Uncle Ezra's Cat
Darryl Matter
Uncle Ezra's Cat
by Darryl Matter
Copyright 2016 by Darryl Matter
Uncle Ezra's Cat
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
* * * * *
October 30
Brad Allen was seated at the bar in Mike's Bar and Grill and well into his third beer when his friend, Jason Boyle, walked in. The two young men greeted each other with high-fives and fist bumps, and then Jason motioned to the bartender for a beer for himself.
"What's goin' on, Brad?" Jason asked.
"Tomorrow night's Halloween," Brad replied. "I reckon we ought to make some mischief."
"Yeah. Great idea. Whatcha got in mind?"
Brad leaned close to Jason and lowered his voice. "My dad always used to say that Halloween is the devil's night. I think it would be a great time to go out to the cemetery and topple a few tombstones. Kick over a few flower pots. Raise a little hell. Whatdaya think?"
Jason laughed, and called to the bartender for another beer for both of them. "Yeah, let's do it." He paused a few moments, thinking. "Does that old man, the one they call Uncle Ezra, still live out there in the cemetery?" he asked.
"Yeah, he's still there, all right," Brad replied. "They got a new caretaker for the cemetery a few months ago, but the new guy lives in town somewhere. He ain't around out there at night."
"But Uncle Ezra still lives out there, doesn't he?" Jason questioned.
Brad laughed. "Yeah, but he won't give us any trouble. I saw him walking around out there a few days ago, and he's in awful bad shape."
"He's in bad shape, you say?"
"Yeah," Brad replied. "He's 90 years old, you know. There was a notice about his 90th birthday in the newspaper last week. When I saw him, he could hardly walk. He was stumbling around, tripping over one thing or another. Looked like he didn't know where he was going."
"Does he still have that cat?" Jason asked.
Brad laughed. "Yeah. It was pictured with him in that newspaper announcement about his 90th birthday. When I saw him the other day, he was using a walking stick like I said, and that cat was walking along right beside him. It follows him around everywhere. Just like a dog would."
"What time do you want to go out to the cemetery?" Jason questioned.
"I'd say about midnight," Brad said, "and there's one tombstone I for sure want to knock over."
"Yeah? Which one's that?"
"You remember the old story about that girl who died way back in the early 1800s? Her name was Dorothy something. I forget her last name, but anyway, people thought she was a witch. I think her tombstone fell over not long after she was buried, and some people thought she'd come back from the grave."
"Yeah." Jason nodded his understanding.
"And you'll remember the crazy stories," Brad continued, "how some people claimed she could change herself into a black cat and cast spells--stuff like that. Said she was a genuine witch. There even were some people back then who wanted to hang her, 'cause they said she worshiped the devil. That's the story I heard, anyway. Funny thing, though, but you know there are some people yet today who put flowers and gifts on her grave around her birthday. It's like maybe they think they can gain her favor, that she'll bless them or something."
Jason thought for a moment. "I do remember hearing about her," he said. "Some people used to go out and sit by her grave, thinking she would somehow communicate with them in one way or another, didn't they? Is that the one you're thinking about?"
"Yeah, that's the one," Brad continued, "Hers is the one tombstone I for sure want to hit. We'll yowl and howl a little when we do it, too, and people will think her spirit came back and took her right up outta that grave. Knocked over the stone when she came outta the grave."
Jason laughed. "Yeah, right. Okay. Let's do it."
Before they left Mike's Bar and Grill that night, Brad had arranged to pick up Jason late the following evening. It would be Halloween night, with a nearly full moon, the perfect night for a little mischief in the cemetery.
* * * * *
Ezra McKinley, "Uncle Ezra," as he was known, although he had no actual relatives to call him "Uncle," had worked as the caretaker for the community cemetery for about 60 of those last 90 years, and still lived in the caretaker's house located at the back of the cemetery. He'd called that little house his home for years and years, and the new caretaker had insisted that he be allowed to live there as long as he wished to do so. Besides, the new caretaker didn't especially like the idea of living in a cemetery.
The new caretaker lived in the city, about five miles away, and so it became Uncle Ezra's continued duty to unlock the cemetery gates in the mornings and lock them at night. That little activity helped him to "feel useful," he said, and he looked forward to each day with those duties in mind.
Beyond tending to the cemetery gates, Uncle Ezra had few pleasures in life. The one thing he especially enjoyed was being able to sit on his porch with his beloved cat on his lap and watch the sunsets as he kept an eye on the cemetery.
Uncle Ezra's cat was coal-black, with no other colors evident at all, and was appropriately named Blackie. Nobody knew where the cat came from. It was sitting on a tombstone, looking rather sad and bedraggled, when Uncle Ezra spotted it about six years ago. He'd taken the cat home, ordered some cat-food from the grocery store that brought him his groceries, and Blackie had been with him ever since. In fact, Blackie was about the only friend Ezra had these days because he'd outlived most of the people he'd grown up with.
Things were not all that pleasant in Uncle Ezra's day-by-day world. Over the past few years, young people in the area had taken to vandalizing the cemetery. They apparently were playing some kind of a game where they scored points for toppling tombstones or spray-painting slogans on them. And then there were the groups of young people who seemed to enjoy having parties in the cemetery--especially on Halloween. Worse than any of them, in Uncle Ezra's eyes, were the drug dealers who carried on their business near the cemetery gates.
Even though Uncle Ezra made sure the cemetery gates were locked every evening, he could count on the young people climbing over the gates or even over the rock walls that surrounded the cemetery to gain entrance if they wanted in. Furthermore, they all knew he was old and not as able to see or hear or chase them out as he once could.
Still, Uncle Ezra had found a true companion in Blackie. While Uncle Ezra couldn't see or hear as well as he once could, Blackie could hear and see quite well--and Blackie seemed to hate intruders in the cemetery as much as did his human companion. Whenever Blackie sensed that something wasn't right in the cemetery, he'd growl and alert Uncle Ezra. Together, they'd go and see what was going on--and chase away anyone who didn't belong in the cemetery.
* * * * *
October 31
It was approaching midnight on Halloween night when Brad Allen and Jason Boyle reached the gates to the cemetery. To their complete surprise, the gates were not locked.
"Ol' man Ezra forgot to lock the gates," Brad whispered to Jason. "I told you he was senile," he added.
"Yeah," Jason whsipered back. "That makes it a whole lot easier for us."
The young men slipped inside the gate, taking care to make as little noise as possible. There was a full moon that night which enabled them to find their way around the cemetery, and they soon were headed back toward Dorothy Mathews' grave--and the headstone they hoped to topple.
"Do you know for sure where Dorothy's grave is?" Jason asked.
"Yeah," Brad replied, "It's near the back of the cemetery, not all that far from the ol' man's house. I checked it out some time back. You just follow me." r />
* * * * *
Uncle Ezra did not like Halloween. Over the years he'd chased a number of young people out of the cemetery on Halloween nights. Only last year there was a group of high-school kids having a wild party, and he'd had to chase them away. What was the fascination that the living had for the dead, anyway? Ezra wondered.
He was not expecting trouble in the cemetery that night, however, because he'd learned that several haunted-house parties had been planned around the community. Saw the announcements in the newspaper. They would give the young people something to do besides causing him trouble at the cemetery.
Still, Ezra felt that he must keep close watch over the cemetery that night. It was Halloween, and that meant that people might come out there with evil intentions. So it was that he sat on his porch that night with Blackie purring in his lap. There was a full moon, and although his eyesite was not as good as it used to be, Ezra could oversee a good portion of the cemetery from his porch.
It was nearly midnight when Blackie heard a squeaky sound coming from the front of the cemetery. It had to be the gate swinging open. With a start, Blackie realized that his human friend had not locked the gates that evening. Someone was inside the gate; inside the cemetery.
* * * * *
The old guy made it easy for us to get in, didn't he," Jason whispered, a grin on his face, as the young men listened for any sign that they'd been detected.
"Yeah," Brad replied, "I told you he is getting old--and forgetful. Probably senile, too. He won't give us any trouble."
"Okay. Now, where's the tombstone you want to hit?" Jason asked again.
"It's clear to the back of the cemetery, in the oldest part," Brad whispered. "Come on. Just follow me."
* * * * *
Uncle Ezra could not hear any sounds the intruders were making, but Blackie could. His eyes followed the sounds he heard, and he growled softly to warn his human friend that someone was approaching.
When the fur bristled on his neck as Blackie growled the second time, Ezra knew that it was time for him to get going, catch the people who were in the cemetery before they could destroy anything, and chase them out of there. Blackie jumped from Ezra's lap as the old man struggled to rise from his chair on the porch.
There! There they were. Ezra saw the shadowy movements of the intruders as the two men approached the back of the cemetery--and as they approached the grave and tombstone of Dorothy Mathews. The old man's legs felt especially weak that night, and his knees weren't bending quite right. Only his walking stick enabled him to keep from falling as he stumbled across the cemetery and toward them.
"Get out of here, boys!" Ezra shouted, as he made his way toward them. He waved his walking stick in the air for emphasis. "Get out of here! Get going!"
Just then Ezra tripped on a rock in his pathway. The old man stumbled, completely lost his balance, lurched forward, and hit his head on the corner of a tombstone with a resounding THUD as he fell. "Oh-h-h-h!" he gasped, realizing there was nobody around who would help him. And then, as Ezra struggled against losing consciousness, he felt something furry brush past him--and realized that it was Blackie.
Only it wasn't the loving, purring Blackie that sat on his lap every day. No, indeed! The enraged cat was bounding directly toward the two young men, growling and snarling as it ran, and with each bound it appeared to double or even triple in size--until it became a huge groteque cat-monster with sharp claws and fangs.
Brad and Jason saw the huge, snarling cat bounding toward them, eyes gleaming like fire in the moonlight. Both young men turned and sprinted toward the front gate with all their might, and then the monster-cat was upon them, ripping at them with sharp claws and tearing at them with long, sharp teeth.
* * * * *
A passerby in the early morning spotted the bodies of Brad Allen and Jason Boyle sprawled just outside the cemetery gates and immediately called the police. "It looks to me like these fellows lost a battle with a ferocious mountain lion," the caller said.
Blackie, now a normal-sized cat once again, watched the activities around the front gates from Dorothy Mathews' gravesite. By the time the police came looking for Ezra, he'd managed to sit up on his own--and Blackie was snuggled up next to him.
One of the policemen helped Ezra up, determined that he was not badly hurt from his fall, and escorted him back to his house. Blackie followed, seemingly happy and contented now that Uncle Ezra was safe. Moments after Ezra was seated on his porch once again, the cat jumped onto his lap, purring contentedly.
A "ferocious mountain lion" did they say? Only Uncle Ezra and Blackie know the truth about what Brad Allen and Jason Boyle tangled with that night--and they're not talking.
The End
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