Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

Like the cat. Pleasure lived that way all the time. The cat didn’t know about Jesus’ sacrifice, about angels and devils. That cat looked at him and saw what was there.

He raised himself on his elbows. Mrs. Graves lay very still beside him, her blond hair spread across the pineapple quilt. He felt her neck for a pulse.

It was dark night now: the whine of insects in the oaks outside the window, the rush of traffic on the cross street, drifted in on the hot air. Quietly, Railroad slipped out into the hall and down to Foster’s room. He put his ear to the door and heard no sound. He came back to his own room, wrapped Mrs. Graves in the quilt and, as silently as he could, dragged her into his closet. He closed the door.

Railroad heard purring, and saw Pleasure sitting on the table, watching. “God damn you. God damn you to hell,” he said to the cat, but before he could grab her the calico had darted out the window.

He figured it out. The idea of marrying Mrs. Graves had been only a stage in the subtle revenge being taken on him by the dead grandmother, through the cat. The wishes Pleasure had granted were the bait, the nightmare had been a warning. But he hadn’t listened.

He rubbed his sore shoulder. The old lady’s gesture, like a mustard-seed, had grown to be a great crow-filled tree in Railroad’s heart.

A good trick the devil had played on him. Now, no matter how he reformed himself, he could not get rid of what he had done.

It was hot and still, not a breath of air, as if the world were being smothered in a fever blanket. A milk-white sky. The kitchen of the Sweet Spot was hot as the furnace of Hell; beneath his shirt Railroad’s sweat ran down to slick the warm pistol slid into his belt. Railroad was fixing a stack of buttermilk pancakes when the detective walked in.

The detective walked over to the counter and sat down on one of the stools. Maisie was not at the counter; she was probably in the ladies’ room. The detective took a look around, then plucked a menu from behind the napkin holder in front of him and started reading. On the radio Hank Williams was singing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

Quietly, Railroad untied his apron and slipped out of the back door. In the alley near the trash barrels he looked out over the lot. He was about to hop the chain-link fence when he saw Cauthron’s car stopped at the light on the corner.

Railroad pulled out his pistol, crouched behind a barrel and aimed at the space in the lot where Cauthron usually parked. He felt something bump against his leg.

It was Pleasure. “Don’t you cross me now,” Railroad whispered, pushing the animal away.

The cat came back, put her front paws up on his thigh, purring.

“Damn you! You owe me, you little demon!” he hissed. He let the gun drop, looked down at the cat.

Pleasure looked up at him. “Miaow?”

“What do you want! You want me to stop, do you? Then make it go away. Make it so I never killed nobody.”

Nothing happened. It was just a fucking animal. In a rage, he dropped the gun and seized the cat in both hands. She twisted in his grasp, hissing.

“You know what it’s like to hurt in your heart?” Railroad tore open his shirt and pressed Pleasure against his chest. “Feel it! Feel it beating there!” Pleasure squirmed and clawed, hatching his chest with a web of scratches. “You owe me! You owe me!” Railroad was shouting now. “Make it go away!”

Pleasure finally twisted out of his grasp. The cat fell, rolled, and scurried away, running right under Cauthron’s car as it pulled into the lot. With a little bump, the car’s left front tire ran over her.

Cauthron jerked the car to a halt. Pleasure howled, still alive, writhing, trying to drag herself away on her front paws. Her back was broken. Railroad looked at the fence, looked back.

He ran over to Pleasure and knelt down. Cauthron got out of the car. Railroad tried to pick up the cat, but she hissed and bit him. Her sides fluttered with rapid breathing. Her eyes clouded. She rested her head on the gravel.

Railroad had trouble breathing. He looked up from his crouch to see that Maisie and some customers had come out of the diner. Among them was the detective.

“I didn’t mean to do that, Lloyd,” Cauthron said. “It just ran out in front of me.” He paused a moment. “Jesus Christ, Lloyd, what happened to your chest?”

Railroad picked up the cat in his bloody hands. “Nobody ever gets away with nothing,” he said. “I’m ready to go now.”

“Go where?”

“Back to prison.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Me and Hiram and Bobby Lee killed all those folks in the woods and took their car. This was their cat.”

“What people?”

“Bailey Boy and his mother and his wife and his kids and his baby.”

The detective pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “You all best come in here and we’ll talk this thing over.”

They went into the diner. Railroad would not let them take Pleasure from him until they gave him a corrugated cardboard box to put the body in. Maisie brought him a towel to wipe his hands, and Railroad told the detective, whose name was Vernon Scott Shaw, all about the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and the hearselike Hudson, and the family they’d murdered in the backwoods. Mostly he talked about the grandmother and the cat. Shaw sat there and listened soberly. At the end he folded up his notebook and said, “That’s quite a story, Mr. Bailey. But we caught the people who did that killing, and it ain’t you.”

“What do you mean? I know what I done.”

“Another thing, you don’t think I’d know if there was some murderer loose from the penitentiary? There isn’t anyone escaped.”

“What were you doing in here last week, asking questions?”

“I was having myself some pancakes and coffee.”

“I didn’t make this up.”

“So you say. But seems to me, Mr. Bailey, you been standing over a hot stove too long.”

Railroad didn’t say anything. He felt as if his heart was about to break.

Mr. Cauthron told him he might just as well take the morning off and get some rest. He would man the griddle himself. Railroad got unsteadily to his feet, took the box containing Pleasure’s body, and tucked it under his arm. He walked out of the diner.

He went back to the boarding house. He climbed the steps. Mr. Foster was in the front room reading the newspaper. “Morning, Bailey,” he said. “What you got there?”

“My cat got killed.”

“No! Sorry to hear that.”

“You seen Miz Graves this morning?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

Railroad climbed the stairs, walked slowly down the hall to his room. He entered. Dust motes danced in the sunlight coming through the window. The ocean rowboat was no darker than it had been the day before. He set the dead cat down next to the Bible on the table. The pineapple quilt was no longer on the bed; now it was the rose. He reached into his pocket and felt the engagement ring.

The closet door was closed. He went to it, put his hand on the doorknob. He turned it and opened the door.

Graham Joyce is the author of sixteen novels and a collection of short stories. He won the World Fantasy Award for his novel The Facts of Life , and has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel an unprecedented five times. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2009, he was awarded the O. Henry Prize for his short story “An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen.” He is currently working on the computer game Doom 4 .