“The cat comes home”
A Short Story by Sara Story
Everybody knew the rumors about Ludlow. The locals had kept it in their hearts and minds. They were careful with the stories. It was importlant to keep the secret. Once someone knew of it and the curiosity stirred, the secret would become their own. It would hid in the darkest parts of their minds. It was a quiet, despirate whisper that would grab hold and loosen the soil of thier hearts. It played in dreams until the serentity of sleep turned restless and sour. Those nights were putrid and spoiled; the cold sweats would bear down and the wind would beckon those who weren’t careful. It would cry and howl until the very earth under their homes would creak and stir and moan, begging despiratly for a second life.
The secrets, the rumors were just a small part of life in the town of Maine. People were happy and friendly. It was a small generational community; some people were even still original settlers with land that was their fathers, fathers, fathers. Many lived in the same houses as their long-since past reletives. It was a quiet, tight knit community that was always welcome to newcombers, but also careful that they were respectful of the land. There was power in the soil of that town and it could cause a man to do terrible, mad things, if it was allowed to grow roots.
On this day, Lola sat quietly in a creaky rocking chair behind her old victorian home. She knitted and drank iced tea as her husband, Tom, mowed their lawn. There was no fence separating their sprawling fields from others, but the land was vast and rich. He mowed certain parts on certain days to keep up with the yardwork.
Lola was a heavy, kindhearted woman with long smooth white hair that she wore in a long plait down her back. This was the fashion in her youth and she held onto it, even in her late age. She was nearly sixty-two now. Tom, or Tomcat, as he was know amongst the community, was going on seventy. They had been church-group sweethearts that married quickly and had children just as fast. Seven in all that were sprawled out all over the country. Lola and Tom were now great grandparents. Both were happy with the richness and fullness of their lives. They were happy now to be settled though; in their quiet town with their quiet life.
Tomcat stopped working for a moment and wiped his brow with the back of his blue plaid shirt. Lola glanced over her half-eye spectacles at him and went back to her knitting. The tall man hobbled slowly back toward the looming house. He squinted in the sunlight and smiled as best as he could. He could see a small cobalt Kia Soul speeding up the wide unforgiving Route 15. The man put his large palm over his eyes to hide the blazing sun.
“Well,” he said. His yankee accent still drawling strong, even in his older years. “They’re here.”
Tracy was the first out of the car. She lept from the passenger seat, before Jonsey had even come to a complete stop. Her brown hair followed her like a shadow as she bound toward Tomcat. Lola was up as well, making her way slowly around the side yard to greet her great-grandson and his vibrant, young finace.
The man got out of his car, smiling as his bride to be jumped for Tomcat. The man laughed at her streinght and regained his balance. They embraced. He was glad to see the young woman and mostly glad for how lovely the two were together. If it were possible for two people to make eachother whole, they were that couple. Tomcat had never been a particularilly romantic man, nor a man who believed in true love. His belief that this couple would make it was as close as he could bring himself and it was pretty damn close.
He and Lola had known Tracy as a child and what a bright child she was! There was never a hitch with that girl. No sorrow; no hatred; there was not one negative thing that they could remember of the child Tracy. The two children had been introduced at Sunday school when they were still very young and had been enamored with eachother ever since. Friends, to best friends, to that first kiss, to that first love...it was the tried and true story of most couples that now settled in Ludlow. It was a simple place and that was just how things were done in that commuity.
“Hey,” Jonesy called out, his smiled widening as Lola came and embraced him. “I’ve missed you.” She kissed him on both cheeks, her hands trembling with age and excitement. Tomcat now came to his great grandfather and stood before him. He seemed to be taller that Tom had remebered. The young man put out his hand formally as to shake it. Tomcat laughed.
“Now, thats not how we do things ‘round here, bo’i.” He laughed. Tom took Jonesy’s hand and pulled him into his chest. They hugged eachother for a long time. Jonesy had forgotten how safe he felt as a boy with Tomcat around. It was a perfect start to the new chapter that Jonesy and his bride would begin together.
Lola and Tracy were now making there way back to the large porch overlooking those beautiful rolling hills. Lola spoke of family and her friends in town. Oh how they were getting on, she said again. Tracy laughed as the phrase fell from those sweet old lips. They linked arms and slowly made their way up to the back porch for sweet sun tea and talk of the gossip that roamed about Lola’s quilting circle.
The men lagged behind. Tom was eager to ask Jonesy all about his new car. The Soul. Tomcat thought it was quite a fitting name, “Perfect for a lil’ place like this.” He said quietly under his breath as Jonsey popped the hood. Tomcat stuck his head deep into the engine and nodded. “Nice,” he said looking back at the boy. He began jiggling a few of the bolts and what-not underneath the hood.
Jonesy laughed and thanked him. His great grandfather had never been a car man. God help him, he could re-wire a house, or dig a well so fresh and clean you’d never believed it didn’t come from a glacier. He probably could have built a working grocery store with five tires and a dead car battery; god forbid he touched a vehicle though. He didn’t have the knack.
“Never been a car man m’self,” He said slamming the deep blue hood shut. He wiped his hands on a red hankerchief that he always stowed in his left front pocket. “Don’t have the touch, but ‘t looks like a you picked mighty fine ‘un to me. C’mon,” the man’s voice was gravely and course. Jonesy wondered if he was getting over a cold. “Let’s go see what those lil’ hens are doin’ back round’bout.”
The four of them laughed until the sky was crimson and it’s tears were the deepest of pink. It filled the air around them; it surrounded them by all that was good in the world. The town was a funny place like that. It took the good with the bad.
They spoke on the porch until late that first night. Lola retired perhaps an hour after the sun had bid them goodnight.
“Ayuh, things have been quite alright since you’ve been back.” Tomcat took a large swig of Pabst and gave Jonesy a fresh one from the mini cooler that sat by the screendoor on the back porch. He rocked slowly, the chair creaking under his weight. “The Anderson’s had a little baby boy right six months ago. Named him Jud, after Jud Crandall. Now he was a good man,” Tomcat lit a cigarette and let the match fall into an old tomato paste can. “Always held true to the things he sewed. His heart was deep with rich soil.”
“Was good friends with him for... well, long time. Ayuh; he was much older the me. Took me in as a brotha almost. Old chums we were; even helped him bury old Spot in the place where the dead talk.” Tomcat scratched his belly and took a long drag of his cigarette. The blue smoke seemed to gather toward the flickering yellow light above them turning dirty and grey then swirling into nothingness. “Never understood the buisness with the infection.” Tracy didn’t understand either; she’d never heard of an infection. Her eyes fell to Jonesy. They just about overflowed with innocent curiosity. “The barbed wire left divots; never seen a think like it, not on a dog anyways. It was oozing and septic when we finally took him past the deadfall and the spirals brought life to his rottin’ corpse. Wasn’t quite the came after that; no, not that one. He came back different, colder. He smelled like death for one things. He was quick to growl and he turned into a roamer. Don’t think the creature would have ever hurt nob’dy, but we never could be sure. He died in his sleep before anything turned sour, but the dog never came back quite right. He was Jud’s pet; but it was like he knewn somethin’, somethin’ that made your bones go cold.”
“Wait,” Tracy started drinking a good sized gulp of beer before she began. “I thought you said he died of an infection. What did you mean?” Tomcat glanced slowly to he great-grandson. Tom’s eyes seemed to understand what she was getting at.
“Well, what I mean is the burial ground beyond was what brought him back. Old age is what finally killed him.”
Tom and Jonesy exchanged glances while Tracy examined her nails. They had both heard the stories of the Micmac Indians and their burial ground. The sour soil...all of that. They were just stories; gossip on the wind to keep people from getting lost in the unforgiving.
“Did it work?” Jonsey spoke straight forward and with an unhealthy curiosity in his voice. Tomcat hesitated.
“Ayuh, brought him back it did, but never quite right.”
“If that’s true, then what about the story where they brought a man back, old Bateman? Timmy, right?” Tracy’s voice betrayed her. She looked as though she was piecing an old puzzle together, one that had stumpped many before her.
“Oh, that old tale.” Tomcat’s entheusiasm was very fake; he even swatted an imaginary fly from his face. Jonesy raised an eyebrow. Tracy shifted awkwardly.
“Come now. Out with it.”
“He’d gone sour. He was still hollowed out from the war. It looked like he jumped on a land mine as it was about to detinate. He ain’t right. Not that one. Came back wandering, roamin’. He didn’t talk much not next’a that low shrewd hiss that makes my skin shiver...or obsenities. Unthinkable vulg’a words. Make the food rise to your throat. He stayed with us for a couple months or so; gettin’ strager every minute. Gettin mean; thinking like he knew something. There was trickery in those eyes; manipulations of truth in those eyes. It was Jud’s wife that called ‘im what he was. Abomination. He was an abomination. We burnt that house to the ground with him in it. Daddy wouldn’t let go; no sir. He died with that sour bastard of his.”
A quiet mewling came from nearby in the grassy patch Tomcat had mowed earlier. It was a constant noise that grew louder. Something was approaching, curious of the two- legged creatures. Jonesy had always been a cat person and he beckoned the little animal. He was never able to have a kitten, which he dearly wanted, on account of Tracy’s allergy to them. She loved cats as well, so it was unfortunate that the couple couldn’t raise one as there own. They had toyed with the idea of an outdoor cat and in the sweetness of this moment, the idea seemed very plausable, not as far fetched as when they were city dwellers.
The cat mewled again, but it was a deep, cold noise. It was gravely and ill; the moaning of a icy night. Jonesy beckoned it again and it called back, creeping close as it did. It slinked through the grass; it’s belly sliding as if dead weight against the dirt; it’s motions were akward, uncoordinated. It fell twice and Tracy laughed. The cat hissed at her.
“Well, is that?” Tomcat drawled. His eyes were fixated on the little tabby cat. “Petey.” He held out his hand and called the cat again. The cat trotted up the stairs, slowing on the uneven third and fourth stair. “This is the Anderson’s cat. Nine year old boy, lost it down the way therrr---” he drawled and pointed to the left. “Thought it was dead...Must ‘ave just wandered off.”
“Think he came back from the Place where the soil is sour?” Tracy mused, knowing if she let it drip with sarcasm, Tomcat might defend the stories.
“Nawwh,” he said shaking his head. “No’dy’s been buried at the Micmac grounds in yea’s. People know to stee’a clea’h.” He pointed at the girl, His finger shaked from the tremors that came with age. “You best do the same.”
“I have no desire to hike my ass into a death yard.”
“Agreed,” said Jonesy with a laugh. He stood heavily, his body tired from the drive. The couple had quite a bit to do tomorrow. Morgage papers were to be signed, keys were to be exchanged. They’d moved into a small lot near where the tragedy had happened so many years ago...the Creed tragedy. Now it was just gossip on the wind, but all urban legends were based on a seed of truth. Terrifying ones go sour, just as the soil did before.
“Yeah, Tom. It’s getting late. I think I’m going to bed.” Tracy stood, yawning deeply. The cat meowed. She looked down and laughed. In a quick flowing motion, the girl had picked up the cat and was now stroking gently against her thin frame. Tracy stopped shy of the back door and looked to Tomcat. She held the kitten up a bit as to ask if it was alright to let the cat in. Tom seemed to pick up on this without any words. He raised a shakey hand and swatted her away. “Love ya both,” She called behind her and went up to the second story guest room. She slept silently that night with the Anderson’s cat curled up underneath her neck.
“Hey Tomcat,” Jonesy said holding onto the old screen door. The old man followed him slowly.
"Yuh."
“Cat stinks.”
"Yuh."
“Cat stinks.”
“A’up.”
``````````````````````````````````````````````The End
