Woke Up Dead

by Tina Wainscott

  “Will your dad let you take the truck?” she asked.

  He didn’t even glance toward the house. “He won’t say nothing about it.”

  She held her breath as the engine churned a couple of times, and finally started. She felt a hitch in her chest when Silas took the box from her and set it on the bench seat. Then he helped her up into the old truck and shut the door behind her. Boots was trying to sit up, with his paws wide for balance. His eyes were still wobbly, and he was crying again. Nothing really bad had ever happened to her before today. Now she was alone with Silas Koole. Spooky Silas Koole. The bad omen had come true.

  He didn’t say a word as they stopped by the intersection that turned left into downtown where people didn’t know about bad things happening to helpless kittens. A lone shopping strip plaza sat ahead of them, half of the storefronts empty. People were busy shopping at the Dollar Store’s sidewalk sale. They glanced up at her and Silas and the noisy truck, and then looked away just as fast. To the right was the ancient cemetery tucked away in the oaks. Past that was the veterinary hospital.

  “I’ll wait out here,” he said once he’d parked.

  The pinch she felt in her chest made her realize she’d hoped he’d come in with her. Not Silas, she thought, climbing down and taking the box he held out to her. He walked to school alone, returned alone, and never hung out with other kids. But he’d brought her here.

  All-Animals Hospital was small, very white, and smelled like disinfectant. One woman sat in the waiting area with her cat in a carrier. The new doctor’s name was Ben Ferguson, and he was writing on something at the desk when she held up the kitten and pleaded through her tears, “He’s gonna die if you don’t help him.”

  Mr. Ferguson was older, probably in his late twenties, and his eyes were compassionate as he took the kitten into his office. She waited with the other woman, not missing the looks she gave her dirty feet and tear-stained face. Pity and disgust. She hated going into town, hated school, and at the moment, hated just about everybody.

  Except Dr. Ferguson, who told her that Boots was going to live. “But it doesn’t look good, Katie. His brain got hurt.” He put his hand over her head. “The brain is a very complex organ, the most important one in the body. We’ve got to wait and see how bad and where his brain was hurt. I’ve given him some medication to reduce the swelling and bruising and something to keep him from going into shock.”

  She walked to the table where Boots looked so tiny. He was resting just like normal, only his eyes were closed. “Now what happens?”

  “I’m going to put a catheter in him, right here.” He pointed to his leg. “You’ve probably seen catheters on TV with the bag of fluid that drips into the person’s vein. This will give Boots electrolytes. He’s going to stay here for a few days where I can keep an eye on him, watch what he eats and drinks. That will tell me how he’s doing. And you…” He smiled. “You can come visit him.”

  She lifted her chin. “I will, every day.”

  Dr. Ferguson followed her gaze back to the kitten. “Katie, you’re a smart, tough girl. I’m going to be honest with you, because I know that’s what you want. He’s not going to be like normal kittens. Which means it’s going to be real hard to find him a home.”

  She looked at the gray striped kitten on the table. “I’m gonna keep him,” she said in a thick voice. “Nobody’s ever gonna hurt him again.” She couldn’t look at Boots without crying, so she looked at the doctor. “We don’t have a lot of money to pay the bills.”

  “Tell you what: you can work here to help pay the bill. We’re going to make him better together, you and me.”

  “I can work good. I’m strong. I hoe the garden, climb up on the roof and fix the holes, mow the yard…my daddy left when I was little, so Mama and I do everything. Thank you for saving him, Dr. Ferguson.”

  He knelt down to her level. “You’re looking at me like I’m some hero. I just did my job.”

  She shook her head. “You are a hero.”

  A change came over his face, as though her words touched him in some way. “I want to be your hero, Katie. That would make me very happy. And I want you to call me Ben.”

  She nodded, but moved back a few inches. Mama said not to get too close to men. “What about Gary? He did this to my kitten. Shouldn’t he have to pay the bill?”

  Ben looked down for a moment, then said, “Are you sure it was Gary who did this? What you said he did…it’s a horrible thing. And you know, Gary’s father is a pretty important person in town. Accusing him of this, well, it isn’t going to be easy. Maybe it’s better not to raise a stink.”

  He sounded like her mama. Anger and injustice balled up in her throat. “But he did it! I don’t care who his dad is!”

  Ben’s smile wasn’t really a smile at all. It looked sad. “You may not, but a lot of people do. Believe me, I know how towns like this work. Gary is the D.A.’s only child. Everybody’s hoping he’ll go to college and come back smart so he can bring commerce back into town. Nobody’s going to believe he threw a kitten against a window.”

  She blinked back the tears. “But everybody’s gotta pay. When I stole some of Mrs. Granson’s strawberries, I had to weed her yard to pay for ‘em.”

  Lordy, it looked like Ben was gonna cry too, the way his eyes watered up for a second. He touched her cheek. “Sometimes life isn’t fair, hon. But I’m going to make it fair for you. I’m going to be your hero, now and always.”

  When she walked outside, she wasn’t sure Silas would still be out there. He was, and that somehow touched her. That he seemed to really care about the kitten touched her more.

  “How is he?” Silas asked as he helped her up into the truck. She only nodded. “It’s okay to cry, Katie. I know you want to.”

  She’d been trying really hard not to cry in front of him or anybody. Her mouth was tight, her chin quivering. Talking made it worse, so she tried not to say anything. But his words released the dam, and she let the tears come.

  He started to reach for her, halted, then touched her hand instead. “You’re just mad. I know how it feels to be helpless, powerless.”

  She rubbed her shirt over her running nose and looked at him. How did he know what she was feeling? Is that why the kids called him Spooky Silas? She didn’t want to ask, because then he’d take away his hand, and it felt so good on hers. He’d go back to being silent like he was when the kids teased him.

  “I wanna tell the sheriff on him. I want him to pay for what he did. Ben said they wouldn’t believe me.”

  “He’s probably right.”

  “He said I shouldn’t raise a stink.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Raise a stink.”

  Silas removed his hand and started the truck. There was a ghost of a smile on his mouth. He drove to the Sheriff’s office. And he walked inside with her.

  “Little girl, surely you’re mistaken,” Sheriff Tate said when she’d related her story in the waiting area. He was older than Ben, but not by much. All the dark wood on the walls and floors made the area look warm, but it didn’t feel warm. The sunlight pouring in through the front windows was almost blinding. “Gary might raise a ruckus now and again, but he’s no cat killer.” He looked at Silas, who stood behind her. “You see this happen?”

  Silas paused, as though he were considering lying and saying he did. He shook his head. “She isn’t lying.”

  At that moment, she knew that even if no one believed her, if Gary never paid for his crime, that Silas’s standing up for her would help the pain.

  The sheriff turned back to her. “Are you sure you didn’t drop the kitten and are looking for someone else to blame?”

  “I didn’t drop him! I love…” She gulped down the sob that threatened to tear out. “I love him,” she finished on a thick whisper.

  The sheriff looked at the receptionist. “Call Sam over.”

  Gary’s dad. Surely now Silas would back down, tell her she didn’t have a chance. He d
idn’t. He was as silent and thin as a wooden post, and just as sturdy. Sheriff Tate squinted out the front window where the battered truck was parked. Then he looked at Silas. “You old enough to drive that thing?”

  “I got my learner’s permit. My dad wasn’t around, and we had to get the kitten to the hospital.”

  Uh oh. Now she’d gotten Silas into trouble.

  “Seen you driving into town by yourself before. Does your old man know it’s illegal for a fifteen year-old to drive by himself?”

  Silas’s face went a shade paler, though his body didn’t give away an ounce of discomfort. “He’s been laid up with a broken ankle, can’t manage the shifter. Soon as he’s able, he’ll be driving again.”

  “Maybe I’ll have me a talk with him.”

  “He’s gone a lot, selling his statues.”

  “With a broken ankle?”

  Silas shrugged. “I drive him.”

  Once in a while Katie would see Silas and his dad at their makeshift stand by the crossroads selling pieces of wood carved into the shapes of horses and wolves.

  “What the hell is going on?” Sam boomed in a loud voice as he walked inside. He was Italian, her mama had said, and reminded her of Marlon Brando. He was in the middle of swabbing his forehead when he saw Katie and went dead still. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Says Gary threw her kitten against a glass window, hurt it bad.”

  “And what does she want with me?” He hadn’t even looked at her since the first glance.

  She didn’t like being ignored. “I want him to be punished for what he did.”

  Sam didn’t look the least bit surprised or shamed by what his son had done. He hardened his brown eyes at her. “You got proof of that, little girl?”

  “I saw him do it! That’s proof!”

  Sam picked up the phone at the reception desk and asked for his son. “You throw a kitten against a window?” he barked into the phone without greeting. Then he hung up. “He said he didn’t. Looks like it’s his word against yours.”

  “She ain’t lying,” Silas said.

  Sam took in Silas’s tall, rangy frame. “I don’t have time for this crap. Sheriff, you going to book my son?”

  Tate was leaning against the desk, his arms crossed. “Nope.”

  “I’m outta here.”

  Without another glance at Katie or Silas, he walked out. A burst of hot air from outside washed over her cheeks. She looked at the sheriff, but he was already walking to his office. The woman behind the desk quickly grabbed her coffee mug and scooted to the back. With his hands on her shoulders, Silas steered her out into the hot afternoon.

  “How can they do that?” she said as they walked to the truck. “How?”

  Silas leaned against the door for a moment, giving her a soft look. “That’s how the world works. Bad things happen and nobody pays for it.”

  He was thinking about his father, maybe. She’d seen him wearing a black eye once. He’d tried to cover it up with makeup. “Like with your dad hitting you?”

  He blinked in surprise, but gave away no other emotion. “Yeah.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “When we lived in Monticello, north of here. I was younger than you. They didn’t want to believe me because they didn’t want to deal with my dad’s temper.” He helped her into the truck and closed the door.

  “Does he still hit you?” she asked as soon as he got in.

  “Not anymore.”

  Silas started the truck and headed down the dusty road that led out of town. All her life she’d been something of an outcast. There were only three other kids who lived in Possum Holler. Most of the kids in her school lived in nice neighborhoods where the homes weren’t made of metal. Silas was an outcast, too, though he didn’t even try to fit in. For the first time, she felt a bond with someone other than her mother. She liked it.

  “I’ll take you in to see your kitten tomorrow if you want,” he said as he pulled into her trailer park.

  “You’d do that?”

  “Sure.”

  Her mama wasn’t going to like this, not one bit, but she said, “Okay, thanks,” anyway. “I can meet you out by the road here at one if that’s okay.”

  “Sure.”

  He pulled right up to her mobile home.

  “How’d you know where I live? That’s right, Mama said you were here when she had me.” Silas had only been a boy then, but her mama had said he’d been a big help until the midwife had arrived. And he’d held Katie with a tenderness her mama had never seen in a boy so young.

  He nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

  She started to get out of the truck, and then paused. “Are you going to get into trouble driving to town again? Will the sheriff talk to your dad about it?”

  “I hope not.”

  For two weeks, Katie’s world revolved around riding with Silas to visit Boots and helping Ben groom the dogs and cats. Boots wasn’t normal, as Ben had warned. His eyes were crossed, and he wasn’t the bright cat he’d been before Gary threw him. Still, he was surviving, and she gave him lots of love to make up for his losses. Her innocence, shattered by Gary’s assault, was starting to rebuild itself piece by piece.

  Her mama wasn’t happy about her hanging around with either Ben or Silas. It was inappropriate for a young girl to associate with a teenager and a grown man. Ben had even spoken to her mama to assure her that his intentions were nothing but honorable. Luckily, her mama was busy working during the day when Katie went to see Boots. Even more luckily, Boots was going to go home with her in a few days, and she would only have to help at the vet’s hospital one day a week to pay for Boots’s shots.

  Even though there wasn’t a dead bird in her yard that day, her luck evaporated. The sheriff was waiting to talk to Silas at the hospital. Ben tried to usher Katie inside, but she stayed next to Silas.

  “We’re going to have to bring you in and ask you some questions about your father’s death.” The sheriff’s eyes hardened. “Why didn’t you report his disappearance? You knew he was dead, didn’t you? You knew his body was up in those woods rotting for six months, didn’t you?”

  She saw the nearly imperceptible tightening of Silas’s mouth, but his eyes gave nothing away. His expression was resigned and hard and blank. “I knew.”

  The sheriff’s voice went lower when he asked, “Were you with him when he died?”

  “No. I never went hunting with him when he went during a school week. I went looking for him when he didn’t come back by Saturday.”

  “And you found him?”

  “Yes, I found him.”

  “And left him there.”

  “Yes, I left him there.”

  Despite her protests, the Sheriff took Silas away, and Ben herded her into the hospital. When he took her home a few hours later, her mother was washing the windows. She threw the sponge in the bucket and stalked over, and Katie knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. She jumped out of the truck before mama got close, but she tapped on Ben’s window.

  “We’ll pay you whatever it is we owe you for the kitten’s care, but I don’t want Katie over there anymore.”

  “Mrs. Malloy, let’s talk about this. I think it’s good for her to take on responsibility, and she’s great with the animals.”

  Katie had never seen her mama look so hard and mean before. “If you see her again, I’ll ask the sheriff to look into the matter for me. Go find someone your own age to hang around.”

  Ben spun dirt and gravel as he left the trailer park, and Mama stood her ground until he was out of sight. Then she turned to Katie. “Go into the house. You’re grounded until you’re sixteen.”

  Katie knew better than to argue; she turned and went inside. Now wouldn’t be a good time to ask her to do something for Silas, either, she supposed. Mama didn’t fight for anything but Katie. She kicked at the wall in her bedroom, and Mama yelled at her to calm down. She hated feeling helpless. She was going to teach her a lesson and sneak out to Rebecca’s for the
night. When Mama found her missing, she’d be worried and maybe she’d rethink the hospital situation.

  But Mama didn’t come looking for her the next morning. In fact, from what Katie could see from Rebecca’s window, there wasn’t anything going on at home. Maybe Mama was sleeping in for a change, and Katie could sneak in and pretend she’d never left. It’d be just like normal.

  Except it wasn’t normal. Mama was lying on the linoleum. She didn’t answer Katie’s calls, and she was cold and stiff. Katie dropped to her knees and shook her. She smelled a chlorine scent and saw blue crystals spilled across the linoleum and her mama’s nightdress. An open jar of Blue Devil drain opener lay on the floor. Bloody sores dribbled down the sides of her mama’s mouth and nostrils. Her eyes were wide in terror, but they looked at nothing. As though she had been about to scream, and then had frozen.

  Katie screamed for her.

  SNEAK PEEK: UNFORGIVABLE CHAPTER 2

  Eighteen years later…

  The hapless black bug flew into the spider’s web in the light outside the kitchen window. It knew immediately that the gleaming strands of silk were the clutches of death. At first just its legs were stuck, and it strained its wings to fly away. It vibrated and twisted. The brown spider crept closer. With a burst of panic, the bug tried again to fly free, but the web had ensnared its wings now. The spider came in for the kill, skirting along the silvery thread and spinning its deadly cocoon around the bug. Still it fought, twisting and churning, but it was too late now.

  Katie Ferguson could hardly see it now beneath the milky shroud. The macabre theater mesmerized her as she could feel the pull of the strands that trapped her in a tight hold, the sense of suffocation. Her hands squeezed the sponge in the sink full of warm, soapy water. Enough! She’s already caught, trapped forever, she can’t get away now. The spider kept spinning the bug around and around, until it disappeared completely. Now it would suck the lifeblood from the bug.