Murder, Werewolves, and Ghosts
by P. C. Cross
Copyright © 2012 by P.C.Cross
Any likeness herein to persons, living or dead, is purely hypothetical.
Intended as an easy read, no matter age, gender, social status, or mental condition.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and not to be resold or given away to other people.
1A Junkyard Tradition
My twin sisters caught me in the act—then ran in the house screaming at the tops of their lungs, “Mama! Mama! See what Adam is doing,” was what I clearly heard. Then something from my mother, muffled, I guessed because she was cleaning the oven and must have had her head inside. Then the screen door slammed. I knew she was headed straight for me, where I was huddled behind the shed, without time to hide anything, blood all over my hands, a piece of cat here, another there, but individually neatly wrapped in paper towels, to then be put into paper bags for disposal in the trash can of some neighbor since I wasn’t about to put them in our trash in case the garbage men might spill pieces of cat all over the street in front of our house. No, I was not crazy enough to do something as stupid at that. That goddamned cat! It shouldn't have killed my song birds and chipmunks.
Ma appeared from around the side of the shed. I was caught again red handed, dropped the cat leg I was still holding—along with my knife—and sprinted for the house, right into my room, and locked the door. I did not want to hear her screaming like a banshee for the twins to enjoy. I would bite the bullet and wait for father to come home, hoping this would be one of the nights he stayed at our family’s auto parts junkyard with his shotgun loaded ready for potential thieves to come to steal car parts from the hundred or so wrecked and junked autos scattered pell-mell throughout the property.
He didn’t keep a gun in the house; instead, he kept a baseball bat beside his side of the bed. At the slightest suspicious sound he would edge out of bed, bat in hand, and creep stealthily out of their bedroom to find the source of the sound. Ma told him he shouldn’t have any weapon in the house; that thieves didn’t want to hurt anyone and were there just to steal; but if he had a weapon and they took it away from him they would use it to kill him, so he gave in to the bat; which I thought didn’t make any sense because it seemed to me to be better shot to death than to be beaten to death with a baseball bat. But to each his own, I thought, and sure didn’t want to stick in my two cents—not with him practically frothing at the mouth for having given in to Ma.
And that dog we had! Pinky was its name. A scurvy little poodle that never shut up. I hated the creature, and would have enjoyed carving it up into bite size chunks for garbage pickup. One day I got so angry—when it took a nip at me as I walked past its corner—that I gave it such a kick with my army combat boots, that I broke one of its front legs. Thankfully, no one was home, father was at the auto parts yard, and Ma was out shopping with the twins. I wouldn’t have done it if anyone had been home. The little weasel whined and cried. I couldn’t leave it there, my sisters would figure I had done it. Or maybe a burglar, I thought, as a good possibility. What could I take that looked like it had been stolen? And I could dump draws out in mother and father’s bedroom, and maybe kick in the screen door to make it look like a break in. But decided a burglar not to be a good option, so threw a blanket over the whining excuse for a living thing so it couldn’t bite me, unhooked its leash from the wall, opened the door to the cellar, and threw it down the stairs (without the blanket, of course) and left the door open, knowing it could not climb the stairs and get back up into the kitchen. Then I got out of the house, not coming back until I knew they had returned home and heard their poor little Pinky crying at the foot of the cellar stairs. And so they must have because, when I came home later, Pinky, with her right front leg in a cast, was the center of attention. I ended up getting Hell anyway—accused of leaving the cellar door open. But the twins had to take the wrap for Pinky getting lose—which of course they didn’t own up to (because it wasn’t so).
Right after that Pinky’s attitude toward me was near hysteria every time I walked past her; yipping nervously, outrageously. My sisters eyed me in a way I knew they suspected I had something to do with Pinky getting her leg broken. Of course I itched to shout that I had done it. I wanted them to know I wasn’t going to take any crap from their little darling. But I still had to teach Pinky a little disciple. I had seen on television where a gangster put BB’s in a sock to use as a black jack, so I did the same, and one day, again when no one was home and all the windows were closed securely, I had it out with Pinky—just me and her. No broken bones, just short of knocking her into oblivion while saying ‘nice Pinky, nice dog’ until she became just that–a nice quiet doggy. My mother and sisters were amazed at Pinky’s new attitude toward me. I mean Pinky didn’t crawl into my lap like for them, but she didn’t bark at me anymore; especially when I said, “nice Pinky, nice dog.’ From then on Pinky and I got along just fine, everyone thought it a miracle; but my mother said, ‘No,’ that Pinky knew how sorry I was for her accident, and had forgiven me for leaving the cellar door open. Good, I thought, if that’s what she wanted to believe. But I knew different—I had learned the power, the power of being god-like, of putting the god almighty fear into another living thing—if only a little dog.
I had succeeded in putting Pinky and the cat in their place. But even so I missed the cat howling at night, and the screaming cat fights; realizing that I had enjoyed them and the cat’s ability to be stealthy and pounce and capture, and kill at its leisure, and then let everyone know by leaving its victims with heads chewed off for easy discovery. But still and all, I didn’t consider myself a killer per se—at least, not for the pleasure of it. I had done that cat in out of necessity; humanely for the sake of the birds and chipmunks, knowing full well in my heart of hearts that I had saved a bushel full of little innocent creatures from its savagery.
But then Pinky just upped and died. It was assumed by father to be a poisonous weed or shrub she must have chewed on in the backyard. But I had other thoughts: I thought that maybe, just maybe, she had eaten rat poison father used around the junkyard for rats, placing it where his watch dogs couldn’t get at it. Yes, I was certain he had done it—father. Just the day before, he had been ranting and raving about stepping in dog crap on the way to our backyard shed. He said in a fit of rage that he’d have to have three eyes to keep from stepping in it. He couldn’t see very well anyway, with having to wear eyeglasses that didn’t sit firmly on his face, made worse by the turds being so small. He had lectured my sisters and me about it being our responsibility to pick up the shit because Pinky was our pet and not his, even though I tried to make a case about that little bitch not being a pet of mine, but he wouldn’t hear it. I felt like I was in the Army, put on KP to collect dog crap. You can bet that Pinky steered clear of me when we were in the yard at the same time. Christ, if she’d only showed me where she crapped it would have made things a lot easier and I wouldn’t have had to go around stooped shouldered staring at the ground in front of me, and even then would step in it. Yes, I felt that father had done a good thing–ridding me and him of Pinky.
Oh, how I would have loved to put a BB or two into the cats that came to fill the void left by the one I had carved up. But I couldn’t risk it for fear they really were pets, and not wild, and would go back home limping or crawling and their owners would find they had been wounded with a BB. Of course everyone on the street knew that Willy Jacobs, who lived at the end of the street—whose father had an arsenal of rifles, shotguns, and pistols—had a couple of BB guns, and thereby would be assumed to be the cat shooter. But if accused, I knew he would tell them that I had a BB gun too—one
he had sold to me for ten dollars. Then my parents would know and would take it away from me. Besides the knife, it was my prize possession. I wasn’t able to shoot it in the backyard without my mother and sisters knowing, so I hid it in the cellar and would stick it down a pant leg and walk stiff legged to a wooded area where I took pot shots at squirrels, occasionally hitting one, but never so I killed it because the gun was so weak. That woody spot was my refuge, where I imagined being grown up and employing ways and means of doing away with useless creatures like those squirrels.
Getting back to what happened after I got caught all bloodied carving that cat up behind the shed. When Ma came around the corner of the shed I ran hell-bent for my bedroom where I locked myself in, fleeing from my mother and sisters—especially, not wanting to put up with their taunting. So they went right to the auto parts junkyard to rat on me to father. It wasn’t long before I heard him coming in the front door and expected him to come right up and beat the bejesus out of me. I could