Suspense Short Story – Joe Vs. Cat
Photo credit: monosodium from morguefile.com
After the war, after the smoke and the shrapnel had cleared, after the chants of baby killer had faded and Charlie was a not so distant memory, Joe was tired. He had served his country faithfully, a duty lost entirely to the dirty denizens that now deemed him a murderer, and his welcome home had been far less than gracious. The rice paddies of Long Tieng were as hospitable as the crowded streets of his home in Chicago these days. These days his only solace lie in the hermetic life style he had built for himself in a ramshackle cabin on a remote piece of land he had surreptitiously purchased in Montana. So deep in the wilds it was that one could hide for a thousand lifetimes and never fear of the world finding them, a fact that held all the allure for Joe. The draw for Joe was in a life built apart from the society that had shunned him, his brother soldiers, and the entire war he had been ordered to fight. The world hated Joe, and to Joe that was just fine. Joe despised the world right back.
His life was simple, meager and routine to the point of pragmatism. He woke every morning as he had for three years since taking up his solitary residence and collected eggs from the four ruddy hens he had purchased on one of his sporadic trips into Butte. He milked his lone dairy cow, another purchase intended to promote isolation, and prepared than a simple of breakfast of hard boiled eggs and milk. Every morning he repeated the process, like a clock whose hands have stopped ticking ahead, now frozen on one space in time. In the seasonal months he sowed and planted enough vegetables to can for the winter, and he was more than a proficient hunter. In the earliest parts of his self-induced solitude, he found the only need to visit town regularly was for ammunition, but recently his skill with a bow and arrow had improved exponentially. Soon ammunition would be obsolete for him, and his recluse life perfected. Joe would then completely leave the society that hadn’t wanted him back in the first place.
The days passed systematically. Eat, hunt, farm, eat, work, sleep. Sleep. That was where routine derailed for Joe. The dreams were a cruel and vicious mistress, arriving each night with a loving regularity. Visiting with their own particular breed of havoc. Joe dreamed in color. Joe dreamed in smell. Joe dreamed in blood. Every night he saw the faces, the bodies, the endless carnage created in his war. He saw children carrying their bowels in their own filthy hands, crying in a foreign tongue for a mother they would never again see in this life. He saw the cadavers stacked twenty high, doused in gasoline and lit. First there was the smell of burning hair, but that was far from the worst of it. The flesh, the fat, before it would sizzle, would start to melt off the bones and drip into puddles at the foot of the horrific blaze. It smelled of the slaughterhouse in Peoria where his grandfather had brought pigs each year to be butchered. Then the oily flesh pools would begin to bubble and spatter, spitting out burnt chunks of what once was mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters at their feet. The soldiers would toe the larger chunks back into the terrible inferno. At night the melting faces haunted Joe. Tortured him. Drove him to the mouth of madness so infinitesimal that falling into it would be to fall forever. Joe woke each night drenched in sweat, chilled and terrified. It was on just such a night that the first cat came to him.
As Joe startled awake and bolted upright in bed, he saw it perched on his windowsill, peering in at him through luminous eyes. They seemed to Joe full of moonlight and absolution. He knew the cat was here to save him. He knew this with a certainty he had never before experienced. The cat, as if by written invitation, leapt soundlessly from the sill to the floor of the sparse cabin. It crossed silently, with all the air of confidence afforded to one who knows it is now where it belongs, to the foot of Joe’s bed, where it stared as only a cat can, into Joes eyes. It sat. It stared. It waited. Joe obliged, patted the blanket, and called sheepishly “here kitty kitty.” Up jumped Cat, the name Joe would bestow upon the supine animal. Not for laziness or lack of creativity, but because Cat was here to save him, and how could he, the one in need, give this savior some silly moniker like Cupcake or Cleo. No. Cat would do just fine. Simple. Pointed. Uncluttered like all else in his life.
The first few months were the only signs of tranquility Joe had found in as long as he could recall. Cat brought him an inner peace he had not been afforded since returning from those far off shores. Perhaps that was why he saw no problem, why he barely even noticed in fact, when all the others began to arrive. It began with a second one seated next to Cat at breakfast, but by weeks end his feline collection had breached the double digits. Still, Joe saw nothing wrong, as Cat had improved so much on his life. Therefore, the more the merrier. Perhaps that was when he simply lost count, lost track, began to ignore the infestation that was brewing. By the time the snow was thawing and the woods budding green, the cats under Joes care seemed unending. They must have numbered two hundred strong by a conservative estimate. Still Joe took no issue. Saw no problem. Until Cat turned. Until she turned her army upon him.
It all started so small, but doesn’t it always start so small? Minor offenses that could be passed off as mere coincidence. One morning, as Joe sat eating, one of the many cats that had usurped his home passed above him on a ledge holding a variety of his canned winter fare. It could have been an accident, a simple misstep that caused the animal to knock off the ledge a mason jar of string beans. But a cat that isn’t graceful? The jar, if Joe had been but an inch to the left, would have marked a collision course with the top of his graying crown. Weighing in at a generous pound, it left Joe to wonder — if he sustained that sort of injury in his current isolation what might become of him. And of course, she was there. Cat. Lurking now atop the counter by the woodstove and peering at him through accusatory eyes. Did she know the horrors he had seen perpetrated. Had perpetrated himself? Impossible. But still, she stared at him, and his heart felt her icy hands wrap around it. But she came when he called her still and still she slept by his side at night. She helped keep the nightmares at bay still and so he dismissed the incident as his own paranoia. After all, she was his Cat. She had saved him.
The next few weeks though, were filled with what seemed like subtle, secretive attacks. Affronts perpetrated by the cats upon his very way of life. First the damn cats unlatched the gate to the pen holding his dairy cow, costing Joe an entire day of productivity while he corralled the heifer. Since Joe was certain it could not have been him that had forgotten the latch as he never before had, that left but one possible culprit. Then later he discovered his garden, his very sustenance, had been completely ransacked. Vegetables lie upturned, their roots drying in the afternoon sun. Again, Joe was forced to spend an entire wasted day canning the produce, and again he knew this had to be the cats doing. Never before had he had problems such as this with his garden, so they were most certainly at fault. And through all of these plagues she, Cat, sat motionless and mute, but always right there. She sat centerpiece during each assault, watching him. Laughing at him with her yellow eyes. Eventually the night came where for the first time in a long time, she no longer lay beside him, his guardian to keep the awful dreams at bay.
The morning of the dying chickens was like a punch straight through Joes gut, and when he arrived at the makeshift coop to collect breakfast, what he saw turned his veins frigid. The hens, all four, lie in pieces, strewn about haphazardly. Blood was smeared across the walls and in some places smattered in gobs on the ceiling. Feathers and shredded strips of chicken entrails squished, crunched beneath Joes heavy work boots. His head swam, his knees buckled, and for the first time in months Joe saw it all again. All the slaughter, the chaos, the massacre he had lived inside of. He fell to the gradually congealing floor shaking, moaning, past tears, and he saw her. Before his eyes fell shut and consciousness left him, he was certain he saw Cat, sitting and mocking him in the bloody entryway. She was laughing at him again, and he knew in that moment she was feeding on his torture, eating his misery hungrily. As he drifted away, he knew she had to die. He knew he must kill her.
He could never outright murder her of course. Not with her army standing watch, her faithful soldiers guarding her constant side. No. This had to be an operation of subtlety. This would require planning and secrecy. Joe’s first course of action was a trip into Butte. After searching his truck for any cat executed tampering and finding none, he set about his way. While there he made several noteworthy purchases, of which the most significant was a trio of very large, very vicious, and particularly ravenous Rottweiler. Upon returning to his lonely cabin in the woods, the sight of that which would be his greatest eradication, he opened the rusted out tailgate to his pickup, and let loose the hungry pack to work.
The three wasted no time in setting upon the cats with a wicked ferocity. They mirrored the very hounds of hell as Joe watched the dogs stalk them, herd them, corner and devour them. Once the dogs had eaten their fill, they began for sport to simply tear the animals apart at the seams. They played savage games of tug-of-war with the gutted remains, flung and ripped pieces of the cats high above their heads. Even inside his cabin Joe could hear the sickening crunch, like popcorn on a theater floor, of the bones as the dogs crushed them between powerful jaws.
The three dogs, for whatever it may be worth, put in a valiant effort — by the fifth day they had more than halved the numbers of the feline pack. They must have torn their way through some eighty odd cats, and with nine lives apiece that was quite the hefty body count. The hollowed out shells of cats, their meat long since digested, littered Joe’s porch like an offering at his altar by the three. For scant less than a week the dogs gorged themselves on the flesh of her army. They feasted upon her sentinel’s blood in warm, steaming mouthfuls. But, as Joe already knew was the eventual and inevitable case, it simply could not last, could not sustain. In the end, the sheer volume of the cats was simply too much for them to contend with. As it was with the hydra of myth, so it was with the very real plague which Joe had invited to dine at his own table not so long ago. As soon as the dogs would rip asunder one cat, another two would spring forth in its stead. Cats in trees, on the roof, hidden in the overgrown weeds by the lake. He couldn’t help but wonder which was worse — the gooks in Nam or these goddamn cats.
The first dog simply disappeared one afternoon, vanished leaving no proof of his ever even existing. He was simply gone, nothing but thin air in his place, putting the remaining two on edge, nervous. After the first mongrel’s loss they would no longer allow even Joe to approach them. They let loose snarls, and bared their teeth, already proven to be a most effective weapon. Joe got the sense that they searched for their fallen comrade — it reminded him in a bittersweet way of those years now fading behind him. Those same years that even now pursued his every waking moment. That was where Joe had learned the meaning of true camaraderie however. Learned how it felt to be surrounded by a group of fellow brothers, bonded eternally by the horrors that none of them could ever really verbalize. These dogs, these vicious curs, were bonded in much the same murderous way that Joe and his fellow soldiers had been. And when one is bonded by the taking of common lives, they simply cannot leave a man, nor dog, behind. Eventually though, they were forced to mourn him when they turned up not a single clue, not a hint of his trail.
The fate of the second dog, however, was held far from secret. To the contrary, Joe awoke one morning to find his severed head placed neatly upon the sill of his kitchen window. The gruesome trophy gazed at him through milk clouded eyes. The tongue lolled to one side, hanging with an undignified air from rubbery jowls. The rest of the beast, as Joe soon discovered, was left splayed open on his front porch in much the same manner as this very dog had discarded cat carcasses. The irony was not lost on Joe. Spongy blood, thickened from exposure, oozed even now from the creatures flayed neck. Joe, hardened to sights such as this, went inside and retrieved the head. He then lifted the body and carried them both to their final resting place, the murky depths of the lake behind the cabin.
The last dog, as a gesture of goodwill, a thank you for a job well done, Joe shot through the head. He knew this would be a far more merciful death than whatever one she planned to afford him. This would be quick and painless, like simply turning off a light switch. Oddly, as Joe approached him, he let loose no growls, bared no fangs. He simply lay there in apathy, glancing up only once at Joes approach. At ten feet away Joe stopped, planted his feet, and raised the barrel of his gun. As he took aim at the center of the dog’s forehead, only then did the animal look up, locking eyes briefly with Joe. Those were the eyes of one who was simply waiting for death to find them. Wishing for it even — a wish Joe would be remiss not to grant. Joe squeezed the trigger and in a brief flash it was all over. The last of the dogs had succumbed, surrendered in his own way. The white flag had risen. Joe took him to the lake to join the remains of his dismembered brother.
All the while, through everything, Cat was always there. She lurked behind every corner, on every countertop, between every dark crevice made for peering out from. She was constantly behind Joes shoulder, marking his every move and waiting. Oh, and Joe knew what it was she was waiting for. Those eyes, once such a source of tranquility, now burned with such fierce hatred that it possessed every inch of her being. He knew she would be the death of him if he couldn’t kill her first. Her smoldering need to destroy him seeped out through her pores, covered the air of the cabin in a tense blanket. She would slit his throat in his sleep if he didn’t remain vigilant. Didn’t keep a watchful eye. Yes, while the dogs were still mid massacre, that was how Joe filled his days. Joe watched Cat. Cat watched Joe. They kept constant companion, neither sleeping, never closing their eyes and linked by a common mistrust. The common knowledge that each would murder the other if given but half the chance. Now though, with all three dogs eliminated, Joe would have to fill his days in a different manner. Joe would have to move on to his next plan. The next phase in the extermination, the genocide of these filthy damned cats.
Step two was far more cunning, more subtle than Joe’s initial onslaught, and it required the use of Joes long ago indoctrinated survival training. Joe went about setting traps. Traps by the dozen. Hundreds of them lain with a methodical eye and a skilled hand. Joe constructed these traps in throngs, using what the land had provided him, and they were ingenious. He baited them with the skeletal remains of the fish he caught for his supper and they worked with a pleasing precision. As the cats would become ensnared, so then would Joe end their worthless lives, taking a great and primal satisfaction in each death. Some he clubbed, bludgeoning their small bodies to pulp with the heavy rocks that were a frequent punctuation of the terrain. He snapped the necks of others, holding their spasming bodies in his hands while they twitched as gasped, crushing their throats in his grip. He drowned still more, watching the panic leave as death overtook them. Smiling, he enjoyed every moment, every desperate gulp they took until the water filled their tiny lungs. In sum, it too was a very successful onslaught, but again, as all must come to an end, soon the day came when the animals were simply no longer fooled by the makeshift devices, and it was then time for the final part in Joe’s tactical assault.
Poison. The last phase was as simple as a few boxes of rat poison mixed with store bought canned food. Both were also well planned purchases from his last trip into town. The horde was drawn to it like flies in a swarm, devouring with gusto great mouthfuls. Cat looked over the droves of her soldiers writhing in their last agonizing moments, froth spewing from their mouths and blood running from their nostrils. They ate and died by the dozens, until only she and a scant handful remained. Joe had bested the majority of her numbers and her empire was falling to him. He could already taste his victory; taste her life as it left her soon to be limp frame. The last thing left was simple. The last thing left to do was to attack.
Joe’s final purchase in Butte had been ammo. As many shotgun shells as he could carry, and now was the time for their proper use. Now the final slaughter could commence. Eliminating the last handful of remaining cats was of no real consequence. Joe picked them off one by one and they fell like dominoes in a child’s game to the muzzle of his gun. One by one he shot them down from their perches as meticulously as one might read the Sunday papers. Then, when the air was peppered with the smell of gun powder and the smoke began to clear, then there was only Joe and Cat. Finally, as quickly and unceremoniously as it had all begun, Cat was no more. She died, murdered at the barrel end of Joe’s heartless shotgun. It was finally, forever finished. Joe’s most horrific ordeal was ended, and he had emerged the conqueror.
Joe left the countless bodies of the cats to decay in the sun, littered about his land in great stinking heaps. Their stench only served to reaffirm his victory. But not her. He took the body of Cat, his now most prized possession, and he hung it in all of its rotting glory from the rafters of his porch. It served as a reminder, not to others but to himself, that she truly was dead. Every time he felt the panic, felt his pulse begin to pound in the back of his throat, he could look out upon her rancid carcass and be reminded that the evil had been purged. He had purged the evil. And so her body hung like that, souring, spoiling in the sun as the meat slowly fell from her bones. She hung in display throughout the rest of the summer and well into the depths of fall.
The night terrors returned of course, but they were somehow more tolerable this time — perhaps it came from knowing that in those fearful months he had conquered real horror. Had looked into the gullet of his worst, blackest parts, and had come through it. He had survived the most terrible the world could throw at him. While the nightmares were still vivid, still too horrible to put into words, somehow Joe now knew they were only dreams, incapable of doing any real harm. After his own personal holocaust, they had become but movie reels stuck on replay and brought on by an over active imagination.
The day finally came when there was nothing left of Cat but a dangling skeletal wind-chime. Ghastly and macabre, she kept silent sentinel as she hung in the now bitter wintering air. Fall shrunk into the past and soon the heart of January was upon Joe, snow blanketing his world in a crystalline web. Icicles covered every awning, with a thick coat covering her bleached bones. And then she was gone. One morning early into February Joe awoke, and stepping outside felt his heart catch quick. Cat hung from the porch rafters no more.
Panicked, fear stricken, Joe’s mind raced. He fell to the porch with a thud, head swimming, stomach tied into queasy knots, and that was when he saw them. Saw their vast multitudes. Lining the horizon, perched in every tree and atop the roof — everywhere! Cats everywhere! They had all returned and then some, and they now sat as one accusatory unit, all eyes upon him. They had returned for Joe as judge, jury, and above all as executioner. Joe scrambled to his feet, fighting for traction on the ice, back-peddled inside his front door and slammed it shut. The windows, although pane less, were long since boarded up in preparation for a merciless winter, and Joe scanned the cabin for any feline intruders as he dropped the bolt across the door. Finding none, he took a heavy seat at his kitchen table.
He knew that their numbers had doubled, and he knew that he would not survive. Their vengeance was a roiling sea, and he knew they would spill his blood this time. Flay him into ribbons with claws that wanted only his flesh. Today would be his last, and knowing such, he carved a hasty message into the wooden floor of his cabin. When they found him, whoever found him, this note would explain it all, confess his sins. The note was his final eulogy, a monument to a personal war. Joe scrawled the following simple lines…
CATS COME BACK TO KILL ME! WILL FIGHT AS LONG AS I CAN! GOD FORGIVE ME.
Then, with a stoic face and a resolution of steel, Joe began his final stand.
He tread down the three crude wooden steps of his porch with an unnaturally heavy gait, and then stopped and waited at its foot. He could feel them watching him, poised with hungry anticipation, and his neck hair rippled into gooseflesh. Then he raised his arms high above his head and let out such a guttural, such a primal yell, that it startled a flock of far off grackles into flight. As if by silent signal, all as one, they pounced upon him. As they clawed and they bit, Joe crushed their skulls between his hands, snapped their thin necks like dry twigs. The snow around the fray ran scarlet with their intermingled blood, coppery and rich. Joe would drag as many down into hell with him as he could this day. The battle had begun—
It was a local forest ranger who discovered Joe’s body during what he referred to as one of his “well check” visits. Living in such harsh terrain, it was a courtesy he extended regularly to many of the locals, as Joe was far from the only resident who had moved to Montana as a means of escaping society. He lie frozen with not a scratch upon him, not a single mark for that matter, in a blanket of blindingly white snow. Not but three feet from his own front porch, they sight was almost pristine if not for his countenance, pulled back into a grimace of silent horror. His eyes were still filled with unyielding terror, and his hands, still clenched into icebound fists, lie stiff at his sides.
Under the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Joe, a police investigation was naturally launched. What they found was scarce and of no real help in drawing any conclusions as to what had occurred in that remote cabin. Joe’s death was ruled accidental, a result of hypothermia from prolonged exposure to the frigid outdoor temperatures. The message that he had left was never truly understood. They never found a single trace of any cats. No bodies, no bones, not so much as a single feline hair. Neither inside his cabin, nor anywhere in the surrounding areas. The one thing they did find however, the most puzzling piece of evidence collected left them with more questions than answers. Stuffed in the farthest back corner of Joe’s canning cellar was where they discovered both the axe and the filthy coveralls, the pair thickly stained in what would eventually prove to be the blood of four ruddy hens.
