Weekly Drabble #395: Catastrophe

This week's prompts come from Tyronne with 'two types of stealth' and Framing Device with 'less lethal violence', bringing us back to Ben and Chocolate Cake. Enjoy!

~

Catastrophe:

It was a cloudy night when Jimmy decided to break into the house.

The window lock popped open with a crack and the man smiled as he lifted it up, quickly climbing into the dark house. He made a beeline for the security system and put in the code his cousin had told him to use. Dylan had a buddy who worked at the security company. He’d put backdoors into their program that could generate one-time access codes for any of their systems. Since each code was unique and only good for one use, Dylan’s guy could keep selling them. He’d also done some kind of bullshit that Jimmy didn’t even pretend to understand, but made the spoofed codes read like the homeowner’s. It made it look like they’d either shut down the system themselves or been careless with their security and someone else had gotten the codes. Caused all sorts of problems for insurance claims and company versus homeowner liability, misdirecting everyone’s attention away from the break-in to the owners and what they did or didn’t do.

Jimmy didn’t care about all that. He was just looking for some good shit to boost. Until Dylan had hooked him up with this job, his cash was running low and he’d been getting anxious about his supply. His parents had cut him off and his sister wouldn’t even pick up the phone when he called, the fucking bitch. So much for ‘family helps family’, right? Well, at least he still had Dylan on his side. His cousin had known Jimmy needed money and come to him with this plan. He had a list of addresses of homes that used the security systems from his buddy’s company. He’d go through them, figure out where they were and who lived in them, case their socials and LinkedIn to see how much money they had, check out CCWs and shit like that to see how dangerous the job might be. Once he figured all that out, Jimmy’d take care of the rest.

It was a smart set up. Their guy at the company had the access and knew what kind of security a house had, whether it was just a basic alarm or cameras and other shit. Dylan could figure out which places were worth hitting and sometimes even find specific stuff for Jimmy to look for. Jimmy did the smash and grab. He had a talent for it; they’d hit three places already this way and made a few grand each.

Time for number four, Jimmy thought with a smirk. There were a few houses in this neighbourhood with the compromised security systems. This should be the place of a retired couple. The guy was a banker and his wife used to be a doctor. They’d have loads of expensive shit, maybe the gang’s biggest payday yet.

Dylan had told him to avoid another house in the region. Aside from the dangers of hitting the same area more than once, there was supposed to be something about one of these houses. Dylan had been going on about it, but Jimmy hadn’t really been listening. He’d been enjoying the benefits of steady cash flow at the time. It was something about some kind of animal, one of the homeowners had a pet. Like that mattered. Jimmy couldn’t get his hands on a heater, but he had a knife. He’d take on any fuckin’ dog and any other dumb shit that wanted to mix it up with him. Wasn’t like they’d miss any of this shit, anyways. They had lots already. Share the wealth, right?

Yeah.

Jimmy looked around the house. It was dark, lit mostly by the diodes from electrical devices. He turned on his flashlight, looking around and grinning at what he saw. Nice big TV. That was worth a few g’s all by itself. Yeah, this was a fine fuckin’ score. He glanced upstairs, but there was no sound or movement from any of the bedrooms along the hall. Not that Jimmy expected much of a fight from a couple of old geezers, but he wasn’t worried if it came down to it. He was a big guy and he had his sharp little surprise in his pocket.

“Well,” he said, licking his lips and already thinking about all the rock candy he’d be buying from his cut. “Guess it’s time to get to work.”

“Oh, I’d say so,” a voice whispered from the darkness.

He looked up and froze. There, poised on the kitchen island and silhouetted against the dim glow of appliance lights was something the size of a person. It was lean, with pointed ears and a long, twitching tail. A pair of green eyes stared back at him. It was sitting there, watching him like it had been waiting. He hadn’t even heard it approach.

Outside, the clouds hiding the moon thinned, a tiny beam of cold white light came through the window, just enough to catch the gleam of a mouth full of sharp white teeth curling up until a smile.

Jimmy swallowed. Oh, shit. All of a sudden, he remembered just what kind of animal Dylan had told him to watch out for. He scrabbled for his knife in panic, all confidence in his ability to handle a situation vanishing like the clouds overhead. “Uh... I think I, uh, got the, uh, wrong house...” he stammered.

“You’re right about that,” the figure told him just before it pounced.

~

“All right then, I think that about covers everything,” the policeman said. “I’d expect a follow-up in the next couple days, but I wouldn’t be too worried about it.”

“That’s good,” Ben answered as he wiped Chocolate Cake’s face clean with a wet cloth. The cat was wrapped in a blanket given to her by the paramedics. She’d had to surrender her bloodstained clothes to the police as evidence. Outside his house were a pair of police cars and an unmarked police cruiser, their lights flashing. The ambulance with the burglar, whom Chocolate Cake had left in something approximating an ambulatory state, had already departed, rushing him to the hospital. “Do you know when, uh...” he gestured to his living room, which was marked off with yellow tape. CSI personnel and a pair of detectives were examining the surroundings, but there wasn’t too much to tell beyond what they already knew.

Ben had been woken up by the screaming and come down to find Chocolate Cake biting and clawing at someone in the living room. The first thing he’d done was get her off the man, which was easier said than done when you were taking about five feet and six inches of pissed-off cat. The second thing he’d done was check to make sure she was all right. Then he told her to call 966 while he checked on the intruder’s condition, but he wasn’t in any condition to start a fight.

Chocolate Cake had mauled him. She’d bitten off three of the fingers on his right hand, his left ear, split his left cheek, slashed through his right eye and tore through his shirt to hack at his chest and stomach. It was a miracle he was still in one piece. Cats normally went right for the throat; that’s what Chocolate Cake had been about to do when Ben arrived.

While he’d tried to keep the burglar from bleeding out, Chocolate Cake had made the 966 call to report the break-in. Unfortunately, she’d done in a very cat-like way, advising the operator that she’d hacked up some ‘dumb fuck’ who’d broken into ‘her house’. The operator must not have realized they were talking to a cat, because the police had arrived expecting a possible confrontation with an armed and over-enthusiastic homeowner who’d been brutalizing a helpless captive. Thankfully, once they’d realized that Chocolate Cake was Ben’s cat, that little misunderstanding had been cleared up. You wouldn’t arrest a cat for mauling an intruder any more than you would a German shepherd, Doberman or some other guard dog.

“It probably won’t be too long,” the policeman told Ben, “but I’d look at hotels for the next couple days just while we get everything sorted out. Talk to Detective Honmill over there. He’ll set you up with some cleaners. By the time you get back, everything will be just like new.” He nodded over to Chocolate Cake. “I’d also recommend taking her into the hospital, just in case.”

“That’s our next stop.”

Chocolate Cake’s ears flattened and she let out a moan. “You bit off a junkie’s ear,” Ben reminded her. “You’re getting checked out.” There weren’t many diseases that could cross from cat to human or vice versa, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Then I’ll let you two head out,” the officer said. He gave Ben’s hand a shake and tipped his hat to Chocolate Cake.

“Come on, Cakers,” Ben said. “I’ll get us some overnight bags and you can shower.”

“Don’t forget-”

“-Mr. Nippers, I won’t,” Ben promised. “Just... next time someone breaks in, could you be a little less....” he winced, looking at the blood sprays on the walls of his kitchen and dining room. “...that?”

“I have to look out for my home and my human,” she protested. “He got what was coming to him.” Ben didn’t catch it, but her eyes darted out the window, glancing across the lawn to Tiffany St. Clair’s house. The lights in the young woman’s house were on and she was looking out the window into the Sampson residence. Her eyes met Chocolate Cake’s, holding the cat’s gaze for several seconds before she pulled the blinds shut.

“...and so will anyone else,” Chocolate Cake finished under her breath, turning back to follow Ben upstairs.