Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ The Cat's Meow ❯ To Kindle ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The Cat’s Meow
Chapter 3: To Kindle

Vash the Stampede? In this town? What an extraordinarily lovely surprise! I never intended him to be around, of course, but he makes a nice edition to my plan. Just a few modifications here and there and everything shall be perfect. I can now select my victims with reason to kill instead of randomly selecting them from a crowd!

Oh, they’ll all blame him. Perhaps his friends will be stoned to death in the streets. Or maybe they’ll all burn at the stake in the town square. What an interesting idea…I love it!

But perhaps I shouldn’t celebrate yet. No, something could go wrong. Despite my efforts, I am not the perfect murderer. I have flaws, many of them in fact, that put my capabilities to a minimum. But my determination is one that shouldn’t be questioned; with it as strong as it is, I am invincible.

There are other problems to face without thinking about myself, however. That bumbling Sheriff, for example. He’s always poking around, as his job permits him to, but he could somehow figure it all out. He’s clumsy and can overlook things at times, but he’s not as stupid as he looks. Then again, he doesn’t worry me the most. With that silly sleeping disorder, I could possibly resort to making him pass out in fright!

No, it is Vash himself that I worry most about. Now there is a smart man who can fire a gun and fire it well. I’ve heard all about July (who hasn’t?) but what the rumors say is practically all bull. No one died there. I know enough about Vash to figure out that he wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it was the last possible resort. But no one in May knows that, do they?

So, now the question is this: Who should I kill next in order for Vash to become a walking dead man? Well, it’s quite simple, isn’t it? After all, everyone’s thinking about it. Who yelled at Vash at the smithy? Who made his speech turn the wrong way? Who revealed the true identity of the man in red? And what do the townsfolk think he’s going to do about it?

I walk down the middle of the road. The moon is full and shines down, illuminating the town in a strangely eerie way. No one can see me; I’m like the phantom slipping silently through the opera house. A glance here, a pause there, just to make sure that no one is on the street or looking out of their windows.

What makes my lip curl is the racket going on next street over. Every three seconds you hear one of the two of them yell or whistle. They’re making this slightly difficult. But, no matter. My victim is too drunk to hear anything.

The stables are, for the most part, quiet. The only sounds flowing from it are the snorts and sighs of the sleeping horses and the splash of water as my victim dunks his head into it. I’m surprised he took Sheriff Tom’s advice. And yet…no, not rally. I can see several liquor bottles standing to the side of the water trough.

Splash!

He’s just pulled his head up out of the water. The haze that clouds his eyes is considerably irritating. I prefer it if my victims can properly see before they die. That way they can remember what their killer looked like as they make their ways to Heaven…or Hell. So they can whisper a soft, “It’s you!” as the blood pours from their throats.

He’s blinking at me. Perhaps he can see a little blur under the light of the lantern sitting on the ground. He rubs his hands over his eyes and looks again. He obviously figures that there is no one here because he shrugs and prepares to stick his head back into the cold water.

Splash! Stupid drunk.

His head sways a bit under the water. That means he’s ready to come up for air. Now’s my chance!

I leap up onto his back and move along to the base of his neck. His hands and head are thrashing, but his drunkenness disorients him and he cannot throw me off. He’s trying to force his hand up. I can’t hold him down there for long… That’s the problem with drowning: it takes time. I like immediate results.

I reach my hand under the water and feel around till I find the softest spot in his neck. Yes, that’s a good place. Then I drag my nails from one side of it to the other, making sure to hit a vein, as I always do. I like to keep my nails long and sharp, just the right length and shape to substitute for a razor sharp blade.

Blood clouds the water. After a few more seconds, his thrashing slows and, pretty soon, dies altogether. That’s just fine.

I jump off of him and pull at his pant leg. He slips out of the trough and onto the sand. A bit of blood-water splashes out and runs down the wood like red tears. He’s defiantly dead. Even the flow of blood that was streaming from his neck moments ago has slowed.

I flip him over onto his back. His eyes are closed. Fool. He didn’t get to see me before he died. In that case, I’ll make sure he’ll never see anything in the afterlife either.



“Is he awake yet, Meryl?”

Meryl Strife and Millie Thompson sat at opposite sides of the Sheriff’s office. It was small, but this was because there were four or five jail cells in the back, leaving little room for anything else. There was a desk, cluttered with wanted posters, pens and just about everything else. Behind the desk was a wooden chair, currently occupied by the sheriff.

Sheriff Tom Mitchell didn’t look much like a sheriff at all. His face was unshaven, his teeth slightly yellow and his hair greasy. His gut lurched over his leather belt, but his blue shirt was big enough to cover it. Over his shirt he had on a brown, cowhide vest with a random design sewn into the back of it. Pinned to his left chest was the all-to-famous shining gold badge to let the world, or at least the town, know of his office.

Meryl leaned over his limp body and pulled back one of his eyelids, peering into the whiteness of his eyeball.

“No,” she sighed. “He’s still asleep.” She returned to her seat on the other side of the desk and glanced over at Millie. She had pulled a chair over to the window and only looked away from it when she was checking on the sheriff. “Are you okay, Mille?” Meryl asked.

Millie smiled. “It’s just, first there was a man murdered, and then the sheriff passed out for no apparent reason, and now this.” She waved at the window. “The sun set about an hour ago and Mr. Vash nor Mr. Wolfwood are back yet.”

Meryl stood up and went to stand by her friend. She leaned against the wall, folded her arms and looked out. “Yes, well, there’s obviously a reason for that. Listen to their shouting! At this rate, they’ll wake up the whole town! Why did they bring that cat? I knew they’d lose it.”

“Oh Meryl,” Millie mumbled. “I’m just really worried about Vash. Everyone’s blaming him for that murder! Why is everyone so prejudice these days?”

“Because everyone’s a thief, a murderer, or a downright outlaw,” said a man’s voice. The sheriff stumbled over to the insurance girls and continued, “It’s hard to trust anyone these days. You’ve got to choose your friends well, girls. I’d be careful around those two men.”

Meryl nodded. “Yes, well… There’s more to them than anybody knows. More than even I know! But, if there is one thing that I do know, I know that Vash the Stampede really isn’t a bad person and he knows it. It’s just that no one else knows it.”

“You’re making my head hurt!” laughed the sheriff. “He seemed like a nice person when I met him, but people can be deceiving. And with all these incidents going on, I keep to what I said before: I can’t ignore him. If I did, people would think me a lousy sheriff and that I’d messed up everything this town’s ever worked for. You mark my words. If it wasn’t your friend who did it, I’ll find out who did.”

Millie’s smile strengthened a bit, and then she asked, “If you don’t mind me wondering, Mr. Sheriff sir, why did you pass out like that? You really had us worried!”

“Oh, that,” said the sheriff distastefully. “I’m afraid to say that I’m a narcoleptic.” When Meryl started to say something, he cut her off. “I know that it isn’t the best trait to have when you’re a sheriff, but I only pass out when my emotions are very strong. Most narcoleptics conk out at any random time, but, in my case, my feelings have to be particularly strong…or jumbled. At that moment, I was angry, surprise and confused all at once. Everything just kind of jumped out at me, so I collapsed. Hey, wait a minute! Is that the moon I see out there? How long have I been asleep?”

Meryl thought for a minute and replied, “It must have been at least four hours. It was late afternoon or early evening when you went out, and the sun set not to long ago. Aren’t narcoleptics only supposed to sleep for short periods of time?”

The sheriff scratched his head. “Yeah, normally only for several minutes. I wonder if it was something I ate?” He looked puzzled as he trudged through his office. How could he have been asleep for four hours? He thought it was food poisoning, but he felt fine, and he wasn’t heaving out his lunch all over the floor.

He wandered over to the jail cells. All of them were empty, which is exactly how they were when he left, but that wasn’t what he wanted to see. In fact, he was so determined to see a certain person locked up in one of the cells that he went to each of them and scaled them with his eyes. He was hoping he might bump into a person which he had missed in the dark. But, alas, no such luck. Besides, all of the cell doors were open. If there had been someone in them, the doors most certainly would have been locked.

“Where is your friend?” he shouted back into his office.

“Eh?” Meryl replied, confused. “Which ‘friend’ are you talking about?”

“You know who I’m talking about!” Sheriff Tom stuck his head back into his office. He looked slightly annoyed, but he took the time to say, “The tall blonde fellow in the red coat with the brown gloves. Vash the Stampede. Where is he? Why has he not been locked up? It’s my duty to this town to promote justice wherever I stride. Now tell me where that man went! And if you refuse to talk I’ll throw you both into the slammer for a few nights until you do!”

“Calm down, Sheriff Tom sir!” said Millie, moving from her spot by the window. “We don’t want you passing out again! We’d be glad to tell you where Mr. Vash went.”

Meryl nodded. “That’s right. I don’t know what I’d do if you keeled over again. Vash and Nicholas, the priest you saw with us earlier, went to take your cat for a walk. It was jumping like a rabid beast by the door, so they let it out. That was about…” she glanced at her watch, “… an hour and a half ago.”

“We were waiting for them when you woke up,” added Millie. “We’re very worried you see.”

“You let them walk my cat?” roared Sheriff Tom. “Why would you do that? Now not only is a criminal with $$60 billion wandering through the streets of this town, but now he has my cat with him!?” He rolled his eyes and clasped his hands on either side of his head, like he was ready to go insane. “Do you realize how bad this is? If he is Vash the Stampede, then the people could quite possibly stone him to death! If he isn’t, people will stone him to death anyway because they think he his! These people don’t believe in innocence until proven guilty! Tell them a rumor and they’re going to believe it! And now I’m going to be held responsible for a murder that my entire town committed!

“I’ll get that man. I’ll get that man!” he shouted as he stormed over to the door. “If it’s the last thing I…” He stopped, with good reason. When he had flung open the door, who was be standing behind it but Vash the Stampede, holding the sheriff’s cat, and Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

“Hello!” said Vash, cheerfully. “We took your cat for a walk because he seemed pretty energetic. Are you feeling better after your…uh…nap? What was that anyway?”

The sheriff stared at him with his jaw dropped and his eyes wide. “You son of a…” he started, but, again, never finished. For what should come but a little girl on the street running towards them screaming over and over again:

“Help! There’s been a murder!”