Pouncing the Gun

[The Mood is Write]

At 'cat', Elizabeth turned an ear towards the man. He seemed calmer, but her nose still bled. Slowly though, she noticed the bleeding was lessening, and she mewed quietly, then began to follow at the sheriff's heels. Tail still a bit puffed, she trotted alongside him until he left the woods, and then she parted from him to head towards some houses.

Through her periphery, she watched the sheriff drive away, then hurried to his house, only to stop short at the sight of a strange car in the drive. She backed up, only to wrinkle her nose, then throw herself up off her back feet with a sneeze that shot blood boogies from her nose and onto the driveway. A quick cleaning of her face, and she hurried to the door to see if, by some off-chance, it was open. No such luck.

She didn't want to be caught outside after Amelia had her inside last night. That would be embarrassing, and it would bring up questions that would only confuse the poor child, not the least of which being where the necklace came from.

It was still late, so she wandered a short distance from the house and looked up to see if she could try climbing up and getting into Amelia's window. Uncertain, she began to pace, peering upwards as she circled the house. Fur still dingy from a roll in dust earlier, she hoped it was enough that she didn't stand out too strongly in the dim lights of nighttime. She came to a darker part of the house, and a moment later, a woman carefully opened a window, then the screen, and slipped in before she closed both behind her and looked around the dark room just enough to make sure she was unseen before she became a cat again, and finally relaxed to some degree—enough that her muscles no longer felt quite so tight.

 

[Pahn]

Sheriff Hawke's night was a lot less eventful than his day had been. There wasn't a single call, and all he did was file report after report. Reading mundane recounting of altercations, speeding tickets, and a bar fight proved to be quite the boring chore. But as the sheriff, it was his job to be aware of everything that was happening in his town. He was already quite lucky to be able to work graveyard shifts instead of day shifts. The town hadn't seen any major incidents in a decade, and most of the townspeople had become complacent. Barely anyone locked their doors and cars were left unlocked in parking lots. Petty theft and speeding cars were the biggest crimes in Graunlow.

There was always an hour where Rupert was alone at the station. Graveyard cops were not much needed, so there was one whose shift ended at 3 A.M. and the next fellow started at 4 A.M.. Sometimes it stretched to 5 A.M., but Rupert knew his guy Ethan would be in at 4 o'clock sharp. This time was usually spent in the archives, scoring through old, forgotten and unsolved cases. Strange disappearances, animal attacks, murders. The sheriff was both fascinated and obsessed with those cases, for he knew there was such a thing as supernatural beings. He'd never met anyone else who believed in them though, so he always kept that under the lid. Secretly he stashed away the weird cases and worked on them when no one was looking. Between 3 and 4, it was his witching hour.

This time, he went straight to his dead wife's file. The official report stated she had been killed by some wild animal, a lone wolf. They had never traced down this wolf, not that Rupert had pushed the investigation either - he knew what had killed his wife. Internet access had become a blessing in the last couple of years, and he discovered that his wife had not been an isolated case. The problem was that the same deaths stretched out into other states, sometimes as far as Canada, so it was nearly impossible to connect them under a single investigation.

In his wife's file, there was an unofficial statement from him. He had discovered her body, mauled nearly beyond recognition, her heart eaten out. He had seen the beasts that had attacked her, and had described them vividly. Unfortunately, it never made it to the official report because he had been deemed "under shock" and his testimony had been tossed aside. It was too fantastical, they had told him. Gripped with grief, Rupert hadn't protested at the time. Now that his daughter was appeared to have heard their howls, he wished he had pushed harder.

Time flew by and after hiding the files in his office cabinet, Sheriff Hawke joined Ethan and they talked about hunting and the new traps that had arrived in their local hardware store. Before he realized it, it was already 7 o'clock and he was on his way back home, a bag of fresh bagels on the other seat. Like always, Amelia was waiting for him on the porch with Ms Hundington. The middle-aged woman waved warmly at him, and they both left for their respective rides. She used to stay home until Rupert arrived, but after his repeated decline of her... advances, she left as soon as he came to pick up his daughter for school.

"Did you sleep well, darling?" His voice sounded tired but his smile was bright and very dad-like.

Amelia grabbed the bag of bagels before settling in the passenger seat, seat belt in place. "Mhm, it was okay. I think I dreamed about a white cat." His daughter's face told him everything he needed to know: she was definitely hiding something.

Driving slower than the speed limit, he fished a bagel out of the bag and started eating. "Huh uh. Sure. Anything you're not telling me, young lady?"

"What? No! C'mon dad." As though to avoid talking or being asked more questions, Amelia stuffed a bagel in her mouth and chewed loudly and with difficulty.

Chuckling, Rupert shook his head and drove to her school at a more regular speed. "Okay then, miss. Just be careful with wild animals, even cats, we never know what they truly are." She groaned loudly and Rupert laughed again. She was such a good kid, he wished her mother had been there to see it.

 

[The Mood is Write]

With her lucky charm retrieved, the white cat curled up beside Amelia until the girl woke, purring quietly as she finally got some rest, certain her nose would alert her to any dangers.

All was peaceful, and she kept to the girl's room during the night, snoozing while she could, though at some point before the girl's day began, Elizabeth found herself curled up on Amelia's hip.

She greeted the girl with a chirp once she felt movement beneath herself, and she chattered a little at Amelia while the girl prepared for school, keeping quiet enough, but still making a show of being happy to see her—which she honestly was, but also, she was hungry, and asking nicely was always better than sneaking later to devour whatever was in the fridge.

Especially since Hunters ate so much more than humans.

More than likely, she'd have to hunt something down later.

Once Amelia left for school and the other woman departed the house, Elizabeth-the-woman stretched before she began to snoop. She avoided windows, but instinctively sought Rupert's favorite haunts in the house.

She started with his bedroom.

"I know," she told her conscience quietly as she carefully lifted things out of his drawers and put them back in once she saw there was nothing of interest beneath any given stack or pile, "A gross violation of privacy, but I'm sure he'll forgive me. I'm only a cat, after all."

A tiny giggle emerged, and then died as her expression slid to thoughtful sobriety.

"Just a kitty-cat."

As she carefully straightened a shirt she'd mussed, she paused and felt along the back and top of the drawer. Much as she liked Amelia and Sheriff Hawke, something was up.

With how scared Amelia had been before, and how her father responded to her fear, even checking out the woods—this family had been touched in a bad way by a bump in the night. She saw the signs often enough to know them, though she couldn't put most of them to words.

"Wolves in the woods, a scared family of two, and... I can only assume," Elizabeth murmured to herself as she carefully pushed that drawer back in, then went for the one above. "I mean, really, it's not hard to assume, though I really hope I'm wrong. I really, truly do."

A sigh slid from her lips, and she glanced toward a nearby clock, only to frown as she realized something.

She had no idea if the sheriff would return after taking Amelia to school, nor how long he'd been gone already. She didn't think to check the time that he picked the girl up!

With pursed lips, she resumed her search, but kept her voice silent to better listen while she sought through the man's underwear and socks.

 

[Pahn]

After he'd dropped off Amelia, Rupert stopped by his favourite diner place, Carter's Corner, to grab some breakfast and coffee. He usually ate the food home but today he wanted to fully take in the small talk of the townsfolk. He still had his badge on but as he sat in a corner booth, he quickly faded into the background noise. Town gossip wasn't really part of his job description and he didn't particularly enjoy it, however there was no denying that it had its uses and kept him informed of things that otherwise would fly over his head.

With his plate of eggs, sausages, and hashbrowns, the sheriff kept his head down and devoured his plate silently. His ears were alert and he suddenly imagined himself with dog or cat ears, twitching in direction of the conversations he was eavesdropping. He quickly pushed away the mental image and took a large gulp of coffee. In the whole hour he was in the diner, not once did he hear anything about wild animal attacks or strange stray dogs. With a disappointed slump of the shoulders, the sheriff paid for his food and slipped outside, making a beeline for his car.

The ride home was filled with the police radio chatter. At this point he was so used to it that he couldn't imagine driving in silence. Once in the driveway of his home, Rupert turned off the ignition of the car and looked around to make sure no nosy neighbors were peeking out their windows just this instant. With the coast cleared, he opened the glove box with a key and pulled out a weathered file folder. In it were dozens and dozens of newspaper clippings featuring strange deaths or animal attacks, along with medical reports he had brided the local morgue for. His wife's had been the oldest until recently.

His heart tightened in his throat when he said the photographs of her mangled body. Guts spilled out, legs and arms slashed and shredded. The doctor from the morgue had managed to confirm that she had died fighting, and that she had still been alive as the monsters were devouring her innards. The pain she had suffered haunted Rupert everyday, and with it he carried the promise he had made to her ashes a decade ago: he was going to found out what did this and kill every single one of them.

A sudden tiredness spread through his body, forcing the man to place the file back in the glove box and stagger out of his car. The coffee was wearing off and the greasy food was making him sleepy. He managed to make it to his bed in one piece while locking all the doors. He had all day to sleep and Ms Hundington wasn't schedule for extra cleaning time today. The sheriff stripped naked and fell in his bed, not even bothering covering himself with the blanket, and sleep immediately claimed him into a torrent of vivid dreams featuring wolf-like creatures and strange white cats.

 

[The Mood is Write]

Caught by surprise, Elizabeth simply remained very still when the man entered the room, and remained so until she heard his breathing shift, and she finally dared to turn and look.

He was naked. She took an appreciative eyeful before she began to carefully, slowly, painfully slowly, put everything back in its proper place.

A cat left his room at a trot, tail forming an S-shape.

Moments later, she looked back in, eyes landing on the man's rear as those bright yellow orbs stared with feline intensity and interest.

No shame.

She simply sat and stared at his bottom until she calmed, and then she made her way to Amelia's room and burrowed underneath the blanket to curl up.

 

[Pahn]

The next few days proved rather uneventful, and a grisly hit-and-run accident along the nearest highway kept the sheriff busy. Rupert meant to go back in the woods to investigate some more, but every morning he got back from work exhausted, and he'd wake up barely in time to run to go get Amelia at school. The girl hadn't mentioned the wolves anymore, but she did report back a few rumors from school that caught his interest.

Because he'd been out in the woods investigating in the middle of the night, he had failed to notice blood traces along the cars closest to the wooded area. Amelia told him they claimed the stains looked like handprints, but no one had bothered reporting to the police. No bodies had been found and no one had been in at the ER for any serious wounds. Sometimes he wondered what the townspeople of Graunlow had between their ears...

Soon the weekend was there, and Amelia was off to one of her friends to study. He wouldn't have allowed a sleepover in the middle of exam time, but the stress from the week had taken its toll on the girl and he could tell. A night away from the house would probably make her feel a bit less nervous about sleeping in her own room.

Having to keep the same sleep schedule, Rupert was up at sunset and after a call with an embarrassed Amelia, he ate a quick and simple sandwich before grabbing his hunting rifle, brown leather jacket, and a hunting knife. Before he left the house, he filled a large travelling coffee mug with what was left in the carafe. He thought about bringing a snack, but he figured he'd go for an early breakfast at Carter's Corner.

Even though the wooded area was at a walking distance, Rupert took his truck there. Walking around with a rifle and a knife at his belt at night didn't seem to be a great idea, even though he was the sheriff. His steel-capped boots were quiet as he walked through the trees, dead leaves crushing silently under his weight. The air smelled thick and humid, as though it was about to rain, but the forecast was clear skies for the next days. Autumn was clearly settled in, and with it the sheriff hoped the vicious wolves would stay the fuck out of his town.

 

[The Mood is Write]

The peaceful days weren't bad, but poor Amelia was so stressed... She wasn't surprised when the girl went to spend the night at a friend's, and was pleased Rupert allowed it. Still, she slipped a good luck charm into the girl's bags when nobody was looking—a few sparrow feathers.

Sparrows would always take the lost home, and even guided the dead to peace. Thus, found feathers were the ideal lucky charm, though a bit of beryl and other charms didn't hurt either. Beryl always seemed to Elizabeth like it was too powerful a charm for the mundane, though—so she wore only gifted beryl stones.

That aside, Rupert didn't go out into the woods as much, but the one time he did, of course, the ONE TIME, she was off her game. She nearly hit the door when he left, and it clicked. She had to wait until he was out of sight to follow, and then he was so far ahead...

She scrambled after him, nearly tripping down the porch, before she began to run more quietly after him.

Thankfully, her feet didn't betray her, but the scent of meat, some of it fresh, caught her nose, and her stomach's song rang loud in the silent trees.

She stopped mid-step and stared at Rupert, eyes wide as she anticipated being caught in that moment.