NOTE: This is where the story goes up to M. This chapter is particularly gruesome.
Chapter nine: Lost Love and Catacombs
Sighing, I pressed my paw against the button on the television, switching it off.
"So Jellicle really did exist," I thought sadly, "And it was in this house that he was tortured."
"There you are Mistofelees!"
Startled, I turned around. Macavity had squeezed his way through the window and was standing on top of my rat.
"I told you I would meeting up with you in the not to distant future," he growled, picking up my rat and crushing it into the ground, "so here I am!"
I gritted my teeth in annoyance. I really was not in the mood for this.
"I'd love to stay and chat Macavity," I growled, jumping down from the chair, "but I have more important things to do."
Macavity laughed raucously.
"Well, you're just going to have to fit me into your busy schedule," he sneered, extending his claws and starting to circle me.
"Look," I tried to reason. "Can't we talk seriously for a moment?"
"Seriously?" Macavity jeered, laughing harder.
"I'll need your help to find the murderer who's killing the cats in this neighborhood." I was inventing rapidly.
"Murderer?" Macavity smirked. "You've already found him, kitten!"
"You?" I gasped. "Why you?"
"Well, let's just say they didn't show me respect!" he growled, starting to back me up against the wall of the basement.
I frowned and shook my head. "Your motive doesn't convince me," I told him.
"Oh, well maybe I need to convince you," Macavity snarled. I heard chuckling behind me. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were on top of some boxes, grinning their dumb grins.
"Is this fair?" I frowned.
"Fair?" Macavity laughed, "Hell no!"
The siblings chuckled some more. Macavity tried to grab me, but I jumped out of his way. I ran over to a heating grate, only to find I couldn't budge it. Macavity, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer cornered me.
"Get him!" Macavity bellowed.
The twin calicos leapt at me, their claws grazing my back. Going too far, they crashed into the wall. I sped passed Macavity, though I had to stop to brush my tongue over the scratch on my back.
"That hurt!" I growled to taunt them, before speeding off.
Macavity was quick for a big tom, however, and grabbed me in his powerful jaws. I flailed wildly, but he was too strong. He started pressing down, to crush my windpipe, when one of my clawed back feet caught him in the lip. He let go with a roar of pain. With a great leap, I scrambled out the tiny basement window and into the pouring rain.
I shuddered; normally I wouldn't go out on a day like today, but when a vicious tom is on your tail, you have no choice. I took off running, hearing Macavity clawing his way out the window. Jumping up on the stone ledge, I began running through the neighboring yards. Macavity was not far behind me.
"You can't escape me!" Macavity roared.
"I'm sure going to try!" I thought. Suddenly, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were standing on the wall in front of me, teeth bared.
"Trapped pussy cat!" they leered.
I barreled into them and we all fell into a fountain in the yard below. I managed to get out first, shaking the water off my coat before starting to run again. I looked back just in time to see Macavity fall right on top of his cronies in the fountain. I couldn't help chuckling to myself as I pushed off a wheelbarrow to jump into the next lawn. Just as I started looking for a safe place to hide until the heat was off, I saw what was lying in front of my paws.
I quaked in horror and disgust. A beautiful black and gold queen with flecks of red in her coat was sprawled out in the damp grass. Her head was jutted upward, blood pooled around her from the gaping hole in her throat. But what really made me sick was her stomach. Her obviously pregnant belly had been torn open and the partially developed kitten fetuses were spilled on the ground in a puddle of blood and embryonic fluid.
"My god!" I whispered, bile rising in my throat and tears burning my eyes in sympathy for this poor stranger.
With a growl, Macavity's huge head popped over the wall, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer not far behind.
"Well guys, looks like he's run out of steam," Macavity leered. "That's what you get when you eat too much junk food."
Still in shock, I turned to him slowly, keeping the queen blocked with my body.
"Yes, I'm out of breath," I told him. "And it looks like I'm not the only one."
Macavity jumped down into yard, facing me.
"What are talking about-"?
Suddenly, Macavity caught sight of the queens' body. His anger was quickly replaced by a look of shock and despair.
"Demeter!" He wailed. "Oh my god Demeter, what have they done to you?"
Macavity shoved me aside and flung himself at the corpse.
"What have those heartless bastards done to you?" he cried. "My lovely, lovely Demeter!"
I was moved by this display of sorrow from this monster of a cat. He even had tears falling in rivers down his cheeks. I approached Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, who looked close to tears themselves.
"Who was she?" I asked them.
"Demeter was the bosses favorite queen," Mungojerrie explained.
"And you can bet that's his family spilled in the grass," Rumpleteazer sighed, her dull eyes tearful.
Macavity was still wailing, his face red from nuzzling his dead queen, Demeter. The twins and me bowed our heads in respect.
"Who did this?" Macavity's anger was rising again. "I'll kill them! I'll make dog food out of them! I'll rip his balls off and make him eat them! I'll- I'll-"
He was incapable of forming a sentence, breathing fast and hard. That just depressed the three of us further.
"What heartless bastard could do this?" Macavity asked us. "You?" he rounded on me, grabbing my throat in his claws. "No not you," he let me fall. "You couldn't have done it. You had no time. But then who did it? Who?"
A bush to at the far side of the garden suddenly rustled and not from the rain. Macavity turned towards it and snarled, baring his huge fangs. A cat came out of the bush, but it was impossible to even make out the color of his fur in the pouring rain.
"God help you!" Macavity roared. "I'll kill you for what you did to Demeter!"
The cat jumped up onto the wall and started limping off.
"No Macavity!" I blocked him with my body. "Maybe he didn't do it."
The cat trying to run off was very old. His brown coat was shabby and mostly grey. His face was deeply lined and his eyes set in deep. As he walked, he shook and quaked, barely managing to stay on the wall. Just as I'd managed to get a good look at him, he jumped down into the next lawn.
"Get out of my way!"
Macavity shoved me aside and scrambled up the next wall, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer right behind him. I followed them.
When all three of us were sitting on top of the wall, it was apparent that somehow the old cat had gotten away.
"Where could he have gone?" Macavity asked me.
I was surprised that he was asking my advice.
"I don't know," I shrugged.
"Just three blocks down and he'll hit the highway," Mungojerrie told his boss.
"That's where we'll catch him!" Rumpleteazer squealed.
"Yeah!" Macavity grinned, "See ya Misto!"
The huge cat ran into the next yard and sprinted off, his cronies not far behind.
"Bye!" I called; knowing my pursuit of them wouldn't result in anything. Breathing a huge sigh, I just sat on the wall, letting the rainwater drip through my fur and whiskers. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally.
That's when I saw him. The old cat was slinking out from under the wheelbarrow in the lawn bellow me. I crouched down low to watch him without him watching me. The old tom was limping towards a hole dug out next to the wall. Suddenly, I slipped due to the slippery wall and barely managed to cling on. The old cat looked up briefly, but then continued into the hole.
I hopped over the wall and into the lawn. Cautiously, I approached the hole, sniffing intently. The stench of the passage of time and death coated entrance. I poked my head and shoulders inside, to discover it was not just a hole, but a tunnel. The cobwebs coating the top of the tunnel had a newly made path in them. I crawled into the tunnel, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. But I had barely gone a few steps forward when the ground opened underneath me and I fell down.
I hissed and yowled and I went tumbling down farther and farther into the darkness. Finally, I hit the bottom and winced in pain. I coughed as I looked around. I had had just about enough of this new nightmare. It was bad enough that Demeter's murder had scrambled my theory of the murderer, but now I was in this godforsaken hellhole.
Suddenly I heard yowling and hissing behind me. I turned just in time to see Tugger sprawl on his face in front of me.
"I'm pleased to see you," I smirked at Tugger, "although I'm not happy to admit it."
"Ugh," Tugger moaned, shaking his head. "I'm getting too old for this bullshit."
"Shh. Not so loud!" I told him.
"Not so loud?" Tugger scowled. "With Macavity up there, wailing like a banshee? I saw Demeter's body and followed you over the wall. Anyway, where are we?"
"No idea," I shrugged.
I started heading farther into the tunnel. Tugger wandered along behind me, nose wrinkled in disgust. Then we reached a larger passageway, lined with crumbing skeletons of cats.
"Catacombs," I gasped.
"If that's some kind of sick joke . . ." Tugger growled.
I looked at him reproachfully, before continuing. Moonlight shone into the next and final part of the tunnel. This main chamber contained hundreds of thousands of bodies of cats, all in various stages of decomposition.
"Ugh," Tugger shuddered, clearly disgusted.
"Tugger, do you smell that?" I asked him, walking further inside.
"Yeah," he growled. "Disgusting."
"No," I shook my head. "The complete dominance of the death in this place from decades. These murders have been going on for years, not months."
"But who?" Tugger mused, starting at one of the skulls. "Someone had to drag all these bodies down here. And why aren't the corpses of Munkustrap, Alonzo, Demeter and Victoria down here?"
I heard a crumbling and looked to see one of the skeletons in pieces at Tugger's paws. He suddenly hissed ferociously. Turning back around, I found myself face to face with the old cat I'd followed down here. I jumped back and hissed as loud as I could.
"Do not attack the guardian of the dead," the old cat pleaded. "Although the guardian knows he must be punished for breaking the holy rule and leaving the temple."
"Do you always give your victims this crap before you kill them?" I asked politely.
The old tom seemed surprised and looked down, silent.
"What's your name?" Tugger inquired.
"They call me Gus," the old cat smiled, "The guardian of the dead."
"Are you the one who killed all these cats and then dragged them down here?" I asked.
"No," Gus shook his head. "The dead come to me."
"A real nut case if you ask me," Tugger growled.
Gus frowned and headed over to the scattered skeleton to pick up the pieces.
"Gus, where do you come from and how did you come to live in this place?" I asked.
Gus picked up the skull and placed it on top of the finished skeleton.
"There once was a land of darkness," he began. "I was born there and suffered for many years until the Prophet came. He set all of us free and defeated the darkness."
"What happened to the Prophet?" I asked.
"He was taken up to heaven," Gus said sadly. "Old Deuteronomy told everything to me."
"Old Deuteronomy?" I turned to Tugger. "The Leader of the Everlasting Sect?"
Tugger nodded.
"This was his home," Gus explained. "He brought me down here and we lived together for many years. But then came the day when Old Deuteronomy had to leave me to spread the word of the Prophet. The very next day I heard a disturbance at the entrance to the cave and it was there I was confronted by the body of a dead queen. Then I heard the voice of the Prophet calling to me from heaven."
"And what did the Prophet say?" I asked.
"He said that I had been chosen to be the guardian of the dead and to never view the world of light."
"Okay . . ." Tugger frowned.
"I have been serving the Prophet for years, taking the dead he sends to me. But I have not heard the voice of the Prophet for a long time now, nor has he sent the down the dead."
"So is that why you left this afternoon?" I asked him, "to find more bodies?"
Gus nodded.
"A few more questions," I continued. "The bodies that came down here. Were most of them excited toms?"
"Some," Gus admitted, "But others were horribly mutilated."
"Were any pregnant?" I was afraid of the answer.
"Yes," sighed Gus, who looked about to cry, "many."