Cookoo Charlie's Animal Alphabet: Kitten

An introduction to the story:

Years ago, while living in California, I wrote a short film script called Cookoo Charlie: A Stray Bullet. At the time, my friend and business partner, John Ray Gutierrez, were in talks of filming it. It never came to fruition.

So I adapted the script into the short story below. A few years back, I did submit it to Sinister Grin Press for an upcoming chapbook. It made the first round but didn't pass the second. They did like the story and encouraged me to continue writing.

Kitten

Skipping up the street, Roxanne began humming to the tune of one of her favorite songs. Although it wasn’t raining, she wore a yellow raincoat purchased by her parents at the beginning of her third school year; the roads were slick and wet from the downpour an hour earlier.

After spending over an hour at the library, Roxanne was on her way home. Although Roxanne had just turned ten earlier this month, her mom dropped her off at the library, which was four blocks down from her house to do research for a school project; not to mention Roxanne loved losing herself in the stacks of books. All the librarians knew Roxanne by name and she felt as comfortable at the library as did in her own home.

About half way home, she noticed movement coming from the bushes ahead of her. Ceasing her skipping, Roxanne walked up to the overabundant flora. Perhaps it was a squirrel, which she adored. She loved the story her dad told her about how a squirrel had bitten his finger, while feeding it peanuts. He wasn’t that much older than Roxanne is now. She knew her dad wasn’t pulling her leg either because her grandma had shown her the picture of her dad holding his bitten finger with the squirrel’s tail in the upper corner making a hasty exit, stage left.

Seconds later, it wasn’t a squirrel emerging from the bush, but a scraggly kitten. He was a wet, dirty feline that appeared to have lacked attention for quite some time.

The pitiful creature looked imploringly at Roxanne and issued forth a weak meow.

“Awww, how cute,” exclaimed Roxanne. “Well, you are an awful mess, but with a little cleaning…”

As Roxanne picked the kitten up, it meowed approvingly.

“You… are coming home with me,” said Roxanne petting the top of the animal’s head.

The stray refugee made a questioningly inquiry.

“Don’t worry, mommy won’t be a problem,” she reassured him. “We’ll have to work on dad.”

With kitten in hands, Roxanne resumed her skipping and humming.

Up the stairs, into the house went Roxanne cradling her purring parcel of pure pleasure. Closing the door behind her, Roxanne heard her mom in the kitchen.

“Is that you, Roxanne?” asked her mom.

“Yes, mama,” responded Roxanne.

Switching the kitten from arm to arm, Roxanne removed her X-Men backpack and tossed it on the brown leather couch. She walked towards the kitchen, past the tiger skin rug sprawled on the living room floor. Once the guardian of the forest, now the Bengal beauty’s dead eyes gazed towards the heavens in search of her tribe; a tribe with extinction’s hounds snapping at its hunted heels.

Entering the kitchen, Roxanne found her mom stirring a pot on the stove. The aroma of her mom’s mouthwatering Cincinnati chili had enticingly assaulted Roxanne as soon as she had entered the house. For an extra spicy kick, Roxanne’s mom mixed habanero peppers in with the cayenne peppers. Roxanne loved it so much; she had always managed to put away two bowls.

“Look what I found, mommy,” squealed Roxanne.

Turning around, Roxanne’s mom, a woman in her early thirties with long, red hair tied back in a scrunchie, seen the kitten in her daughter’s hands.

“Where did you find that kitten?” inquired Roxanne’s mom.

“I found him coming out of the bushes on my way home from the library.”

“Roxanne, sweetie, do you remember the talk your father and I had with you about bringing home more strays?”

Reluctantly, Roxanne nodded her head yes.

“Your father will be home from work any minute, what do you think he’s going to say?”

“Maybe we could…” began Roxanne.

Similar to the mutant Mystique, the kitten morphs into the cannibal clown called Cookoo Charlie. Grinning like a cat that bit the head off of a field mouse, or worse, Cookoo placed his hands on either side of Roxanne’s head and snapped her neck.

“Roxanne!,” screamed the girl’s mom, as she watched her daughter drop to the floor.

The cannibal clown did an about-face. “And then… There was mommy.”

Frantically, the frightened and devastated mother turned around searching for something she could use as a weapon. Anydamnthing.

“Mommy, where’s daddy? He’s been gone for soooo long,” quoted Charlie from one of his favorite Alice Cooper songs.

Grabbing a butcher’s knife from the knife block, Roxanne’s mom turned back around to face her only child’s murderer.

There was no one there.

“Tigers walked this earth since sabertooth

You don’t give a shit, do you Ruth?

Little over a decade and they’ll be gone

Yet you use them as a rug to walk upon.”

Quicky, Ruth scanned the kitchen in an attempt to locate the mad clown. Had she looked on top of the microwave, Ruth would’ve seen a devil’s flower mantis rubbing his front legs in anticipation of what’s to come. Then, like Kurt Wagner, it disappeared.

Dropping her knife, Ruth ran to her daughter, scooping her up into her arms.

“Oh, my baby. Wake up, Roxanne. Wake up!!” wailed Ruth.

“Honey, I’m home,” came a man’s voice from the other room

.

“Ruth screamed for her husband. “Sean! Help me!”

Sean, a clean-shaved man in his early thirties dressed in office attire, dropped his briefcase to the floor. Fueled by the painful anguish in his wife’s voice, Sean bolted for the kitchen. Upon seeing the nightmare before him, Sean came to an abrupt halt.

“Oh my god! What happened?”

Ruth, devastated, lost, gazed up at the father of her little girl. “A clown… a kitten and…” Disjointedly, Ruth tried to explain the horror that had transpired in her home. Her sanctuary.

“What? You’re not making any sense,” said Sean, moving behind his distraught wife.

“I…,” attempted Ruth.

Grabbing his wife by her hair, Sean pulled Ruth’s head back and slit her throat with her own butcher’s knife. She slumped on top of her deceased daughter, bathing her child in her blood.

Where Sean stood moments ago, now, stood the clown.

“Hmmm. Which one shall I consume first?” inquired the clown to an audience that no longer gave a damn about the answer. Or anything else.

Pointing a finger at Ruth, Cookoo Charlie began to recite.

“Eenie, meenie, miney, moe

Tities, asses, fingers, toe

All good things make Cookoo grow

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe.”

Cookoo Charlie’s finger stopped at Roxanne. Smiling, he began to sing.

“Thank heaven for little girls.”