Fidelman's Felines

Harvey stood just outside the gates of Mrs. Fidelman’s mansion, looking in as a soft fall breeze tugged at his jacket. Up ahead her monstrous house stood like some giant from Biblical times. Off in the distance an old oak tree groaned under its own weight. The colored leaves of the season rustled around his feet. It was a perfect night for an invasion.
With one last glance at the house, Harvey produced from his jackets pocket a jet-black ski mask. With his outfit, Harvey could easily blend into the darkest of shadows. He placed a gloved hand on the gate.
An amateur may believe the gate was locked, and would try to scale the cast iron wall. Harvey knew better. He had casually stuck around the outside of the place, just observing. The tips of these barriers had shafts ending in rusty razor points, much like arrowheads. One mess-up going over and he would be skewered like a pig.
The gate opened with protests from its rusty hinges. There was no need to worry about someone over hearing. The gate was quite a ways away from the house up ahead, with several hundred feet separating it from the other houses. Fidelman liked her privacy. And so did Harvey.
Whilst on his scouting of the old ladies house, Harvey had observed only one person ever entering or leaving the place. Local school children avoided the area like a plague (and there were quite a few, with a school just a block or two around the corner. Jehovah Witnesses turned the other way on their recruiting runs; not one paperboy threw a single paper over that rickety gate.
The only living thing to set foot on the old stone path was a women in her mid forties. She had graying, curly, mousy brown hair and matching brown eyes. The lady had to be only around 5’3” tall. Every Friday of every week, rain or shine, the lady would walk up that path with a brown paper bag. Harvey assumed these were groceries of some kind; after all, a person’s gotta eat.
It was around this time that he saw Fidelman. She never went outside, from what he could tell. The instant her outside runner knocked on the old doorknocker, she’d open the door. Harvey had gotten a momentary kick out of this, thinking she sat around all day, waiting for these deliveries. But this sense was replaced almost immediately by tingling up his spine and instinctual fright. There was something very creep about that. Yet he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.
As he watched from his inconspicuous position in a car across the street, he spotted her during one of these deliveries. She was your standard elderly woman, with silvery gray hair and wrinkles abound. Yet her posture and obvious attitude suggested otherwise; she appeared to be one whom was young at heart. Even through his slightly blurry binoculars, Harvey could make out sharp and aged green eyes.
The inside of the courtyard was as expected, to say the least. Even in the gloom he could make out that not a single shear blade had touched the growth in ages. Creeping ivy over ran most of the inner fences, and sent its snake-like tendrils up the sides of the house. Here and there stood statues, mostly of angels and gargoyles. These appeared to be as old as the house itself, and in the same state of disrepair.
Harvey made his way up the path, silent as a cat on the hunt. He moved at a brisk pace and avoided the direct line of sight from the windows. This time around, Harvey was well alert. Much different form his last experience.
This operation was Harvey’s last chance in his Organization; if he didn’t make it, he’d have to be let go. And lets just say when one got fired from his line of work, they usually got let out with a bang.
Who knew that a single, middle-aged woman would have around a loaded shotgun? Certainly not Harvey, who went to ice her for late payments. But he sure did find out when he got a chest full of birdshot. Unfortunately for her after that, she had to die a slow and painful death. He was still pulling out those little suckers.
Considering the Boss had taken a liking to Harvey early on, he’d given him a second chance. This old lady apparently owned many valuable paintings and sculptures, along with other fine goods. Items his Organization could sell, to make up the money he lost.
So, the plan was for Harvey to break in, wack Fidelman, and prepare the goods. Then other affiliates of his would come and pick them up, dressed up as Good Will workers. Easy as a bullet through flesh. Literally. The only problem so far was his companion’s truck had broken down, forcing them to be late by a day. Harvey got this info by way of an email from his Blackberry; Harvey was quick to respond to them in the same medium, promising certain unmentionable acts commited to them and their mothers. But nonetheless, he’d have to wait a day.
No big deal, though. A chance to kick up his feet and enjoy life. Harvey’s mind filled with thoughts of sitting back and relaxing, perhaps cracking open the old ladies liquor cabinet (if she had one). With the suddenness of a fast moving storm, he was brought back to reality. Something had moved off to his right. It was bigger and louder than anything the wind could concoct, yet was too small to be a person. With one swift motion, he spun in the direction of the movement, his hand gripping the holstered gun at his side.
For what wouldn’t be the only time that night, Harvey’s first instinct was to scream. Across the narrow stone path Harvey had been following sat one of the nastiest gargoyles he’d ever seen. It was as if Lucifer himself cast it from the brim stone of Hell. But what had really bothered Harvey was the cat sitting on the gargoyles shoulder. It was a tabby, fairly large, with gray and white coloring. The dim light cast by the full moon made its neon yellow eyes glow faintly. Harvey could tell by the way its back muscles were moving the feline was swaying its tail. Half of its body was hidden in the shadow cast by the gargoyles head.
He got the distinct feeling of being watched by this cat. Not like any other cat generally would, in the airy way mostly attributed to their species; a form of intelligence sat nuzzled underneath the surface. Besides its tail, no other muscle or bone in its body moved. The cat was just as much of a statue as the perch it was sitting on.
“Don’t be stupid, it’s just a cat,” said Harvey to nothing, shocked by the tone of fear in his voice. For a second he actually considered drawing his gun and blasting this devil creature. But, of course, that could jeopardize the whole mission. That would make him a ghost himself.
Tearing his eyes away, Harvey continued on the dark stone path. Several times he was tempted to turn around and look; but he already knew that the cat would be there. Waiting. Waiting for an opportunity to strike; but at what, he was unsure.
Harvey only looked back once he reached the wooden porch sitting on the front of the house. The cat was gone, with just a lonely gargoyle in its place, dimly reflecting the bright moon light.
Shaking his head to clear such primeval notions as ghosts and ghouls from his mind, the trained part of his brain kicked in. With swiftness he removed the gun from his side. It was a 9mm Glock pistol, sleek and black. A silencer stood out from the front of it like an erection. This particular weapon was Harvey’s most cherished possession.
With expert knowledge and hands, he suppressed the magazine release button. The mag slid out and he caught it, quickly yet closely inspecting the rounds. They shined a soft golden color in the dim moonlight. They were fine, and he put it back. Next came the checking of the action. Harvey pulled back the slide on the top of the gun, looking into the barrel and making sure a fresh round found it’s way home. Not a spec of dirt could be seen. With the flick of the safety switch to “fire”, he was good to go.
For a normal person, the ascension of the rickety old steps would have alerted the whole neighborhood of their presence. Yet Harvey scaled them quietly and effortlessly, traveling along the sides. Closer inspection of the porch revieled old and peeling paint, which must have originally been a dark royal blue. From the windows looking out on the large porch, it appeared to be as dark inside as it was out.
Harvey crept to the door, standing just beside it. His gloved hand closed around the door handle, and twisted. Half of him suspected it to be locked. But, just like the old gate out front, this entrance way was unlocked. The door slowly slid open, for what must have been the millionth time in this houses history.
He stepped inside.

While Harvey was entering the depths of the Fidelman mansion, a truck was rolling down a highway miles away. Two people sat in the cab of this truck; one could say they were men, if one wanted to refer to beasts as men. The driver, was older than his companion. He wore a New England Patriots hat and had sharp features, achieved mostly by smoking three packs of unfiltered Camel cigarettes every day. His much greener companion had a baby face, and didn’t look a day over nineteen. A roach clip with a smoldering joint on the end was being passed between the two.
“Nice night out,” said the drivers companion, taking a cautious drag from the roach. He coughed quietly. It was said not to create conversation, but as to break the tense silence.
“Yeah, if you’ve got fur,” replied the driver with a shake of his head, accepting the roach.
With that, the two pressed on. The passenger rested his head against the window, giving up on conversation between the two and looked in the side mirror. Air brushed along the side of the van was the words “Goodwill”, with the company colors and logo. To match it the two were dressed in Goodwill uniforms, looking like a normal pair of workers. Yet there was nothing normal about the fact they hadn’t even stepped foot in a Goodwill building in their lives; or the fact that the license plate on the back of the truck was a genuine fake.
Like a bird migrating south for the winter, the tense silence returned to the cab. The passenger rocked his leg subconsciously. This was his first job, and he knew all too well what would happen if someone got too nosey about what they were doing along the way.
“How ‘bout some tunes, eh?” said the passenger, taking one last puff on the joint before throwing the butt out the window.
So he bent over in his seat to the trucks radio, flipping it on. The driver made no move to stop him. Being a fairly tall person, the passenger’s eyes came up level with the dashboard panel. So when the tabby cat ran out in front of the truck, he got a front row view.
He thought – no, he knew – that the driver of the truck would speed up and hit the little creature. But instead he felt the whole truck lurch to the left, making the both of them lurch forward and to the side. Time seemed to slow down to a painful craw. The kid was vaguely aware of the driver next to him screaming. For a second they seemed to be suspended in air. Then nothing but a loud bang.
When a vehicle traveling at sixty miles an hour crashes into a tree, it’s not pretty. Any crime scene investigator can tell you that. Along the side of the highway was a small dip, which the two flew over, only to be entwined in a thick tree. Even though the lights were flicking off on the front of the van, the radio seemed to be blaring an Audioslave song, “I am the Highway”.
The passenger rolled his head slowly around; his head was spinning and there was a faint ringing sound in his ears. He could feel thick streams of blood flowing down his face, chest, and the sides of his head. Looking over with one eye (the other was out of order), he was surprised to see his companion wasn’t sitting next to him anymore.
Unknown to him, the driver of the truck was lying not too far from where the truck had come to a halt. Seeing as the driver felt seatbelts were for pushovers, his flight through the windshield was unhindered. The driver flew several feet in the air at breakneck speeds. Much like the truck, a very thick tree stopped his flight. Later, investigators would have to scrape most of what was left of his head off of that tree.
The passenger, hanging onto consciousness like a life preserver in choppy waters, managed to get his door open. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the vision of a breeched gas tank exploding flashed before his eyes. So with all the strength he could must, the passenger began the painstaking task of climbing up that dugout.
It was as if he were climbing Mount Everest. With his huge lacerations caused by the flying glass from the windshield, every bit of dirt that touched them stung. Grunts of agony escaped his mouth as he finally reached the top. One particularly large piece of glass had lodged itself in between his ribs, and had pierced his lung.
He lay on the side of the road, his head tilted to the side. His breath came in thick, hoarse gasps, as he tried to get more air in himself than was possible at the moment. Already a pool of fresh blood was gather under his mangled body. Just before passing out and eventually dying hours later all by himself, his non-injured eye caught a glimpse of the cat. It was sitting in front of him, staring, as if evaluating him. Its eyes seemed to glow bright yellow, and with the gray on its body, the feline looked like a floating mirage against the dark pavement.
Like a gust of wind, the cat turned around and ran back into the woods.

While the two fake Goodwill workers were meeting up with a particular tabby, Harvey had entered the house. Upon entering, he couldn’t see a foot in front of his face; the darkness enveloped him as if he were in a coffin. From a pocket on the inside of his jacket he produced a flashlight, which he shown in front of him, his other hand resting on top to steady his gun.
The place was in particularly good shape. Victorian era furniture and style dominated the design of the place. The front doorway he had just entered led into a large, circular room. Doorways opened up at various points, with some closed and others open. He could have heard the drop of a pin. As Harvey crept quietly towards the large, winding staircase, his eyes and ears were keen to any movement. He was expecting to see another cat, but thankfully, none showed up.
Up on the second floor, a sliver of light cut through the darkness. It was there that he figured his target would be. His descent was just like his recent one outside; quick and silent. Once again he kept to the edge of the stairs. Only once did one of the boards creak. Harvey stopped, gun held high, poised to fire if anything happened. Nothing did.
Harvey stood parallel with the door, his head tilted to listen. He picked up the faint noises of a fire and a page in a book turning. She was definitely in there. Harvey clicked off his flashlight and put it back where he had gotten it, laying both of his hands on his pistol.
The door opened to the inside. As Harvey turned and kicked the door open, the sound of it reverberated throughout the entire mansion. He took a couple of steps inside, his eyes scanning the room rapidly. It was sparsely furnished. Long and tall bookcases lined three of the walls, crammed full of books. As the only light in the room was from the fire, he couldn’t tell any of the titles of the books. The fireplace itself was quite large and warm, with a happy fire crackling in its midst. Off in the corner sat half a dozen of those brown paper bags, filled to the brim with books. Next to the fireplace was a large chair, made of a fine white material. And in that chair sat Fidelman.
She looked even more frail and old sitting there than she had when he observed her answering the door. A large, hardcover book sat open in her lap. She was dressed in a fluffy royal blue robe, which made her form seem even more small and frail. Right next to her, sitting on the arm of the chair, sat a cat. However, this one wasn’t a tabby; it was orange and white, with deep blue eyes. Much like the old woman, it was a small and frail looking female.
A pair of reading glasses sat on the bridge of her nose, and she took them off, folding them. Those sharp green eyes pierced into him, past his physical being and into his inner soul.
“It took you long enough to get here, my dear Harvey,” said the old woman; her last words.
Firing more out of fear than anything else, Harvey squeezed the trigger. It jumped with only a soft pinging sound, as the spent cartridge made slow arcs in the air as it fell to the floor. A small trail of smoke lazily trailed out of the barrel of the gun. Instantly, a silver dollar sized hole appeared in the middle of her forehead. Her eyes rolled back into her skull, and a single droplet of blood ran down in between her eyes.
Harvey had already begun to sweat profusely, and he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. This should have been nothing for him; he’d killed many people before, old and young. Yet this act he had just committed already began to weigh heavily on his heart. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for this job; perhaps the failure of his last mission still affected his actions.
All the while, the cat sitting on the arm of the chair hadn’t even blinked. It had the same way of touching you without contact as the tabby had. Harvey held his gun slightly bent towards the floor, his eyes pinned on the cat. She jumped from the chair onto the floor without so much as a squeak. She let out a quick hiss, her ears pealed back. Harvey jumped and raised his weapon, firing.
The cat let out a small death-meow before passing on, blood already matting the fur around it’s entry wound. Not taking his eyes off of the recently slain feline, he holstered his weapon and set about dragging Fidelman’s body away.

It had taken him about twenty minutes to accomplish. She was much heavier than expected; it was as if her soul weighed as much as a semi. He took her downstairs and put the body next to the door leading outside. The movers, whenever they got there (he hadn’t seen any sign of them yet, and their phones must have been off or on silent because they hadn’t answered his own calls) would take her body back with them to be disposed of. He hadn’t touched the cat.
Resting back after a long and stressful day, Harvey lay in the old woman’s bed. He got the feeling that this was somewhat morbid, but didn’t care; it was soft, comfortable and warm. He had stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, leaving his clothes and gun on the nightstand next to him.
The flavor of the room was much like the rest of the house. Old wooden furniture, such as a roll top desk, dresser and clothes chest populated the room. A lamp sat on the nightstand which illuminated Harvey’s right side. The bed he sat on was a canopy, large with tall beams on each corner.
Lazily, Harvey closed the book he was glancing through. He had found it while going through Fidelman’s nightstand; it was a thick, old hardcover book by the title of “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Admiring the cover, he smiled and put it back down on the nightstand. Along with the book he found a golden bracelet, studded with diamonds, and had pocketed it. Just a tip for his services; they wouldn’t miss it.
Sleep came very easy that day for Harvey. The second his head hit that pillow, he seemed to instantly fall asleep.

A dark room very dark nothing to see not a foot in front of your nose. Ground is hard like concrete and it is cold oh so cold wish I had brought a jacket who knew it would be so cold? Sudden noise to the left, then right, all around. Spin spin spin around but nothing is there can’t see anything. Noise is all around, the sound of millions of padding feet. Oh this is a bad dream bad dream just wake up nothing can hurt you.
Then a voice.
It is soft yet harsh oh god what have I done this is so bad. Sudden blinding flash of light then everything is visible pupils dilating painfully. Nothing for eternity in all directions just empty except for them. They are everywhere now all around. Hundreds and hundreds of cats I used to like cats somewhat but not so much anymore this is too scary. All their eyes are glowing green blue yellow and even red.
They part and I jump though I can’t see my body I know that I just peed my pants oh god please make it stop this is too much I am sorry.
“You’ve been very bad today, Mr. Harvey,” says a soft voice oh so soft if not for the moment may even be somewhat sexy.
A woman walks towards me but she is different than what anyone has ever seen. She looks kinda like that old Fidelman just younger much much younger. Her face is like a cat and she even had fur oh it is nice color like tat tabby I saw outside. She is naked oh my gosh this is all so weird.
“No Harvey, this is not weird, this is justice.”
She can read my mind oh my god what if she can read my thoughts and memories? And why is her voice echoing? Now she is walking towards me I wanna run but can’t stop just stop I want my mommy I want this to end.
The cat-woman leans in and kisses me. Her lips are so soft yet this is all terrifying I want to scream but vocal chords are frozen.
“Goodbye, Harvey.”

Harvey awoke with a start, sitting strait up in bed. Large beads of sweat formed on his forehead, chest and arms. He gasped for air like a fish out of its bow, his chest heaving. When he swallowed his throat was sore; this meant he was probably screaming at some point. With a dazed look, Harvey looked around the room.
And this time around, Harvey really did scream.
Sitting across the room on top of the handmade, wooden dresser sat another cat. This one was obviously a Siamese; its fine grey coat shimmered in the moonlight. The same light reflected off of its eyes, which lit them up like Christmas bulbs. The tip of its tail twitched slowly up and down, as if waiting for something. Now, it could have been just stress or his own overactive imagination, but this new cat seemed to smile a wink at him.
Screaming his lungs out in sounds instead of words, Harvey leaped from his bed. Not bothering to put his clothes on, he ran to the door (but not before pulling his gun from it’s holster; he still had at least some logical thought left in him). On the way, without looking back, Harvey turned his arm back a fired some pot shots at the cat. He turned the corner and ran from the room. But if he had looked back, Harvey would have seen all his shots had missed, and the cat still sat there, smiling and waving its tail in the faint moonlight.
When he reached the long, winding stairs, Harvey had stopped screaming. Although he was scared out of his mind, sense and reason were ebbing their way back to his consciousness. With a hand on the railing he descended the stairs at high speeds, skipping them two or three at a time. When he reached the main floor, Harvey was soon reminded of the slick wooden floors that covered most of the house, and he slipped backward.
His head hit lightly on the ground when he fell; not hard enough to kill, but just enough for him to see stars. He shook his head and shakily stood up, having almost completely convinced himself in that instant this was all nonsense. But when he stood and his eyes rested on the entrance, his mind changed once again.
Much like his now-forgotten dream, a lady stood up in front of him. Except this time she was as she had been when Harvey had killed her. That fluffy blue robe managed to stay closed, yet it was now forever ruined by the thick amounts of dried blood coated it. A hole the size of a silver dollar stood out on her forehead; in the gloomy light, he couldn’t quite make out the interior of it, but that was perfectly fine by him. Those fiery green eyes gazed upon him, and that wrinkled face smiled broadly.
Harvey was too scared to scream. The thought of running away from all this crossed his mind several times, but his legs seemed to be nailed to where they were. The warm feeling of fresh urine trickled down his leg, but he didn’t notice. Just as he was about to raise his gun and fire at the old lady zombie, sharp a piecing pain emitted from his neck.
In the blink of an eye, the old woman had changed into the “tabby” cat he had witnessed the night before. It jumped up from where it stood onto the front of Harvey; he could feel its razor sharp claws dig into his flesh. With his chock, he didn’t have enough sense to bring his arms up and try to tear this cat away before it accomplished what was intended. The feline reared back, mouth open, and sank its teeth into his neck; his jugular was punctured immediately.
As fresh blood started to pout out of him, the tabby let go and jumped down, standing back. Wet blood stuck to the it’s chin. Harvey made a pitiful choking sound and trembled on his feet, clutching at his neck. Other cats had join the festivities; there were dozens of them, forming a tight circle around Harvey. When he fell, they all pounced on him.
The last thing he ever remember was the look on that old ladies face, before they tore his own off.