Catnip

by J. S. Frankel

  “Aren’t we all?”

  The haul amounted to six sandwiches, two egg, two tuna, and two of some kind of mystery meat which Doug immediately claimed. “I don’t care what the meat is, it’s what I like. Fish is too bland for me.”

  Anastasia woke up and said in a faint voice that she wanted the tuna. “No meat,” she said. “I don’t feel like eating the bread, either.”

  She was too weak to hold the food by herself so Harry propped her up against his knee. “You don’t have to,” she said.

  “Feeding time,” he answered. “It’s okay.”

  He had to separate the pieces of bread and used his finger to wipe off the tuna. She licked his fingers gently, nibbled the food bit by bit, and inadvertently took tiny chunks of his flesh along with the tuna.

  “Ow!” he exclaimed. “I thought you didn’t bite,” and glared at her in mock anger before shaking his head and adding, “I’m okay.”

  A tiny smile emerged from her lips. “Guess I got too eager,” she said softly and added, “Thanks, boyfriend. I never thought I’d be in a situation where someone had to feed me.”

  Embarrassed by the attention but also pleased at being called her boyfriend, he shrugged and wiped his hands on his costume. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  She beckoned him closer. When he leaned in, she kissed him gently on the mouth. Her breath smelled light and sweet and not of fish at all. “Thank you.”

  If the eyes were the window to the soul, he saw what lay there—love. It had to be, and then her eyes closed. Soon, she started breathing quietly. Harry stroked her hair for a few seconds and then swiveled to Doug who was still feeding on the sandwiches and sneaking furtive glances at them. “What do we do now?”

  Doug finished off his meal and gave a rather large and satisfied burp. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to crash.”

  He wandered down the tunnel and found a spot to lie down on. After giving a contented sigh, he started to snore almost immediately. Harry decided to catch some sleep as well and lay down beside his girlfriend. He hoped Doug had been right about no rodents inhabiting this part of the underground system, but sleep came up to catch him and his eyes closed.

  Some minutes or hours later, Harry abruptly woke up, his heart pounding. His head hurt due to a combination of the smells of the sewer, the hardness of the cement, and the fact he’d had a dream of something monstrous ripping his internal organs out and holding them up for the whole world to see.

  Disoriented, he looked around, breathed through his mouth to avoid the stench as much as possible, tried to calm his racing heart, and noticed his girlfriend and Doug talking quietly to each other a few yards away.

  If anyone else had seen this, they would have laughed. Cats and dogs did not usually get along. In fact, they were mortal enemies, yet his girlfriend and guide seemed to belie that long held belief.

  After considering everything, though, they weren’t completely animals and had human intelligence. The whole thing was just too weird, but still, Harry accepted the situation most readily. He’d been part of it—however unwillingly—and since the impossible had indeed become possible, he knew there would be stranger things ahead.

  They seemed to be deep in conversation and for a very brief second, jealousy ruled. It seemed like they were discussing more than where to go, and then reason took over. They’d both been real people once and were the only two of their kind. And Anastasia had already said she was into him, so he kept his emotions in check and walked over. “Do we have a plan?”

  Doug nodded slightly. His ears, formerly human in shape, had somehow grown longer and floppier, and the hair on his hands seemed coarser. “We were both comparing notes and it seems our memories are the same. I don’t know if they’re implants or real, but we remembered the wooden room right away.”

  Anastasia chimed in. “I also remember cables along the walls. That’s all I’ve got.” Doug said he recalled the same thing…but couldn’t figure out what it meant, either.

  Cables were used for electricity, Harry mused. Perhaps they’d been hooked up to a generator. Then there was the matter of the wooden room…lights overhead…could it have been a lab of some sort? He thought hard about it and was interrupted by Doug who tapped him on the knee.

  “Hey, we gotta move.” He went over to the ladder and started his ascent. “I’ll check things out.”

  Harry felt his girlfriend’s breath on his shoulder. He turned and saw her eyes shining in the darkness, and also saw the slashes on her shoulders and torso. He wanted to tell her he’d been worried, but she interrupted him by putting her hand to his lips. “If you’re going to ask me how I’m feeling, then don’t. I’ll be fine,” she said and leaned against him. “You have nice fingers.”

  She didn’t wait for him to reply, just kissed him hard and their little canine ally turned around just in time to catch the action. “Save it for a room,” he grunted, “will ya?”

  He clambered up the rest of the way and cautiously pushed the manhole cover off. “What’s going on up there?” Harry called softly.

  Doug dropped back to the ground below. “It’s dark out, maybe around midnight. The way’s clear. If we’re gonna move, then we gotta go now.”

  Once on the surface, Harry inhaled the semi-fresh air of the city. Anything was preferable to the stink of the sewer. Doug shoved the metal cover back into place and they crept out to the edge of the alley. The streets were empty for the moment. Maybe there was a curfew going on. “What do we do now?”

  “We look for some transportation,” Doug answered.

  They crept down the block, kept to the shadows, and on a quiet side street Doug stood up and pointed at a vehicle a few feet away. “That’s our ticket out of here. Do you know how to drive?”

  “Yeah, I can drive.”

  Doug nodded. “It’s a good thing you do, because I’m too short to reach the gas pedal. You don’t know how to hotwire a car, do you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, merely leapt up, head-butted the driver’s seat window, and after it shattered, jumped in and hotwired the steering wheel column. Soon the engine caught and he opened the back door and the passenger door. “Get in and drive!”

  Anastasia suddenly let out a moan. Moving had been a mistake, and the blood start to soak through her clothes once more. Harry caught her in his arms just before she hit the ground, carefully loaded her body into the back seat, closed the door and ran to the driver’s side.

  Hurriedly, he flicked the glass to the floor, and after putting his computer bag down and making sure his two passengers were secure, threw the car into gear and they headed out onto the street. “Where are we going?” he asked. “Yesterday the cop said we should head south.”

  Doug crouched down in the backseat alongside Anastasia. Mercifully, she’d passed out. “South isn’t our destination, not this time,” he said. “Just go where I tell you. Head north. We’re going north.”

  “You still haven’t told me exactly where we’re going,” Harry stated. Confused and frightened by the ordeal, he had absolutely no idea of what would happen next. It also didn’t help that he was a fugitive in league with two other half-human fugitives, one of them with some serious mechanical skills and the other whom he’d fallen for.

  “Just keep driving,” Doug ordered. “We’ll find a place to stop and then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  He called out instructions from the back seat as Harry got underway. “Go over to the east bank of the Hudson. Get on Route Nine as there will be less traffic and less chance of being spotted. Soon Route Nine will merge with the number twenty-three thruway. Have you got all that?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” All of the terms confused Harry at first, so he kept a sharp lookout and hung rights and lefts where his backseat driver indicated. He only hoped Doug knew where he was going and if he was correct, maybe when they arrived at their destination they’d get a few answers.

  Chapter Nine

  Another Tail

&nbs
p; Soon the traffic behind them stopped except for the usual late-night commuters. Harry looked in the rearview mirror, not bothering to check on the traffic but rather on the condition of his girlfriend. She lay motionless and quiet in the backseat. “How is she?” he asked Doug.

  “She’s still breathing,” the answer came. “She’ll be fine.”

  Harry wondered how it could be possible. She’d lost so much blood… “What makes you so sure?”

  “You remember me mentioning Ivan? You know, gigantic, looks like a bear, enjoys tearing people in two? That’s Ivan.”

  “I’m surprised he’s got a name…or can think.”

  Doug grunted. “Don’t be surprised at anything. It’s just the name I heard when I woke up. Don’t ask me where, though.” He paused for a moment. “Hey, you’d be surprised at what we can do. We’re both pretty special that way. You saw me hotwire the car, yes? That’s an implanted skill. It has to be.”

  “Do you feel like sharing how you know all this?”

  A barking laugh came from the back seat. “I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, your girlfriend’s gonna be fine. You saw Ivan get shot, right? He lived. I bit his leg, and my jaws are almost strong enough to bite through iron. He’ll recuperate. That’s how they made us. It’s got something to do with an enhanced immune system and augmented regenerative capacity, that’s all I know.”

  The monster had been beyond tough. Farrell had pumped six bullets into the bear creature and it kept on coming. Whoever had engineered these people, along with his girlfriend, they’d had a plan in mind. “You don’t remember anything else, do you?”

  “No, not really,” Doug replied. “I remember getting up, looking at myself in the mirror and smashing it. Guess that’s gonna bring me seven years of bad luck, right?” A bitter laugh escaped his lips.

  “How long ago was all this?” Harry asked, curious about the other man’s origins. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw Doug scratch himself with his hind leg as if he had fleas.

  “Near as I can tell, all of this happened about a month ago,” Doug said after he finished scratching. “There was the lab…the lights…and then I remember running through the trees. Next thing I knew I was in Manhattan. It was pretty rough, lemme tell ya. The rough part wasn’t a joke,” he added.

  Harry didn’t get the joke the first time. After it filtered through, he laughed in spite of the seriousness of the situation. “Sorry, but that was sort of funny.”

  Doug grunted. “Yeah, you try running away every single time someone wants to pet you or chain you up. I had to tell everyone I belonged to the circus, like Jo the Dog-Faced Kid or whatever they used to call those people.” He snorted. “I learned to get up early to avoid the cops. They’d heard about me, figured me for some bum or mutant. I lived in the back alleys and got burgers from the fast-food joints…I made do.” He paused to clear his throat and asked, “So what’s your story?”

  Harry rehashed his bio and his passenger said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem kind of young to be a researcher.”

  Harry sighed and wondered why people couldn’t accept the fact some kids were smarter than others. Then he checked himself. He’d been lucky enough to have been born smarter than pretty much everyone else, yet he had no physical skills, was socially inept, and had lived most of his life in isolation, partly by his own choice and partly by circumstance. It somehow balanced out, but right now he wasn’t sure of which side the heavier weight was on. Finally, he answered, “My father was a researcher and I’m sort of good at it, too.”

  Doug grunted softly. “So did the FBI bring you in just to examine your girl or cure her?”

  Harry decided to tell him the truth. “They wanted me to examine her. I don’t think they cared about a cure.”

  “It figures,” he spat out and then started to rant. “Look at the monsters, watch them eat and drink and play, but God forbid you try to help them!”

  Abruptly cutting the rant short, he apologized for his behavior and then leaned forward to touch Harry’s shoulder. “Do you think you can cure us? I don’t care what I looked like in real life or who I was. I just want to be normal again.”

  The seeming impossibility of their mission practically caused Harry to question if he really was as smart as everyone seemed to think he was. Up until now, all his work had been in the cold confines of labs and didn’t involve people. Having friends and falling for a cat-girl had changed everything. Being honest, though, he shook his head. “I’m not sure I can. I’m close, though.”

  “Close don’t cut it,” the other man said, and laughed as if he thought his previous phrase sounded funny. “You know, I don’t know my real name, but I’m guessing I’m a made-in-Russia product like your lady is. Funny, I think in English, yet somehow I think I can speak Russian.”

  “Try it.”

  Doug took a deep breath and started to talk. His speech came out garbled and it sounded like a gag had been thrown over his mouth. Finally, he got frustrated and gave up with a disgusted exhalation of breath. “Nope, can’t do it. I guess I’ll have to be speaking good ol’ American English. They must have programmed me differently.”

  Harry kept his eyes on the road. Programmed to do what, he wondered. Could it possible they really were spies, like Farrell said, or was this some kind of bizarre experiment turned bad? The way ahead was dark and there didn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. “Which way are we going, or does it matter?”

  Doug didn’t answer for a moment, and then he said, “Take the next turnoff and head north.”

  “Can you give me details or do I have to guess?”

  His canine-human guide gave a harrumphing sound as if to dislodge a wad of phlegm. Harry watched him through the rearview mirror as he leaned his head out the window, spit, and pulled his head in again. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Doug nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Something inside me says go north. Anyway, it’s a chance to get out of the city. The cops may not be looking for us where we’re headed.”

  Harry had never been to New York so he had to trust his passenger’s sense of where to go. The highway continued and he drove well under the speed limit, as getting pulled over for speeding was the last thing he wanted. After about an hour the confines of the city gave way to trees and narrower roads. The sky was still dark and he cut his speed way down. “Where are we now?”

  Doug said nothing for a moment, and then replied, “We’re in the Catskill Mountains. We’ll be safe here.”

  The irony of the name was not lost on Harry. He kept driving and felt a stray whisker tickle his cheek. In a quick fit he ripped it off—damn it, it hurt!—and stole a quick peek at his face in the rearview mirror. There were still some stray streaks of makeup on his cheeks. Without the makeup he appeared more human, and then the thought of who his cargo was shamed him. He had no right to complain…

  Suddenly the engine started to sputter as they climbed a winding hill. A quick look at the fuel gauge showed they were running on empty. Oh, this couldn’t be happening at a worse time. The car started to jerk, and thirty seconds later, with a sudden sigh the engine died and they coasted to a stop along the road. “We’re out of gas,” he announced. “What do we do now?”

  “Sleep,” Doug’s answer came. “It’s late, I’m tired and you need to rest up.”

  It seemed like the wisest course of action. He twisted around in his seat to look at his girlfriend. She lay on her side, her chest moving rhythmically, eyes closed. “How’s Anastasia doing?”

  “She’s out,” Doug answered, and his voice sounded very drowsy. “She’ll be fine in the morning. Trust me.”

  Harry felt his own eyelids begin to close, so he locked the doors—busted window notwithstanding—and lay down on the seat to get some much needed rest.

  “Hey, time to get up,” a voice announced.

  Harry blinked his eyes and instantly woke up. Sunlight streamed in through the glass, and it was warm and inviting. Looking in the back seat, he didn�
��t find his girlfriend there. “Where’d she go?” he asked no one in particular, and suddenly remembered where he was.

  Doug grinned and scratched the back of his neck with his paw, giving out a satisfied grunt. “She went into the forest to handle her problem.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He cleared his throat. “She went to the bathroom.”

  Harry got out of the car and stretched while Doug did the same and then, acting on what seemed to be canine instincts, unzipped his trousers, dropped to all fours, raised a leg and peed out a thin stream of urine onto a nearby bush. “It’s not like I’m marking my territory,” he said and zipped himself up. “It’s more comfortable to go this way.”

  He stood up and yawned. While stretching out, a meow startled him. Anastasia strode gracefully toward them holding her torn clothes to cover her private parts. Her wounds had almost disappeared and she leaned against him. “Are you okay?”

  Harry nodded and looked around. Where they’d arrived, the foliage on either side of the road was dense, and thick forest lay beyond their position. Doug added that there were more than twenty varieties of tree here. “You got red cedar, alder, birch, pear, white oak, and pine trees up here.”

  “You’re a real encyclopedia, aren’t you?” Harry asked.

  “It’s always good to have the info on hand, don’t you think?”

  The road continued on in a straight pattern and led upwards. The air was clear and sweet smelling, a product of the cedar pollen, and it was a distinct change from the sewer he’d been in only a few hours earlier, even though it was only a few degrees cooler than in the city. He inhaled a deep breath, listened for the sound of oncoming cars, but nothing came their way. Quiet ruled with the exception of the buzzing of some insects. “I’m just a little tired. How are…um, how are you feeling?”

  “A lot better,” her reply came. “Do we have a plan? I’m hungry, and we can’t stay out here too long.”