Jamie ~ 7

 Jamie ~ 7  Midnight strikes

 By Len Morgan

That night, three groups went out foraging, but only one returned.  The following night he accompanied one group, there were five in the party, so Jamie stood back as a lookout.  He watched as they passed a large upholstered armchair midway across the room.  A shadow extended from the chair briefly then was gone, and there were only four in the party.  The shadow returned, Jamie blinked and only three remained.

“Back!” he yelled.  They turned and ran, but the shadow struck a third time, and only two remained.  It struck again instantly and again so fast it was a blur Jamie couldn’t believe what he'd witnessed.

  Catching sight of an enormous black paw raking towards him, he turned to flee.  He felt a stabbing pain in his tail.  He frantically gripped the lip of his hole and hauled himself in; leaving a blood trail in his wake.

A younger, leaner, fitter cat the humans called ‘Midnight’ had arrived.  They were already learning what that meant.  Several days later, Fuzzy Whiskers went out through the cat flap and never returned, while ‘Midnight’ licked her lips in expectation of many more mousey morsels.

Midnight was not particularly evil, she was so incredibly swift, an instinctive hunter who loved to kill.  Oh, it was nothing personal of course, she was quite indiscriminate.  Just as happy killing birds in the garden, mice in the house, or any living thing that crossed her path.  She met her match with a pack of three Chihuahua’s next door at No. 15, she would give them a wide birth in the future.  For most of the day, she would sleep motionless in that old upholstered chair.  Her luminous yellow slits of eyes, lazy and unfocussed, totally disarming.  She always kept her glossy black pelt meticulously clean, with every hair in place.  She would see an unsuspecting movement in the corner of her eye, and she would act instantly. 

Midnight! The bringer of death had in one week decimated their population.  She had produced more mouse corpses than both the electric fence, gas, poison, and old FW, combined.  So the mice took to traveling through the cavity walls, making their appearance close to their food source.  Even so, the unwary continued to fall prey to the Black Assassin.  There she sits, meticulously preening herself with a silly grin on her face.  Confident in the knowledge that, dogs withstanding, there was nothing that could match her speed or vision, day or night!

“Something must be don’t!”  Grumbled the disgruntled and discontented surviving members of the group. 

“Jamie is our leader.  It’s time he did something about Midnight.”

“But even if he gets rid of her tomorrow, there will be a younger replacement within days.” Kibbie reasoned.

“But, something has to be done…” 

Jamie was at a loss. He didn’t have a clue what they could do about Midnight.  She roamed the house physically or with her sharp senses day and night, her toll on the mouse population was unremitting.  In her short time at 17 Cedarwood the mouse population was reduced by a third.  Many of his own family had gone missing, they had fallen foul of the c-a-t.  He could scarcely bring himself to think of her for fear of invoking her presence.

The humans were the key, they could get rid of her, as they had Fuzzy Whiskers.  He felt anger thinking of all the beautiful young mice, whose short lives were ended prematurely because…

“That animal!” 

There was nothing the mice could do to stop Midnight.  But there must be a way…  Maybe something that directly affected them would bring about her demise; maybe something that affected their own young one…

.-...-.

“I’m sorry Sean, that cat is far too eager to kill, indiscriminately.  We had the house sanitised a year ago, and there is no evidence of re-infestation.  Yet she continues to spread multiple dead things on the back doormat, mice, frogs, birds.  It’s so upsetting for Malissa, she is very impressionable and she’s afraid to come into the kitchen until I first check it for dead things.”

“But, it’s a cats nature, they are hunters June, that’s why we got her in the first place.  To keep down the rodent population.”

(To be continued)

Copyright Len Morgan