A Plot Twist – Part 4 of 5A Plot Twist – Part 4 of 5
Frenzy
The Stranger implored Gordon again. The Stranger smoked a dimly glowing cigarette butt that sizzled, causing the very structure of its' main body to slowly dissolve and ashen. Gordon was tired; so very, very tired. It was morning, his stomach was empty, he was tired, and most aggravating discovery of it all was that he honestly had no firm assurance about his brother's safety.
"Snoops."
The detective cocked one eye straight at Gordon, just as if he had suddenly and lethally thrust a dagger at the Scottish cat and impaled him straight into the velvet crush back covering of the decaying chair.
Snoops blew a fine puff of smoke straight into the air and began. "So that's it, huh?" was his response, when Gordon finally finished telling his story.
Gordon paused. This stranger's mien and odd aura masked a tremendously overwhelming mystery that made Gordon freeze. "…Y-Yes…"
The brown cat took a less serious look at Gordon, now eyes half-lidded like was searing at a gray block of heavy lead. He tapped his claws impatiently on the table. He said to Gordon, "God. I'll tell you something right now that I think you'll find very interesting, Gordon Cramdilly. This DT, or whomever the hell he calls himself is no ordinary killer. And if he already knew about you 3 cats to begin with, let's assume that it was someone close to you…"
"But!? But the only People who live in our house are just us and our butler!"
"No," Snoops unenthusiastically cut him off. "That's not what I meant."
Gordon was already beginning to have some doubts. The tiniest bit of him was shrieking a protestation about his desperate mode of action.
"Normandy? What the blazes do you think you're doing?"
"I'm going to set fire to the school, what do you think it looks like?"
James Alfred Hovis thought his lad of a friend mad. Well, no. He wasn't his friend. FAR from it. He was the worst student at Cambridge, and weighed heavily on the school records as a mentally unstable reject. Or at least, that's what HE heard.
This semester had seen it all. A couple of mysterious incidents where draining pipes were screwed clean off; 3 students found assaulted in some the old, unused, locked places of the school grounds, ancient by freshmen to senior standards. Hundreds of botany experiments causing an unimaginable and horrific stagnant smell to contaminate the air, poisoning anything that walked within two feet of it; Laura Benningweight, his Crush under the 5th Semester at Cambridge, was just so lucky that she meandered close to that area, but never once came inside: her dog did, by accident, and now she long ago since gave the "Remember Good Ol' Rover?" Speech by now.
James remembered. How in God's name could he not? He met Normandy Brining the same year he met Porter "Manfred" Ducal and Blanchester "Groink" Geoffrey. His memories were unpleasant and barely a canopy of tales because, Good Lord, he was 10 years old. Normandy, but here at the institute of snotty, uptight, listless, buck-toothed pricks in Cambridge known by his last name of Brining, he met on the first day. At Cambridge, you were on your own, and your only form of individuality was how fast you could hide. 10 to 20 of the older students favored bullying students weaker than them. They weren't punished, because after all, Cambridge High doubled as an "Experiment" house, one that studies the "Natural and Undiscovered behavior patterns of Human Subjects, and experimented with various sorts of Different Vagrants to Experiment their interaction with each other".
Normandy had the worst luck possible. James encountered him on his 30th visit from the older kids. James found him with ugly bruises, blotches and sores in places he didn't think possible.
"What the DEVIL!? Normandy, my good lad," an angry and squeaky-voiced Hovis screamed over the 'Spiffs' and smoky leaks in the furnace room. At the "Experiment House", everyone was acknowledged only by their last name, considering they didn't promote Christianity, and no one, especially not James found it abnormal. "You CAN'T be serious-"
James was interrupted by stiff, heated voices from outside. Inside he was screaming, BLOODY HELL, it's them!
Out of the corner of his eye, James saw to his dismay that Normandy was serious. He pulled out a small, crumpled packet of forbidden "toys": pranks. Cherry bombs. Plastic snakes and fireworks sticks. The more frightening of Normandy's Contents baffled James Alfred Hovis, whose voice kept rising to a frightening squeak.
"Normandy!! You CAN'T do this!!"
"I CAN," the dead-toned boy mouthed coldly back to his so-called 'friend'. "I… Hate this school. I bloody hate it. I-I hate I-it and t-them. those self-satisfied, awful pricks and asses. I WANT it all to disappear."
"YOU can't!! You're ACTING INSANE!!" James desperately ran over, miserably trying to stop this deranged and egomaniacal little bastard from opening up the furnace door. The inside would blaze him into ashes, James knew. James knew it- and he shuddered. The voices were getting louder. More voices joined in. Soon enough it turned into disharmony of an annoyed, ugly, refrain. James painfully and horribly regretted coming after Normandy into the cellar. He horribly regretted drawing near to this mentally unstable Child, the only other person he wanted to confide "Friendship". And he regretted not learning his place. Heart beating like violent drums, James regretted getting stuck down there, right in dangers' burning wake like some idiotic Kamikaze. Now already his mind ablaze with the horrifying afterimages of seeing his charred body in bits and pieces when the school blew up, he lost any amount of control and screamed. "NORMANDY! FOR GOD'S SAKE, MAN!! YOU CAN'T HONESTLY BELIEVE WHAT YOU'RE D-DOING IS R-RIGHT!! PLEASE STOP!!"
Normandy ignored him, got up and violently pushed him back so that his arm was brutally knocked against one of the drainage pipes. Normandy didn't stop there. Normandy pulled out the last thing James wanted to see. A huge knife. Bigger than any James had seen his father use when he went hunting one foggy Summer's evening in Nepal.
"I-I thought you were my f-friend." Normandy's cold stare strayed nowhere else. He shivered like he was contracting one raging cold. "But you're just like THEM!!"
"Stop…"
Normandy in one swift movement threw all his possessions straight into the furnace. Then he turned just as quickly and came at Hovis like the divine lightning of Zeus, knife already pointed straight at one critical spot. James wanted to cry out so badly, but nothing came, he was too scared, and the angry voices outside grew louder. He heard the voices screeching over the furnace and huge, BOOM against the door.
"Stop…"
Normandy and he were only inches away.
"STOP!!"
The human, albeit an unattractive one as he thought of himself retrospectively, woke up from the ultimate of nightmares that left him practically swimming in fear-induced sweat. When he sat up he suppressed a scream. After all, he was 43 years old. That would be too mellow-dramatic, even by his standards. But he was feeling very afraid; he was feeling very afraid indeed.
A dream? He thought stolidly, burying his face into his hands. He noticed something else. He felt something wet against his aging cheeks. What in God's name was that? Then it just hit him; it was a tear. A plain tear. He had been crying. Stupidly he felt extremely compelled to ask why, even though he knew very well that was no answer to supplement.
He quickly pulled himself back together. It was a dream, he told himself, frowning as he always did. It was a dream. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a dream that felt very real, almost like the REAL thing, but it isn't the real thing. It made perfect sense.
He got up, and did what was customary to any Butler; get dressed. After all, it was evening and-
Hmm? Evening? That's odd. He looked out of window on the far left of his attic floor and sure enough, it was evening. Starlight, and everything. A faint glow along the horizon told Hovis that it wouldn't be that way for long. It wasn't evening so much as it wasn't morning either. Why did he bother getting up when it was still early morning?
"WAFFLE!! WAFFLE YOU HAIRBRAINED IDIOT!! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Mr. Blik was outside. For no reason at all did the old butler suddenly feel compelled to investigate; days after his 'Masters' got involved into another silly shenanigan with most likely, a clueless and oddball individual were wearing badly down on the old butler.
"Waffle? Waffle! WAFFLE!!"
Hovis was greeted with another weird sight, and that was seeing his master zipping from room to room, looking as if he had just lost a toy he had inconveniently misplaced.
Blik didn't acknowledge his presence until he shot like a cannon at his feet. "Don't stand AROUND!! Help me look for Him!!"
"Whom, if I may ask? What is going on?"
Blik paused for a minute. He wasn't good with taking or putting things delicately.
"Waffle is missing. I haven't seen him around the house! Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen Gordon anywhere, either."
Gordon spent the rest of the morning planning things out with Snoops. They debated for hours till Gordon didn't have the tongue to fork any further, and other than that, it was more than enough information Snoops needed to make several calls. Things began to happen so fast that Gordon couldn't keep up; he was in one of the standard issue Police Cars with Snoops already in pursuit of their potential suspect's hideout. It's hideous compromise fostered Gordon's contempt. He was shaking from head to toe.
A couple of hours later, more startling developments unfolded. Their suspect, in full custody, was really an accomplice and refused to tell anything in regards to his cohort and ringleader, the one who had been behind several homicidal attacks in that same area, and was the real face behind the initials of 'DT'. While Snoops dived in without the slightest hesitation for the details of the case, more important than precious manna, Gordon finally fitted everything together.
Snoops eventually told Gordon they tracked a new lead. He said that Gordon would be surprised, and it would definitely narrow down their list of possible locations significantly. But when he did tell him, Gordon felt like the inside of his stomach, with all of its' contents spilled into a nasty pile. Gordon ran out and stole one of the police cars, and drove off. And Snoops, crafty, but none to bright either, told the police force to wait 30 minutes and follow behind. Snoops knew where Gordon was headed.
It was the Cramdilly Household.
-To be Continued.
AX: As an Unrelated Note, I should tell you that I fancy looking at "Horror Movie Trailers". Yesterday and this Morning I was looking at "The Strangers" Horror Movie Trailer on Youtube. (Just Type in "The Strangers) Interesting? Hell Yes. Something I'd ACTUALLY watch? NO. Because I detest Horror Movies. I HATE them. BUT... as strange as it is to say, This Chapter was inspired to me only BECAUSE I watched that stupid Trailer. The ONE thing I liked about that trailer was the Weird, "Skipping Repeating Disc Music" Near the end of the trailer. That just summed up the movie for me. And for the Most of my day after THAT, I kept freaking Hallucenating about "Hannah-Barbara Cartoon Character Stars" such as Huckleberry Hound, Quickdraw McGraw, and Snagglepuss all playing a weird Part in an Imaginary Parody Skit "Trailer" Based OFF THAT SAME MOVIE, that I envisioned myself with that same music in the Background. Yes. I know. I sound Really weird right now. Anyways, hoped you enjoyed the chapter, I DON'T know when I'll get around to the grand finale, which WILL be, "5 of 5" for this Catscratch Horror/Mystery/Thriller fanfic, and I hope Truly, truly deeply, that even though it can't be necessarily seen on Nickelodeon anymore, There are still semi-Loyal Christian fans of the Show out there, People who do like "Catscratch" as much as I do.
-From AX
