Feral (31 page)

“Our street is less than ten minutes away going through the woods. We stick to the roads, it's forty-five minutes. You pick.”

“Some choice,” Claire muttered as she and Rich both climbed from the truck.

Rich pulled a couple of emergency flashlights from his job box. “You need a hat or gloves?” he asked. “Got plenty back here.”

Claire accepted a pair of camouflaged gloves and a stocking cap, offering what she hoped looked like a grateful smile as they began to make their way toward the woods. Their shoes crunched through the remaining thin layer of ice as they closed in on the leafless limbs and barren brush. The last few patches of snow seemed to absorb the hues of the setting sun only to spit them back out, casting a glow across the schoolyard.

They entered the dense line of trees; Rich started to steer her toward the path worn flat from decades of student shortcuts. Claire paused as she remembered in painful clarity the sensations of the afternoon she'd found Serena: the frantic burst of breath in her ears, the way her feet had sunk to mid-shin in piles of ice—the way Rhine's and Becca's black coats had flapped like vultures' wings as they'd gained on her. Breaking the silence, she remarked offhandedly, “The crews have cleaned away a bunch of broken limbs. Whole place looks completely different now.”

Rich turned his eyes upward, at the broken limbs, jagged against a winter's sky. Claire found herself turning around, glancing down the path they'd taken from Peculiar High. She scanned the ground, her eyes stopping to rest on a long indentation. A black scrap of fabric lay poking out of the mud and half-melted snow.

“Rich,” Claire called, squatting to pick it up. It was thick—made of woven yarn. Like a piece of a sweater. She turned it over in her hand. A red PH had been embroidered across the top edge.

“It's a pocket,” Rich said. “From one of our school cardigans.”

Claire pointed at long ruts in the earth, sections in which the dead winter grass had been pulled up. “Something was dragged,” she said.

“Could have been the limbs,” Rich said.

“But don't those ruts point straight at the school?” Claire asked.

“I'm not sure that means anything, Claire. It's been nearly two weeks since Serena's body was found. That's a lot of time for a lot of coming and going through the woods, you know.”

She nodded reluctantly, tucking the piece of the sweater into her coat pocket. Rich led the way, the tongue of light from his flashlight showing the path ahead of him.

Claire's footsteps slowed. The gap between herself and Rich lengthened, as she swiveled her own flashlight through the trees, the light brutal and stark against the winter evening's growing blackness.

Claire paused, watching as the persistent fog began to grow in the evening chill, to thicken like steam from a hot shower.

Her phone went off; fishing it out from her pocket, a text glowed out at her:
Rain 2 freeze. Go home now. Take R with u.

She flinched. How was it possible? It was the very same text she'd gotten from her dad's grad assistant nine months ago. The warning that had flashed on her phone before she'd decided to walk anyway.

A sudden flap—like the wings of some gigantic bird—exploded into Claire's ears. She swiveled cautiously. The sound had come from the two flags on the Peculiar High pole: one the red, white, and blue of the US flag, the other, the PH flag, adorned with a giant black panther.

The flag stretched out flat in the wind, allowing the menacing mascot to bare its teeth and flash its green eyes at Claire.

Cars whizzed down nearby roads, their headlights shining like beacons, creating moving shadows. As Claire took another step forward, a headlight washed across the tree in front of her, illuminating a familiar face: Sweet Pea. Perched on a branch above Claire's head.

The old cat hissed, baring her discolored teeth. She stood, holding her swollen tail as straight as the school's flagpole. Threatening Claire.

Claire gasped. “Don't you hurt me,” she scolded, her hair rippling about her face.

Claire wanted to run, but she forced herself to stay rooted.
Find out
, she scolded herself.
Find out what this whole thing is about.

It wasn't easy to stay, though—not easy to convince herself not to run, as the same face that had smiled at Claire from her funeral portrait, who had stared down at Claire from the air above the cemetery, began to flicker across the head of the old cat.

As Claire stared, Serena's face grew clearer, gained dimension. She shivered when she realized Serena's head was actually pushing its way
out
of the cat's skull. Serena's spirit was emerging.

“The clock is ticking down for me,” Serena explained as she wrenched her face free. “Not much time left for me in this old body.” She had not completely left the old cat yet; her shoulders, her arms were out, but the rest of her figure was still inside.

“Sweet Pea's life is ending. She's old—so old. Time's running out for me again,” she said. “I don't want to leave—not the world, not like the fog wants me to. I want my old life back. I want to be seventeen, and I want to do seventeen-year-old things—I want to write for the paper and laugh with my friend, my best friend. Where is she tonight, huh? Getting ready for a
dance.
Trying to decide on the perfect hairdo. Hanging her pretty new dress out on the door. Like everything is the same as always. And where am
I
?”

Claire trembled against what Serena had just said, but stood firm, locking her jaw and making fists. “That's not true,” she tried to protest. “She feels terrible. If you only knew—”

“Terrible! I'm the one in this awful
body
,” Serena shouted. “This broken-down, nasty
body.
I don't want to be in here. I don't want to be some old cat. I want to be a girl. I want to go to school. I want to live in my old house. I want my best friend. I want my life. But I don't have my life.
You
have my life,” she shouted, stretching one arm toward Claire. “You have it,” she repeated.

She moved closer to Claire, yowling and snarling.

Please, God
, Claire thought, the words echoing inside her head.
Don't let me die.

“Rich!” she screamed. “Rich! Where are you?”

Serena's image pressed against Claire's chest, her spirit so cold it burned. Claire fought against the truth of the moment. But there was no escaping it. This was
happening.
Serena was trying to get inside
her
.

The world before Claire began to flip, back and forth: Chicago, Peculiar, Chicago, Peculiar. She could hear the rattle of trash cans, the thunk of their metal sides crashing against the back of her skull. She could hear laughter. Cheering. It pulsed rhythmically—something like,
more, more, more, more . . . hurt her more, give her more . . .

Chicago, Peculiar, Chicago, Peculiar—Serena's face grew still clearer, the wind catching her brown hair as her smile curled. Her cold hand pressed forcefully against Claire's chest. Chicago, Peculiar, Chicago—the cold gusts blew up her skirt as a hand reached around the waist of her underwear. Broken and bloody, she knew what was about to happen.

Panic completely enveloped Claire. “
Olly, olly, oxen free!
” she bellowed, utter desperation saturating her words. “
Olly, olly
—”

Serena laughed. “You think this is some sort of game, Claire? It's not. It's life and death—literally. My life for your death. They can have
you
,” Serena snarled. “The fog. They need a soul to take? They can have yours. I'm going to get my old life back. It'll be beautiful. My favorite house. My best friend. My old school. Writing for the paper. If I get rid of
you
, I'll get myself back.”

Claire screamed as Serena's fingers slipped through her skin, entering her chest. And though Claire fought desperately against her, Serena still managed to plunge her hand in yet another inch deeper—all the way up to her wrist.

The already charged atmosphere sparked as another figure appeared—a boy, bouncing about on the balls of his feet. A peach-fuzz mustache. A face in black and white.

Serena watched warily as he approached. “Leave me alone, Casey,” she snarled. Frantically, she tried one more time to press herself deeper into Claire's body. But there wasn't enough time. Casey was closing in.

The burn in Claire's chest disappeared as Serena quickly wrenched away. She dipped back into the cat's body, which had begun to slump limply against the ground. Once inside, Serena righted the old calico and shook her head, trying to steady herself on her feet. She blinked, her blue human eyes shining out clearly.

Casey stooped, grabbing Sweet Pea by the scruff of the neck.

What's he doing here?
Claire thought, panting, holding her hand over the aching spot in her chest where Serena had just tried to get inside her.
Why now? What does he want?

“Come out,” Casey demanded.

Sweet Pea squealed, swinging her legs, flapping her tail. But Casey held her at arm's length—far enough that she couldn't scratch him.

Claire remained a mere spectator, frozen.

“Come out,” Casey screamed again, shaking her.

The old calico yowled, her face flickering like a TV picture about to go out. Images flashed back and forth, alternating between Sweet Pea's gnarled, scabby, gory face and the blue, frozen face of the girl that Claire had found right there in the woods.

“They can't take you, not when you're in there,” Casey said, as the fog continued to thicken. The same arms and legs that Claire had seen rising in the cemetery appeared in the folds of fog. They reached for the cat, but jerked back each time they touched her fur, as though they'd hit a hard, impenetrable surface.

“You need to come out of there, Serena,” Casey shouted.

The wind continued to shift, to swirl, to increase in strength, as the translucent faces of fog danced about Claire, the figures of the town dead packed tightly together, like bodies in an elevator.

Fear rendered Claire mute.

“Get out of that cat's body,” Casey growled. “Serena. You don't belong in there. Let them take you home.”

The calico wiggled violently, wrenching herself from Casey's grip. She dropped onto the snow and began to race through the woods.

“Serena!” Casey screamed. But she was gone.

Claire stood trembling. The fog slipped across the field, leaving Casey behind. As he stood, staring at the retreating wisps of mist, his face grew long, sad, and his image turned hazy.

But before he could disappear completely, Casey turned, wrapping his icy fingers around Claire's shoulders. “You've got to stay away,” he growled at Claire. “You aren't supposed to be here—not after school, not when it's getting so dark. Terrible things happen to people who are not where they're supposed to be. You hear me?”

“That was her, wasn't it?” Claire asked, a shot of bravery filling her body. “You were holding her. Serena. I know you were. I know you're real. She's in the cat—that's real, too. Tell me,” she begged. “Tell me what happened to her. Tell—”

The stream of a flashlight exploded through the darkness, bouncing off the icy side of a tree. In the harsh reflection, Casey's fog-drenched form disappeared.

“Wait!” Claire screamed. “Don't go! Wait!”

A figure lurched out of the darkness, grabbing Claire up in his arms.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

C
laire screamed, fighting against the arms circling her waist. She didn't know who had hold of her, but she did know now what Serena wanted. Why she'd looked at her in such a sinister way at the funeral. She didn't want Claire to know what happened. She wanted
Claire.
The world felt tiny. Claire felt cornered, trapped; she wrenched her arm away and screamed again.

“Stop!” Rich shouted. “Claire! It's me! Why were you shouting back there? What happened?”

Panting, Claire pushed her hair from her face. “You came at the wrong time,” she moaned.

“Why wouldn't I come? ‘Olly, olly'—that's what you said. In the
woods
, Claire. When I hear those words, it means you need help. What'd you
expect
me to think? You
terrified
me.”

“I was going to find everything out,” Claire protested. Casey would have told her—about Serena and the fog and even why he had stayed, why he hadn't gone with the town dead, either. Claire felt sure of that. And if she'd known everything, she would have been better able to protect herself from Serena. Now, though, she knew that Serena had a vicious plan, and she had no idea how to defend herself against it.

“Find out what?” Rich asked. “What did you see out there? And why were you holding Sweet Pea? I thought you'd already been scratched once. You'd think you'd leave the poor thing alone.”

Claire balked, shaking her head. “I didn't pick up Sweet Pea.”

“You did,” Rich insisted. “You picked her up.”

“Where were you? Behind a tree? How can you be sure?”

Rich eyed her the same way some of the nurses had, back in her Chicago hospital. “How can I be sure you were holding a cat?” he asked.

He took a step toward her, but Claire pushed him away. She knew what she'd seen—souls of the town dead who wanted to take Serena's spirit where it belonged, but couldn't because Serena was inside a new body. The cat's body protected the soul from the fog, from the other spirits. Claire
knew
it. She'd seen it. Her eyes didn't lie—not hers.

She was Claire Cain, after all, the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award her freshman year. Claire Cain didn't invent stories; she told the truth—even about what had happened with Rachelle's locker, back in Chicago.
That
had been true. Claire hadn't even needed to actually see the boy plant the drugs. She'd watched him enough to put the pieces together on her own. She'd been right, too. She wasn't an embellisher, a gossiper.