s lab. The man has been mummified. We found traces of myrrh, cassia, sodium carbonate, honey and various spices. That method of preserving went out with the Pyramids—more or less. It’s impossible.”

  “Myrrh?” Dan said, placing his cup gently on the table. “Like in the Bible?”

  “Yes,” Alderson said.

  “What is cassia?”

  “A variety of cinnamon. Comes from the cassia-bark tree,” Doucette said. “It’s called senna. Most senna comes from Arabia. There is a species of wild senna that grows in the eastern part of North America.”

  Sergeant Langway stepped into the room. He had been standing just inside the door, listening. He was accompanied by a man wearing captain’s bars. Captain Taylor. He was introduced all around and the troopers poured coffee and sat down.

  “Then the man has been embalmed?” Captain Taylor asked.

  “Not by anyone around here,” Quinn said.

  “How about the severed arm?” Dan asked.

  “Same thing,” Alderson said. “Mummified.”

  Dan whistled softly; a slow expulsion of breath.

  “I took shavings from around the wounds of the young people,” Goodson said. “Same thing.”

  Captain Taylor said, “Sergeant Langway has brought me up to date on this. This falls in my division. I’m a cop, not a medical person. So I have been instructed to work with you people on all matters pertaining to medicine. What happened to the kids, however, is on the books as murder. And that’s my bailiwick. I’d like to keep what I just heard quiet for as long as possible. But like it or not, it’s all going to come out into the open. And when it does, all hell is going to break loose. We’d better discuss how we want to handle it.”

  Alderson waved his hand impatiently. “I’m not concerned with the police work. My—our—concern is seeing that this . . . well, person who is the carrier, is found and isolated. As quickly as possible. I am, however, concerned about the panic the news of this could bring. But the public has to be notified.”

  “I don’t believe we can separate legal from medical,” Goodson said. “It’s all tied in. I’ve notified the university that I’m staying on here for a time. Right now, we had all better get busy.”

  “What do we release to the press?” Dan asked.

  “As much of the truth as possible,” Captain Taylor said. “Without creating a general panic. I think we can legally, and without jeopardizing the case, hold back . . . ah, certain aspects of the events. We can state that the young people were killed gruesomely-that’s certainly a fact-and mutilated. We don’t have to say they were . . .” He swallowed hard. “... eaten. The engineer was killed in a mining accident. Now that’s a federal project out on Eden Mountain, so the Bureau has to be advised of this. You do that this morning, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dan said, “The guy who whacked off his arm . . . that’s going to be touchy. I think he should be kept in isolation for a time. We don’t need to go public with him—yet.”

  “I agree. But God help us all if that Mille Smith female gets wind of us holding back information.”

  “Mille Smith?” Captain Taylor said. “What’s she got to do with this?”

  He was brought up to date.

  “Tell our people not to hassle her, Sergeant,” Taylor said. “Don’t give her any slack, but don’t lean on her. That woman has lawsuits against half the cops in the world.”

  “And she doesn’t like me,” Dan said.

  “Dan,” Taylor said. “That woman doesn’t even like herself.”

  The cat and the girl slipped silently and unseen to where the clothes were hidden. Anya dressed in the unfamiliar modern clothing and buried her old, tattered, and bloody garments. She sat on a log and looked at her companion, looking at her.

  Both of them knew their searching was over. Now the waiting had begun. And that was dangerous. For they must remain in this area-undiscovered.

  “You must call your kind,” Anya said to Pet. “The time is very close.”

  The cat cocked its head and seemed to smile.

  Mille Smith had driven as far as Richmond and checked into a motel. Something big was going on back in Ruger County, and she, by God, was going to find out what it was. Whenever cops start lying-something, Mille felt, they were all experts at-something smelly was behind all the lying.

  Carl Garrett could not concentrate on his classes that day. Something Mike had said the night before had triggered something buried deep within the dark reaches of his brain. He couldn’t pin it down. But it would come to him. He hoped.

  * * *

  Doctor Goodson sat alone in the doctor’s lounge, sipping hot tea while he was deep in thought. He had not been entirely honest with his co-workers. He had seen something very similar to this rapid aging process. But it had been more than forty-five years back, before he got out of college. He had been with his father and mother, on one of his father’s sabbaticals, in Egypt. He recalled his father’s laughter at the guide’s explanation of the illness of the native, and his consequent death. His father had dismissed the man’s explanation as ignorant, superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

  But now, the son was not so sure.

  * * *

  And Anya and the cat rested.

  * * *

  The weather front that had drifted in from t
he west seemed to be stalled over Ruger County. For the past three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the skies had been sullen and gray, misting occasionally, and the temperature had remained on the cool side. Then it warmed up. All knew the bottom was about to drop out.

  Monday morning, the residents of the county awakened to a roaring series of thunderstorms that rattled windows and made driving very hazardous. It was a lousy day for a double funeral; but when is there ever a good day?

  Billy Mack and Mary Louise were given to the wet earth. No one had been allowed to view the remains. Doctor Ramsey, a distant cousin to the Evans’ family, had made the official I.D. And no civilian had yet been told the entire truth about the murders.

  The kids had been killed and badly mutilated. Period. The car was impounded. The insurance investigator took one quick look at the interior, lost his breakfast, and declared the vehicle a total loss.

  People knew, of course, the murderer, or murderers, were still on the loose. They armed themselves and double-checked doors and windows.

  Then, as in any rural area, news of the strange mining accident began to drift throughout the county. Mining operations had ceased and the miners had left town. The operation was closed indefinitely.

  And people began to wonder why-aloud.

  Mille Smith was always ready to listen with a very attentive ear, nodding and ohhing and ahhing in just the right spots.

  “Ma’am, I heard that engineer was drained of blood. Terrible thing to see. ’Course it’s all rumor.”

  “Is that right?” Mille said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They tell me ”—always that elusive they—“ hit a pocket of poison gas. Never going to reopen the mine. That’s what I heard.”

  “Interesting,” Mille said.

  “It’s the Lord’s will,” a lady told her. “And His will be done.”

  “Right,” Mille said drily, and moved on down the street.

  “I don’t think they know what the hell happened,” another citizen said. “And I don’t think they ever will.”

  Mille didn’t talk with Eddie Brown, and only Eddie Brown felt he knew what had happened in that cave. But damned if he was gonna volunteer anything. He’d been the butt of enough jokes. Eddie felt this was the perfect time for him to go on his annual retreat. Be silent. Be prayerful. Meditate. And most important of all: Keep his mouth shut about what he’d seen—and he saw it, he was sure of that-in that cave. ’Cause he’d been stone, cold sober. He remembered thinking-at the time—what a disgusting feeling it was.

  * * *

  Anya and Pet had moved only at night, and then, very cautiously. They had eaten well again, on Sunday night, feasting on a drunk man who had been staggering along the gravel road near where the pair had been hiding. This time, Anya had taken the man’s money and put it in her pocket. Pet had looked at her curiously, not understanding fully. They had never used the paper and coins before.

  “I’ll explain,” Anya told her sister. “Later.”

  They had walked on, leaving the partially eaten man in the ditch.

  They came to a cabin in the woods and approached it warily. It was empty. And it had the appearance of not having been lived in for some time. Months, at least. They would rest there.

  Eddie Brown was glad to get away from the town. All that talk about the murders and the mountain was making him nervous. Even though the cabin was only a few miles outside of Valentine proper, it was isolated. Eddie looked forward to his stay.

  Eddie hadn’t held a steady job since coming home from the war back in ’46. He had never seen combat, so he couldn’t attribute his lack of ambition and taste for booze to shell shock. He just liked to loaf around, shoot the breeze with his cronies, and booze it. He had married a lady of some means, and that woman had fallen off a ladder and broken her neck during the fifth year of their marriage. She left everything to her darlin’ Eddie. Eddie didn’t have to work.

  So, in his grief, he became the town drunk. Good excuse as any.

  Then he witnessed that terrible sight while lost inside Eden Mountain. Well, not exactly terrible. But it did scare him. Scare him so he became a born-again Baptist. And it was a good thing he did become a born-again Baptist, for his time on this earth in his present form was rapidly running out.

  Eddie got out of his car and walked up to the porch of the small cabin and set his suitcase on the porch, by the front door. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. He did not notice the rear window slightly ajar. A noise spun him around, looking in all directions.

  He saw the girl and cat he’d seen in the cave. But the girl was dressed differently this time. Instead of a dirty dress, she wore jeans.

  Eddie panicked as the girl and the cat both snarled at him, fouling the air with a stench he could not readily identify. Then it came to him. Old. The smell was very old.

  He screamed as the cat leaped on his face, its claws tearing long strips from his flesh. The girl leaped for Eddie, her small teeth tearing open his arm. The hot blood poured from the man as the girl and the cat attempted to ride him to the floor.

  Eddie became strong with fear. He kicked and screamed, breaking loose. He ran across the small room and dove head-first out a window. He rolled to his feet and ran for the woods. He felt light-headed, but attributed that to his sudden burst of energy.

  Eddie’s suitcase was still sitting on the front porch. A small puddle of blood oozed out from under the front door, to gather at the base of the suitcase.

  The rains intensified, the lightning licking and dancing around the heavens, the thunder rolling in heavy waves.

  Anya and Pet followed Eddie into the woods. They soon gave up when they sensed the change in the man. They returned to the cabin and rested.

  Tuesday dawned clear, and the conversation in the cafes and various other watering holes of Valentine was about the storm. It had been the most violent any of them could remember, with downed power lines, uprooted trees, and blown-off roofs of barns and a couple of houses. Luckily, no one had been injured.

  The CDC men were still in town, as was Doctor Goodson, all working in the lab at the hospital, and all keeping a very low profile.

  And the FBI had made their quiet entrance.

  “What do you think, Dan?” Special Agent Dodge asked the sheriff over coffee in the sheriff’s office. “Do you think our party, or parties, have left this area?”

  “I don’t know,” Dan replied. “It’s a terrible thing for a cop to wish on another cop, but I sure hope they have.”

  “I think they’ve pulled out,” Captain Taylor said, refilling his coffee cup from the large urn, “I think they-whoever or whatever they might be—somehow managed to wriggle in that small cave opening and were hiding there. That poor guy just happened to be the one who discovered them. While they were running, they came upon the kids. Does that fit anyone else’s thinking?”

  Before anyone could reply, the radio crackled. “Ruger fourteen to base. Go to tach, please.”

  The cops gathered around the radio.

  “I’ve got a DB just off the C & O tracks. On Willis Road. Same M.O. as the others. It’s fresh.”

  “Stay with it,” Dan radioed. “We’re rolling.” He looked at Captain Taylor.

  The trooper said, “I’m glad I’m not betting my hunches today. I’d lose my damned drawers!”

  6

  The man was identified as Donald Drake. He was not from Ruger County; a transient from around the Richmond area. He had been drained of blood and partially eaten. Doctor Ramsey said the body was not more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours old.

  The lawmen exchanged glances. The FBI agents looked at the mutilated remains, the savage gnawing bites, both human and animal, and shook their heads. One of the younger agents walked off into the bushes and vomited on the ground.

  “That young man been with the Bureau long?” Dan asked innocently.

  “Less than a year,” the agent-in-charge said. “This was his first opportunity to earn
the puke badge.”

  “He earned it the hard way,” Captain Taylor said. He looked at Dan and sighed.

  “I know,” Dan said. “This complicates it. We’ve got to comb this countryside. And, I’ve got to level with the people. It’s going to hit the fan when I do, but they have a right to know what is among them. I’d be derelict in my duty if I did anything else. But Jesus, it’s going to a goddamned circus around here when the press is informed.”

  Before anyone could concur or disagree, Dan’s radio came to life. “Ruger nine to Ruger one.”

  Dan picked up his mike. “Go, nine.”

  “Tach.”

  Frequencies reset, Ruger nine said, “I’m parked in front of Eddie Brown’s cabin, Sheriff. Something is very wrong here.”

  “What, nine?”

  “I ... I don’t know Sheriff. Eddie’s car is in the drive, and it’s cold. Been here for some time. The rains have washed out the tracks. But his suitcase is still sitting on the front porch. I just get the feeling it’s been out there for a long time. You want me to check it out?”

  Dan hesitated. He knew only too well how accurate a cop’s hunches can be. “Negative on that. Stay put until backup arrives. Don’t get out of your car.” He glanced at his watch. “Backup ETA approximately ten minutes.”

  “Ten four, sir.”

  Captain Taylor was already moving, ordering by radio one of his men to Ruger nine’s location.

  Dan turned back to the dead man in the ditch. “Mark the body’s location and shoot it. Rope this place off and go over it inch by inch. Chuck, call Pat Leonard at the paper and tell him to be at my office at noon for a briefing. Ask him if he will notify the other papers in this area.”

  “That damn nosy libber is still in town, Dan,” Chuck reminded his boss.

  “I know,” Dan said, suddenly feeling tired. “Can’t be helped. It’s still a free country.” He thought about that for a moment. “Even for left-wingers like her.”

  Anya and Pet had left the cabin through a back window when the deputy’s car had driven up. They were a full two miles away when the highway patrolman pulled up. The deputy and the trooper approached the cabin very cautiously, pistols drawn. The deputy was the first to spot the drying blood gathered around the base of the suitcase. He pointed it out, saying, “Do we check the cabin or call in?”