Black Cat Blues

BLACK CAT BLUES

June

MARY ANNE CZARNIKI STOOD on the porch of her house calling into the still night air, "Salem. Salem, kitty, kitty, kitty."

She was extremely worried. The stray cat she had been feeding for over a year had not eaten his food now for several days. The cat had shown up several months after the death of her husband and, if truth be told, some days was all that kept her going. She had tried to get it to come into the house, but he was feral and would not stay inside the building for any length of time. His fear of being inside had not stopped him from taking over the front porch, however. Mary had finally lured him into sleeping on the porch in a large wood box that she had lined with an old comforter and on the warm summer nights he had taken to sitting on her lap, purring, as she petted him. She had come to treasure the gentle companionship of those nights. Now he was missing, and she was distraught beyond belief.

"Salem, please, kitty, come here," she called... her voice broke with a sob as she tried in vain to hold back her tears.

A dark form was standing in front of Mary's house, out by the street. It heard Mary's calls and the sadness and desperation tinging each word touched something inside. It began to drift around, up and down the street, until it saw a planting of roses half-way up the yard of a neighboring house. Gently moving some of the thorn covered stems aside, it discovered a cat sitting beside a crumpled heap. The cat looked up with a forlorn expression upon its face.

The darkness sat down across the pile from the cat and said, "Were you playing too close to the street?"

The cat answered, "No. I was in my own yard. The car turned right at me. I couldn't get out of the way."

The shape reached out and shook several of the roses, knocking their petals free. The petals landed gently on the crumpled mound, covering it with a fragrant, red shroud.

"The car aimed for you?" it asked.

"Yes," said the cat. "It is hard to be a black cat. People misunderstand."

"My name is John, by the way," said the form. "Who are you?"

"My name is Salem," replied the cat. "That's Mary calling for me."

The darkness stood up and looked across the yards to where Mary was still calling for Salem, between her sobs and tears.

"She is your friend?" it asked.

"Yes," said the cat. "And now she is alone. She will never find me over here. She will never know what happened to me."

Looking down at the cat, John asked, "Would you like to come with me? I can take you where you are supposed to go. It's nice there and no one will ever try to hurt you again."

The cat looked up at the darkness and asked, "You can do that?"

"I can," said the form. "Or, I can make it so that you can come back and be with your friend. The choice is yours."

The darkness stood next to the cat as they watched a broken Mary stumble back into her house. They watched the front door close and then one by one, the lights in the house went dark.

The cat's ears were curled forward and down. His body spoke of the sadness he felt as he watched his friend suffer with her pain.

"Can I say good-bye to her?" he asked the darkness.

"Of course, buddy," said the shape as it bent over and picked up the cat.

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THE SHAPE ENTERED MARY'S bedroom to find her laying in a broken sleep having cried herself out. Even in her dreams she was sad as marked by her tossing and the tears still leaking from her eyes.

The form extended an arm and gently touched Mary's face. Mary initially tensed but as the form whispered, "Sleep" she relaxed into a peaceful slumber.

Setting Salem down beside Mary, the shape showed him how to enter Mary's dreams so he could say his good-byes.

+++++++

AS SALEM THE CAT was talking to his friend, the shape moved into Mary's living room. As he perused the bookshelves, his eyes were attracted to an old Prince George "Royals" High School Year Book. Exerting the effort required to remove the book from its place on the shelf, he began to leaf through the pages searching for an idea. He had just finished reading several of the handwritten notes left in the margins of the Year Book's pages when he noticed Salem had rejoined him and was sitting with his tail curled around his paws staring at him with the typical inscrutable gaze of a cat.

"Are you ready to go?" John asked.

"Yes," replied the cat.

"Have you decided what you would like to do?"

"Yes. If you can do as you said, I want to be with my friend."

John bent over and picked up the cat. Holding him against his chest, with the cat's head nestled under his chin, John whispered, "Good, kitty. Let's get you back to where you need to be."

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THE SHAPE GHOSTED ALONG through the woods and yards until it came to the farm where his quarry lived. Putting Salem down beside the sleeping pregnant queen, he jostled a few of the other applicants already waiting so as to place HIS cat first in line.

Crouching down, he whispered, "Wait here until it is time."

After kissing the cat on its head, he rose to his full height and began slipping back into the darkness.

Salem the Cat yelled, "Thank You!" at the retreating form of his benefactor and as there was no reply thought he had not been heard. The darkness had already enveloped the form so Salem never saw the tears, caused by those simple words, running down its face.

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July

DAVID PRICE WAS HAVING a very bad day. Ever since his wife of thirty-eight years died the previous spring, he hadn't been able to reintegrate with life. He had "worked at" his job for a bit after she passed but his will was not into it. His boss, while understanding, had finally needed to push him into the retirement category.

Since then, he had not done much more than wake up in the morning because he hadn't died in his sleep, shuffle through the day, and then go to sleep. The only thing he religiously did was every Wednesday, he showered, shaved, and drove the forty miles from his home in Dinwiddie County to the small cemetery in his old hometown where his wife was buried.

Today had started out okay but ever since he visited his wife, things had gone downhill. First, he got lost driving home; something he never did. He made a wrong turn going along a path he had driven hundreds of times. Then he couldn't seem to find his way back to his normal route; every time he turned onto a road that should have taken him back it just made it worse. He was lost somewhere in the hinterlands of Prince George County, which was embarrassing as he'd grown up there.

Finally, his car's engine had started to sputter and surge, only to stop running at all. Luckily, he'd been able to pull over to the side of the country road he found himself on before it had failed. Now his stupid cell phone, which he KNEW was fully charged when he left home that morning, was totally flat-out dead.

Looking around, he saw that he was in front of a rather nice, if somewhat older, Federal style farmhouse set a bit further back from the road than was normal for houses nowadays. Maybe, they would let him use their phone to call Triple-A, he thought. With a heavy sigh, David levered himself up out of his car and trudged up the gravel drive to the house.

As he approached the front of the house, he admired the full porch that wrapped the entire first floor of the structure. Climbing the steps, he crossed the porch and rang the bell. A few minutes later the front door opened a fraction and an older woman peered through the crack and said, "Yes, can I help you?"

David began to explain he predicament. The longer he spoke the more he thought he recognized the lady hiding beyond the partially opened door. For him, those eyes were unforgettable.

"Mary? Mary Reppenhagen?" gasped David.

"Yes," Mary replied. "Reppenhagen was my maiden name. Oh, my God, David, is that you?"

"Yes! It's me! Jesus, what are the odds that my car would break down in front of your house? How are you?"

Mary held the door open and said, "Come in, David. Of course, you can use my phone to call a tow truck. I can make some coffee and we can catch up while you wait. That is unless you need to get home quick to your wife?"

"No," David said sadly. "No wife or anybody waiting for me. My wife passed away almost a year ago and I have no family to speak of. In fact, most people would say that I am a lonely old man." He chuckled a bit to take the bitterness out of his words, but Mary's heart reached out to this man who at one time meant the world to her.

+++++++

HE BECAME AWARE, SLOWLY. He was sitting on a couch. It was like waking from a dream when your mind is starting to become aware of your physical condition, but the dream has not yet left your mind.

A nondescript man was sitting at a desk a few feet from the couch. The only thing of note on the desk other than the antique-looking business telephone set, lamp, and piles of folders was a scale model of an airplane; from his viewing angle, it looked like an old WWII B-29 Super-Fortress. A brass nameplate sitting to the front of the desk said, 'K.K. Beahan'.

Attached to the wall behind the man, among other memorabilia, obviously a "me wall", was a chunk of metal on which the symbols "F31" were painted in white letters.

The man was returning the handset of the phone back to its cradle when John blinked his eyes a few times before sitting up straighter on the couch. "Hey, Boss," he said. "Sorry to pop in on you like this but my meter ran dry for some reason."

"John, you have been going into other Departments and rummaging in their files. I am getting calls, John. I do not like getting calls, especially from the likes of, 'Trivial and Random Happenings'. You are acting outside of your mandate. This last call was from "Rewrite" for HIS sake. Whatever you are doing, I want you to stop. Immediately. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sure thing, Boss. Clear as glass. No more going into other folk's files. Not me."

K.K. Beahan looked at Davies with a gimlet eye, "John, there are reasons for rules and procedures. You cannot keep going rogue on me. Okay?"

Davies looked at the younger man, "Like you, Boss? You never did what you knew was right even if it was wrong?"

John closed his eyes and was gone before the handful of papers thrown by Beahan hit the now empty couch.

+++++++

August

THE DARK SHAPE WATCHED as the car pulled into the driveway in front of the once ornate house. The impact point he was looking for glowed as a red pulsing smear on the passenger side bumper. There were more smears, some older but one fresher. He began to walk forward, his rage driving his amorphous shape into a firmer version of what he had been.

Harold Wannabee III pulled into his driveway, shut off the engine and began the somewhat torturous stumble up the walk to the front door of his house. In his alcohol fog, he did not see the night darkness shimmer behind him. The darkness did see the aura of bitterness and anger that surrounded Mr. Wannabee.

Half-way up the walk, Harold's attention was drawn back to his car by the screaming sound of sheet metal and plastic being torn apart. He saw a darkness next to his car and again heard the tearing of sheet metal. It was as if a darker than darkness was moving along the side of his car and as the darkness moved, his car was being shredded.

The shape was much firmer now, his fingers, well actually, talons, were sliding through the side of the car as he passed it. His eyes were locked on the man in front of him.

Harold, finally realizing that something really bad was heading his way out of the night, started to turn towards his house. He had taken only two steps when something dark, hot, and very heavy landed on his back, driving him to the ground.

+++++++

JOHN WAS AGAIN SITTING on the familiar couch as he opened his eyes...

"John, what have you been doing now? I'm getting memos from Upper Management, John! Memos! From Upper Management!"

John, looking back at Kermit, said, "The Mission, Boss. Just the Mission."

John closed his eyes and left behind a rather upset middle management type who was chaffing under the restrictions within which he worked.

+++++++

February

DAVID AND MARY WERE sitting on the sofa in their living room. His arm was around her in a hug and her head was resting against his shoulder. In his lap was a handsome young tom cat with long black fur and emerald green eyes. Mary was idly petting the cat who was maintaining a constant deep purr.

The cat suddenly stood, stretched, and jumped to the floor. He began padding his way to the picture window at the front of the house. David took the opportunity to kiss the top of Mary's head and to pull her deeper into his embrace. Mary sighed and leaned into the man who had come out of her past to bring love back into her life; something she had never imagined ever finding again.

She smiled as she watched their cat jump up onto the windowsill and extend a paw to touch the glass. She knew she was being silly but when the kitten had arrived at her door many months ago its resemblance to her Salem was so striking that she at first thought it was him returning. The way the kitten seemed to know where everything was in the house was eerie, but David just scratched the kitten under its chin and said that stranger things have happened so just accept him as he is. They both thought that the name Salem II was appropriate and the kitten seemed to agree.

Mary was so distracted by the cat's antics, she almost missed the news flash on the television set...

WRIC, News 8, Dateline Prince George County

This evening, the Prince George County Sheriff's Office announced they were closing their investigation into the brutal murder of Harold Wannabee III, who was found dead in front of his home, last August.

As you may remember, several neighbors called the Sheriff when they heard screaming coming from the direction of Mr. Wannabee's home. When the Deputies arrived, they discovered Mr. Wannabee's body literally torn to shreds a few feet from his car.

Mr. Wannabee was finally identified by DNA testing as his body was too disassembled for normal pathology identification procedures. Besides the unheard of brutality of his murder, the unexplained and seemingly meaningless destruction of his car has only added to the urban legend surrounding this event. The car was effectively destroyed with parallel cuts running the length of the vehicle. Deputies suspected the murderer used something like a battery powered "saws all" but could never find evidence of the tool used or an explanation of why the car was destroyed.

"Well, that was pretty disgusting," David said as he stood up and pushed the "OFF" button on the TV remote. Holding out his hand to Mary he called, "Come on, TWO. Time to go to bed!"

+++++++

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW A darkness only slightly different than the night moved and raised its hand. Placing it on the window pane opposite the cat's paw. The two held the tableau for a few moments; each staring into the other's eyes. Hearing his name called, Salem the cat jumped down from the sill and began bounding across the room to be with his friends. Just before reaching them, he looked back over his shoulder to see the darkness pull away and rejoin the stillness of the night.

+++++++

THE FORM WATCHED THE cat stop and look back, and, for a moment, thought the cat might rejoin him for a few moments more. Shaking his head at the absurdity of the thought, the shape moved back into the darkness, letting it swallow him in its quiet embrace as it always did. The darkness protected and comforted him. It and the Mission were all that was left.

+++++++

I am Wyvern Actual, I have Overwatch.

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I have been working on several John Davies stories; some from when he is living and some, as here, from when he is dead. Future "John Davies" stories will be tagged as Living John Davies "LJD" or Dead John Davies "DJD" for clarity. At least, I will try... sort of like when Sheriff Walter Longmire of Absaroka County was asked... "were you talking to living Virgil White Buffalo or dead Virgil?" To which he responded "not sure."

This is not the first "Dead John Davies" story chronologically but this story came to me after seeing the cartoon "Black Cats" by the artist Jenny Jinya.

If you can look at any of her works and not react, then you truly are a monster... John hates her cartoons as they make him cry. Things that make John connect with his emotions are usually extremely dangerous for those around him.

When you are faced with life, simply ask yourself... WWJDD... What Would John Davies Do? And then assemble a large number of body bags.