Feral (24 page)

“Yes, coming,” she agreed, but what she really wanted was another look at the cemetery—at the fog and the cats and Serena. When she glanced across the street, as if, it was though a spell had been broken. She heard no voices, saw no faces in the fog. The cats ate peacefully from the Dumpster.

“Don't worry about those cats over there,” Rich said in a reassuring tone. “I know you had bad luck with one of them, but for the most part, they really are harmless. Especially that old calico—she followed Serena everywhere—probably because Serena left food out for her at her old house. Sweet Pea.”

“Sweet Pea?” Claire repeated, her mind a pinwheel.

“That's what Serena called her, anyway. I used to hear her calling her to dinner.”

“If she's so sweet, why did she scratch me? Why do the rest of the cats react to her like that?” she blurted. She already knew the answer to the last part—she'd just heard it, straight from the fog. But she wanted to hear what Rich had seen, what he'd heard.

“
Sweet Pea
scratched you?” Rich asked, obviously surprised. He shrugged. “It might be that the other cats are turning on her 'cause she's old, she might even be dying. Sometimes animals sense those things.”

When his words did nothing to dislodge Claire's feet, Rich called, “Come on—Prid salve, remember?”

“Right. Prid salve.” Hesitantly, she climbed up the creaky, soft front steps. As Rich opened the door, Claire paused at the side of an old cracker barrel, the wooden staves gray from weather, the metal hoops rusted.

“Got it?” Rich called, his fingers slipping from the screen as he stepped inside.

Claire pressed her hand against the door, holding it open herself, forcing a smile at Rich.

Just before entering 'Bout Out, Claire's eyes landed on a white cooler, branded Ice, sitting to the side of the patched-up screen door.

She shuddered, sucking in her breath. The cooler was covered in ferals. The yellow tabby she'd seen when she and her dad had first rolled into town. More calicos. A solid black cat with electric green eyes. A gray-and-white tomcat whose stripes looked more like alternating patterns of caked-in filth. They bared their teeth, tails swelling as they crept toward her, in a pack, drawing closer to the edge of the cooler. Bile burned the back of Claire's throat, just as it had out in the field behind Peculiar High when she'd discovered Serena's body.

All of them, hissing.

“Just cats,” Claire reminded herself. But the instant she said it, Serena's face flashed in front of her eyes—Serena's face as it had looked in the woods, beneath the branch. Filled with bite marks left by the feral cats' feast. As Claire paused in the open doorway, Sweet Pea scurried ahead of her, straight into the store.

“Hey,” Claire barked. “You shouldn't be in there.”

The cat paused momentarily at the sound of Claire's voice. Blood from the Dumpster altercation trickled down the old calico's front leg. She disappeared, scurrying deep into the store.

Claire sighed, glancing back at the cooler. But the cats were no longer threatening. In a blink, the same animals that had seemed so menacing only moments before were now perfectly tranquil. They nuzzled each other, cleaned each other's faces with their rough tongues. They behaved exactly like the kind of sweet little kitties that the old man in the lot had tried to warn Claire, on her arrival, that they were not. And maybe he was right, in part—maybe they did have some wild tendencies. She'd
seen
their wild tendencies up close. But they were, in fact, just cats. Feral was another word for stray, wasn't it?

Claire finally stepped inside the store, which smelled comforting, like hot coffee and Maxine's warm muffins. But the comfort disappeared as soon as a stack of newspapers beside the front counter greeted Claire with a bold headline from the
Kansas City Star
: BODY OF MISSING TEEN FOUND BY CLASSMATES.

She frowned, turning prickly inside. Now that the funeral was over, she'd expected the story to have died down. Maybe, she thought, it was the circumstances in which Serena's body had been found that reporters were still finding newsworthy.
Found by classmates
, Claire thought.
Found covered in cats, being eaten, being ravaged . . .

As she stared, the school picture below the headline began to change, flipping back and forth as quickly as strobe lights flicking on and off: Claire, Serena, Claire, Serena—
Claire.
Her own school picture was now centered under the words BODY OF MISSING TEEN FOUND.

It was
her
body that had been found—that's what the headline proclaimed. Claire's body.

No, not yours
, she told herself.
It can't be. You were
almost
a body. But you survived, remember?

“First aid's this way,” Rich called. Claire glanced up to find him pointing toward the back of the store.

When she glanced back down again, the front page bore only Serena's image.

Stop it, Claire. Get ahold of yourself.

But she was not entirely sure that she had simply envisioned her own picture on the front page of the
Star.
Where was the fog? Where was Sweet Pea? Was Serena playing mind games? Claire was on edge. She felt as though the atmosphere inside 'Bout Out was pressing down on her skull, like a vise. A headache began to pound behind her eyes.

She staggered forward, clutching the side of her head. The quicker she found some triple antibiotic, she figured, the quicker she could get back outside and away from the searing heat spewing from an old wood stove in the corner of the store. Away from the frightening headline and the awful ferals.

But before she could catch up to Rich, the front door flapped open again, and Sheriff Holman entered, along with Chas and Owen.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“W
hat's the matter with you?” Chas asked Owen as the two boys stepped closer to Maxine's display of hot coffee, and Sheriff Holman hurried down an aisle, pausing in front of a sign proclaiming, Fresh Sugar Donuts!

“Nothing,” Owen grumbled, as Chas reached for a Styrofoam cup and started to squirt hot coffee from one of the thermoses situated on a small wooden table near the front door. Steam danced above the black pool of liquid.

“Something is,” Chas muttered.

Owen shook his head, clenching his jaw.

“Sugar?” Chas asked.

“I don't care.”

“What's your
deal
?” Chas pressed angrily. “We're all suddenly beneath you, Mr.
GQ
?”

“I just don't want—” Owen started. He stared through the front window, in the direction of the cemetery. “Doesn't this seem weird, this morning? After everything?”

Chas rolled his eyes. “You'll change your mind when we get to the range. Come on. Two sugars and a shot of Hershey's syrup. Just the way I like it.”

He moved with such enthusiasm that Owen chuckled despite himself.

“The range?” Claire blurted.

The boys turned, startled to find her standing less than five feet away.

“Didn't really expect to see anybody out,” Owen offered as a way to brush away their obvious surprise. “After.”

“Aw, come on—the funeral's over. Can't we just move on? Even Becca was up and out early this morning,” Chas justified. “I saw her leaving her house on the way here.”

“What's the range?” Claire pressed.

“The shooting range,” Chas said, sipping his coffee. “We go every weekend, me and Owen—with Becca's dad. Usually on Sundays. Becca's dad's on call today, but with the whole town sort of still . . .” Chas's voice faded as he struggled to find the right worlds. “
Shut down
,” he finally said. “While the town's basically shut down, he thought we'd be free to get our practice in.”

Claire still felt off balance from having imagined her own picture on the front page of the paper, and now, this talk of a firing range made her scalp constrict and the hairs rise on her arms. Something about the idea of those two particular boys firing pistols caused the air to smell metallic, like danger.

“Why are you out this morning?” Chas asked, giving Claire a friendly once-over as Owen turned his face back toward the plate-glass window. His expression grew distant as he eyed the cemetery.

Claire nodded, pointed over her shoulder. “Just came—needed some first aid stuff,” she said nonchalantly, hoping to conceal her fear.

“I think I want you guys to take me home,” Owen said. “I don't think I want to go today.”

“What're you going to
do
?” Chas asked.

“I've got plenty to do,” Owen challenged.

“Yeah, that's what Becca says,” Chas barked.

As an argument flicked to life, the boys seemed to forget Claire completely.

Good
, Claire thought.
Get the medicine and get out.
But where had Rich gone? The store was small—an eighth of the size of the supermarket she and her father had frequented in Chicago—and she wasn't quite sure how he could have disappeared so easily.

“Rich?” Claire asked. “Where's that Prid salve stuff? What aisle?”

She began to make her way down the center of the store, eyeballing the contents of each aisle before passing it by. She turned from the bologna and American cheese in the deli counter, hurried past the row of Tangee lipstick and Coty face powder, glanced down an aisle with Wonder Bread and Shredded Wheat, and paused.

Having abandoned their squabble, Owen and Chas walked past her, toward the counter.

As Claire searched the store for a sign of Rich, she saw it: a drizzle of red blood on the wooden floor. She gasped, wondering when the source of the stain—Sweet Pea—would jump out from her hiding spot. She backed up, her shoes smearing the blood, as a hiss exploded into her ears. She swiveled, the blood beneath her feet making the floor slippery. She stared, yet again, into the eyes of the old calico.

Sweet Pea hissed a second time, her tail swelling fat. She raised her injured leg, waving it like a cat playing with a toy. She pawed at the air as light from the front window settled on the gold charm at the base of Claire's throat and reflected back on the cat's face. Serena was trying to get at the old cameo necklace—just as she'd tried in the cemetery, after the funeral. Wisps of Serena's spirit floated just behind the surface of the cat's face—the way a figure inside a bedroom could still be seen behind a pair of filmy curtains.

As Claire prepared to defend herself yet again against the old cat, she was also aware that Officer Holman was paying for coffee and some Little Debbie Donut Sticks. The last of two boxes.
Better hurry
, Maxine was saying, her voice sounding garbled and distorted.
We're 'bout out. Ruthie, ring these boys up.
Normal, everyday action serving as the backdrop of terror.

A delivery truck was arriving, lumbering up to the back door, coming to replace the stock Maxine had lost during the storm. And Ruthie was letting out a giggle—flirty.
She's talking to Chas
, Claire tried to assure herself. But—no—had that giggle sounded sort of sharp, too—a little mean? Claire didn't like mean laughter. Her body ached as she remembered what followed it.

Maxine plunked something down on top of the wood stove and rushed toward the back door and the delivery truck.

It was so hot in that store. Everyone was staring at her. No—they weren't. She only saw backs of heads, backs of shoulders. Still, though, she felt eyes.

Claire turned her attention to the floor, expecting to see the old cat, but only finding the bloodstain. She was gone again, back in hiding.

And those flashing yellow
eyes
—Claire could feel them staring out at her from the shadows. A cat body crouched, ears pointed, whiskers twitching happily as she waited to sneak up on Claire, prepared for the attack.

“Rich?” Claire asked again.

God, it was so hot, the air rippled. Claire's skin poured out a sickly sweat beneath her coat. The cat was following her. She knew it.

Claire was so woozy. All she wanted to do was lie down right there on the cool tile floor. Her eyelids drooped. Her mind spun like the insides of a blender.

Suddenly, a loud pop hit the air like a fist—with it, the interior of 'Bout Out disappeared completely.

Claire was transported; she clung helplessly to a night sky, hovering in the cold darkness, staring down at the parking lot below. And the noise she'd heard—that pop—it had been a car door. The girl cop with the round, worried face had just slammed the passenger door of the black-and-white, and she was racing for Claire's body. The rest of the cops were wrangling the grunting, cursing boys to the ground, slapping on cuffs.

Claire watched from her spot high above them all. Stuck to the sky, just as she had been that night in April. She hung, not yet dead, but not really alive anymore, either. Waiting for her life to flash before her—waiting, too, for the sense of peace that refused to show its face. And she thought again,
It's too late for you.
Her body looked like a pile of ground beef down there. Bloody, broken.

As she comforted the shattered Claire, the girl cop slipped her own necklace over her head and put the charm in Claire's bloodstained hand. “St. Jude. Stay with me,” she pleaded.

But Claire was soaring, flying through the sky, landing this time on the old back porch of the Sims rental, staring at the rat the calico had mutilated. Staring down at its ripped-open guts, listening to the distant taunts:
You like ratting us out?
But there was no time to answer. She was flying again—this time, into the woods behind the high school. She was looking down on the bloodied corpse that the cats had found. They were eating her flesh. That was
her
flesh, Claire thought. She was the one under that limb.