Short Story: The Pawing Cat

A British Pub Horror

Beer and laughter at the Pawing Cat. A close and calm summer night outside, the sky a deep oceanic blue, ageing into the open starry night. The constellations of antiquity gradually arrive from the depths to spectate with twinkling eyes this little pub on that little lane. Inside, great hues of glowing ambers and greens bounce over the walls; outside, the night descends from the firmament and fills the streets and the lanes, the alleys and the corners, the gardens and the spaces between the leaves and marauds the cobbled roads up to the windows. Most of the windows on this lane are known by the night and held to its chest, but the Pawing Cat resists with a vicious and marvellous glow. The glasses clatter often in great cheers, games are won and lost with sporting spirit and guffawing, and the small barman with his long fingers moves nimbly between the party. As the night intensifies the crowd wittles away and seeps out into the long and lonely night. Eventually six remain.

The six sat along the bar and recounted tall nothings. They bickered and cajoled, bumped and rose and sat, and the barman attended noiselessly between, lending and retrieving his long slender fingers. Number Six became offended by Two, rose incredulously from his stool and dealt a tirade defending his honour. Donning his cap he stormed to the door, shaking furiously, muttering at the floor and almost bumped awkwardly a new visitor to the dwindling place. Six began to apologise, spluttering with embarrassed shock. The visitor smiled with cool mercy, and unblinkingly held the door open for the dumbstruck Six, who, with a face of peculiar consternation, stared back in pale worry at the new man, and leaving, staggering, was swallowed by the total night. The Visitor closed the door and turned towards the bar, momentarily checking back beyond the door window before heading towards the other men. The Barman replaced a rag he had been using to dry glasses with his tentacular fingers, and started toward the visitor.
“I’m sorry sir, we’re closing and the men are in the way of finishing their drinks.” he intimated expertly. Unperturbed, the Visitor continued his stride and asked the Barman very softly if he could whisper something to him. Naturally, the Barman hesitated, but only ever so slightly, and assented to the strange request. While the newman whispered in a close huddle to the dexterous barman, the seated five men spectated and murmured.

This Visitor had rings of oily hues on each finger, kept a long braided beard that reached his navel in seven tight strands, and expressed himself with ferocious, angular eyebrows which warred away from his brow as the words came silently out. He was small, with slight, bandy legs and a fit, tense torso. After moments of imperceptible speech, they desisted and the Visitor came to take Six’s place, the Barman returning nonplussed to the bar. He gave a glass of black rum, which the bearded man received warmly, and returned to drying glasses with a furrow in his brow, kneading the rag with those slender digits. After a pause, conversation resumed tentatively at the bar. The Visitor listened attentively with his eyes, his caterpillar eyebrows dancing to the words of others. Four spoke.

“When we came back of course my wife had no idea that she’d forgotten it. We were three hours along the way when it occurred to me. I turned to her and told her that we’d left it there and we started arguing. We were about to —”

“I have a black deer outside,” the Visitor interrupted. “Would you like to see her?”
He sipped his rum.
“A black deer?” asked Four.
“Yes, a doe. Dark as shadow”
“You painted her black?” Four enquired further.
“No,” responded the Visitor, somewhat offended, “she was born black. I found her tonight beneath a tree, bleating for company.”
“Is she alive?” Asked One.
“Yes, she’s tied to the lamppost, waiting for me to finish. Would you like to see her?”

The men, with great trepidation, all save the Barman, edged outside to see the deer. She stood in dark beauty, clothed in smooth black, as though she had been submerged in the Styx. Her black eyes like marbles reflected the gentle streetlight, her black nose twitched in the cooling night air. Hooves of charcoal moved gently to and fro, and beauteous black fur spread smoothly over her fine body. The Visitor moved toward her.

“She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” claimed Five.
“She is fine.” The Visitor supposed. He opened his palm and put it before her, the deer came to, closing her eyes and turning her head to rest and sleep upon his hand. He ran a ringed finger along her snout, up to the bridge of her head. The men gawped at the control he had.
“You found her this evening?” Three asked, astounded.
“Yes, she was calling in the mow, beneath a moonlit oak. I called back to her and she came. I took the lead from my dog and she gave me her throat, and let me harness her. I’ve not named her, and tonight she shall remain nameless.”
“Where is your dog?”
“Roaming somewhere… he’ll be along.”

The men watched the dormant doe, sleeping standing in total black upon the open palm of that bizarre visitor. Five stepped towards her, entranced by her splendour, and the deer woke in a flash of fury, leapt from the hand of the visitor as if to bite the reaching hand of Five, barking and snarling and baring black incisors from a reared, curling lip. Five fell backwards into the startled group. The Visitor watched for a moment, unreactive, then eventually saying “desist, sleep girl.” And at his command the deer drew back, curled into a gorgeous ball of black fur and slept on the floor. The Visitor smiled at the men.
“Come, let her rest. We must to finish our drinks.”

Inside the Barman wiped down sticky wooden tables. The men came in clamouring, followed some moments after by the Visitor.
“How was it?” the Barman asked.
“Quite a pet.” Two summarised.
“She is no pet,” the Visitor replied vacantly.
Sitting once more at the bar, the men continued to ask questions about the deer.
“Can she come inside?” asked One.
“Absolutely not,” responded the Visitor and Barman same.
“What do you intend to do with her?”
“She is not mine with whom to intend. Why yes I have her harnessed there, but she is no more mine than she is yours. If you have an intention, you may take her.”
“You would give her to me?” Enquired Five
“She is not mine to give. You are welcome to take her with you.”

At this Five gathered his things, bade goodnight to all and exited, claiming he would gift the deer to his daughter. The Visitor asked for more rum, and paid for it in a collection of foreign coins. The Barman’s slender fingers picked them into the till nimbly.
“I cannot for the life of me understand how you could so readily surrender such a beautiful thing. God man, she was a work of art.” Two complained. The Barman shook his head derisively. The Visitor supped at his rum and thumbed the strands of his braided beard. Two continued.
“For goodness sake. That’s a once in a century occurrence, a black deer. Hell, many of the farmer’s grandaddies won’t even believe in the myth of it. And there one comes and puckers up to you, and you reject her! It’s scandalous!”
“I assure you my good man, I did no such thing. Anyway,” he carried on, unfazed by Two’s growing furore, “I have always had such a way with animals. Would you like to see my blackbird?”

He did not wait for a response. He walked toward the door and opened it. Twas not barely ajar when fluttered in a flash of black that swirled the room twice and settled eventually upon the bar, a fingerswidth from the rum of the Visitor. He smiled proudly and returned to his stool. He once more held out his hand and the bird hopped on, warbling sibilantly, proud and black. Its only colour was a vibrant orange beak, which darted to and fro with its bouncing head.

“My God man, you’re a sorcerer.” Four decried.
“No,” replied the Visitor and Barman both. The Barman spoke up.
“While I enjoy greatly the company of animals, we do not entertain them within the Pawing Cat. However familiar they may be.” The Barman made clear by his tone that some invisible limit in this parade had been trespassed. The Visitor smiled and walked once more to the door, the bird perched and singing melodically upon his shoulder. He brought the bird to his lips and whispered something strange, then opened the door and threw her out carelessly.

“I pray this is the end of your menagerie,” the Barman voiced concern.
“I have just a hound somewhere, and a black crocodile in your garden.” The men all laughed.
“Where on earth did you train such a bird?” Asked Three, as the Visitor returned to his seat.
“I trained her not, I’m afraid. She flew to me in Goetia, and has been with me ever since. She is waiting for me outside. I may send her to find the dog, he will be near at this hour.”
“The hour in fact is now a problem for me,” told One. “I must give you all a swift goodnight.”
“Goodnight,”
“Goodbye”
“Bye friend”
“Please don’t leave without seeing the crocodile”
“Bye all — What?”
“In the beer garden. I left him there before I came in.”
The Barman interjected, “enough. Leave without his distraction, the beer garden is closed.”
“Leave via the beer garden,” smiled the Visitor, “my crocodile shan’t bite you unless I tell him.”
“So you admit this crocodile is yours?” Gotchad two.
“Oh yes,” grinned the Visitor. “It took many a month to catch. I slept in the low waters of the old creeks far South. Sated myself on fish which swam toward my lips. The birds perched on my back as though I were a mound, and snakes coiled over my limbs chasing the frogs.

I did not see his scales break the water until the third week, halfway over the marsh, waves washing behind like a veil of water. Oft he basked upon an islet, with his great black mouth open, egrets picking at his black gums between his black teeth. I did not move, nor did he.

After some time, local children came to play by the water. Only then he pulled himself from moveless sleep. He opened his eyes and watched them, day after day. My plan presented itself kindly. When the children came frollicking near, I whistled for them. A high long note like this.” The men, in pale awe, watched as he gave out a crude, hollow whistle. “They searched for my little tune until it brought them upon my back. I looked towards the islet, he had made the plunge. When I could feel a pair of small feet upon my shoulders, I seized an ankle and pulled the boy under. I held on to that kicking lad until I could feel a great pregnant disturbance in the swamp.

His gargled screams were my cue, and I launched to plunge my thumbs into the dead eyes of the beast.” He proclaimed, “that is how the Black Crocodile became mine. You see, he could not bite me as the child was in his jaws.”

The men around were a collective expression of concern and fear. The Visitor gave them no time.
“I shall go and retrieve him.” The Visitor leapt from his stool and opened the garden door, ignoring the Barman’s pleas. Time passed in fear and in silence. The men regarded the open door and the darkness thereafter. Soon, an awful, heavy shuffling sounded from the black, and a grotesque, hideous head penetrated the doorway, oil-black, with black gums and teeth, long as a dog and tall as a chair. It rose and fell heavily with each thudding step. Its eyes were milky with blindness, and its throat rasped drily. Eventually, the massive body followed, standing upon which was the Visitor grinning fairly, as though he were an expert surfer. The enormous tail was long and black as the rest of the beast, and knocked closed the door behind it. The men lurched back in dreadful horror, and the Visitor hopped off with sinister glee. He volleyed a leg of the blind thing, and it collapsed in lethargic misery.

“Get it out!” demanded the barman in fearful umbrage.

“The time has now come, Barman. You have made your choice. Now the men must choose for themselves.” He jumped upon the bar, and the men were undecided as to whether they should avert their gaze from the reptile that breathed awfully less than a metre away.

“Look at me, gentleman. He will not bite you, unless I tell him, I do promise.” Having all reluctantly turned, the Visitor menaced above them:

“Tonight, like few others, chance and fortune have betrayed you. Misery has imbued me her callous arm as an arm, and the indifferent cosmos has surrendered you as mine, upon whom I have been delighted to visit,” here his tongue protruded serpentine, “and upon whom it shall be a delight to inflict.”

Four stood to make his escape, and the Visitor did not react. Scarpering, Four threw open the door, only to be launched back inside by a wolfhound, wet and haggard, drooling black spittle. Strange worry became helpless alarm, the men huddled together like a harangued shoal. The Barman turned his back to everything. The Blackbird flew back through the open door to sit upon the Visitor’s shoulder.
“You are a witch!” the men accused, “A demon.”

“No,” both the Barman and Visitor responded.

“Tell them what I am.”

The Barman turned cravenly, his lips quivering. The lights had gone out and the animals had come closer. Strange eyes appeared in the doorways and the windows; the slow crocodile had turned hungrily toward Two, his tail knocking over tables and chairs in a singular thrust. Trot trot, the black doe returned, her muzzle darkly wet. The wolfhound growled continuously, snapping at the men in deep, angry barks. The Barman recited old words.

“He who is but not a demon,
yet hath a demon’s power.
Communes with the beasts,
and visits late at hour.

Dances like a devil,
sings like a lark,
is a collector of evil,
and of this he makes his ark.

For the good no haven doth he offer,
Too, no mercy for the bad,
He will profess only to proffer,
Where souls are to be had.”

Petrified, the men slowly realised that their lives were over. A line of black animals were glimpsed leaving the bar, led by a bearded man with bandy legs. The night continued forever. Fear and silence at the Pawing Cat.