Theme: Black Cats
Alrighty here's number 3. For the theme Black Cats. This one is a little longer and the rating will be about a T or so.
Fandom: Eerie, Indiana
Kids have been dissapearing from town, including Marshall's best friend and weirdness fighting partener, Simon.
I don't own anything
“Why’d ya do it, huh?” Marshall glared down at the inscrutable black cat at his feet. “I wanna know why you tried to kill me!”
The cat didn’t answer or even give any sign of understanding, at least not that Marshall could tell; it merely lifted its white x’d paw to give it a licking before trotting along again.
“I know you can understand me, Dash,” Marshall was getting angry. He didn’t even notice when people stopped on the street to stare at the boy yelling at the cat.
“Why did you do it?” He aimed a kick but Dash was too fast. The black cat darted down an alley and leapt onto a nearby dumpster. Marshall found himself unwillingly stomping after the object of his fury. “If it weren’t for Simon I wouldn’t even be helping you!”
Dash hissed, arching his back. “What, now you won’t even talk to me? You came to me, remember?” Marshall threw his hands up in frustration. “I shouldn’t have even expected anything different from you!”
Marshall spun on his heel, nearly running into the old woman he’d seen earlier at the World-o-Stuff. Dash continued to growl and hiss behind him, but now Marshall knew that the anger was probably directed at this woman rather than himself.
“You might want to keep your voice down if you’re going to be talking to dumb animals, some people might think you’re crazy,” Her shrewd eyes never left Dash the cat even if her speech was directed at Marshall. “That’s a pretty kitty you have there, even if it seems to have a bad attitude.”
A low growl continued to emanate from behind Marshall.
“You know, I used to have a cat just like that. It ran away a few days ago,” She leaned around Marshall to give Dash a closer look, but not close enough that Dash could reach her with his claws. “Where did you happen to find this cat? Bad attitude or not I would love to have my cat back.”
There was something in her voice that gave Marshall a chill. “Well, it’s not mine, I mean; I just found it and, uh, followed it down here. I, uh, can’t stand to see a homeless animal.”
Marshall backed closer to Dash, away from the strange woman. “Well then, let me give you something for finding my cat for me.” She reached into the many shawls wrapped around her thin frame and brought out a small trinket and candle. “I know they’re not much, and kids today would probably prefer candy or money, but this is all I have. If you hadn’t noticed I sell these at the World-o-Stuff.”
Thrusting the two small objects at Marshall, the old woman pushed past the teen and attempted to snatch the cat from his perch on the dumpster. With a growling yawl Dash slashed the woman with his claws and darted away. There was no where for him to go when he reached the end of the alley, but he was able to find a place to hide.
“Shoot, I’ll have to see if I can get him back later,” the old woman contemplated the bleeding cuts on the back of her hand a moment and there was a definite chill in her voice when she said. “That’s one that I certainly have to get back.”
Her eyes narrowed and she clenched her uninjured fist by her side. “Yes, that one I must definitely have.” Turning on Marshall, her demeanor changed. “You can still keep those, dear, for finding him in the first place. Maybe I can get the dog catcher to come down here and catch a cat for me. If you wouldn’t mind waiting here and making sure he doesn’t escape again I’ll just go get the catcher.”
“Just one question,” Marshall almost reached out to touch her back, but thought better of it. “What’s your cat’s name, I mean, maybe I can coax him back out.”
“Oh, his name? It’s,” The woman hesitated for a moment. “Dash. His name is Dash.” With that she was gone.
Marshall didn’t like working with Dash, but there was definitely something eerie going on here. He watched Dash slink back down the alley, trying to look everywhere for the old woman.
“She’s still around, just whisper,” Dash hissed at Marshall when he got close enough. He crouched next to Marshall’s leg, ears twitching back and forth. “She’s a witch, I’m not sure what she does, but I think she’s the reason for all the vanishing kids.”
Marshall started, remembering at the last moment to keep his voice at a whisper. “How did you, you mean, you’ve been looking for the missing kids too?”
The cat gave Marshall an unmistakably Dash look of annoyance. “I want to know how this town even survived without me here to back you up, you know that?” Marshall snorted at this. “Look, I took some stuff from that witch, a candle and necklace like what she gave you. Long story short, I lit the candle and got turned into a cat; she found me and took me to her house I guess. Almost like she knew I was the one who stole her stuff. But there were all these other cats there, kids I mean, but they were cats like me.”
The two little objects in Marshall’s hand seemed so sinister now, that old woman was trying to turn him into a feline. “Was Simon there? Did you happen to notice if he was there?”
Dash opened his mouth to speak, but could only manage to meow. Marshall looked down at Dash’s black furred head and felt his frustration rise. “What’s your problem? I just want to know if Simon was there too.”
Sniffing, Dash rose from his position and walked back to the mouth of the alley. He looked left and right before turning back to Marshall and giving a mournful howl. That’s when it dawned on Marshall; Dash probably couldn’t talk unless the witch was near. It probably had something to do with the way the spell worked.
---
Swinging the bag in her hand as much as she possibly could, she delighted in hearing the cat hiss at her from inside. “Oh come now, you can talk to me, mama knows all the little kitty secrets.”
“I’ll claw your face off when I get out of here,” Dash nearly screamed from inside the bag as the old woman made sure to smack him into the doorjamb of her house.
“Well then, if you’re going to act like that I’m just going to have to make sure that you stay in that bag for a long time then. Too bad for you that you’re little friend wanted to get an old woman her ‘poor little lost kitty’ back. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing him again. Well, I will, you’ll still be in this bag.”
Dash squirmed inside the bag again, trying to twist into a more comfortable position. His attempts were hindered by the constant thumps he was subjected to by the woman’s incessant swinging of the bag. He could only hope that Marshall would get here before any of his bones were broken.
---
Marshall waited until the woman had shut the door behind herself before he crossed to the building. This had been a house that he and Simon were actually planning on investigating at one point in time. People said it was haunted, one of the many haunted houses in Eerie, and that they could hear strange moans coming from inside. If there were as many cats in here as there were missing children, Marshall didn’t doubt that people had been hearing noises.
A light shown out from inside the house, it had the flickering quality of a fire and allowed Marshall to see some shadows of what was going on inside. He could see the woman slam the bag which he knew to contain Dash into a table and chair before she thumped him into the hearth of the fireplace where she hung the bag from something near the fire. He couldn’t really hear anything, though, just muffled sounds that could be voices.
Silently, Marshall made his way from the window to the back of the house, looking for a way in.
---
“Just wait, you won’t get out of this one. You picked the wrong town to mess with this time,” Simon called from inside his cage. “My friend Marshall’ll take you out!”
The other children growled or cried to themselves inside their cages, some calling out insults to the old woman while others wished for their parents.
“Oh, hush up. You can ask you’re little friend over there,” she poked at the bag containing Dash with a stick, causing the cat inside to hiss in rage. “I expect you’re little friend Marshall to be here tonight. He doesn’t expect anything and will probably go ahead and light that candle soon.”
She pulled a sheet from a statue that looked just like the trinkets but on a larger scale. It glowed with a strange, pulsing, green light.
Marshall peered at the scene from around the doorjamb leading into the kitchen; there were rows upon rows of black cats in cages lining every available shelf and where there were no shelves, the cages were stacked on top of each other. He was close enough to Dash that he might be able to whisper without the old woman overhearing. “Stall her.”
“Hey, old bat,” came Dash’s muffled voice from inside the bag. “What’s the point of turning kids into cats anyway? Can’t you just go buy a bunch from the pound or something? Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?”
“What’s that? I don’t think I want to answer children who can’t keep their tones civil and call names,” the old woman jabbed at Dash with a stick again to mark her point.
Dash sighed. “Alright, I think I can do civil. What does a fine, upstanding and sprightly old woman like you want with a bunch of kids that she’s turned into cats?”
“You’re sarcasm aside,” she said, rustling in the cupboards for something. “I need you for a spell I’m casting. You see, it’s hard to continue being immortal if you can’t steal a few young lives every few years. This just happens to be the best way to do it. I get to make a little money on the side because you kids are so easy to sell things too. That is, those kids who actually buy things, and. Don’t. Steal. Them.” Each of her last words were punctuated by a thump from the bag containing Dash. “That’s why I think you’ll be the first to go, dear.”
The other cats in the room winced, a few more redoubled their please for help. Dash groaned from inside his bag before he could manage to speak again. “What if Marshall doesn’t light his candle, huh? Are you screwed then? Isn’t it getting down to the wire about now?”
Lifting a knife from the table she turned, the odd green light caught her eyes and turned them into something snakelike. “That’s why I’m not going to wait, I can start now and finish when he gets here.”
“No! You can’t do this!” Simon threw himself into the side of his cage, trying anything to distract the woman headed for Dash.
“Who’s going to stop me?” She turned a little, showing her back to the kitchen door where Marshall hid.
Marshall sprung from his hiding place, catching the old woman’s knife hand in his own. They wobbled for a little bit, the old woman’s frail body fighting to keep the younger boy from wresting the knife from her.
“You were right, I was on my way,” Marshall gasped as he swung around in a circle.
They crashed into a stack of cages, freeing children as the doors to their cages sprang open. A few of the cats ran away, but most stayed to join in the fray. Clawing their way up the old woman’s dress where they clung, biting and scratching where ever they could.
Dash worked on clawing his way out of the top of the bag.
The fight grew more desperate, bouncing off more cat cages and crashing into walls, culminating in a slam into the statue. For a moment everything in the room grew still, hardly seeming to breathe as the statue swayed back and forth on its perch. It settled back, the old woman giving a triumphant cry as she managed to shake Marshall and the cats off herself.
She brandished the knife at Marshall now, advancing towards him with a demonic sort of glee. “You and your friend have given me an extraordinarily hard time with this. I think I’ll enjoy putting an end to your lives and this town behind me.”
Marshall put his arm up in a weak defense against the blade.
“I don’t think you’re going to be doing any of that,” Dash stood next to the statue looking worse for the wear. “Next time you shouldn’t put your valuables on such a high table.”
He gave as hard of a push as he could against the statue, sending it toppling over the side where it shattered on the floor.
The old woman screamed, dropping the knife and launching herself at the shards of broken porcelain. Her screams turned to catlike yawls, her fingers shrank back into paws.
“I didn’t think that would happen,” Simon walked up behind Marshall, brushing a few strands of black fur from his face. They each looked down at the cat meowing pathetically on the floor.
“Yeah, somehow I thought it would be more spectacular.” Dash looked far worse back in his human form then he did as a cat, his face covered in bruises.
Marshall watched the last few kids run from the house, he wondered if they would remember any of this later. “What do you mean more spectacular?”
His question was addressed to thin air as the grey haired boy was already gone.
“I hate it when he does that,” Simon sighed. “Thanks for saving me, how’d you figure it out?”
Marshall looked down at his friend, clapping him on the back as they began the short walk home where they would tag his own candle and trinket for further evidence of the weirdness of Eerie. “I couldn’t have done it without Dash.”
Shocked silence greeted his answer. “What?”
“You and Dash?”