Strays (30 page)

He opened his eyes, and the dream dissipated.

“Where are we going?” Kyle asked.

“You drive,” said Molly.  “I’ll navigate.”

Kyle grabbed the gear shift along the steering column, and something came over him.  His hands began to tremble, and in his gut was a strange, wriggling sensation, as if he had swallowed a spider whole and it was struggling to crawl back out.  He flipped the door handle and swung the door outward, then leaned out and retched.  What came out was dark and thin, remnants of the bottles of Coke he had consumed.  When he was finished, he spit and wiped his face, than sat up and closed the door.

“Okay?” Molly asked.

“Hold on.” 

He flipped off the switch, pulled out the keys, and stepped out of the car.  He gave his pool of vomit a wide birth.  He peeled of his torn t-shirt and wiped the last bit of vomit off his chin.  He flipped the tattered and now filthy rag off into the night.  He then went to the back of the car, popped the trunk, and rummaged in the duffel bag he had packed for the journey.  Seconds later, he returned to the driver seat, this time wearing a white jersey-style shirt with a Henley collar and forest green sleeves.  Emblazoned across the chest were the words
K-SOUTH
.

“Now I’m okay,” he said. 

In seconds they were back on I-80, rolling west.

“You did all right,” Molly said.  “Of course, there are always things you could have done better.”

“Is this the part where you mark up my class essay with red ink?”  He felt his father’s ornery grin spreading on his face, but it was forced all the same.

“The best way to avoid a fight is to make the other guy think ending it is his idea.”

“Who are you supposed to be now?” Kyle asked.  “Master Yoda?”

Molly chuckled at this and stared out the windshield.  Kyle shook his head to calm himself and kneaded the steering wheel in his clenched fists.

“You need to remember something else,” Molly said.  “Your fight back there, it wasn’t with Brandon and it wasn’t with his friends.  It was with something else.”

“What’s that?”

Molly sighed and put her hand on his leg.  “You’ll know soon enough.”

*   *   *   *

Sarah had seen him again in the night.  She had found herself on the sprawling road again, all alone save the lanky silhouette of the boy as he approached from a distance.  The light behind him was greater now, the bluish tint of the sun rising in the east to greet the day, and at first she thought that the boy had left and this was something else, something large and unfamiliar.  Her heart beat out a tom-tom rhythm hard inside of her chest, and she almost turned to run.  But then she looked again, and it was indeed the boy, only something had changed.

What am I missing?
she thought. 
Why am I not seeing it?

She awoke in the late hours of morning, the sky still dark through the row of south windows, with both cats still at each side.  Strawberry was curled against her head, purring softly in her sleep, and Tom was still there at her hip, sleeping with his front paws and chin resting on her thigh.  She reached down and stroked his head, and she felt the cat stretch and purr. 

“It’s okay, Tom,” she said.  “I’m okay.”

She slid her legs out of bed, trying to avoid disturbing the cats, but they were already up and at the alert, strutting to the edge of the bed.

“No,” Sarah said.  “I don’t want you to come with me.  I’ll be okay.”

She went through her clothes and found a pair of shorts and then put on a t-shirt and her sneakers.  She opened the bedroom door and tiptoed down the steps, walked lightly through the dining room to the kitchen, and then opened the front door.  She heard the guitar twang of the door spring and cringed, hoping it would not wake Trudy, and then stepped onto the porch, easing the door shut so it would not slam.

It was a warm morning, and the sun had yet to rise.  Sarah went to the edge of the porch and sat dangling her legs over the sides.  She heard movement in the grass, under the porch, all around, and she knew she was not alone, but this was a good kind of company, the soft, glowing eyes of a tribe of cats, moving in the shadows but always at the ready.

There was very little wind.

Sarah let her mind drift, and she thought of the place from where she had come, that awful world on South Tacoma Way she thought of as the Nightmare House.  Her only regret was that she had to leave her brother Little Bud behind.  In spite of everything, she missed her brother, and she even sort of missed her mother but not in the same way.  Her mother had been AWOL from Sarah’s life for a long time, working those late shifts, never there when Sarah came home from school but arriving long after Sarah had gone to bed … after “play time” with Big Buddy were finished. 

Sarah shuddered and wrapped her arms around her chest.  It disgusted her when she let the memories come.  Even now, after her tortuous adventure that had led to this place of safety, the stench of Big Buddy hung heavy on her skin.  Trudy’s shower may have washed away a week’s worth of sweat and road grime, but it would take something much stronger to cleanse Sarah of the residue of her stepfather.

The air seemed to grow cold, but just then something nudged Sarah’s elbow.  She reached out in the dark and felt the broad and bushy head of a very large cat.  As she ran her fingers down his back and through his fur, she was certain that she knew which cat this was—the large Siberian that had come out and sat by Trudy’s feet when they first arrived at the farm.

“Hey, you,” Sarah whispered as she stroked his head.  She felt the cat’s purr in her palm as she laid her hand on the back of his neck, and then something seemed to buzz in the Siberian’s pelt, tickling her palm and sending a prickle of voltage up her arm.  Her first instinct was to draw away, but something deeper inside fought against the urge.  She let her hand remain, took in the quivering buzz that coursed through her flesh, and at last she understood.

“You’re one of them,” she said.  “You’re part of The Glaring.”

The cat purred louder and pressed his head against her leg.

“What do you look like when you’re human?” she asked.  “I bet you’re big.”

She felt the cat flop on the porch, heavy enough to make a soft
whup!
sound, and he rolled under her hand and batted at her fingers with his front paws.

“How many more are here?” Sarah asked.

The purring suddenly stopped.  The Siberian went rigid and rolled back until he was crouched on his belly.  The tickle in Sarah’s arm grew stronger, filling every cell with a soft burn as if her muscles were doused in a strong liniment.

“There aren’t enough,” Sarah said.  “That’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

The Siberian growled softly like a squeaky hinge.  Sarah felt his back press against her palm as he leapt off the edge of the porch.  She could hear his ample body crush the lawn below, and then there was the whish of grass as he scampered into the night.

Sarah was alone.  She closed her eyes.  It was dark enough outside, but for some reason she was seeing things now, and closed eyes somehow blocked out distractions from even the other senses.

She knew she was facing south, for the house’s façade was a southern exposure.  She listened for the sounds of the night, but on this early morning even the crickets were silent.  It was as if she had fallen into a vacuum, and she strained to sense the comforting presence of the other cats in the yard, waited for movements or gentle purrs or even an irritated
humph!
like Tom sometimes made.  But all was still, and in the rawness of the moment, she sensed it all again—

The monsters from the north, a most incompatible duo, meandering about the highways in an effort to reach her.

And her so-called champion from the east, having cleared some final obstacle and now drawing closer, ever closer, to be with her.

Sarah wondered about things.

She wondered about the monsters, wondered if they were very near, if they knew how to find her, and how long it would take if they did.

She wondered about the boy, her destined defender and advocate, and if he would arrive before the monsters.

Most of all, she wondered if he would be enough for the monsters, who had proven themselves to be formidable when they needed to be.

To Sarah, it was like sitting on top of a stick of dynamite but not knowing if it was lit.  Should she leap from the porch, run into the darkness, and continue her flight from the nightmares that pursued her?  Or was she in fact safe?  Would this place, would Trudy, would the cats, the inscrutable Glaring, and the ungainly boy making his way from the east … would even
their
combined efforts be enough?

Through the mists that formed behind her closed eyes, she could see Big Buddy, large and foul and stinking of nicotine and whiskey sweat.  She could hear the deafening thunder of boots the size as four-door sedans, and the air about him was misted with something gray and the texture of porridge.  Larger and larger he grew, his cloud rising about him, choking out all life, leaving vegetation blackened and dead.  The most awful thing in Sarah’s world, and now he was reanimated by something worse, some evil presence that hovered in the shadows, marking the days with slippery shark’s eyes and moving his followers about like chess pieces. 

Sarah’s eyes flickered open to thorough darkness.  The overcast from earlier had passed, and the lights from distant Pendleton no longer glanced off the belly of the clouds.  Even the stars seemed to have retracted, withholding their distant light lest it be burnt out completely. 

The monster was coming.  The worst monster in the world. 

And even with the support of new friends, Sarah feared she would not have the strength to face him again.

*   *   *   *

The sun framed the rolling hills to the east, casting the sky from black to a deep navy, and the spring on the screen door offered its rising guitar twang.  Tom stepped out into the dawn.  Now in his human form, he wore jeans and a gray t-shirt.  His bare feet made light slapping sound on the wood floor as he came and sat down beside Sarah, dangling his legs next to hers off the porch.  He was silent, and Sarah was glad of that.

“What are you?” Sarah asked after letting the hush hang in the air for a full minute.

She did not look at him but knew he was grinning.  “I’m just Tom,” he said.

“Not just you,” she replied, turning to look at him.  “All of you.  What are you?  Where did you come from?”

Tom gazed into the yard, where the host of cats was becoming more visible in the early light.  He offered a slight shrug.  “Where do any of us come from?”

“You’re not from another planet or something?”

Tom chuckled.  “Not as far as I know.”

“So what are you?” Sarah asked.  “And why did you bring me here?”

Tom folded his hands in front of his face as if praying, and after a moment he looked at her without smiling.  “For as long as anyone can remember, we’ve been here,” he said.  “We’re not cats, we’re not people, but at the same time we’re both.”

“I get that much,” Sarah said.

“In human form, we move pretty much among all of you,” Tom continued.  “Some of us have jobs and families, and you might say hi to us every day on the street.  But when we’re cats, Sarah … that’s when the real work begins.”

“What work?”

“Looking after you.”

Sarah shook her head and smiled.  “Me?”

“You and others like you,” said Tom.  “Humans.  Strays.  The ones that can’t change.”

“I see,” Sarah said.  “So how do you go about looking after us?”

Tom reached out and took her hand, moving closer so she could see him better in the trifling light of dawn.  “There are 500 million cats in the world,” he said.  “The Glaring makes up a very tiny fraction of them.  But when we are in our feline form, we are connected to all of them.”

“Connected.”

“Cats sense things,” Tom said.  “Things about the world, about people, about life.  And those senses flow from one cat to another, all over the world.  It’s the most amazing network of communication you’ve ever seen.  And my kind, The Glaring … we’re the ones who know what to do with that information.”

Sarah nodded and squeezed his hand.  It was warm and perfect, neither dry and scaly nor moist and slick like the hands of most humans tended to be.  She wished she could stay there forever, just holding his hand and listening to him talk.

“Where do I fit in all this?” she finally asked.

“We were told that we needed to find you, to bring you to a safe place.”  He squeezed her hand back and then released it, turning back to the yard.  “I personally volunteered for the mission.”

“Told by who?” Sarah asked.

“I’m not sure,” Tom admitted.  “It was just a message we received.  It rippled through The Glaring and strays alike.  We knew
who
you were, and we knew
where
you were.  As to the
why
of it …”  He shrugged and chuckled lightly in the bluing darkness.

Sarah settled and watched the yard as the morning grew and spread.  There was light in the east sky as the sun, which had no doubt found the horizon, was still hiding behind the surrounding hills, but with each passing minute the rich color of navy became brighter and brighter, and at last the first glimpses of light could be seen at the crest of the closest prominence.  The light flowed into the valley, glancing the shadows of trees across the yard, and the congregation of cats, some “strays,” some of them The Glaring, could be seen at strategic points, filling the yard and waiting for orders.

“Tell me about the boy,” Sarah said.

“Which?”

“The one I dream about.  The one who’s coming here.”

Tom sighed and crossed his arms.  “He was chosen.”

“By who?”

“Again, I couldn’t say.”

“What was he chosen for?”

At this, Tom chuckled and shook his head.  “You got me there.”

“Seriously, Tom,” Sarah said.  “You know.  I’m sure you know.”

Tom hunched his shoulders and crossed his arms in front of him.  He dipped his chin to his chest, eyes closed in painful thought, and then at last he nodded and looked at her.  “There is only so much my kind can do,” he said.  “To look after you, I mean.”