The wide world was alive with such wonders. Wherever people shed formative thoughts, the curious nature of cats would make sport with the exuberant residue. They knew to play tag with the colorful aspects, and weave them into the manifest world.
When the couple departed, Scamper shoved off, no little bit smug that the rat’s doom-and-glooming had given him a false lead.
A woman rushed past, heels clicking as she bustled into the subway. Her fizz of anxiety sent bubbles of energy bouncing off the lit street lamps. Scamper sensed no threatening darkness swirling behind her brisk footsteps. If she resented her job, she did not hate her boss. Though her day had been riddled with disappointments, she did not nurse any poisonous urge to dump her malaise on her coworkers. Her loose discontent would not form a vortex. No quivering, plucked string of entanglement waited to snag into other folks’ unresolved angst.
Scamper detected no stirring of havoc that required destruction with claws and teeth. No suspect thrill raised a hump in his back, or bristled him to spitting temper. Nose working, tail high, he rounded the corner, jinked down the side street, and skirted the packing crates discarded behind the herb shop.
The narrow alley ahead enticed with the rich scent of cat-mint. Most of the neighborhood’s swaggering toms had dropped in for a heady nip. The randy chorus at the Cat-ATONIC Bar surrounded a svelte Siamese. Amorous loungers watched rivals, slit-eyed, while the husky Maine Coon named Bouncer licked his claw sheaths, prepared to break up snarling fights. Tempers ran short, in the late summer heat. The scrappier males were on seasonal edge, hot to test their machismo before the fur-ripping brawling of autumn.
Scamper licked his sharp teeth. As eager himself for a rambunctious change, he marched past, primed to impress the slinky pussies who danced at the Cat-Ass-Trophy Club. Yet tonight, the stair with the balustrade loomed empty. No black beauties or coy little calicoes beckoned him on.
Instead, Scamper found himself knocked on his haunches by cats pelting helter-skelter. Fur on end, the whole kit’n caboodle ran in fear for their lives, darting under the sewer grates or streaking for shelter beneath the parked cars on the side street.
Scamper tensed, primed for uncanny threats. He sighted what appeared as a shadow swooping down on his planted stance. Its wet-blanket force struck him, face on, and bowled him head over tail. Scamper twisted. Agile reflexes brought him back to his feet. Scuffed and furious, he had to acknowledge the filthy rat’s warning held substance. A monster-sized dark-doing devoured the strip, with no apparent clue in the vicinity to reveal how the nexus had started.
“Not on my turf!” Scamper snarled, and crouched. He launched into his best fighting leap. Yet his dagger-clawed swipe missed the coiling disturbance. Again, he was caught by surprise as a tendril snaked out of nowhere and clobbered him sideways.
Scamper picked himself up, spitting curses. The dark-doing lurked in the apartments above! No thanks to the rat, for withholding that detail. Such ill-news should have been dispatched in the first place, by way of a reliable messenger. Situations always turned hairball, whenever a rat told the truth!
Already, the invasive clot had grown monstrous. Its creeping shadow obscured half the alley, with Scamper unable to count the number and strength of the entrenched entanglements. He backed, green eyes slitted, dodging as another eruption shot off more strangling threads. The skyline above was choked under the pall. No good news: the least gleam of stars should have made the uncanny stuff shrink. Even the street lamps failed to pierce through the density of this anomaly. At large and expanding at a ferocious pace, the thing crowded the stance of the small, copper tabby who was pledged to serve and protect.
Scamper hissed, stiff-legged and holding his ground. He was no coward! But what could he do? The entanglement si-phoned off color and life. Deep taproots had sunk into the sewers. Other murky tendrils seeped through open windows, invading the tenements above. Hapless sleepers inside were being snared by the web. The blast of their nightmares was spawning fresh wrack, feeding the uncanny problem.
Scamper’s nape prickled. “Doesn’t that stink like unburied scat!” He had never seen human beings wreak such an insatiable pall. Though natural fear urged him to turn tail, he flexed his foreclaws and dug in to charge.
“You’re not planning to challenge that!” a deep voice admonished, a half-step behind him. “Better to stay safe! A loose grate in the window well opens into the herb shop’s basement. My patrons have taken refuge in there. High time that both of us followed them.”
Scamper hissed, out of sorts with surprise. “Bouncer! Frag your tail, don’t sneak up while I’m on the job!”
The gray Maine Coon cat wrinkled his white nose and strolled abreast, his usual air of muscular unconcern rattled by trepidation. “Do you know what you’re doing, alone in the breach? Whatever that is, no question it’s screwed the prosperity of my establishment.”
“It could do worse than that.” Scamper bared his teeth. “Best scarper, pal. This is copper-cat business and no place for a civilian to be risking his scruff.”
Bouncer stretched, flexing twenty-five pounds of pure feline brawn, sleeked beneath a luxurious coat. “You’re a runt, by yourself,” he pointed out, reasonable.
“Size has nothing to do with superior agility,” Scamper declared, fiercely miffed. The Chief might assign larger toms to the slums. But in a tight scrap, sure as fire singed fur, the little cats often scored first. “Scram, friend. Now! Take the refugees and your kitty bar elsewhere until I’ve unraveled this mess.”
Bouncer curled his tail tip, amused. “I’ve no wish to relocate,” he said, more than tactfully tart, “or lose the ambience of the Cat-Ass-Trophy Club, if this festering trouble ruins the neighborhood. Howl as you like, that cluster hump’s swallowing more real estate for every second we waste in a hissy-fit.”
Scamper conceded that unpleasant point. He dared not risk any further delay, or call on the Chief for a backup squad. Late could become never if this dark-doing bloated past reach of containment. Besides, Bouncer’s moxie was lion-sized. Every thug dog unleashed in the district slunk out of its way to avoid his punitive claws.
“Survive this,” said Scamper, “I’ll owe you a leisurely meal at the Catfish Grill.”
“My treat, for cold shrimp at the Cater Wall.” Bouncer sniffed, still indignant. No copper tabby who defended his digs would be tackling an explosive eruption, alone.
Side by side, the mismatched pair of cats bounded forward, to Scamper’s last minute instructions. “Whatever happens, keep your head down! Duck the large tentacles. If you become hooked, fight back and kick as though the murder itself had sunk fangs in your bollocks! Once I pounce, join the tussle and dig into the entanglement. Snap the binding thread, and bolt for clear air. Don’t be trapped as the mess comes unraveled.”
The pair sprang in step. Then the web closed upon them. A thrill like electricity tingled their hair. The hungry cold of the dark-doing lashed out, insatiable, to overwhelm them. Scamper flattened, while the larger Maine Coon leaped over the obstructive shadow. Wind flicked at their tails, to the rasp of feline claws scrabbling against concrete. Bouncer yowled, then wheeled his bulk across Scamper’s path in avoidance.
“Pussyfoot civilian!” the smaller cat snarled. “Quit trying to protect me.”
“So neuter yourself!” Bouncer swore, his fur singed where a razor-edged ribbon had grazed him. “Dead is no use to anyone, pal. I know what my hide’s worth! Chief would rag me to mince if he should discover I’d hung your cat-sass out to dry.”
Scamper was left too breathless to argue. Fool heroics more likely would see them both killed, with the Chief at the barracks left none the wiser.