Where the Cats Will Not Follow

by Stephen Stromp

  Frustrated, I opened my eyes. “Even if you’re right, it's been so long. Dreams don’t tell me anything anymore. I haven’t had one lousy dream that has led me to anything special. I can’t even find the socks that go missing in the laundry.” I turned to him. “I’m sorry Ginger is gone. I am. I just don't think this is the way to find her.”

  I should’ve felt satisfied with my honesty, yet I turned away from him with an incredible feeling of guilt. Phillip said nothing of my rejection, and the silence was agonizing. I hated silence. It could’ve meant anything. I studied the white swirls of paint on the ceiling, hoping that if I concentrated on them intently enough, I’d be transported out of the room and away from the awkwardness.

  His response was more direct than words. In my peripheral vision, I noticed him digging in his pocket. Then, without warning, his half-closed hand slammed into my face like a brick. Before I knew what was happening, he pried open my mouth and jammed in two fingers. Out of instinct, I clamped my jaws shut. He bellowed in agony, but I wouldn’t release my grip. I felt his bones grind between my clenched teeth as he pulled with all his might. My front teeth ached as they ripped open his flesh. His blood pooled on my tongue. “Goddamn it!” he shouted before delivering a swift punch to my gut. As I grimaced from the blow, he was able to free his fingers. Immediately, he slapped his bloody hand over my mouth. And with his other hand, he pinched shut my nose.

  It was then I could taste it. Among his blood was the bitterness of small pills he had managed to cram into my mouth. Mixed with his blood and my saliva, the pills quickly began to dissolve. He sat on top of me, his face red with anger. “Swallow!” he demanded. Squirming, convulsing for air, I had no choice but to swallow, to let the bloody mixture slide down my throat. To telegraph to him that I in fact swallowed, I overexaggerated the movement of my throat. Satisfied, he finally released me. I gasped for air as he grabbed my polo shirt and used it to wrap his bleeding fingers. “Motherfucker!” he shouted in pain.

  “What’d you do that for!” I yelled as I leapt to my feet. He looked surprised I was so angry. I sprinted out of the room and down the hall. Just as I locked the bathroom door behind me, he began tugging on the cheap plastic knob. I flipped up the lid and knelt over the toilet. I eyed my index finger a moment before plunging it deep into the back of my throat. I gagged. My eyes filled with tears. But nothing. I tried once more, gagged again, but was unable to bring anything up.

  “Open the fucking door!”

  I stood at the sink and ran cold water. I splashed it on my face. I cupped my hands and took a drink. I looked in the mirror, trying to convince myself that the pills, whatever they were, would have no effect. But something strange began to happen. I struggled with the meaning of time. Moments seemed to stand still yet go by at warp speed. I had difficulty grasping how long I was shut in the small bathroom. I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t think. Each bang on the door, each tug on the knob sounded farther and farther away. “I just wanted you to sleep,” I heard a distant voice warble.

  One thing was clear. They weren’t sleeping pills. Whatever he had forced me to swallow were much stronger. In my swirling haze, I decided I needed to defend myself. So I opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged for a weapon. But my vision was like a camera continuously zooming in and out at breakneck speed. I knocked a box of Q-tips on its side. As the swabs spilled out, I couldn’t take my eyes off them, tumbling in slow motion, hitting the tile like miniature, fuzzy drumsticks.

  I managed to grab hold of a can of air freshener. I aimed it at the door, waiting for the moment he’d break in. I hoped I had the nozzle pointed in the right direction. A wave of relaxation crawled up my legs, loosening my muscles. Before I knew it, I was on my knees. It took all my strength to hold my arms in front of me until they too were taken over. Slowly, they lowered out of their firing position. My eyelids were heavy. I blinked slowly. I felt like liquid as my body oozed to the floor. The cold, hard tile felt soothing against my hot skin. Then it was gone. I had been lifted from it. I had entered another world.

  My feet poking outside the covers made me feel even more vulnerable. Yet I didn’t dare reach for the blanket. Not that my stillness mattered all that much. I knew that what hid in the corners could smell me. Could see in the darkness. Could hear my heartbeat . . .

  4

  Lilacs

  I pulled open the top drawer of the old pine dresser. Dust rolled out and added itself to the rest of the dust swirling about. The drawer was empty. I pulled open the second drawer and, to my surprise, found several of my own shirts. They had been folded and placed in two piles. I opened the third drawer and found a selection of my cargo shorts and underwear. In the bottom drawer were two pairs of my jeans. I slipped on my most comfortable shorts and grabbed my green T-shirt. What kidnapper would think of packing clothes? Phillip wasn’t a kidnapper. He was my friend. I grasped the knob confidently and swung open the door. As a dry breeze rushed into the room, the tattered shade blew out of control. Of course he hadn’t locked me in.

  My eyes explored the old cabin as my lungs filled with the less stale air of the larger space. There wasn’t much to the place. There were two bedrooms, with a small bathroom in between. At the center was a living space furnished with mismatched chairs and a couch huddled around an old television. The kitchen was separated from the dining area by an open counter and low-hanging cupboards. On the table was a plate of scrambled eggs and a bowl of soggy cereal.

  I opened the screen door. The humming bugs were even louder out in the open. The large porch I found myself on looked like it had been recently added, awkwardly affixed to the aging cabin. I stepped up to the railing. The view was panoramic. The sky was magnificent. It was the softest shade of blue. Endless. The few far-off clouds glowed, backed by the shimmer of the early-afternoon sun. The sky met the forest in the distance. And between it and the cabin was nothing but a vast field. Shadows of trees loomed over the overgrown yard, so I knew another forest must’ve butted up to the back of the cabin. Leading up to the gravel driveway was a thin two-track that mimicked a road. I had a good idea that if no one was to drive on it in a season or two, the weeds could easily erase it.

  Phillip had traded his sandals for sneakers and was digging near the front of the cabin. He had already dug two holes, each about two feet in diameter. I clenched the railing, waiting for him to notice me. Afraid I’d continue to go unnoticed, I finally hollered, “Thanks for breakfast!”

  He stopped digging, held his shovel at arm’s length, and faced me. “It’s gone bad by now.”

  “That’s OK. I'm not really hungry. Must be the heat.”

  “You’ve found your clothes. I guess I forgot to grab you some socks.” I looked to my bare feet. “You can use mine. Your shoes are by the door.”

  “Thanks. So what’re you digging for?”

  He nodded toward the bundle of uprooted bushes. “I found these lilacs growing in the field on the other side of the pines.” The blossoms were closed and drooping, yet their fragrance remained powerful. “I’m going to plant them along the front of the cabin. They’re Ginger’s favorite.”

  He threw down the shovel and traded it for a bottle of water. He took a long drink and gestured the bottle toward me. I gladly took it, letting the water refresh my parched mouth and throat. Even though it was lukewarm, I didn't want to put it down. I finished all but the last of it. He sat on the steps. I followed his lead and sat next to him. “My parents gave me this place when they moved out of state,” he said. “I hadn't been here in years. Only started coming up this spring. I put this porch on. Strengthened the foundation a bit.” He looked to the lilacs. “We were going to spend our summer vacations here. Would’ve made a great spot for our honeymoon too.”

  I was puzzled. “I figured you were already married.”

  “No. Every time we planned it, something got in the way. We bought a house. Her father died. We helped my parents move to Virginia. I switched firms. It just kept getting put off.”


  “But you’ve been together for so long. I just assumed—”

  “I know. After a while, it felt like we were married. It was my fault. I just thought of marriage as a formality. But we should’ve done it. I should’ve married her years ago. I’d marry her right now. Today. Right here, if I could.” He lifted his gaze to the forest in the distance. “God, I miss her. You know what I miss most about her?”

  “Her fluffy white sweater?” I let the air out of my lungs, embarrassed that I had said it aloud. “Sorry.”

  Befuddled, he brought his eyebrows together for a moment before continuing, “I miss sleeping with her. Not just the sex. Holding her. Just sleeping with her and holding her. Keeping her safe. I wake up at night forgetting she’s gone, and then—” He closed his eyes, picturing her, I assumed.

  “I dreamt of monsters last night,” I revealed. “And of Everett. I hadn't dreamt of either since I saw that psychiatrist.”

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “That’s not so surprising. You're just getting started. I asked you to concentrate on finding Ginger, and in the past, you've associated your—talent—with Everett, with his sick games and tricks. Now that you're trying to use it on your own, it makes sense that you’ve kept those associations.”

  “I guess,” I answered reluctantly. “But I’ve got to know. Why do you believe Everett now? Why after all these years?”

  “Because,” he paused with a long exhale before admitting, “I've tried everything else.” His eyes flooded, but he did not allow any tears to spill over.

  “I’m sorry, Phillip.” Truly, I was.

  We looked to the horizon, to the sun dangling over the top of the forest. He took a few deep breaths, calming and composing himself. The somberness of the situation turned strangely serene with the help of the continuous hum of nearby cicadas. “I’ll find her,” I said. I knew I was making a promise that in all probability I wouldn’t be able to keep, but I needed to offer him something. I would’ve done anything for Phillip.

  “How’d we end up here?” he asked, still gazing into the distance.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did we end up at this age? At this cabin? Where did this all start?”

  I realized Phillip’s questions were rhetorical. I knew a person wasn’t supposed to answer a question that was rhetorical. But I also was never one to know the right moments to speak or not to speak. “I found myself standing in a forest,” I began.

  Part II

  The Adventures of Everett and Ayden

  5

  The Metal Forest

  I found myself standing in a forest. Though my surroundings were somehow strangely familiar, it was clear I never could’ve stood in the forest before. One distinction made it glaringly obvious: The trees were not of wood and pulp. Instead, the trees in this forest were made of—metal. Shiny silver metal. Some of the polished trunks were massive, while others were no more than thin metal rods jutting from the forest floor. Stark, leafless branches reached in all directions, their ends coming to sharp points. Connected to the larger branches stretched a network of smaller branches that further segmented until they were nothing more than wiry wisps. As I looked into the distance, the forest became a crisscrossing mesh of metal.

  And then there was the moon! It hung just above the tree line, so low and so close that it filled the sky. It glowed dimly from within, barely providing enough light for the trees to produce shadows, yet enough to allow me to study its colossal magnificence. I couldn’t have gotten a better view of its surface had I been peering at it through the world’s most powerful telescope. If I would’ve climbed the tallest of the metal trees, I could’ve touched it, felt its dust and gray craters with my fingertips. The near collision of these celestial bodies seemed strangely natural in this most unnatural of forests.

  Draped over the backside of the moon was an equally colossal black curtain. It stretched to the edges of the forest, where it dropped behind the farthest trees. The dense fabric created a sky of deep black and blotted out whatever lay beyond it in the distance. It gave the impression that the forest was planted in an infinite field of darkness. Yet my very detection of the curtain told me that there were in fact boundaries—and that I was boxed inside the fantastic place. I could see no spot where the curtain parted, but excess fabric pooled where the black night met the floor—of ice.

  Except where punctured by the tree trunks, the entire forest floor was a clear, smooth, and solid sheet of ice. Its transparency allowed me to view below the surface. Although the icescape was frozen solid, it evoked a sensation of movement in its depths. I was entranced by the web of metal roots that twisted and overlapped until they were obscured by distance. After nearly losing myself in the marvelous chaos below, I brought my bare feet above the surface into focus. I hadn't realized how cold they were until I saw my flesh pressed to the ice. I moved one foot on top of the other, but that did little to help. Despite my frozen feet, the cold was tolerable, even while just in my sweatpants and thin undershirt.

  There I stood, lost in uneasy wonderment, perplexed, like some amnesia victim wondering where I was and how I got there. A light breeze blew so gently it didn’t even move my hair. The metal trees glistened under the dim moon, striking in their sterility. The place was haunting. Yet it was also familiar. It was a place that, somehow, I felt I knew quite well—perhaps in another time or dimension. But standing there, at that moment, it was a place I couldn’t wholly comprehend. I knew there had to be a reason, a purpose for me being in that forest. Only I couldn’t remember what it was. The idea was unrecognizable yet faintly there, like an elusive word on the tip of one’s tongue. Faint, like the first of the metal clicks I heard.

  It sounded like a faraway pebble had dropped on a sheet of metal. I strained to listen. There it was again. And again a few moments later. Soon, the clicks multiplied and began coming in waves. As the waves came closer, I realized that the forest was waking up—and moving in my direction. Trees joined the waves by shifting their branches in unison. And by the end of the wave, each metal branch pointed in the same direction. Their militaristic movements echoed throughout the forest like an amplified snare drum. And just as the silence would return, they’d shift again, simultaneously stretching in a new direction with a thunderous clack. They’d shift. Then pose. Shift. Then pose. Each time, more trees joined in, set off by neighboring trees. Unable to escape it, I found myself caught in the middle as the branches surrounding me became possessed by the contagious ritual. The animation of the trees rolled on until the entire forest joined the mechanical, synchronized dance.

  Trees danced dangerously all around me. Dodging the sharp ends of the reaching branches, I managed to make it to a small clearing where no trees poked through the ice. There, I was safe from the violent limbs. But it was also there, beneath the ice, that I found something strangely out of place. Something opposite of pristine, manufactured metal. It was something—organic. At first, it looked like a log composed of actual wood. But as I peered closer, I knew the texture was too smooth to be bark. My eyes followed the curious thing until I slowly slid backward to reveal a pair of eyes gazing hauntingly into mine.

  Her hair stood on end, floating in delicate, frozen waves. It was clear she had tried, without victory, to free herself from her frozen prison. Her open mouth was pressed against the surface, locked in an eternal scream. Her hands were palms-up, her fingers fixed in a clawing position. Her torso was mangled, caught in a snare of silver roots. And her legs disappeared into the obscurity of ice and overlapping metal. Frozen in terror, she was nonetheless strangely beautiful.

  Suddenly, a light began to glow from beneath her. The golden light grew in size and intensity, as if her soul had awoken and was attempting to melt the ice with its radiance. I inched away uneasily from her frozen tomb and realized that, although she was certainly the most striking, she was not alone. Across the surface of the forest floor, more lights began to glow from beneath the ice like warm beacons, revealing that the
forest held dozens captive.

  The trees continued aggressively posing their branches, uncaring of the illuminated corpses below. I dashed across the ice, searching for a spot where I wouldn’t be impaled by a limb or forced to stand atop a frozen figure. Yet this proved impossible. Every spot I leapt to that was safe from shifting branches, I’d find a frozen face beneath my feet. At least unlike the frozen beauty in the clearing, the others seemed to have been resting peacefully in their ice chambers. Arms folded. Eyes closed. Serene expressions.

  In the midst of my panicked scramble, my eye caught an anomaly near the base of one of the largest trees. Affixed to its lower trunk was a smooth, flat outcrop of metal. Unlike the long-reaching, sharply pointed branches, this stub of a branch refused, or was unable, to sway. Like running an obstacle course, I ducked and sidestepped the striking limbs as I made my way to the tree. I hoisted myself up on the metal pedestal and clutched the massive, rattling trunk to keep balanced. My shadow wobbled as it loomed over the dark ice, which reflected the all-encompassing moon. The moment I stepped from the ice, the lights below dimmed until they no longer lit the bodies. That is, except for the lone light that continued to radiate beneath the captivating woman in the clearing. Despite the distance, suspended a few feet off the ground, I was still able to make out the shape of her twisted body, her hands clawing for the surface.

  I heard a light hiss overhead. “What now?” I moaned as I looked skyward to the tree towering over me. A branch at the very top had punctured the moon with one of its violent strikes. Thick, sparkling spirals poured out from the gash. The peculiar snow began to cascade through the trees. The sparkles delicately brushed the metal, producing the light shhhhhhhh sound. As it came closer to the ground, it began to cover my hair. I then realized that what fell from inside the moon was not snow at all, but millions of swirls of silver glitter.