The Mutilation Machination by Shaun Jeffrey Read Free Book Online Page B

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stepped back. When the cat didn’t appear, I took a cautious step toward the den
and peered inside to find the cat had torn its way through the plastic window.
    Distressed, I ran around the side of the den and looked in the
hedgerows to see if I could spot the cat, but it was nowhere to be seen.
    How far would it get with ten winds of the key?
    Surely not that far.
    I remembered the way it had blinked and opened its mouth, actions
it wasn’t supposed to be able to do. Perhaps it would go further than I
imagined. Perhaps the clockwork components weren’t powering it at all; perhaps
it hadn’t really been dead. A shiver ran up my spine. I felt like screaming but
didn’t know if it was through fear or uncertainty.
    Although I continued searching, there was no sign of the cat.
After a while, I even wondered whether it had really happened, but when I
returned to the den, I noticed the cat’s innards in the plastic bag that I’d
put them in. They had started to smell so I buried them in the garden and then
ran back inside the house, where I shut and bolted the door.
     
    During the next few days, I stayed indoors more than normal, which
didn’t go unnoticed by mother. I think she preferred it when I was out. She
questioned me a couple of times, and I could tell she thought there was
something wrong. But I couldn’t tell her what I had done as it didn’t seem
right. Besides, I didn’t think she’d believe me.
    That first night in bed, I had felt sure the cat was going to
creep up on me, and there I’d be, unable to hear it. So I lay on the mattress
in a way that I could touch the floor, trying to feel for the tick-tock of my
feline creation, but when it never came, I eventually fell asleep.
    It wasn’t until three days later that I found the bird’s carcass
in the hedgerow.
    I stared at it for a while, wondering how it had died. Eventually,
I crouched down and picked the bird up, recognised it as a starling. When I
looked closer, I noticed a hole in its neck. Parting the plumage around the
hole, I could just make out the shuttlecock ridges of an air rifle pellet.
    Bird in hand, I walked down to the den. Being a small creature
made it a tricky process, but I made a small incision on the underside of its
chest. Into this, I placed a small frame, to which I attached the motor,
fashioned from watches. Its legs were too small to animate, so I didn’t
consider doing anything other than making its wings move. I hoped it would be
enough.
    I had rigged the windup mechanism into its chest, and I gave the
key ten turns and then set the bird on the table.
    It took a while, but then it blinked and its beak opened and
closed. It flexed its wings, the movement still very mechanical. Moments later,
the bird gave a nod of its head and launched itself into the air. It made an
ungainly test flight, struggling to keep itself airborne. I wondered whether
the watch components were too heavy.
    It finally came to rest on the windowsill where it fluttered its
wings a couple of times before flying away through the open door.
    I ran outside and watched it struggle into the sky, circling
higher and higher until I lost sight of it. When I eventually lowered my gaze,
I saw mother standing at the back door, gazing out. She looked happy; Vicky
babbled in her arms.
     
    When I found Vicky sprawled on the floor by her highchair a couple
of days later, it seemed like an ironic case of déjà vu. I stared at her for a
moment, then checked her neck for a pulse. The feel of her cold skin made me
flinch. I sat back and chewed a fingernail, wondering whether she had cried out
when she fell. Not that it would have mattered as I wouldn’t have heard.
    Having left Vicky in my care while she visited my father’s grave,
mother would undoubtedly hold me responsible. This time she would be right.
    My sister felt heavier than she was as I lifted her from the floor
and carried her out to the den. The partially gutted badger that I had been
working on eyed