Disclaimer - I own nothing. . . I get no money from this. . .
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My eyes opened of their own volition, ignoring my mind's sleepy protests. There it was again. Ears swiveling quickly around, I gently eased out of the half of a barrel that served as my bed and crept to the steps. A muffled sound issued from the other side of the wooden door that marked the entrance to above decks. Voices. No voices like any I had ever heard - they were high and shrill, almost childlike. I jumped backwards, almost tripping over my own tail down the steps, when something banged against the door. Recovering myself, I charged upward into the door only to have it stand firm, silently defying me.
I growled in frustration and bounded over to the rest of the crew, who incredibly were most of them still asleep. One was sitting up in his barrel, eyes wide and one paw creeping towards the dagger beside him. A young tuxedo - still a kitten - the only member of the crew junior to myself, he had showed signs before of some sort of prescience. His head would jerk up and he was sniffing the air seconds before a badly slung load of cargo crashed on deck or a huge sewer rat jumped straight at one of our throats. Growltiger himself had found him, tiny and shivering, in an alley on one of his prowls ashore. When the kitten had hissed at his approach and swiped at him with one diminutive clawed paw, the Captain took a liking to the little thing and drafted him as the barge's sentinel, a job that the young tom showed a remarkable affinity for.
Giving him a look that I hoped was reassurance - I was too shaken myself to bother too much with comforting him, I headed straight for the senior seaman's bunk and shook him awake. Not waiting for the swift rebuke I knew was imminent for what seemed like lack of respect for my betters, I said softly: "There's someone up on deck, and it's not the Captain."
That one sentence sufficed to get the silver tabby up out of bed and racing to the door in alarm. Finally able to collect himself, the kitten gently roused the others and stood silently in the shadows, as was his way, dagger clutched tightly in hand.
After three or four failed attempts to force the door open, he settled for pressing one ear against the wooden planking and motioning everyone else to silence. I leaned in close, stopping my breath to listen. There was a few moments of silence, then a feminine screech rang through the night air, I could have sworn it would be heard as far as Putney.
Having heard more than enough to make a quick decision, one of the crew in back of me drew myself and the tabby back. For a moment forgetting his position as a junior to the tabby, he ordered everyone back against the far wall. Understanding his idea, we all rushed forward in a mass of snarling fur and threw ourselves upon the door. On the third time it gave, and the kitten burst out of the hold in front of any of us, giving a small gasp as he did. The deck was covered in small, sleek Siamese bodies, and as one their piercing blue eyes turned to us. The Captain had warned us about the Siamese, for it was a Siamese had mauled his missing ear, and on that night I knew he had been right. The crew threw themselves amidst the foe, slashing and cutting with cutlass, claw and tooth, while the kitten raced along the barge, calling desperately for the Captain. Then something must have caught his eye in the water, for he was leaning over the side of the vessel near the plank, and when he looked up his eyes were full to the brim. My stomach did flips and a keening wail ripped itself from my mouth.
He was gone. The Captain was gone. I didn't even have time to think as I saw the crew being brutally slaughtered in front of my eyes, but the thought repeated itself as a litany in my mind. I think the kitten must have sensed it, for he started towards me, but was stopped short by the toasting fork protruding from his chest. He didn't look down at it, but stared at me instead, the luster fading fast from his eyes as the blood stained his white chest. Small choking noises issued from his throat and he crumpled as the Siamese behind him jerked his weapon free.
It was all over. I leaped off the barge onto the docks, and ran as fast as my four legs could carry me down the dirty streets. Finally I was forced to stop as one of my paws twisted treacherously under me and dumped me in a panting heap in an abandoned alley. They had killed them. Those murdering chink bastards had killed the only family I had known in my eight months of existence. And the Captain. . .
I swore to myself then and there that the spirit of Growltiger would live on. Growltiger had been a bravo cat, and so would I be, but after my own fashion. Like my mentor, I would do exactly what I wanted when I wanted to do it and anyone who attempted to hinder me I would kill. Whenever Growltiger's name was mentioned, people shuddered and locked their doors in fear. They would fear me, too, and no one would ever dare to do to me anything to equal the evil that had been done that night. My name would strike terror into their very hearts and banish any thoughts of retaliation. The name Growltiger himself had given me. . .
Macavity.
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