The Pet

SIXTEEN

She saw it in the outside mirror.

The sudden downpour had startled Jeff into slowing, the store and streetlights broken into kaleidoscopic shards that smeared on the blacktop and ran down the windshield. The wipers worked as fast as they could, but it was nearly impossible to see where they were going, and she was about to ask him if he’d pull over and wait when she rubbed the back of her neck and glanced to her right.

And saw it.

And suddenly it was too late to talk, too late to turn around, and too late to explain why the air in her lungs was suddenly barbed and the rain had suddenly grown intolerably loud.

Twisting around, a hand braced on the dashboard, she saw the empty street behind her, reflections and distortions and blossoms of water short-lived on the tarmac. And the pocket of dense fog that moved steadily toward them, ragged edges ripped away by the wind, its bottom spilling under parked cars to the gutters to mingle with the rain. It reached no higher than the telephone poles, did not spread to the sidewalk — it followed them as though being towed, and when they slipped through a stretch of unlighted shops, she saw in its center the greeneyes, the greenfire, the suggestion of shadow darker than itself.

“Jeff,” she said fearfully.

“Boy, he looked terrible,” Jeff said, fighting with the wheel to keep the car from sliding on the oil-slick avenue. “God. I don’t know how he keeps it together, y’know? If I were him, I’d probably look for the nearest cliff, you know what I mean?”

“Jeff, please.”

“Trace, I’m doing the best I can, but I can’t pull over here. There isn’t any room. You want a bus to come up and bash us into New York? Take it easy, we’re almost there.”

Thunder was the rain that slammed on the roof; lightning was the flare of swinging traffic signals straining against their wires.

“Jeff, go faster.”

He looked at her, amazed. “What? In this? But you just told me to slow down, Tracey!”

“Jesus, Jeff, don’t argue!”

He saw her looking out the back and checked the rearview mirror, frowning at the white that filled the back window. “What the hell is that? It can’t be spray, I’m not going that fast.”

Greenfire that licked and curled toward the car.

Tracey closed her eyes and prayed. Even in talking with Don she didn’t believe it, was more inclined to think she had been infected by his own fantasy, his understandable and unnecessary need to get away for a while. She’d known those moments herself, but never so intensely, never so importantly that she’d thought them real.

A white ribbon drifted over her window and she rubbed at it frantically, hoping it was only condensation from her shallow breathing. It didn’t leave, she couldn’t banish it, and she turned to Jeff and urged him to hurry.

“Tracey, look—”

The fog dropped a strand over the windshield and she muffled a scream, jammed her foot down on his, and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

Jeff yelled in alarm and shoved her away, and the car began to slide from one side of the street to the other, narrowly missing a parked car, a tipped garbage can, the point of a curb. He sawed at the steering wheel, touched and released the brake, his mouth open and swearing while he stared at the road ahead.

Alongside, then. It was coming up on her side and she whimpered Don’s name.

“Tracey,” he said nervously, “what’s going on?”

She had to look away. She had to look at him because of the abrupt fear that pitched his voice high and pulled his lips away from his teeth. His glasses were slipping down his nose, and he kept tossing his head back because he didn’t dare release his hands. He was pale, and in the stuffy car his face was running perspiration.

The wind buffeted them, shoved them, and the wiper on her side stuck midway to the top.

“I gotta stop,” he said. “We’re going too fast, I gotta stop or we’ll crack—”

“No!” she screamed, and lunged for the accelerator again.

He swung out a frantic arm and caught her across the throat. She gagged and fell back, gulping for a breath, shaking the tears from her eyes, turned her head slowly and inhaled a scream when she saw the stallion’s left shoulder even with her door.

It lowered its head, and she saw the green unwinking eye.

Jeff yelled then and the car swung into a skid, helped by the wind and pummeled by the rain. Tracey slapped one hand to the dashboard to brace herself, put her right hand over the door handle in case she had to leap out.

The car slewed, spun, and they were thrown to the roof when it thumped over a curb, were thrown back, then snapped forward when it crashed into a tree that loomed out of the fog. Tracey’s arm took the shock to her shoulder, and she moaned but kept her head from striking the windshield. Jeff, however, had been knocked into the wheel and he was slumped over it when she was able to clear her vision, a sliver of blood at the corner of his mouth, his arms limp at his sides.

“Jeff! Oh, Jeff, please!”

She tugged at him, pushed him, but he only sagged back and slid over, landing partially on her lap. The fog seeped through a crack in his window.

“Jeff, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She eased him upright, kicked open her door, and fell to her knees into the street. The car was half up one of the boulevard islands, a maple cracked over its top and scraping the roof with its branches. Shading her eyes against the rain, she tried to see how close she was to home, how close the stallion was. But there was only the mist being shredded by the rain and the dark bulk of the car rocking slowly in the wind.

On your feet, she ordered, and did it; find yourself, she demanded, and she did it, gasping when she realized they were far past her street, had jumped the island across from the park’s entrance.

The boulevard was empty.

She staggered around the back of the car and held her hair away from her eyes as she reached for the driver’s door. The wind kicked her against it, and hot needles of pain spun around her shoulder and spiraled her back. She gasped. Her mouth opened and filled with rain. She spat and reached again, and uttered a short cry.

The boulevard was empty, except for the stallion galloping down the east-bound lane — neck stretched and greenfire, ears back and greeneyes, billows of smoke-fog filling the air around it, the sound of its hooves replacing the rain’s thunder.

Which way? Oh Jesus, which way?

There was no escaping, but there could be stalling, long enough, she hoped, for Don to understand and come after her. And the only place she knew that he would think of right away …

With a shriek of hatred at the charging animal, and despair for leaving Jeff, she let the wind push-shove her across the lane and past the wall. Into the park where half the lights had been knocked out. Running toward the pond where the water slapped over the sides.

He ran.

Slapping the rain from his face, ignoring the puddles that grew into lakes, Don ran toward the center of town. It occurred to him Jeff might have taken her home, but he couldn’t be sure. By now Tracey knew it was after her, and she wouldn’t want any of her family hurt. And there was no place else to go where she was sure he would follow — she had to be at the park, waiting if she were still alive.

He scowled and punched his chest. He couldn’t think like that or it was over; he had to know she was alive and somehow avoiding the stallion. Maybe in the trees where it might not be able to maneuver so well; maybe along the wall to keep it between them. But she was alive. She had to be alive. What the hell would be the sense if that damned thing got her?

At home, though, was her father, and her father’s gun. He didn’t know what could stop it, if anything could, but Tracey would have to be thinking of a weapon to defend her, and the best one would be where her father’s guns were kept.

Oh, Christ, he thought; make up your mind!

Stop, he yelled then, without moving his lips; stop, don’t do it, it’s Tracey and I didn’t mean it!

If it heard his hurt, it must hear his pleading; if he was in control, it couldn’t not obey. Unless, under the new rules, it protected without question.

Oh, Christ, he thought; make up your damned mind!

He wasn’t going fast enough. He would never be able to outrun Jeff’s car, or outrun the horse. He had to stretch out, he had to reach, he had to beat the wind to wherever he was going.

He was going too fast and he was going to slip and break a leg if he wasn’t more careful; he was going to run out of steam and be too late if he didn’t pace himself like always.

A race, he told himself; a race, and there they are, looking out their windows watching, cheering silently, waving flags and tooting horns as he swept under awnings, went with the wind instead of trying to fight it, his sneakers splashing a wake behind him, his arms cutting through the cold rain to give him room to move.

They were cheering because he was Don Boyd, and he was going to make it.

He fell.

The curb was under several inches of water backed up from a storm drain, and he misjudged the edge. His hands raked along the blacktop, the knees of his jeans tore open and spilled blood into the street. He whimpered, and cursed, and kept pushing himself forward until he was on his feet again.

Running.

In silence.

The windows were empty, there were no crowds watching, there were no bands or hurrahs or photographers waiting along the route that had him swerve into the street, using the parked cars now to push him with a slap of his hand, wondering where the traffic was, dodging around an Ashford Day banner stripped from its mooring and flapping in the street feebly where tomorrow there’d be a parade.

Running.

In silence.

Tempted to swing into the Quinteros‘ neighborhood, just in case he was wrong, sobbing when he realized he had no time for a choice; the park, or Tracey’s house, and if he made a mistake, somebody would die.

She sprinted into the oval, knowing enough not to look behind her in case she lost ground. A globe flickered and went out. The rain was stained silver. She tried to veer around the pond, but the leaf-coated apron shifted under her feet and she went down on her shoulder. Screaming. Writhing. Almost welcoming the dark cloud that crested and settled over her. At least it would dull the pain; at least it would keep her from seeing herself die.

But the cloud lifted and the rain woke her, and she leaned on one hand and looked down the path.

It was there.

Standing in the entrance, oblivious to the storm, head and flanks shining as if coated in thin ice.

Panting against the wind that stole the breath from her mouth, she staggered to her feet and let the wind push her backward. On either side the trees waited, yet she couldn’t stop herself from looking as the stallion began to move, legs slowly lifting, head slowly bobbing, the greenfire from its hooves lighting its way.

The park.

It had to be the park, and he didn’t know why, and he was close to weeping as he ran past Beacher’s, past the theater, and saw Lichter’s car canted on the island.

He slowed as he swung up to the wreck and saw Jeff lying on the front seat and Tracey nowhere in sight. He apologized to his friend by touching the window as if he were touching his hand, then veered sharply across the lane and ran through the gates.

The oval was ahead, and he tried to call out, but there was nothing left in his lungs but the air that moved his legs, pumped his arms, dried his throat as he opened his mouth to find one more breath to keep him from stopping.

And once there, it was empty.

He staggered and slowed when the sodden leaves threatened to spill him, his arms out for balance until he reached the path again.

Then he stopped.

He looked back.

He called Tracey’s name, hands cupped around his mouth, eyes blinking at the rain that tore through the branches and ran down his back, his chest, filled his sneakers, and made him still with the cold.

Half sideways, he began to run toward the field, always checking behind in case he had missed her. Calling. Demanding. Spinning around at a flare of lightning and seeing her sprawled on the ground … seeing the stallion beside her, teeth bared and hooves pawing.

“No!” he screamed, and Tracey turned and saw him.

“No!” he screamed, and the stallion swung its head around.

He stumbled and flailed across the muddied field, shaking his head and stretching his hand out toward her without taking his eyes from the horse that backed away.

greenfire and greeneyes and fog lifting to the storm at his approach.

Tracey got to her feet and fell against him when he reached her, but he shoved her behind him when the stallion lifted its head high.

“No,” he said, a palm out to stop it.

Its head, higher; its rear legs slightly bent.

“No!” he shouted, both hands out now as it lifted itself off the ground, its forelegs outstretched and the greenfire that sparked from them crackled through the rain.

“No!” he screamed. “No! Go away!”

Greeneyes so narrowed they nearly vanished in the fog.

“I don’t need you!” Don screamed as the stallion rose higher. “I don’t need you, goddamnit! Just … just leave me alone!”

Higher still, and blacker.

“Goddamnit! Goddamnit! Leave me alone!”

Higher until Don dropped to his knees, hands out, eyes raging, feeling the blood rush to his face feverish and stinging.

Tracey buried her face in his back.

He screamed again, and again, swinging his arms back and forth to counter the thick mist that poured from the stallion and obscured the greenfire, buried the greeneyes, suddenly scattered like a window shattered by the wind.

Don cowered away from it with a gasp at the touch of its dead cold, shifted, and threw his arms protectively around Tracey. She hugged him tightly, desperately, and they watched as best they could while the storm took over, the rain penetrated the fog and finally pummeled it to the ground.

And when it was gone, they were alone; the stallion was gone.

“Oh, Don,” Tracey gasped as he helped her to her feet. “Oh, god, I was so frightened.”

“Yes,” he said, and headed for the path, pulling her behind him until she had to run to catch up.

“Don! Don, what.

He didn’t answer. A single urgent look, and he began to run again, not fast enough to outstrip her, but fast enough to get him past Jeff’s car before anyone noticed it was there. He swung left, toward home, and Tracey followed with one hand gripping her torn shoulder. There were no questions, and he was glad because he wasn’t sure he really knew what he was doing.

The police were gone. The yards and houses were dark. He puzzled at the plywood nailed over the bay window, but he didn’t stop to look. He rushed up the steps and grabbed for the doorknob.

“Oh, shit!” he yelled, thumping the door with a fist. “Damn, it’s locked.” He turned and started down, hesitated on the walk before pulling Tracey with him into the garage. The door here was open, and he stumbled into the kitchen, staggered down the hall. He didn’t look at the living room wreckage, didn’t feel the cold saturating the walls, but hauled himself up the stairs and into his room.

Tracey came up behind him, her eyes glazed with pain.

Don switched on the light and looked at the poster over his desk. “Oh, god,” he said.

The trees, the lane, and there at the back, the stallion frozen in running.

I’m sorry, he thought; I’m sorry.

And he ripped it from the wall, crumpled it into a ball, and ran downstairs again and into the kitchen. After two hapless attempts he managed to turn on the stove and held the poster over the flame until it caught in several places.

“Don? Don, help me.”

When he felt the fire begin to scorch his wrist, he dropped the burning paper into the sink and watched it char, watched it flare, watched it spark and crackle and sink into paper embers.

“Don, please help me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Don the Superman to the rescue.”

A cool night in late October, a Sunday, and clear — a bold harvest moon pocked with grey shadows, and a scattering of stars too bright to be masked by the lights scattered below; the chilled breath of a faint wind that gusted now and then, carrying echoes of nightsounds born in the trees, pushing dead leaves in the gutters, rolling acorns in the eaves, snapping hands and faces with a grim promise of winter.

A cool night in late October, a Sunday, and dark.

… and so the boy, who really wasn’t a bad kid but nobody really knew that because of all the things he had done, he looked up in the tree …

“Don, for god’s sake, give me a break, okay? I’m not one of those dumb little kids of yours, you know. I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

He laughed silently at the telephone and snuggled closer to the wall, stretching his legs out until his bare feet were braced against the staircase. The chill of the wood felt good against his soles. “I thought you liked my stories. I thought you needed something to take your mind off things.”

Tracey groaned loudly. “I’m in pain, Vet, remember? I am a patient of the only hospital in the world that serves food the Geneva Convention banned from World War Two. And I am not supposed to be tortured.”

“Torture?” he said, his voice high-pitched and insulted. “I don’t recall you ever thinking I was torture before.”

“I didn’t say you,” she answered softly. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

“I know,” he said just as softly. “That was a joke.”

“Oh.” A pause. She forced a laugh. “I see. A joke.”

Water ran in the kitchen. He looked in and saw his father at the sink, a towel over his shoulder, an unlighted cigarette dangling from his mouth — the same thing he had been watching for the past three days.

“Well, listen,” Don said.

… and he saw the crow sitting on the highest branch in the biggest tree in the world. A big crow. The biggest crow he had ever seen in his life. And the boy knew, he really and truly knew, that the crow was going to be the only friend he had left in the world. So he talked to the crow and he said …

“Enough,” Tracey pleaded with a laugh. Then, abruptly solemn, “Please, Don. No more. You promised me no more.” He sighed and nodded. “All right.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m supposed to ask you that, remember?”

“You know how I am. I want to know how you are.” He was fine, he thought, all things considered. After he had taken Tracey to the hospital in the station wagon, fighting the rain that washed in through the broken windshield, he had waited until they had brought Jeff in as well. A concussion and some deep lacerations, he was told, nothing more, and his statement to the police had been accepted without question — he had gone for a walk after leaving his father, and saw the results of the accident, ran home to call since it was only a block away, and found Tracey wandering around in a daze. He supposed, when he was asked, they had skidded during the storm.

His mother was still unconscious, and Dr. Naugle had put him in charge of his father. To get some sleep, some food, so he would be ready when she woke up.

“Don, I have to go. The wardens have come with the pills.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll come around tomorrow.”

They rang off, and he wandered into the kitchen, watched his father silently, then went up to his room. He was exhausted, and he dropped onto the bed and fell asleep almost instantly, not waking until after midnight to undress and sleep again.

At school on Monday he spoke to no one, avoiding their puzzled eyes, cutting biology when he saw the substitute at the head of the room. He ran for an hour afterward, feeling oddly distanced from the sound of his feet on the red cinder track, as if he were floating through a tunnel, looking for someone he knew he wouldn’t find. Then he went home to fix his father’s supper. Norman ate little, smoking as he did, finally pushed his plate away and left the room without a word.

Don didn’t follow. He rinsed off the dishes, dried them and put them in the cupboard, then went upstairs to change his clothes for the evening visit to his mother, Jeff, and Tracey. When he came down again, Norman was at the door, impatiently jingling the keys to the car he had rented while the station wagon was being repaired.

“You know,” he said as he drove through the wet streets, “you seem awfully calm these days.”

“And it seems to me you’re spending an awful lot of time with that girl.”

“She’s a friend. So’s Jeff.”

“And your mother is your mother. I think it would help if you stick around her room a bit more.”

“Okay.”

He could feel his father look at him, not quite glaring, but he didn’t much care one way or the other. He had been trying to sort out everything he felt, and it bothered him that he couldn’t make up his mind whether or not he should feel guilty. He was afraid something had happened to him that night in the park, and just as afraid that he might blurt out the truth and be considered a case for the men in the white coats. His father, on the other hand, had spent a lot of time on the phone — with the mayor, with several board members, and with Dr. Naugle. Don was ashamed to think Norman was more worried about the mayor.

On Tuesday Jeff was released and showed up after school to watch him run. There were questions, but he didn’t ask them, and Don soon stopped worrying about what the boy had seen. Even if it had been just a glimpse, it could easily be explained as an aftereffect of the accident.

On Wednesday he decided not to use the track but to walk home right after last class. There was homework to do, and his father would have to go to see his mother alone.

“Hey, stranger!”

He stopped and turned around, and shifted his feet when Chris came running up, her hair unbound, her shirt out of her jeans.

“Hi,” he said.

“God, you’ve been a ghost, you know that?” she said. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

He gestured toward the house, toward the men on ladders fixing the window. “Cleaning up, seeing my mom … you know.”

“Yeah. Hey, I’m sorry about what happened.”

She moved closer, and he could smell the perfume she used.

“Is it true,” she said, “that your father is leaving?”

“Yeah. A leave of absence. What with all the trouble and my mom and all, he needs the time, you know?”

“Boy, do I,” she said. “Is he really going to run for mayor?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s thinking about it, but I have a feeling things have changed.” Then he looked at her eyes and saw something missing. Her expression was friendly enough, her tone as gentle, but there was still something missing and he couldn’t figure it out.

“Hey, uh, look,” he said at last. “It’s Halloween this weekend, and … well, we kind of got screwed up last week, because of what happened. And I was wondering … that is, I—”

He jumped then when a car horn blared behind him, and Chris laughed, tapped his arm and walked over to Brian’s car.

“Hey, Duck, what’s up with your mom?” Brian asked as Chris opened the door and got in.

“She’s okay,” he said flatly.

“Good. Tell her I said hi.” He cocked a finger-gun at him and gunned his engine, and as he drove away with one arm around Chris’s shoulder, Don heard him say “Quack,” and heard Chris say, “Quacker quack,” and laugh.

“What?” he said. “What are you talking about?”

“Now look,” Norman said. “I haven’t got time to argue with you. I’ve done all the figures, and what with the medical expenses and the house, there just isn’t enough money. I’m sorry, but I can’t pull it out of the air, and I can’t spend it when it isn’t there. You’ll have to start looking closer to home, at the state colleges, where it’s cheaper. Besides, the way your grades are going, you’ll be lucky to graduate.”

Tracey was sitting on the living room couch, her mother in polite attendance. When he told her about his father’s dicturn, she commiserated and suggested he start looking at scholarships, student loans, and some of the local organizations who sponsor kids in college.

He hadn’t thought of it; he thanked her; he wanted to kiss her, but her mother wouldn’t leave.

In the cafeteria Jeff groaned and made to dump his tray over Don’s head. “What’s the big deal with Chris anyway, huh? I thought you and Tracey were … you know.”

“We are, I guess,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“But you don’t want to be tied down, huh?”

He looked up at the bitterness he heard in Jeff’s voice. “No, I didn’t say that.”

“I know you didn’t,” Jeff said. And pointed a fork at his chest. “Well, listen, pal — Tracey Quintero is one great lady, and you’d better not hurt her. You listening, pal? You’d better not do anything to hurt her or you’ll have to answer to me.”

He forced a grin. “Hey, is that a threat?”

Jeff didn’t smile back. “Whatever.”

And he almost gasped aloud when he realized that Jeff was in love with her too.

On Friday he stood at his mother’s bedside with his father and watched her easy breathing, watched the IV feed her, watched the screens of the instruments recording her life.

At five minutes to ten she woke up, saw her son, and screamed.

The room was dark.

Sitting on the desk chair with his back to the wall, he could see them on the shelves and on the posters — the elephants, the hawks, the bobcats, the panther in the jungle licking its paw.

The night was cold.

Downstairs, he could hear his father answering the door, handing out tissue-wrapped packets of candy to the trick-or-treating kids who were roaming the neighborhood in packs herded by parents.

Yesterday his mother woke up.

Today he had stayed home, sitting at his desk trying to make up his mind, and during a wandering through the house when his back grew too sore, he had looked out a side window just after sunset and had seen his father talking to Chris. It looked as if they were arguing, and he wanted to run out and tell her not to get his father mad, not now, for god’s sake, or she’ll regret it come June.

Then she had pulled a handful of her hair over her left shoulder and started walking toward her backyard. Norman, after a brief hesitation, had followed when she looked back and pouted, and thrust out her chest.

Norman didn’t come home for more than an hour.

Harry Falcone and Chris Snowden, and goddamn Sam was dead.

Nothing had changed.

Red.

People were dead, kids were dead, and nothing had changed.

A hazed red, like looking through a distant crimson curtain.

He spoke to Tracey on the phone and had found the nerve to tell her he loved her, and was puzzled enough not to ask why when she told him she liked him, but she wasn’t sure yet about loving. Instead, he changed the subject, to school, to Jeff when she asked how he was doing, to the weather and the coming holidays. And when they hung up, he looked at the stairs without seeing a thing.

And a few minutes later he sighed and rubbed his eyes.

She was wrong when she said he was all right now; she was wrong when she said she didn’t know about loving. Of course she did. He had heard it in Jeff’s voice, and he had just heard it in hers — she was afraid of him now, and she wasn’t afraid of Jeff.

So how could he be all right when nothing had changed in spite of what he’d done?

He stood in the kitchen and drank a can of soda, stood in the hallway and stared at the telephone for nearly five minutes before dialing Tracey’s number. She was surprised to hear his voice again, and sorry that she couldn’t go out with him next weekend because she had already promised Jeff a sample of her father’s intensive interrogation. She laughed. He laughed. She suggested that Don call him and give him some hints. He laughed again and told her he just might do that.

And hung up.

And went to his room where he damned them both silently, and wondered what he’d done wrong, wondered where his mistake was?

Change. He would have to change if he wanted to take her back from Jeff; he would have to change if he wanted to get the world straight again.

“No,” he said then.

No, he thought, eyes narrowed in a frown.

What was needed, he decided as he heard his father tramp up the stairs, was not a change in him, and not the simple recognition that his problems were no worse than anyone else’s. He knew that. He wasn’t stupid, and he knew that.

But what he knew that no one else did was that he had the means to do something about it.

Norman knocked on the door and opened it, grunted and slapped the wall switch that turned on the desk lamp.

“Jesus, are you a mole or something?”

“I was thinking.”

“Oh, good. It’s about time. I’m off to see your mother. You watch the door and hand out the candy. If you think of it, put some poison in the apples.”

Don smiled dutifully, and his father gave him a salute, then looked around the room and shook his head.

“Someday maybe I’ll understand all this,” he said as he took another step in and scanned the shelves and the posters. “Maybe I’ve been wrong, son. Maybe … well, maybe I’ve been wrong.” He lifted his shoulders and scratched his head. “When your mother’s feeling better, maybe you and I should have a little talk. I suppose better late than never, huh, son? What do you say?”

Don nodded and accepted the offered hand, didn’t protest when Norman put a hand on the back of his head and pulled him close to his chest in a rough approximation of a hug.

And when he was gone, Donald stared at the desk until the moon filled his window, stared at the desk until the swirling red was gone.

Then he smiled and stood up.

No, Dad, he thought; better late is not better. It isn’t better at all. And he reached over the bed to pull down the picture of the deserted jungle from his wall.

And when he looked out the window, he whispered where are you? to the prowling shapes out there, darker than shadow and waiting for his call.