Almost all of this is mine. ChatGPT helped me clean up a sentence or two, but this is almost all me.
-------------------------
Cat’s headache had gotten worse through the night. Now, with sunrise coming to the bayou, his vision had become a bit blurry from the pain. His shoulder hurt dully from where he’d been burned, but worst of all was his side where the man had stabbed him with a needle. That burned like fire. Like his head, it had gotten worse.
Through a slight haze, he saw the General lying on his side amidst the wreckage in the living room, panting. Cat knew his breathing too well to think he was asleep.
“How are you doing, Beau?”
“Woof,” replied the basset hound. The words sounded in Cat’s head in a rich, baritone voice. “My head feels like it’s about to collapse. The place where the bad men stabbed me with that needle is absolutely on fire.”
“Mine, too,” replied Cat.
About fifteen minutes after the changes, the surprise wore off. The talking without sound. The sharper edges of the world simply were. Things were different now, and that was that—no more remarkable than water being wet or the sun being bright. The men and their needles had done this.
Those men were dead. The gators had seen to that. Cat felt smug satisfaction recalling the explosion in the men’s boat, the splashes and screams.
Cat limped over to where General Beauregard lay on his side. He could hear the General whimpering slightly. This was the first time Cat had ever heard the General complain. The General simply didn’t do that.
Cat set to work cleaning the General’s side where the needle had gone in. General Beauregard barked loudly and angrily at him as soon as his tongue touched the spot. Cat involuntarily leaped back. Beauregard had never barked at him like that.
“Sorry, Beau,” said Cat. “I won’t touch that again.”
“Sorry, Cat. I didn’t mean that.”
“I know, Beau. Don’t worry about it.”
Cat moved on to one of the scrapes on General Beauregard’s shoulder and got to work, his raspy, little tongue moving along the basset hound’s fur in a rhythm that calmed them both.
Bobby and Basil were still in their bedrooms, sleeping off their drinking.
“When Bobby comes out, we’re going to be in trouble,” said General Beauregard. “He’s going to think we did all of this.”
Cat didn’t care. Bobby and Basil would yell and wave their hands and a few hours later, dinner would come. Nothing serious ever came of the men’s anger. It simply wasn’t worth paying attention to their yelling.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Beau. It won’t take them long to see the bow of the sunken skiff. The guys are pretty smart. They’ll figure out what happened,” replied Cat.
