Cat's Cradle

Book 1: Cat

by William W. Johnstone

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

No one knew where she had come from. A scrap of a girl clinging to a black cat with eerie yellow eyes. A lost child or an orphan, maybe. It was a miracle she had survived on Eden Mountain at all. Suddenly strange things began to happen in placid Ruger County, bizarre killings that the police couldn’t solve. Horrifying accidents that the people couldn’t comprehend. An insatiable beast was stalking their intimate hideaways, their swimming holes—and their children. No one noticed how quickly the little girl’s pale cheeks turned pink with health. How her frail body filled out with sleek, lithe muscles and feline grace. And no one noticed that at night her innocent blue eyes turned an eerie, evil yellow . . .

Release date: October 11, 2016

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 338

Sample

Ruger County, Virginia. 1985.

“Dad?”

“Ummm?” Dan Garrett looked up from his paper at his son. The boy—no, that wasn’t correct, the father amended-his son was a young man; junior at the university.

“What were you doing in 1965?”

“Walking the floor at the hospital, waiting for you to be born.” He grinned and winked at his only son.

Carl Garrett laughed. “Come on, Dad! Get serious, will you?”

“All right. What, specifically, about ’65, did you have in mind?”

“New York City.”

“The Big Orange,” his father said, his grin spreading.

“Apple, Dad,” his daughter corrected. “It’s known as the Big Apple.”

“I knew it was some kind of fruit.” Dan winked at his wife.

The daughter grimaced. “You’re impossible.”

Carl looked at his sister, Carrie. “If you’re quite through? Thank you. I’m doing a paper on the great unsolved murders of the past one hundred years, Dad. There was some really neat murders in New York City back in ’65.”

“Really neat murders?” Dan questioned that.

“Were,” Carrie said to her brother.

Carl cut his eyes. “Huh?”

“There were some really neat murders,” Carrie said.

“Was is correct,” her brother said, sticking to his statement.

Father stepped in. He wasn’t sure himself and he was afraid he’d be asked. His wife, a teacher at the local high school, smiled at him. He knew she was hoping he’d be asked to settle it. “You’re a trouble-maker,” he said to his wife. Cutting his eyes back to his son, he asked, “What about those murders in the Big Grape?”

“Apple, Dad,” Carrie said. “And it’s were.”

“Shaddup, Dink,” Carl said, calling her by the nickname she detested.

With her hand held behind the magazine so her parents could not see what she was doing, Carrie flipped Carl the rigid digit.

He laughed at her. “Naughty, naughty.”

Dan looked around the room at his family. “Did I miss something?”

Both kids laughed.

“What is going on!” Dan said, a tone to his voice that both brother and sister knew only too well. Cool it. Enough is enough.

“The murders in New York City,” Carl brought it back. “You see, they were all drained of blood.”

“Gross out!” Carrie said.

“Carl,” his mother cautioned. “We just finished supper. If you don’t mind?”

The boy grinned. It was just too good to miss. “No, I didn’t mind at all. It was good.”

Dan looked at his son. “Whoa, boy.”

That was the time to back off, slow down, take it easy, WYM-time. Watch Your Mouth.

“Sorry, Mother,” the boy took the vocal cue from his father.

“Fine, Carl.”

“Anyhoo,” the boy said, “back to the Vampire Murders.”

This time, Dan folded his paper and laid it aside. “The what?”

“That is what the NYPD named them. The Vampire Murders. I’m serious about the bodies being drained of blood. And that’s not all.” He grinned, doing his best Vincent Price imitation.

“You look like Pat Boone,” his sister shot him down.

“Drop the other boot, boy,” Dan said.

“The bodies had been partially eaten, too.”

“That’s all,” Evonne Garrett said, rising from her chair and moving toward the front door. “Come on, Carrie. Let’s go out on the porch. It’s nice and peaceful out there.”

“No way, Mother,” the just-turned-seventeen year old said. “This is getting good in here.”

“Yukk!” the mother said.

“What’s the matter, Vonne?” Dan said with a laugh. He winked at her. “Every time a scary movie comes on the tube, you can’t be pried away from it.”

“That’s different, Dan. That’s a movie. This is real.”

Dan chuckled as his wife left the room. He looked at his son. “Go on.”

“Well, in 1965, Dad, what were you doing?”

“In ’65, son, I was with the FBI. Five years later I got shot and put out to pasture. I came back home to Ruger County and joined the Sheriff’s Department. Then I ran for sheriff. To my surprise, I won. The rest is history.”

“And you never heard of the Vampire Murders?”

“Carl, I probably did at the time. I’ve just forgotten about them.”

“Were you in Washington back in ’65?”

“I was all over the United States between ’65 and ’69.”

“Working on civil rights cases?”

“I didn’t do much of that. I was with a ... special Bureau team.”

And the son and daughter knew the father would not tell them what it was. And they knew not to push it.

“Shot up and Presidential decorated,” Carl said with a smile, “and the man doesn’t remember the murders of the century.”

“Chalk it up to old age, boy.”

“You said it, not me.” Carl and Carrie laughed.

“Have you stopped discussing Jack the Ripper?” Vonne called from the porch.

“Yes, dear,” Dan said. “You may come in now and clean up the gore.”

From the front porch, came the rubbery sounds of the wet raspberry.

Ruger County, Virginia is located in the center of the state. Rolling hill country, rich with history and tradition. Lots of old homes. Ruger County is, for the most part, a quiet, peaceful county. The largest town is Valentine, which is the county seat. 3600 population. There are three incorporated towns in the county. Bradford, Ashby, and Callaway. The county population stays right about 10,000. Real violence is rare; that’s not counting the occasional fights between husband and wife.

FBI agent, then deputy, and finally sheriff of Ruger County for the past ten years, Dan Garrett and his deputies keep a loose but steady hand on the pulse of Ruger County. They know who the trouble-makers are, and can usually intervene before anything of a deadly nature occurs.

Not always, but usually. And in the field of law enforcement, that’s a pretty good average.

The town of Valentine holds the county’s only hospital. Small, but extremely well-equipped and fully staffed with highly competent personnel. Old Doc Ramsey built the original facility back in the mid-’30’s. His son, Doctor Quinn Ramsey, took over in ’65, building a brand new hospital. Quinn is the county coroner. His wife, Alice, is the county’s expert—one of many-on Virginia. More specifically, her own family tree. And, so the rumor goes, and goes, if one is ever foolish enough to be trapped at a gathering by Alice’s rapid-fire interlocution, one is left with the disconcerting sensation of having one’s eyes bug out, dry mouth, rapid pulse, and one’s shoes seemingly welded to the floor.

One of their friends actually passed out while talking to Alice one day. On the phone.

“Goddamn woman could rot a fence post,” a local farmer was once accused of saying.

He stoutly denies it.

But really, Ruger County is a very serene place to live and raise a family. A lot of proven but so-called old-fashioned ways are still clung to. And many people are wising up to the fact that many old ways were and are the best.

One movie house. That’s in Valentine. One drive-in theater. That’s in Bradford. A few honky-tonks. Damn few. Beer only. Buy your hard liquor at the state-owned stores. A lot of out-of-staters don’t like that system; but it suits the residents of Ruger—most of them-and it’s their county.

No radio or TV stations located in the county. Get lots of music and TV out of Richmond—seventy miles away, or from Charlottesville or Lynchburg. And if that’s not good enough for you, stick a satellite dish in your back yard and prop your feet up.

There are a few small factories in the county. All but one of them located in and around Valentine. Couple of small lumber mills.

The whites outnumber the blacks, and for the most part, both sides get along well, with only a few agitators on both sides. Those people are, for the most part, ignored. Every now and then some minor racial trouble will flare up, usually in the form of nigger-baiting or honky-hating. If the sheriff’s deputies get there in time, all concerned are going to the pokey. White and black.

Best thing to do is just try to get along.

About 9950 pretty good folks live in Ruger County. Fifty-five cronks. And one colossal bore.

Alice.

The tallest mountain in the county is Eden Mountain. 1200 plus feet. The government is mining something out of Eden. They’re taking the mountain down from the top and won’t tell anybody what they’re taking out of there. Top secret hush-hush stuff and all that stuff. People in the county are used to it. Nobody ever went to the damned ol’ mountain anyway. People have been known to get lost in there. Damn place is full of caves. Local drunk got lost in there ’bout fifteen years back. Lost for two days. Scared the hell out of him. Got religion in there, too. Went in a wine-head and came out a born-again Baptist. Hasn’t touched a drop since then. Hair turned gray in spots. Claimed he saw a dark-haired little girl and a cat in there. They were sleeping and he couldn’t wake either of them up.

They weren’t dead; they were sleeping.

Of course, nobody believed ol’ Eddie Brown.

Yet.

The rumbling and grumbling and grinding and blasting and roaring of equipment woke the girl and the cat. They were both disorganized and confused and irritable. Their rest cycle had been disturbed far too soon. And worse yet, if they could not find a new resting place, they would not be able to return to sleep. Unless ... this was their final destination. Perhaps.

Anya and Pet looked at one another in the darkness of the cave. Light or dark meant nothing to either of them. They saw the same whether it was day or night. They would wait out the rumbling until it stopped, then they would attempt to find another refuge. If it wasn’t already too late. And they both felt that might well be the case. If so, they would have to endure a human-like and child’s play-pet existence for a time. It had happened before; they knew how to deal with it. But neither of them liked it. It increased the chances of discovery. Unless this was the home of the Old Ones. Perhaps.

No one had told them their reign on earth would be easy. No one had told them anything. They knew only they must survive. And search. Try to find the source. The Force.

And now that they were awake, they were hungry.

Voices drifted to them. Lights flashed in the darkness. That made the child and the cat even more irritable. How dare anyone interrupt them.

“Hold it, Jimmy. Whoa! We’ve hit another cave. Back off.”

“’Bout quittin’ time anyway. You wanna check it out now or wait ’til morning?”

“Let’s do it now. Help me enlarge this hole and we’ll get some light down here.”

Anya and Pet were trapped. The miner was blocking their escape route. A roaring filled the cave as the hole was enlarged. Heavy boots hit the floor of the cave. They heard the clicking of the flashlight. It would not come on.

The miner flipped the switch several times and cussed. He shook the flashlight. “Get me another torch, Jimmy. This one won’t work.” He sniffed the close, stale air. “Jesus, what is that smell?”

It smelled like ... like, unwashed human bodies. Stale flesh. And something else, too, but the miner couldn’t pinpoint it. Then the man found the words he sought: Old blood. And evil. Evil! Why would he think that?

Heavy flashlight in hand, the engineer inspected the immediate cavern for serious breaks or instability. Everything looked good.

“You okay, Al?” Jimmy called.

“Yeah. But God, what a horrible smell down here.”

“Gas?”

“No. It isn’t gas. I don’t know what it is.”

He heard a very slight rustling sound coming from the right angle turn in the cave. He froze, listening intently. Silence greeted him.

Rats, he thought.

He shone the light into the darkness of the cave. The beam picked up nothing human or animal. He stepped toward the sharp bend in the cave. That terrible odor once more assailed his nostrils. He slowly made his way around the bend and lifted the light.

Sudden fear rooted the man to the spot.

The powerful light froze a young girl in place. She held a cat in her hands. The girl’s dress was tattered and torn and filthy. And out of style. Years out of style. It was really no more than rags hanging from her slim body. The child couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. And she was half-starved looking. The cat in her arms looked so thin Al couldn’t tell if it was dead or alive.

Then the cat opened its eyes. The cold yellow reflected back into the light.

“Girl,” Al found his voice. The one word echoed in the cave.

Both the girl and the cat screamed at the man. The inhuman-sounding yowling jarred the engineer. He took several steps backward.

“Goddamn, Al!” Jimmy yelled. “What in the name of God was that?”

“Get down here, Jimmy! Now!”

“On my way. Hang on.”

The girl and the cat jumped at Al. The girl’s eyes were black embers glowing in the harsh light. She knocked the light from Al’s hand as long, dirty fingernails dug grooves in his face. The blood leaped from the deep slashes. The cat landed on Al’s head, digging in, its front paws slashing at the man’s face. One clawed paw ripped an eye from a socket. Al’s hard hat was knocked loose. In his pain and confusion and fear, Al stumbled backward, losing his footing in the darkness. He fell heavily, smashing his head on the rock wall.

Then purple darkness took him, swallowing him. He thought he heard laughter, very hollow-sounding, very evil. Demons filled his mind. They were horrible.

Then, in his mind, he saw the face of ...

Dan Garrett stood up, stretching his lanky frame. Now on the shady side of middle age, the man could still wear the same size jeans he wore in college. He exercised several times a week, but could not do much jogging, since the bullet that knocked him out of the FBI had shattered a knee. After several operations, he limped only when tired. He ran fingers through salt and pepper hair-and rubbed the beard stubble on his face.

Getting old, he thought. Come in from work, open a beer, pick up the paper, sit down, and promptly fall asleep. Wonderful.

He tried the paper again. He was just getting into a story when the phone rang. He stilled the ringing.

“Dan?”

“Yes.”

“Quinn Ramsey here. Did I catch you at supper?”

“Oh, no. We never eat until around seven.”

“Good. Just don’t eat and go to bed on a full stomach,” the doctor added, almost as an afterthought.

Dan laughed at his long-time friend. The men had gone all the way through school together. Grade school all the way through the university.

“Sorry, Dan. Sometimes I have difficulty keeping my work at the office.”

“Believe me, Quinn, I do know the feeling. What’s on your mind?”

“Well . . . Dan, can you come to the hospital? It’s . . . the damndest thing. I’d just rather not say anything about it until you have a look.”

“Sounds serious, Quinn.”

“It is. Frightening is a better word.”

“All right, Quinn. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Dan walked toward the front door, then paused, remembering he had forgotten his pistol.

He shook his head and laughed. Hell, it can’t be that serious.

Dan walked out of the intensive care unit and removed his mask and gloves. His face was shiny with sweat and his eyes looked glassy from the unexpected. He lifted his eyes and looked at Doctor Ramsey.

“What in the name of God happened to that man, Quinn?”

“We don’t really know what happened. And neither does the man who brought him in. They were both working inside Eden Mountain. Just about quitting time. Al—the man you just saw—dropped down into a newly found cave to check it out. Jimmy—that’s the man who brought him in—stayed top-side. Jimmy heard howling, then screaming. Whoever, or whatever it was, was gone when Jimmy arrived to help his friend. What we do know is this: the man has a severe concussion, one eye clawed out, and many deep lacerations on his face, head, arms, and chest.”

Sheriff Dan Garrett, not known for being a profane man, startled the RN standing nearby when he blurted “But the man looks like a fucking mummy! He looks like he’s five hundred years old.”

“Steady, Dan. I know, I know. Believe me, my reaction was even more profane than yours. His . . . condition is precisely why you wore gloves, gown, and mask, and viewed him through glass. He’s being kept in an absolutely controlled environment. You all right now, buddy?”

“Yes. Sorry for the outburst. Quinn, how old is that man?”

“His driver’s license says he’s thirty-two years old.”

Dan felt the blood rush from his face. He was suddenly not all right. He took several deep breaths and cracked his knuckles—a habit he’d been trying to break. “When did the . . . ah, aging process begin?”

“Apparently the instant whatever it was attacked him and drew blood. I have Doctor Goodson in from the university. He’s in the lab now. Doctor Goodson was . . . ah, shocked at the man’s appearance. First time I ever saw that man change expression. He was one of my professors in med school.”

Dan shook his head. He didn’t know Doctor Goodson from a can of beans. “Who is Goodson?”

Doctor Ramsey looked pained. “I’ll keep it in layman’s terms.”

“Please do.”

“Doctor Goodson wrote the book-or books—on aging. If there is anything he doesn’t know about it, it’s because it has not been discovered.”

Dan said, “The university does have one of the finest med schools in the nation.”

“The finest,” Quinn corrected.

Dan smiled. “You wouldn’t be prejudiced, would you, Quinn?”

“Of course not,” the doctor’s reply was stiff.

Dan jerked his thumb toward the intensive care unit. “What did your expert have to say about that guy in there?”

Quinn Ramsey once again looked pained. “Doctor Goodson’s exact words at first glance?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit!”

The child and the cat made their way through the dark woods. The girl rained down ancient curses on the men who had disturbed their rest cycle. She and Pet had been awake too long now to again seek the sanctuary and safety of sleep.

They were awake and that was the way it must remain. They had no other options. But where were the Old Ones?

The only control they had over their destiny was to survive. And now, to search. The Old Ones must be found.

But for now, they must eat, and eat well, in order to regain their strength. For the ordeal ahead of them would be severe. They knew armed men would be hunting them. They had been through it all before.

The cat’s ears perked up. The pair stopped. The girl and the cat exchanged glances and thoughts. They both heard the sounds of panting. The cat leaped ahead, slipping through the woods, the girl following as silently as the cat’s light step, the rags of her tattered dress flapping. Moonlight glinted off a parked car. The car was rocking on its springs. A young man’s gruntings and a young woman’s moaning drifted through the spring air.

The cat and the girl slipped as silently as death’s touch up to the parked car, one taking the right, the other the left.

Within seconds, panting and moaning and grunting had changed to screams of terror and howls of pain. Blood splattered the windows and cushions of the car. Frantic thrashings rocked the vehicle. A cat’s yowlings and a girl’s grotesque smacking of lips filled the air. The rocking of the car ceased. The screaming bubbled off into nothing.

Silence once more filled the woods. A bloody child’s face appeared in the rear window. A cat appeared by her side. Both were covered with blood. They looked at one another. They smiled in satisfaction.

Al the engineer died.

“Died of what?” Dan persisted in his questioning. “Of what?”

Goodson said, “Old age.”

“But the man was only thirty-two years old!”

Doctor Goodson sat looking at the table top. Doctor Ramsey sat looking at Doctor Goodson. Dan stood over the medical men, looking at both of them, expecting, demanding answers.

Dan said, “Either you don’t know, or you’re not leveling with me. Which is it?”

Goodson looked up at the sheriff. “We don’t know, Dan. I’ve never seen anything like it. And that is the truth.” He looked at Quinn. “How many people know of this?”

“Of the rapid aging?”

“Yes.”

“The emergency room personnel. One RN. Doctor Harrison. The intensive care personnel who were on duty. You, me, Sheriff Garrett.”

Doctor Goodson sighed, feeling his age. “I’ve got to get some people in here from CDC. We’re over our heads with this.” He looked startled for a moment. “Where is the man who brought him in?”

“I sedated him and put him to bed,” Quinn said.

“Did you notice any cuts or scratches on him? Think, Doctor.”

“ . . . no. But . . . He wasn’t wearing gloves. What are you thinking?” Then it hit Quinn. “Oh, God!”

“If that man had even the smallest cut and the blood from the engineer infected him . . . Damn!” He stood up. “Let’s go see him.”

But Jimmy was gone. No one on the floor had seen him leave.

Jimmy looked at his hand and felt like puking. The hand had shriveled and now had no feeling left in it. It was like a part of him had died.

It had.

He had gotten out of bed to go to the john. That’s when he’d noticed his hand. He had panicked, not fully awake from the shot the doctor had given him. He had not known what to do. He had dressed in his dirty work clothes and walked out of the hospital. He hadn’t seen a soul in doing so.

He knew he should go back to the hospital, get some help. But goddamnit, they hadn’t been able to help Al. God, he was scared. He had watched Al shrivel up and turn into some kind of mummy-looking creature right before his very eyes. Jesus God! He had seen it but had not believed his own eyes. What had happened to Al was impossible.

He raised his cold, shriveled, ugly hand. But it wasn’t impossible. Christ, it was happening to him. And the aging had spread all the way up to his elbow. It looked like . . . it looked hideous.

He had to do something. He had to think. He was shaking all over.

Wild, unreasonable panic struck Jimmy. He couldn’t think straight. But he had to do something, and do it damn quick.

What was that line in the Bible about plucking your eye out if it offends you?

Something like that.

All right, then. If it was God’s will, then that’s the way it would be.

Jimmy went stumbling and falling around the line of trucks and equipment at the mining site. He fumbled open the lock on the tool shed, clicked on the lights, and began throwing tools around. Finally he found what he was looking for.

A hatchet.

Taking a piece of rope, Jimmy tied it as tightly as he could around his arm, just above the elbow, cutting off the flow of blood. He propped his arm up on the fender of the truck.

He took a deep breath and gripped the wooden handle. He raised the hatchet. Moonlight reflected off the head of the small axe. He brought the axe down as hard as he could. The sounds of his screaming filled the quiet night. Half his arm bounced off the gravel.

Through his pain, Jimmy heard dark laughter echoing around him. Lightning licked across the sky. A heavy, sulfurous odor filled the air.

Then Jimmy saw the face of ...

He began screaming in his unconsciousness.

Sheriff Dan Garrett gathered his force of deputies around him in the now deserted hospital cafeteria. The deputies listened in shock and horror and all with some degree of disbelief as Dan explained what had happened.

Then he showed them all the body of Al.

There were no more unbelievers among the deputies.

Dan described Jimmy and told his men, “Find him. When you find him, not if, when, don’t try to take him alone. Call for help. I mean that. I don’t want any hotdogs lone-wolfing it this night. And for God’s sake, don’t touch him. Repeating that: Don’t touch him. Just call in his location and stand back, keeping an eye on him. Move out!”

When the deputies had gone, Dan sat in the room housing the hospital’s radio equipment. He would monitor from there. He looked up as boot-heels echoed hollow in the hall. Sergeant Scott Langway of the Virginia Highway Patrol stepped into the room.

“Dan,” the patrolman said. “I got here as soon as I could. Big pileup east of here, right on the county line. Nobody seriously hurt, but traffic was backed up for two miles. What’s going on?”

“I’ll let Doctor Ramsey brief you.”

Doctor Ramsey brought the patrolman up-to-date, speaking quickly, but leaving nothing out. When he had finished, the highway cop stood very still for a full ten count. He looked at Dan, then at Quinn.

“Is either of you putting me on?” he asked.

“It’s no joke, Scott,” Dan said.

“I want to see this man.”

“Come with me,” Quinn said.

Dan had no desire to view the mummy-looking man again. He used that time to call his wife. Her days married to a field agent with the FBI had stayed with her. She asked no questions. Just said she’d put a plate of food in the fridge for him to have when he got home.

“Stay safe,” she said, then hung up.

Dan sat down at a table and looked at the paper cup of cold coffee in front of him. He tried very hard not to think of the horrible possibilities of this . . . this situation. Tried, but failed.

And as every cop with any time behind a badge at all has thought at one time or another, Dan thought: Why me? Why here? Why on my beat? Why?

And as always, there was no satisfying answer.

Jimmy came awake to cold numbing fear and white hot pain. He looked at his mangled arm. Blood seeped past the tightly bound stump. The severed arm, from the elbow down, lay on the ground, a shriveled ugly thing. It made Jimmy want to puke just looking at the thing. He couldn’t believe he’d actually had the courage to do it.

But now what? And what in God’s name had he dreamed?

He sat up. He was weak, but not as weak as he thought he’d be. His arm-what was left of it—hurt like hell; but it was bearable. He looked up as headlights swept the parking area of the mine site. The car crunched over gravel and slid to a halt.

“Freeze!” the voice shouted from behind the blazing headlights. “Don’t . . .