MARMALADE

 

 

BOBBY CLARKE, NEIGHBOR

When Ms. Grimmel finally died she was old as shit. Petrified shit. Jurassic shit encased in amber. I mean, that lady had always been old. Her skin was papery—like dry and wrinkled, but also sorta loose? Hung from her bones like a soggy diaper. Okay, look, imagine the skin covering your whole body was the same skin as your balls. Like, nutsack skin. That’s the stuff that covered Ms. Grimmel’s entire body, especially her face and arms and legs—you know, the parts you could see.

Are you gonna write this down?

…

You’re recording? Good, because it’s important.

…

Okay, okay.

So yeah, she was just this weird old lady, always sitting on her porch, covered in wrinkly skin, rubbing her wormy lips together, busy knitting some scarf or hat or whatever. Just rocking and knitting all day, gums working like she was sucking the world’s biggest gobstopper. You know, from Willy Wonka? Oh, she also had these bulging eyes that always locked onto anyone who walked by her house. They looked like raisins in a bowl of curdled milk, wide and swimming behind huge wireframe glasses. And they would flick up to study the street, watch whoever was passing like they’d done something wrong, you know? Her gums would be working, lips all wet, gnarled old hands clickety-clackety with the knitting needles. Man, no offense? But she was creepy.

Anyway, the deal with Ms. Grimmel is that she became really famous for some stuff that happened one summer a few years back. And now she’s infamous. Like, people hate talking about her, but they also can’t stop. I mean, what happened was just too crazy… but the thing is, she isn’t famous because of anything she did.

She’s famous because of her cat.

Yeah man, no joke. Her fucking cat.

I know what you’re thinking—what, did the cat do tricks or something? Was it a super rare cat? Did it win first prize in a stupid cat show? No, man, no. None of that. This cat was for real. Now, granted, I was only a little kid when all this went down, okay? I was just ten going on eleven. But I heard about it from everybody—again and again, over and over. Always some new fact, some new twist to the stories, as if they weren’t weird enough already. Like I said, around here, you can’t get people to shut up about it. It’s like every party, every school thing, every time the adults get together, it’s Marmalade this, Marmalade that. Hey, remember Marmalade? Holy shit, right?

But the kids? Like me? We’re so sick of hearing about Marmalade we want to throw up. It was years ago! Still, I can sort of understand why it’s a big deal. Truth is, even us kids get that it was pretty, you know…. Horrible. We’re not stupid.

So, here’s the story.

About five years ago, Ms. Grimmel gets super sick. And no, if you’re wondering, there ain’t no Mister Grimmel. That dude died so long ago his cause of death was meteorite. Get it? So, Ms. Grimm (that’s what we called her, mainly because she never smiled) is sick. Like, gonna die any day, maybe any minute, kinda sick. I mean, she was probably gonna die any minute anyway—the woman was old as space.

Still, five years ago? She was still sorta healthy. She could move around and cook or whatever. By the time she finally croaked, earlier this year, she couldn’t even get out of bed. Cat or no cat, her time was up.

Anyway, she gets sick, and everyone’s like “Oh my God, Ms. Grimmel is gonna fuckin’ die!” and freaking out. I think she had gotten pneumonia or something and her lungs were filling with fluid, and she couldn’t breathe, and she was already ancient so her white blood cells were fucked up and she was gonna croak, blah blah blah. No big deal, right? Nature doing its thing.

Here’s where it gets weird.

And by weird, I mean spooky as hell.

Enter Marmalade. An everyday, fluffy orange tabby cat with bright, eerie green eyes. Apparently, the cat was named after the color of her fur which, I have to say, did look a lot like marmalade, especially if it was backlit by the sun. Man, sometimes it was like that cat glowed.

Whatever, glowing fur, bright green eyes, old Marmalade was still the dumbest cat in the world, I swear. She got stuck on Ms. Grimmel’s roof one time, took hours to get her down. Another time she almost got clipped by a car giving herself a bath in the middle of the street. So, not the brightest animal, okay?

That said, she was also a stone-cold miracle.

You know… until she wasn’t.

 

SANDY KOLCHEK, NEIGHBOR

It started with Ms. Grimmel, that’s true.

I suppose it all went downhill from there.

By the way, I heard you were going to interview Oliver Shepard. I wouldn’t bet your farm on his facts, as my father used to say. He’s just a kid, not even out of college. He doesn’t even have a job.

…

Well, that’s up to you. Still, after what happened to his father. I mean, what he did.

Just awful.

And the cat … well, you know all about her, of course. What she did for my Ted? That’s why you’re talking to me, am I right?

No need repeating all of it. What happened to Barbara, Ms. Grimmel that is, has been told and retold so many times it’s all but scratched into the concrete streets of our little neighborhood. You know, to look at these green, manicured lawns and white-post porches, the smiling neighbors mowing their grass and walking their dogs… you’d never think something horrible happened here.

Something supernatural.

But it did, of course.

I see the red eye of your little recorder staring at me, unblinking, demanding the truth. The whole of it.

…

I know it’s just a tape recorder. I’m not dense.

…

Fine, fine. Sorry to be snappy.

Well, okay, let’s start with Ted. For me that’s where it starts and stops, anyhow.

First, you need to understand the big difference between Ms. Grimmel and Ted was the type of sickness they had. Barbara most likely had pneumonia, or a bad case of bronchitis, which at her age, true, could have been a death sentence. With my husband, it was different.

He had cancer. In the intestines. Sarcoma.

We’d given up hope, honestly. The doctors gave him no chance at all, but Ted did the treatments anyway, even though all it did was make him sick and bald. Insult to injury, he liked to say. Well, he said it, whether he liked it is something I strongly doubt.

By then, of course, we all knew what happened with Barbara and the cat, Marmalade. We knew what the cat had done, or thought we knew. God, we all thought we were so damn smart. Me included. Unlike the others, however, I actually asked Barbara’s permission. You know, to borrow the cat. To see if there was another miracle hiding behind those bright green eyes.

Barbara said yes, of course, and it was settled.

So, the next day I went and fetched Marmalade. Coaxed her out from the crawlspace beneath the house with treats, scooped her up and carried her home to Ted, who was bedridden by this time.

Good Lord, when my husband saw what I’d brought him, there was this… I don’t know … spark of hope in his eyes. I hadn’t seen any hope coming from him in a long time. Thought it had all been burned up, driven away, lost forever. I was exhilarated … but I was also scared. What if it didn’t work? What if what happened to Barbara wasn’t a miracle at all?

What if it was something else?

What if it was just desperation? A last prayer from people who needed to believe in something. Who needed a miracle in their lives.

Barbara had sure needed one. Heck, ask Dr. Ford, he’ll tell you what happened, and you can believe every word of it because I saw it with my own two eyes. That woman was at death’s door, no doubt about it. She didn’t need a doctor; she needed that miracle I was talking about. That last prayer.

There’s a reason they call it a Hail Mary, am I right?

And I guess, if I’m being honest, me and Ted? We needed a miracle, as well.

But first, we needed to have faith.

 

OLIVER SHEPARD, NEIGHBOR

Look, nobody knows where the cat actually came from. My understanding and based on the pictures I’ve seen (which are staggered all over Ms. G’s house—like, everywhere—in wall-mounted frames, tacked to corkboards, behind fridge magnets, and pasted neatly into photo albums) is that the cat was nothing special. In fact, it was a bit on the mangy side. It was orange and fluffy, sure, but in some places the hair was matted and dirty since it spent a lot of time outside rolling in mud and leaves; staying cool under the porch on hot days, I guess. And one of its legs was messed up, like it’d been hit by a rock or something? Sure, it was fast as any cat when chasing something, or being chased, but when it was just walking around it gimped a little, moved with a little hitch. Regardless, Marmalade—this not-so-smart, not-so-attractive cat—had apparently been living with Ms. Grimmel for years. Everyone says the same thing: They don’t recall when they first noticed it, but at the same time, no one remembers Ms. Grimmel not having the cat around. You’d have to assume she had it since it was a kitten, right? It’s not like it just appeared from outer space or something. Look, what I’m saying … it wasn’t special, okay? It didn’t drift down from heaven on a golden cloud. On the surface, it was just another neighborhood cat, one that clawed at furniture, rubbed on your leg, meowed at bugs and shat in a box.

But after what it did to Ms. Grimmel, and then Mr. Kolchek? Well, that cat became popular as the pope around here.

After Mr. Kolchek, folks began to leave gifts for Ms. Grimmel all the time. They’d even drop off canned food, quarts of milk, and toys for Marmalade. Some days I’d go by there and see women having tea on the old lady’s porch who’d never given Ms. Grimmel the time of day before. Mr. Benson mowed her lawn every other Saturday, and when her plumbing went bad, Mr. Singer, from one street over? He spent two days running new pipe to the street sewer line, not to mention what he must have taken care of inside the house itself.

They say he didn’t charge her a penny.

Ironically, it was Mr. Singer who led the others, at the end. You could say he had a change of heart, I guess. That’s why you’re asking me about it, right?

Because I saw what happened with the little girl.

And, you know, what happened after.

…

Yeah, okay. As I’m sure you already know, Mr. Singer and my father were two of the men who did all that to the Petersons. I tried to stop him—tried to stop all of them—but there was nothing I could do. I stayed with him the whole time though, right until the end. I suppose you could say my father was one of the first ones to go mad.

Yeah, I guess you could say that.

 

DR. RANDY FORD, BARBARA GRIMMEL’S PHYSICIAN

I’m not sure what I can tell you that you can’t find out from the neighbors over there. I…

…

No, I haven’t been back since Ms. Grimmel passed away last year. I’ve no interest in seeing any of those people again. Not ever.

…

The night Ms. Grimmel was cured? Ha! You’ve fallen right in line, I see. This for a tabloid? Gossip pages?

…

A book, huh? I can’t see what kind of… Well, look, I’ll tell you what I know. I’ll tell you the facts of what happened. I won’t get into the… drama that followed. I want no part of it, thanks very much. And I suppose, since Barbara has passed, there’s no reason not to tell you. I doubt she’d care anyway; she told the damn story enough times to whoever would listen.

That ended up being a mistake, didn’t it? If only she’d ….

…

I’m not speculating, damn it. Do you want to hear it or not?

…

Alright, then here’s what I know.

I received a call from Ms. Grimmel early in the morning. I’d given her my personal cell phone number mainly because, in addition to having been my patient for many years—decades, actually—she was also elderly and lived alone. I’d known her husband, Meyer, and the last time I saw him he told me to watch out for her. A few months after that conversation he was dead from heart failure, something we all knew was coming. So, sure, you could say I had a personal investment in Barbara. And when she called me that day, so early in the morning—something she’d never done before—I knew it meant trouble.

I arrived at her home within the hour to find her in bed, unable to get up. Her breathing was wet and shallow. I listened to her lungs, which were full of fluid. She was pale and I don’t think she’d been eating.

“Barbara,” I told her, “I’m going to call an ambulance. We need to get you to a hospital right away.”

But she refused. She had a thing about hospitals, you see, a deep-rooted fear of them. Not that it was going to stop me, of course. The woman was dying. She needed to be on a respirator, she needed intravenous fluids. She needed, in short, a lot more than I could give her with my bag of meager tools and pills and bandages.

I went to the front porch and made my call and was assured an ambulance would be arriving within minutes. Meanwhile, I noticed a few of the neighbors were on their own porches or standing in their front yards, watching me. As if they knew something was happening. I don’t doubt Barbara had been sick for some time and neglected to tell me, and maybe some of them knew how bad it was. Perhaps one of them even convinced her to get me on the phone, finally. I don’t know.

Regardless, I waved absently to a stoic-looking woman watching from across the street, then went back inside.

Which was the first time, that I remember anyway, seeing the cat.

I only noticed her because I nearly tripped over the damn thing going back into Barbara’s bedroom. It meowed and scurried away, hid beneath the bed, and I forgot about it. I went over to the bed and spoke to my patient.

“Barbara, I know you don’t like hospitals,” I said, “but if you don’t go—and go today—you will get much, much worse.”

Die, of course, was what I was thinking. But I saw no point in frightening her.

“An ambulance will be here soon, and they’ll take good care of you,” I said, not realizing the stoic woman from across the street had come over and followed me into the house. She stood at the bedroom door wearing a heavy blue robe and slippers, which wasn’t as strange as it sounds as it was just past seven A.M.

“What’s wrong with her?”

I swallowed my annoyance at someone barging into the house like that, but what did I know? Maybe she was a friend and that was their way. She did live across the street. So, I didn’t make a big deal about it. “I’m sorry, should you be here?”

The woman looked at me. Her hair was windblown, her face oily and devoid of makeup. Her brown eyes were wide, but her lips were set in a hard line, as if I’d surprised her with an inquiry at the supermarket. “I’m Sandy Kolchek. I live across the street. Is she gonna be okay? She’s been sick as death.”

I started to reply that Barbara would likely be fine, prepared to omit any details of her condition, or the approaching ambulance. The truth was, I didn’t know if Barbara Grimmel was going to be fine or, for that matter, even alive come the weekend. I figured the hospital would put her on a respirator, pump air in and out of her frail body for a few days until the congestion got worse and the lungs filled too fast and she either drowned in bed or her heart gave out. None of this was anything Sandy from across the street needed to know, of course. Still, it’s important, I think, for you to understand just how bad things were for Barbara. How dire her situation. So that what happened next will … well, it’ll make more sense just how miraculous—not a word doctors use frequently, I assure you—it really was.

“Should the cat be on her like that?” Sandy said and nodded behind me toward the bed.

I turned and saw what she meant. The tabby I’d nearly stepped on moments before was now lying atop my patient. No, not lying, it was sprawled atop the poor woman. Its hairy body stretched from her thighs to her neck, where it sort of padded at her chin with one of its paws. Like it was trying to get her attention.

Something about the sight was terribly unnerving. I stepped toward the bed and tried to shoo it away. “Get off, now!” I snapped. “Get away!”

And that’s when I noticed something odd.

The cat wasn’t just atop the body, it seemed to be … this is going to sound … well, regardless, it seemed to be fastened to her body. As if the cat wasn’t a cat at all, but a hairy orange leech that was stuck to the old woman, sucking her blood. And, like a leech, it was swelling. Growing larger right before our eyes.

“My God!” the neighbor woman said, loudly enough that it shook me. The whole damn situation shook me, if I’m honest.

Furious and frightened, I ran to the bed and gripped the cat around the waist. I swear to God it was swollen as a water balloon! I pulled back hard, but the damn thing was stuck fast to Barbara’s body as if glued there! I looked at the woman’s face to see if she was in pain, but she looked … fine. As a matter of fact, some of the ghastly paleness had left her face, and some color had even returned to her cheeks. Even more strange, she now seemed to breathe normally, whereas only minutes before each intake of breath was accompanied by a harsh wheezing sound, each exhale a gurgled moan, the sound of blowing bubbles through a straw into a glass of milk.

When I touched the cat again it mewled—a long, whining, pathetic cry. Then it rolled off her, staggered to its feet like a drunk man carrying a barrel of oil on his back, and jumped gracelessly off the bed.

I immediately checked Barbara for injuries—scratches, I guess, but honestly, I was looking for a larger wound, the kind a leech might leave, bloody and fresh.

But there was nothing. Furthermore, I noticed with surprise, her chest was rising and falling normally, deeply, as if ….

As if nothing was wrong with her in the least.

It was then that I heard the wet, violent hacking sound behind me. I spun around and, at first, noticed that Sandy the neighbor was looking a little green. Her hand was stapled tightly to her mouth, her eyes filled with disgust. She was pointing at the floor.

I looked down, saw the fattened tabby lumped in the corner. It was hunched over, jaws wide, eyes shut tight. Its midsection was sort of rolling, and the most horrible sound you’d ever heard was coming from its throat. The most obvious thing I could compare it to would be a cat trying to bring up a hairball, but my God—this was the mother of all hairballs!

When it finally got it up, after what felt like hours—me and the neighbor woman watching with rapt fascination, unable to look away—it spewed out a golf ball sized knot of black, wet, fur. Along with the massive knot came, oh, I’d say a measuring cup’s worth of bile. Liquid, yes, but filled with chunks and strings, all of it black as ink and thick as Hershey syrup.

The neighbor woman sort of yelped, then took off running down the hall. As for me, well, I’m a doctor, and I’ve seen some things much worse than what came out of that feline. And in that moment, my curiosity was much stronger than my revulsion. I moved toward the cat slowly, fascinated that it was no longer engorged, but slim and sinewy once again. It licked one of its paws daintily, uncaringly. It must have sensed my attention because it turned to look at me with bright, jade-colored eyes, and it meowed a question, or perhaps an apology.

The rest is common knowledge. The cat ran off and by the time the ambulance arrived Barbara was sitting up in bed, clear-eyed and care-free, her breathing normal and healthy, and her lungs—sitting with you now, I still can’t believe it, but it’s true—were clear.

While the paramedics checked her over, I muttered something about possibly overreacting, or misdiagnosing. I cared little for my pride at that point, I was still so transfixed by what had occurred.

Sandy, meanwhile, had regained her wits and was kind enough to clean the vomit from the floor while I sat with Ms. Grimmel. I’ll never forget what the old lady asked me, sitting in that warm room filled with the stench of whatever the cat had puked out, the morning sun catching the lace window curtains and making them glow.

“I’m starving,” she said. “Who wants pancakes?”

Now, doesn’t that just beat all?

 

SANDY KOLCHEK

At first, I wasn’t sure it would work. Heck, I wasn’t even sure the cat would cooperate. I mean, it’s a cat, right? Who knew what it would do? Just as likely to piss in the corner or chase down a speck of sunlight than sit on a sick man’s chest.

But she did cooperate.

Honestly? That critter was fighting to get out of my arms the very moment I walked into the room where my dying husband was lying, shrunken and pale, hardly enough energy left in him to stand. By that point he’d lost almost sixty pounds if you can believe it. And he wasn’t an obese man to begin with, or especially large. Lying in that bed, bald and sickly, he looked like a hundred-year-old man, not the fifty-three-year-old banker who played softball on Saturday afternoons and worked out at the gym three times a week. He’d gone from eating grilled steaks and roasted potatoes every other weekend to barely keeping down chicken broth. I had to hook him to an IV most days just to make sure he was getting nutrients. A nurse showed me how to do it. We couldn’t afford to have someone come every day, so it was up to me to, you know, clean him. But heck, he’s my husband, right? Sickness and health, et cetera.

Anyhow, that cat sprang from my arms the second I walked through the door, ran to the bed and hopped right up onto the heavy quilt that covered my husband’s thin frame, as if I’d tossed a few cat treats on top the bed. It was almost like … this sounds kind of strange …
but it was almost like Ted was food. And dear little Marmalade, I suppose, was hungry. Like she’d gotten a taste for it, you know? Gotten a taste of disease, of sickness; and wanted more. Wanted whatever she could get her little paws on.

Well, Ted was plenty sick, alright. And that cat climbed right up his legs and onto his chest, its green eyes never leaving his face, as if she were stalking prey. Ted, albeit showing some apprehension, pushed down the quilt so the cat could settle atop his chest, only a sweat-stained t-shirt between them.

And then it happened. Just like before.

Marmalade sort of meowed real soft, like she was happy. Content. She might have started purring a bit, I can’t really recall. What I do remember is how she latched onto my husband’s chest as if stuck there. Ted moaned a little, maybe from the pressure of the animal or from something he felt going on inside him. When I asked him later, what it felt like? He said he didn’t remember much, that it was hazy, but that it was a bit like being lifted up.

“Like a magician’s trick,” he said.

Like levitating, is what he meant.

Well, that cat swelled up just like before. Almost cartoonish, really. Like on TV. You know, when the end of a water hose gets jammed into someone’s mouth and they blow up like a balloon until water shoots from their ears.

The whole thing lasted maybe five minutes, maybe ten, I’m not sure. But not long. And when Marmalade was done, she jumped off the bed, landing sort of awkward because of all the extra weight in her stomach (I swear, even standing up her belly was brushing the hardwood floor). Then she waddled over into a corner and started that awful hacking, trying to get it out of her.

Like with Barbara, the first thing that came out was the hairball. But this one was twice the size of what it had brought up in Barbara’s house. It was a big, soggy turd-sized thing. Slid out of her wide-open mouth and plopped onto the floor. Then came the vomit, and oh boy, did it come! That cat emptied a bucketful of the same stuff as before, all gooky and black. It stank to high heaven. Like spoiled milk, or rotten eggs, maybe.

As she was getting the last of it out of her, I ran to the window and threw it open. I could see Barbara across the street, standing on her porch, watching.

And when I turned back around … I saw the most wonderful sight.

Ted was up on one elbow, his eyes more clear, more lucid, than I’d seen in weeks. He was watching the cat. After a minute, he looked up at me and smiled.

He said, “Can you believe how much I had in me?”

As if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Right after, he fell asleep for a while, but I could tell it had worked. Just looking at him, I knew. His sleep was deep and relaxed. His color had returned, and it didn’t surprise me at all when he ate two bowls of chicken soup later that day. Or when the doctors told us, about a week later, that the cancer had gone into full remission.

Within days everyone knew what had happened. They’d all known, of course, about his cancer. We have good neighbors here in Sabbath, and we keep tabs on one another, not like those big-city folks.

Next thing you knew, Marmalade became the most popular cat in town. She ….

…

Ted? Well, that’s a good question, hon. He left me. Right after what happened with the Petersons. Said it was “survivor guilt.” Said he needed to clear his head. I’ve only heard from him twice since. Both times by postcard, telling me he was okay. Telling me he’d call soon.

Last I heard from him … well, almost a year ago now.

Technically we’re still married. But no, I don’t expect I’ll ever see him again.

 

OLIVER SHEPARD

Like I said earlier, after what happened with Mr. Kolchek, the whole neighborhood could talk about nothing except Marmalade. Honestly, I don’t know what I really believe. I’m a college graduate now, and at the time… Look, all this happened the summer before I left for college. Too bad I couldn’t have left a little earlier, right? To see my father and the others do what they did ….

Anyway, suffice to say Marmalade was in high demand over the next couple months. That poor little cat was passed around like a donation plate on Sunday morning. After it “cured” Mr. Kolchek of his cancer, it moved on to the Parkers, then the Clarkes, then … let’s see … I guess the Fosters were next.

…

Oh God, it was so long ago. Let’s see… John Parker had the measles. He was cured. Mrs. Clarke, a nice lady who runs the flower shop on Main Street, she had shingles, I think. Something like that. I remember people complaining that she was “wasting” the cat on such a small thing. As if there’s only so many pulls at the miracle machine, right?

Sarah Foster, I remember well. She had been diagnosed with diabetes. Late I guess, only after it had affected her eyesight. She was essentially going blind. That was the one, I think, that got my father and the others talking.

…

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It cured her blindness. For all I know it cured her damn diabetes. I wouldn’t know because the Fosters moved away along with a bunch of others.

Look, I may as well get it over with and just tell you what happened that night. I’d rather just … my God, it was horrible. Just horrible.

Okay, first you need to understand that, in a way, the neighborhood folks were… well hell, there’s no good way to put it. They were taking sides.

On one side, you had those who thought Marmalade was a bona fide miracle worker. That she could cure anyone of whatever ailment they were stricken with.

What bothers me is, why did it happen that particular summer? Why had the cat done nothing but chase mice and sleep all day for the last however many years it had been around? The people who believed, they said it was like a window, you know? A period of time in which God had given us this cat to perform miracles, and that one day the window would close, and Marmalade would go back to just being a cat again.

The other side was something different. Mr. Singer—you know, the one who fixed her sewer line—and a few of the other men from town, my father included … they’d been meeting, see? Privately. Down at the bar, most times. I don’t know many details. I was only invited once and left after a while because it’s pretty boring listening to a bunch of grown men drink and talk about a cat. But they had their ideas, alright. At first, guys like Mr. Singer had bought into the miracle thing, just like everyone else.

Until, well … look, word has it that, one night, Mr. Singer took the cat, without anyone knowing, and put it on his wife. She’d been a sickly thing as long as I’ve known her. I want to say it was lupus, or something like it.

Well, I guess it didn’t work.

And from that point on, as far as Mr. Singer was concerned, the cat wasn’t a miracle from God anymore. It was a demon from Hell. A dark spirit sent to earth to steal souls. And that, he’d said, was what it was really doing. Curing, sure. Folks don’t dispute that. But it was also, some thought, stealing those folks’ eternal souls. Part of some bargain. Hey, I don’t know anything about this stuff. I’m no mystic or mythological scholar, and I’m not religious.

But my father—a deacon at the church, mind you—he sure bought into the demon angle. He and my mother both. So did a few of the others. At the end, when they’d heard what was going on at the Petersons’, they all met up at our house. I was pretty young then, just nineteen, so there wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. Like I told you before, I tried. Ultimately, I just went with them, thinking … I don’t know … maybe I could help in some way. Cool things down.

Man was I wrong.

…

I’m getting to that. I’m trying…

…

Okay, sure, if that’s how you want it. It’s your show. Or book, or whatever. What kind of book is this, anyway?

…

Sure, whatever you say. Hey, hand me my cigarettes, will you? This ain’t easy.

…

Thanks. Right, so where was I? The Peterson kid.

Jesus, what a mess.

So, Hank and Wilma Peterson had a daughter. Sweet little girl. She was in first grade, I think. What would that make her? Nine? Eight? Anyway, pigtails and little blue dresses, black hair, big brown eyes, and rosy cheeks. A real cherub, this girl. Her name was Emily. Emily Peterson.

No one’s sure exactly how it happened, or who was around when it did, but the story I heard was that one afternoon, Emily was eating a bowl of apple slices in her backyard. There’s a little swing back there …
oh god … give me a second.

…

It’s that same tree, you know? Where the swing was tied. The big, gnarled oak in the backyard.

Sorry, I’m alright now. Let’s just get through this.

Okay. So, Emily was eating some apple slices while sitting on that swing and, apparently, a big chunk got stuck in her throat. She choked to death. By the time they found her, lying on the ground, her face swollen and purple, eyes and tongue bulging, she’d already been dead a good ten or fifteen minutes. It was her father, Hank, who’d found her. Going for something in the shed and he’d seen her lying there … screamed and screamed ….

They were gonna call the paramedics. Sure, who wouldn’t? But then, as you know, they thought of another way.

The girl, after all, wasn’t coming back. That was obvious. And based on what I saw when I went into that room … she certainly looked good and dead.

It all happened fast after that—after they’d found her, I mean. Half the neighborhood was running around, jumping on the phone, spreading word of what had happened.

Then someone saw Hank Peterson leaving Ms. Grimmel’s house with Marmalade tucked into his arms, and just like that, everyone knew exactly what his intentions were.

I mean, if it can cure cancer, what’s to say it couldn’t, you know ….

Hell, resurrection is just another kind of miracle, right?

Before I knew it, my living room was filled with screaming men and women. Must have been a dozen of them. All yelling that the Devil had come to Sabbath, to our little street, and that it wanted to leave with Emily Peterson’s soul. As if it were somehow part of her corpse, right?

Anyway, a few of the men carried guns. A few carried ropes. And, as one, they—well, we—marched out our front door and down the street. A neat little mob chasing the setting sun, the sky red and hateful as the folks in that group, all of them ready to defeat Satan, to drive the demon back to Hell.

They didn’t bother to knock at the Peterson house. Just barged on in. Hank and Wilma were upstairs, in Emily’s room, and we all marched up there, yelling and stomping, crying out for the power of Christ to stop the devilry occurring in Emily Peterson’s pink-painted bedroom.

As I went up the stairs, I heard Mr. Peterson shouting at the others, telling them to “get the hell out,” and all that. By the time I wormed my way into the room, I saw Hank struggling with Mr. Singer. Mrs. Peterson was crying and screaming for everyone to leave them alone, to leave her baby alone.

That’s when I saw Emily.

She was lying on her bed, motionless. Her face one giant bruise.

The cat was sprawled across her chest, fat and swollen as a goddamned basketball. How that thing didn’t just burst at the seams and shower those pink walls with cat guts I’ll never know.

Anyway, by now everyone was shouting and screaming. Hank punched Mr. Singer in the face, so my dad grabbed him, pushed him back against a wall.

And then, someone—I’m still not sure who—snatched Marmalade off Emily’s chest. Ripped that cat away like it was a giant band-aid. They sort of peeled it off of her.

Man, that fucking cat went crazy. It started clawing and biting and hissing like a wild, mad thing. Whoever had grabbed it screamed out in pain and dropped it to the carpet, where it landed with a squishy thud. Then I could hear it hissing. Some folks were trying to catch it, others trying to stomp on it. There was a flash of orange fur and I saw it barrel head-first into a wall, hard enough to put a little crack there if you can believe it. It was sort of dazed for a second, then it flew between a pair of legs and slithered beneath the bed.

Before anyone could think of retrieving it, Emily woke up.

It was the most awful, terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

Her face, like I said, was all swelled up and purple, her hair tangled and wild. But it was her eyes … my God, her eyes! Black as midnight. Bulging onyx stones set deep into that horrible face, and they were looking around at the people there, her head jerking from one to the next, her mouth hung open in a toothy snarl.

And then she started to scream.

Wailing, piercing shrieks like you’ve never heard! Eardrum-shattering howls that made your head feel like it was splitting apart, that filled your mind with chaos, with confusion. It was like the whole room was vibrating. My teeth felt electrified, my muscles turned to jelly. Man, everyone felt it. And when that little girl—or whatever it was—turned to look around the room, when she screamed at each one of us, those black eyes fixed on yours? Drool spilling from cracked blue lips?

I’ll tell ya, some folks just dropped. Fainted right then and there.

But others, like my daddy?

They went for her.

Someone yanked the case from a pillow on her bed and dropped it over her head, pulled it tight. I’ll never forget seeing the hollow where her mouth was sucking for air.

Then one of the other men began looping rope around her body.

When Hank Peterson tried to intervene, someone shot him in the stomach. The sound was so loud my ears were ringing for a week. Then Wilma Peterson was clubbed in the head, knocked to the floor.

Next thing I know, we’re all moving down the stairs, all but running toward the first floor. The men dragged Hank and Wilma through the house, Wilma screaming the whole way, out the kitchen door and into the backyard.

To that big oak.

By the time I got out there, they had already thrown three strands of rope over one of the thick, lower branches of the tree. Pairs of men held one end while the others tied the rope around the necks of Hank (who was still alive at this point but didn’t have much fight left in him) and Wilma, who was limp and weeping. Praying, I guess. And finally little Emily, of course. She was fighting hardest of all. Like a fish pulled from a lake then dropped into the bottom of the boat.

She was still wearing that pillowcase when they tugged the noose around her neck.

Up they went, the three of them. Kicking and gagging and wiggling at the ends of the ropes ….

Until they weren’t.

After that, things got real quiet. And the neighborhood, for obvious reasons, was never the same.

In total, nine men were arrested, two of the women. Six of the men were convicted. Last I heard, they were all still in prison. My dad, I can tell you, won’t be released for a long time to come. I don’t know the case for each of them, but none of them got off easy.

That said, I suppose they got off easier than the Petersons, didn’t they?

…

Marmalade? That’s a good question.

But look, if you don’t mind, or hell, even if you do, I’m done here.

 

BOBBY CLARKE

I’m not sure what you’ve heard from anyone else, but they probably know a lot more about what happened than I do. Like I said, I was pretty young. Not much older than Emily Peterson, actually.

They tore down that tree when they sold the house. For a while, kids were daring each other to climb it, or to run and touch it for Ten Mississippi. But when the branches got creaky in the wind, at night … no thanks. Way too easy to imagine six dangling feet above your head, swinging in the breeze.

But honestly? It’s not the ghosts of the Petersons that scares me, or scares most of the kids around here.

It’s Marmalade.

See, they never did find her after that night. It’s like she vanished. I mean, people looked, believe me. They searched Ms. Grimmel’s house up and down. She was kind of an outcast after all that, anyway. Kept to herself. No more visitors. No more porch visits.

I mean, they searched the whole neighborhood. For weeks! It was crazy. But, you know, after a while, after some people moved away and others went to jail and stuff, people stopped looking. They figured she was dead or had run away, gone to bother some other poor neighborhood with her miracle cures.

Still, there is one strange thing. Something that still goes on, even now.

…

Yeah … yeah, okay.

So, the stories I’ve heard, from lots of people, say that if you’re ever really sick … like, bedridden with the flu or chicken pox or whatever? They say that sometimes, usually at night if you’re sick like that, you’ll hear Marmalade.

You’ll hear her trying to get into your room.

Trying to get to you.

I’ve heard a few different stories. Some people hear meowing, but they can never tell where it’s coming from. Sometimes it’s outside, sometimes from behind a closed closet door. One kid I know, Sally Hopper? She was laid up with a bad fever once, and she heard the meowing one night. She said it was coming from under the bed.

Other people say they’ve heard scratching at their windows. Like, nails scraping against the glass, or picking away at the screen. One guy said he heard her pawing at his bedroom door, scratching at the wood, wanting to get inside. He said when he sat up, he could see her shadow beneath the door, like he was supposed to get up and let her in.

Hey, maybe whoever reads your book will hear her, too.

Stranger things have happened, right?

Personally, if I’m ever really sick—like, dying—and I hear Marmalade coming for me? I’m gonna let her in. I’d risk losing my soul if it meant staying alive.

Wouldn’t you?

…

I don’t know, you just got to believe, I guess. Believe she can heal you.

Believe in miracles.

…

Come on, don’t say that. You gotta have faith in something, right?

Might as well be a damn cat.