178 Cats

 

In the previous story, the killer was a stalker but in this story, the killer was a human cat. What kind of person was this killer? In the previous story, he was silent and quiet. But in this story, he had a very unusual hobby, which was to mimic cats. But at the same time, the killer had talked to the girl. Psychologically speaking, these were two very different killers, one dark and shadowy, the other feral and wild. After all, mimicking a cat to draw the attention of a girl was the complete opposite of a shadowy, silent stalker.

So… could there be two killers?

From overall analysis, there were two questionable parts about this story. One, why was there such a constant stream of stray cats walking through the neighbourhood daily? Two, what was inside the hole in the wall?

Why did the cats and the killer go through it? This killer’s action was so strange, it couldn’t be logically explained. I pulled my hair and closed my eyes to think.

Suddenly Captain Zhao said, “Based on the killer’s story-telling style, something must have happened on the night before her parents disappeared. From my personal experience, I believe the parents were killed the night before.” Captain Zhao said seriously and I followed his line of thought.

“The crying and screaming!” Suddenly it hit me. I tapped my head and said, “Captain Zhao, you’re absolutely right. From the story, the tenants at this building have gotten used to the cats fighting at night. But the girl did say that on the night before, she heard cats meowing underneath the crying and screaming. She might have been acclimated to think that the sounds she heard were sounds of cats, even though they might not be.”

Xiao Liu frowned. “You mean someone infiltrated into the girl’s home and killed her parents? The crying and screaming came from her parents?”

I nodded.

Xiao Liu shook his head. “But normally when a person is attacked, other than to scream for help, they would demand an explanation from the attacker. Human language won’t sound like cats screaming.”

I pressed my finger on my lips. Xiao Liu was not wrong.

“What if the sound was to cover up the sound of the killer moving bodies?” Captain Zhao tapped on the table. “The shadow the girl saw on her curtain of her balcony was the killer sneaking into the house. He infiltrated into the parents’ bedroom to kill them. And the sounds of the cats were to cover up his tracks when he removed the bodies.”

Guan Zhenglin questioned, “But what would be his murder method? If there was blood, people would discover it the next day. Plus how did he move the bodies? If he used a car, the tenants at the old building would have heard it. Could he have used a tricycle?”

I was reminded of a perfect way to remove the bodies. It involved a place the adults would never check. I said, “That hole.”

“Hmm?” Guan Zhenglin turned to me.

I said confidently, “Since that hole can fit both the killer and a group of cats, I’m sure it can fit two dead bodies.”

“It’s still pointless for us to discuss these things.” Gu Chen sighed, “When we don’t even know the setting of the story!” Gu Chen made everyone silent. He was right. We might have narrowed down the location to city west but city west was still huge.

“I’m afraid.” Captain Zhao told us, “All we can do now is wait.”

And we waited until the afternoon of the next day.

We were finally standing on the street described by the killer. I lifted my head to look at the old building which was only 3 storeys tall, it indeed had an open style balcony. The building was made from red brick but most of the bricks had fallen. Even I could have climbed up the wall using the natural footholds on the bricks.

On the nearby wall, there was also a hole. The hole was large enough to fit a skinny adult male. With some elbow grease, it was not impossible to shove two dead bodies through.

“Guard this hole!” Captain Zhao told the officers. “We’ll go upstairs to look.” This kind of old building had one tenant on each floor. When we walked into the building, we knew the first floor was abandoned. The corridor was filled with so much trash that the door was blocked. I crossed my finger across the door and came off with a heavy layer of dust.

We walked up the stairs and headed to the 3rd floor.

The door was left open. It was not locked. Gu Chen was nervous and he moved towards the door but Captain Zhao stopped him. “Don’t rush it. I believe the killer has already moved on.” Everyone’s faces were dark. Captain Zhao sighed. “Even though none of us wish for this, I don’t hear the sound of anyone living here. We might be one step too late.” Then Captain Zhao put on gloves and entered the room. We followed. The house was empty.

A large piano was placed in the living room. The piano was quite expensive. It was quite unusual for a tenant staying at a place like this to own a piano. But other than the piano, there was nothing else worth noting. The furniture was all old and worn. No wonder the balcony was left open, there was nothing to steal.

Several certificates were pasted on the wall. Perhaps it was to show off the girl’s talent, or it was to cover up the cracked paint.

I walked through the living room and the bedroom to reach the balcony. I stood there and looked down at the path below. It was too narrow to fit bicycles, much less a car. My eyes wandered involuntarily to the dark hole. It was hard to tell what was beyond it. The top of the space was shielded by a blue corrugated roof.

Based on the killer’s story, now would be the time when the group of stray cats crawled into the hole. With that in mind, I shouted, “Captain Zhao, Gu Chen and I will go to look at that hole. According to the time, the group of cats should be crawling through the hole now. I want to see if they’re still here or not.” I pulled Gu Chen and ran down the stairs.

A few officers stayed guard at the hole. I asked, “Did any cats come through?”

One of them shook his head. “No, but we did hear cats meowing.”

I looked at this narrow hole. This proved again the hypothesis that the killer must be smaller than an average male. A muscle man like Gu Chen wouldn’t be able to fit through this hole. Therefore, the job was left to me.

“Get me a flashlight, I’m going in!” I removed my heavy winter coat and crawled into the hole in my inner clothes. Originally the hole still had lights coming from outside but when my body blocked off the mouth, the hole was completely dark. I used my teeth to twist open the flashlight. I then realized I was inside a passage about 20 cm tall. Several metres ahead of me was a fork.

I couldn’t even stand upright or even half squat. I placed my palms on the ground and crawled like a cat. All of a sudden, the killer’s behavior made sense to me. A feline crawl was the most efficient way to move in this space.

I did hear cats down the distance, it was past the fork. I crawled my way further in, dangling the flashlight in my mouth. When I was close to the fork, I heard a sudden scream. And then it was followed by this crescendo of horrible wailing. Like the story said, it did sound like screaming and babies crying.

Inside the narrow tunnel, the sounds overlapped together to form an echo. Even though I knew they were cats, I couldn’t stop the goosebumps. It sounded like a horde of ghosts.

I steadied myself and powered on. As I turned the corner, the most terrifying image greeted me. Endless pair of green eyes looked at me. And the wailing stopped at once, there was nothing but silence. I knew the eyes belonged to cats but it was still quite unsettling.

With my breaths, the flashlight bobbed up and down. The light refracted in the cats’ eyes. I eventually managed to make out a small girl sitting not far away from me. She was draped with cats. She was naked. Her eyes were wide open with black pupils.

At that moment, a black cat jumped onto her head. And her head rolled down like a ball towards me. The cats jumped at it like it was a toy. In the shock, my flashlight fell and everything dropped into darkness. I couldn’t see anything but I could feel many cats jumping and running over me.

At that moment, a voice that clearly did not belong to cats sounded beside my ears.

“He he.” It was a person chuckling.