Chapter Five: Monster Woman Invades the Ranch

Don’t expect me to reveal the rest of the story. It was much too terrifying for the little children. You know about me and the kids. I don’t mind giving ’em a little thrill now and then, but I don’t believe in exposing them to the really dark and scary parts of my work.

No kidding. The children probably think they can handle the scary stuff, but they just don’t know.

What kinds of scary stuff are we talking about? Well, here’s an example. Let’s say that a dog is out on patrol and gets called to the scene of a routine traffic mishap—a lady has skidded on an icy road and her car has gotten stuck in the ditch.

No big deal, right? The dog goes to answer the call, help the lady in distress, the usual stuff that dogs are expected to do in times of trouble, only he doesn’t find a normal lady in the car. What comes flying out of the car is an Enormous Monster Woman with flaming eyes and terrible claws and . . . and sharp fangs.

And you know what she does? With her terrible claws poised above her head and her vampire teeth dripping the blood of her last victim, she chases the dog through the snow!

See what I mean? That’s the kind of terrifying scary stuff that I can’t share with the kids. If they knew the truth about my job, the awful things I see in the course of an average day, it might cause them to have nightmares. And that’s why we can’t risk . . .

Wait a second, hold everything. Unless I’m badly mistaken, I just . . . okay, it slipped out. I didn’t intend to reveal the rest of the story about Monster Woman, but somehow . . .

So now you know the Awful Truth that you weren’t supposed to know. Maybe you think I’m making this up, that it never happened. Ha. I wish. No, it’s true, every last word of it.

How did Monster Woman manage to steal Sally May’s car without my knowing about it? Where did she come from? At this point in the investigation, we didn’t have any answers. All we knew was that sometime between 9:03 in the morning and 9:12 in the morning, Sally May’s car was stolen by a crazy woman who ran the car into a snow bank and then chased the Head of Ranch Security over two acres of frozen pasture land.

It was one of the scariest events in my whole career. Why, if she’d ever caught me, there’s no telling what might have happened, but we had every reason to suppose that she might have EATEN a dog if she ever caught one.

You’ll be glad to know that I managed to escape. How? Well, she stepped in a hole and fell down in the snow, and that gave me just enough time to highball it out of there. I hit Full Turbos and headed straight to the machine shed, didn’t slow down or relax until I was hidden away in the darkest, backest corner.

There, crouched beneath one of Sally May’s reject-chairs, I waited and listened. I could hear the rumble of an angry voice in the distance, then . . . a deep throbbing silence.

Whew! Boy, that had been a close call. I slithered my way out from under the chair and crept over to the big sliding doors, which had been left open just wide enough for a dog to squirt himself through. I peered out the door and looked in all directions. I heard footsteps coming. I was about to dart back inside and take cover when I saw . . .

Whew! It was only Pete, not Monster Woman. I stepped outside on trembling legs and took a deep quivering gulp of fresh air. Pete came toward me, rubbing his way down the side of the shed.

“My goodness, Hankie, what happened?”

“Pete, you won’t believe this.” I told him the whole story, every last chilling detail. He listened with eyes that grew wider and more astonished by the second.

“Oh, mercy me. Monster Woman!” He gasped, placing a paw over his heart. “I’m amazed that you survived, Hankie.”

“Yeah, well, it never hurts to be a great athlete and to be in top physical condition. But where did she come from, Pete? How did she manage to steal Sally May’s car?”

Pete rolled his eyes around and curled his tail around his haunches. “Well, Hankie, I saw the whole thing.”

“You did?”

“Mmm hmmm. We cats are very observant, you know.”

“Okay, let’s get on with the debriefing, and be brief. I need facts, details.”

“Well, let me think. When you ran around the north side of the house, Sally May was driving up the hill in front of the house.”

“Yes, yes? Something happened in front of the house? Hurry, Pete, I’m beginning to see a pattern here.”

“Well, when Sally May drove in front of the house, this . . . this huge woman-like creature swooped down from a tree and . . .”

“Whoa, stop right there.” I began pacing, as I often do when my mind is chasing clues. “You said ‘huge,’ Pete. How huge?”

“Oh . . . seven feet tall, maybe eight feet tall.”

“That checks out. Okay, you called her a ‘woman- like creature.’ Is it possible that this phantom you saw was actually . . . Monster Woman?”

Pete gasped. “You know, Hankie, I never would have thought of that, but . . . yes. Maybe that’s who she was.” He turned away from me and made a snorting noise. “Monster Woman.”

I stopped pacing and studied the cat. “Were you just laughing about something?”

“Me? Laughing? Oh no, Hankie. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is no . . . snort guff honk . . . laughing matter.”

“It certainly isn’t. On this ranch, the sudden appearance of monsters is serious business.” I resumed my pacing. “It’s all fitting together, Pete. Don’t you get it? Monster Woman was hiding in the tree. Sally May drove past the tree and Monster Woman swooped down and hijacked the car. That’s how it happened. Pete, I’ve just blown this case wide open.”

“Oh my. Hankie, I’m so impressed.”

“It had me stumped there for a minute or two, but when you supplied the details about her jumping out of the tree . . . well, that pretty well wrapped things up.” I marched over to him and gave him a pat on the back. “Thanks, Pete. You see what happens when we work together as a team?”

At that point, something strange came over the cat. He burst out with some kind of loud sputtering sound and darted away from me. At first I thought he was . . . well, laughing, but that made no sense. Why would he be laughing when our investigative team had just exposed a dangerous female monster on the ranch?

He wouldn’t. I mean, Pete was no genius, but he wasn’t dumb enough to laugh about that. All at once I was filled with concern. Maybe the little guy had choked or something. Back in the old days, when we were fighting like dogs and cats, I wouldn’t have cared if he choked. In fact, I would have considered it a privilege to choke him myself, but now that he had helped me solve a difficult case . . . well, it was a different deal entirely.

I rushed after him. “Hey, Pete, what’s the problem? You’re not choking, are you?”

Again, he made that sputtering sound. “Not choking, Hankie. Tee hee! Just coughing.”

“Oh, good. For a second there . . . but I never heard anyone make a coughing sound like ‘tee hee.’”

“Cold air. It constricts the . . . tee hee . . . throat passages.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. Maybe you’d better lie down. That’s a nasty cough.”

“Thanks, Hankie. Tee hee! I think I’ll do that. Teeee heeeee!”

Pete staggered away, coughing and sputtering. “Get some sleep and drink plenty of liquor. Liquids. Oh, and be on the lookout for Monster Woman. She might be hanging around for a while. Don’t let her bite you on the neck.”

Pete went into another spasm of coughing and snorting and made his way down to the yard. The poor little guy! I only wished there was something I could do to ease his suffering, but . . . well, I wasn’t a doctor.

Pretty sad, huh? You bet.

At that very moment, as I was feeling sadness and concern about Pete’s illness, Drover came up beside me and sat down. “Gosh, what’s wrong with him?”

“He’s very ill, Drover. I think he might be coming down with distemper.”

“You mean he’s mad?”

“Mad? Why would you say that?”

“Well, you said something about his temper and I thought you made him mad.”

I heaved a deep sigh. “Drover, please try to pay attention. I said distemper. Dis-temper. Distemper is like pneumonia in cats.”

“Oh. Then why don’t they just call it pneumonia?”

“I don’t know. Maybe distemper is easier to spell than pneumonia. Did you realize that pneumonia starts with p?”

“Gosh, you mean they wet the bed?”

“What?”

“You said that when cats get pneumonia, they wet the bed.”

I stared into the emptiness of his eyes. “I did not say that. I said, the word ‘pneumonia’ begins with the letter p.”

“I’ll be derned. So it’s really ‘pew-monia’?”

“No, it’s really ‘NEW-monia.’ The p is silent.”

“Yeah, it’ll sneak up on you.”

“Exactly. It’s very confusing, and that’s why we call it distemper instead of pneumonia. But the point is that Pete is a very sick cat.”

“I’ll be derned. I thought he was laughing his head off.”

“He was not laughing his head off, Drover. He was seized by a terrible fit of coughing.”

“Then how come he was saying ‘tee hee’?”

My eyeballs rolled up inside my head. “Because, Drover, distemper often produces a distinctive symptom called Tee Hee Coughing. You have your Hacking Coughs, your Crouping Coughs, and your Tee Hee Coughs, and the Tee Hee Coughs are the very worst kind.”

“I’ll be derned. I never knew coughing could be so complicated.”

“Everything is complicated, Drover. If you spent more time paying attention and less time goofing off, you would know just how complicated this life can be.”

“I’ll be derned.” He began scratching at his ear. “I thought maybe he was laughing ’cause you got in trouble with Sally May.”

I beamed him a steely gaze. “There, you see? This is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Once again, you lost concentration and missed out on one of the most exciting cases of the year, The Invasion of Monster Woman.”

He stopped scratching and stared at me. “Monster Woman! You mean . . . there’s a monster on the ranch?”

“Exactly. She attacked me in daily broadlight and tried to bite me on the neck with her bloody fangs.”

Drover’s eyes grew as wide as plates and be began backing away. “Oh my gosh, I think I’ll go hide under my bed.”

I found myself . . . uh . . . casting glances over both shoulders. “Not a bad idea, son. In fact, I might even join you. Let’s get out of here.”

And with that, we went streaking down to the Security Division’s Vast Office Complex under the gas tanks, rode the elevator up to the twelfth floor, burst into our bedroom-office, and dived beneath our respective gunnysack beds.

Only then could we be sure that we were safe.