Pathetic.
The sun was long gone and the moon was proudly spreading its silvery rays through my bedroom window. The ceiling fan above me was on full blast, the sleek, black blades pushing the heavy air in small circles. I glanced around and chuckled at the vast array of animal print items I owned…and the twisted irony. My ridiculous obsession with all things cat related was a long standing joke around the Newcomb household and with all my friends. No one ever lacked an idea for a gift because all they had to do was find something covered in faux cat print. Purses, shoes, T-shirts, underwear, notebooks, a lamp shade cover, and even my comforter sported various types of big cat patterns. Cheetah, tiger, lion, and jaguar prints were splashed all over my room. I even had one large, framed oil painting of a black panther with shimmering green eyes on the wall next to my closet. It was a beautiful rendition of the namesake for Junction City’s school mascot, painted by one of Meemaw’s bridge club friends for me when I made the cheerleading team. Now, it just made me furious. The resemblance to my enemy was uncanny, and I had to fight the urge to rip it to shreds.
Guess the fake skins aren’t necessary anymore now that I have my own. Except I’m all white.
I looked at my phone and stifled a groan when I noticed it was after eleven p.m. Mom and Dad had crashed in front of the television earlier. The stress of the last few days weighed down their eyelids as they snuggled next to each other, seeking familiar comfort. They tried to stay awake so they could watch me attempt to change into a small cat, but once they settled into the soft folds of the couch, exhaustion overtook them. Meemaw ushered me upstairs with a silent nod of her head but stopped me in the hallway. She insisted I try to sleep before I attempted a transition. I had given her a weak smile. I nodded in agreement and watched her trudge off to the bathroom to take a shower.
The shower was still running, and I could hear her humming an unfamiliar tune. If she stayed any longer under the hot water, her skin would be so dry it would crack when she walked. I had promised Meemaw I wouldn’t change until she was out of the bathroom. She’d almost seemed like a giddy school girl when she asked me about it earlier. I had laughed and told her I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I knew how to shift on command, much less into a smaller cat rather than a ginormous panther. I warned her it might be like a car stuck in neutral, engine revved up but going nowhere.
I couldn’t stand to think about Dane any longer, so I forced my thoughts to concentrate on the day I followed the scent of my enemy. It had stopped at the Cohestra plant and had covered every inch of the car with the Illinois plate. My guess was that the car was a rental, which meant anyone could be driving it. There had been a lot of out of town visitors ever since the tornado ravaged Cohestra’s main building. The vehicle could belong to an insurance adjustor, company investors, a new employee, or even Dane’s dad. The only thing I knew for sure was the scent. Once I caught it again, I wouldn’t stop until I destroyed the unholy beast. I let a loud huff of breath out as I recalled my conversation with Nahu’ala about my enemy. He had assured me that Hattak’katos did not possess the ability to control the minds of others, but he did have the capacity to sway emotions in the direction he wanted them to go. He could plant the seeds inside the minds of the weak or the hateful, just as he did so many years ago. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time, according to Nahu’ala.
If Hattak’katos had the ability to control the thoughts of others, the world would be in bigger trouble than it already was. The flip side, however, was it left Nahu’ala incapable of seeking out through his mind to find and destroy him. Nahu’ala told me that although he had his suspicions about the human identity of our enemy since he could recognize the smell, he wouldn’t share it with me. I would be required to use my own instincts, my own internal knowledge, to lead me to the truth, and the only way to know for sure was to follow the smell.
The water shut off, and I listened to Meemaw dry herself off and get dressed. The new ability to hear things I couldn’t before was strange at best, downright creepy at worst. Earlier, I had to put headphones on because the sounds of a family of mice in the walls scurrying around nearly drove me crazy.
Within seconds, Meemaw was walking down the hallway toward my room. I could tell she was barefooted, and though her steps would barely have registered to the ears of others, mine picked up the sounds as a loud thump. I stood up, slipped my shoes off, and opened my window. I tugged at the replica of Dane’s basketball workout jersey he gave me last year for Christmas and pulled on my shorts. The soft tap of Meemaw’s knuckles on the door made my skin begin to vibrate since I knew it was almost time to get the show rolling. “Door’s open.”
“It was so quiet in here, I was afraid you might have crashed too. I see I was wrong. So are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready. Someone decided to take the world’s longest shower and made me wait for an eternity.”
Meemaw ignored my jab and moved over to the edge of my bed, patting the comforter for me to sit next to her. “Sit a spell, baby girl. I got some things to say before you venture out in the dark and start your recon mission.” My old bed creaked when I sat down next to her. As usual, she smelled like a warm summer day, a sweet mixture of cinnamon and jasmine. She put her damp arm around me and smiled. “You just remember this is a gift from God. He’s chosen you, and He don’t make mistakes. It’s us silly humans who screw things up in the world. I may not understand all of this just yet, heck, even you may not. But after what you shared with us, you need to stand strong. What that monster wants ain’t rightfully his. I’ve done some serious prayin’ these last few days. I understand enough to know that ol’ Hattak’katos ain’t gonna give up. Don’t let our ancestors down. Don’t let their shed blood be forgotten. Don’t let the Lord down. Stand strong for Him. Embrace your gift. And don’t give the Devil a chance to worm his way inside your mind. You know he’ll try. He will seek out your weaknesses to use against you.”
“I know. I won’t let him. I promise.”
“Wrong answer, baby. You didn’t choose this as your duty. It was bestowed upon you. And you won’t be able to get through this on your own either. You are goin’ to have to rely on your faith in the good Lord above to give you strength. He’s the only one who can withstand the sharp barbs of the Devil. Now, you just remember these things I’ve told you when bearin’ this burden gets too heavy, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“On a personal note, I want to share two other things with you.”
Curious, I cocked my head and let a small smile appear, “That wasn’t personal enough?”
“I just love that smart mouth of yours.” Meemaw smiled back at me, her eyes misting over with a light shimmer of tears. “And no, not personal enough. Number one is I want to thank you for easin’ my mind about Nana and myself. Because of you, I can rest assured my mother wasn’t loony and that I ain’t either. My visions, dreams, premonitions—call them what you like—well, I thought my cheese had done slid off my cracker a few times. Worried myself into a tizzy durin’ my late teens and early twenties, thinkin’ my mind was about to crack. This whole town believed Nana was bonkers, and I was, oh, what did Lucinda always say? Oh, yeah, that my rocker dipped sideways sometimes. It don’t much matter to me now, and I don’t care if no one else knows we weren’t crazier than a basket of wet cats. At least we know.”
The pesky lump of tears was back in my throat. Afraid they would jump out, I simply nodded in agreement.
“Two, it’s been a great joy watchin’ you grow into a young woman, and I didn’t think I could have been any prouder of you than what I was before. Now, I know that’s not true. I’m, well, just so honored to call you granddaughter. I love you, Sheryl.”
Meemaw wiped her tears away and gave me a quick, warm kiss on my forehead. She then pushed me to my feet before we both ended up bawling like two baby calves. I was already on an emotional roller coaster, so I just thanked her by giving her a bear hug. She returned the embrace for a few secon
ds, and then pulled away. “Enough of my jawin’ and all this mushy crap. Show me what ya got, sweet pea. Concentrate on makin’ your body small so that old Hataaka-hairball can’t smell you.”
“Meemaw! I can’t do this if you’re goin’ to keep my emotions tiltin’ one direction to the next! How am I supposed to concentrate when I can’t decide if I should cry or laugh?” I eked out through my tears of sadness and laughter. “That was hysterical. I’m gonna call him that when I see him next. Or, well, guess I can’t really talk in my other form, but I’ll surely be thinkin’ it!”
“You know what they say about the medicinal properties of laughter. Now, stop dilly dallyin’ and get to…um,” she snapped her fingers, trying to remember the correct term. “Skin-walkin’.”
“I love you, Meemaw. So much.”
“I love you too, sugar. Now, get to switchin’ before the sun comes up! You’ve got some prowlin’ to do!”
I moved away and stood next to the open window. I shook my head and closed my eyes and mind off to everything around me. I focused my thoughts on the rusty stench of the spilled blood of my friends, remembered the horrors of the words carved into Barb’s lily white skin. I saw the stillness of Tami’s dead eyes, frozen in terror as they stared into the night sky. I picked up the stale scent of the nasty beast from when he’d been in our house. I licked my lips and recalled the sensual yet sickening taste of Dane’s blood on my thick tongue, the weight of his body as it hung like a limp spaghetti noodle in my enormous jaws. I knew from the change before it was intense emotion that caused me to turn, so I let my anger take hold. I visualized it as a long, thick, red piece of leather as it wormed through me. I mentally grabbed the edges and clung on, like I did as a child with the reins when I rode a horse, careful to control the fury from running amok. As my anger grew, so did the heat inside my body. It bubbled and churned like a pot of boiling water on the stove. I sought out imprinted memories of Tinker—his body size, structure—and tried to steer the anger and compress it down to fit in the smaller version of the beast inside me.
The struggle was intense, and I felt my body begin to tremble. In my mind, I called out to Nahu’ala, “Please, help me. I need you to help me.”
“I am here, Little One. Always. We are one.”
I heard myself choke back a sob of grief at the sound of Papa Joe’s voice in my mind, and in that moment, I felt myself change. In a split second, the warmth vanished, and my body quit shaking. I felt the floor quake as Meemaw connected hard with the bed, and I heard her exclaim, “Dear Jesus, God in Heaven! In all my days! You did it! You did it!” but the location of her voice was all wrong. I opened my eyes and discovered it was because I was on the floor, on all fours, and Meemaw looked like a giant.
With a few steps, I stretched my small torso and wriggled in and out of her trembling legs, rubbing my head against her calf. Her hand shook as it reached out and touched my arched back. A low purr rumbled through me, and I responded to her gentle fingers by licking her bare skin with my rough tongue.
“Is it…are you…Sheryl?” Meemaw stuttered.
I replied with a dainty “Meow” and watched Meemaw’s face light up, her smile bigger than I’d ever seen it before. Then, without a sound, I leapt off the floor and up to the windowsill, swishing my fluffy white tail. I glanced back once and saw the shimmer of tears streak down Meemaw’s flushed face. Then I turned back and jumped on the roof and disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Junction City, with all its familiar places and smells, took on a completely different aura when viewed from less than a foot off the ground. The scents filtered through my hypersensitive olfactory system, and I was bombarded with information each particular one held. I wrinkled my nose at the stench of the neighborhood dogs behind their fences, and had I been able, I would have laughed at the annoying barks from the baying mutts while I strode by. Into the dark night I moved, lithely trotting on silent paws. Unlike when I was in my full state, this time, I didn’t feel the sense of raw power or intense rage flowing through me. My only guess as to why was because I was no bigger than any other ordinary housecat.
In other words, I was vulnerable.
With one last look at Meemaw’s face as she watched in awe from my open window, I broke out into a full run. I zigzagged through the quiet street, making sure to stay in the shadows and away from the bright street lamps. Hell, the yapping hounds were enough, and I didn’t need any more help announcing my presence to the world.
It was close to midnight, yet the blacktop was still warm under the pads of my paws. Dirt mixed with the oil from the street and adhered to the tufts of fur between my toes. I ignored the strange sensation and focused on the road, making sure to look twice before I crossed. My lips curved over my teeth in my feline version of a smile at the thought. Even when on four feet, the admonition drilled into the head of every child to look both ways twice before crossing still rang true.
Once I crossed Center Street, I crouched next to the stinky tires of old Mr. Howell’s ancient Ford truck and listened to the sounds of the night. My ears flicked from front to back and picked up Mr. Howell’s TV set, tuned to some comedy show, judging by the annoying laugh track. Three doors down, I heard the nasal symphony of Steven Marshall and his wife Annette. She was going to be my biology teacher starting next week. I wondered if I would be able to sit in class and keep a straight face, knowing she bellowed like a walrus when she slept.
Movement to my right caught my attention, and I saw Rosemary Hinkle, Junction City’s local Mrs. Robinson, walk to her kitchen from her bedroom and fix a glass of water. She paused by the light of the fridge. No, she didn’t pause, she posed. Her full rump in the air and back arched seductively, her heavy breasts flopping against her arm. She was as naked as the day she was born and the curtains were wide open. I looked to my left at Dale Standfield’s house, and sure enough, he was watching her, his tongue nearly hanging from his mouth as he massaged his crotch. For once, the rumors spread by the Gossip Queens were right on the money. I shuddered, feeling a bit sick to my stomach at watching a boy I had a crush on in the fourth grade drool over a woman twice his age. Yuck.
Some things were better left hidden in the darkness.
I turned away from the spectacle. There were a few other sounds of humanity, but not much. No cars, no sounds of people talking, no chug chug chug from the silos at the Cohestra plant. Basically, the town of Junction City rolled up the carpet of life at midnight and tucked it away until sunrise.
Well, most of the town.
I raised my miniature nose and sniffed, sensing a summer storm was heading our way. Though the sky was cloudless at the moment, I felt the electrical shift in the air and knew within two hours, a downpour would hit. That short window didn’t give me much time to snoop around. I straightened my legs and started to cross the street to head toward Dane’s when the hackles on my neck stood erect. On instinct, my ears flattened and my tail bristled. The scent molecules were faint, scattered across the heavy air, but unmistakable. Without thinking, my body shot forward, guided by my nose. Within seconds, I came to the intersection of Center and Spruce and stopped.
Right in front of Ms. Johnson’s house.
The small, three bedroom house was dark, the curtains drawn tight. Her yard needed to be mowed, and two unopened newspapers sat in silence in the empty carport. The old stench of my enemy was mixed with new death in the humid night air. I jumped the metal fence and stood on Ms. Johnson’s back patio. My eyes focused on the fresh mound of upturned dirt, and I knew without investigating any further what was buried beneath it. Had Ms. Johnson dug the hole for the mongrel? No, I saw the vacant look in her eyes when she left the diner. She wasn’t in any shape to do anything but skedaddle out of town and maybe pack a few bags. Plus, she’d been under Papa Joe’s mind manipulation, and he’d convinced her there was no dog in her bedroom, so how would it have been possible for her to come home and bury something she couldn’t see?
A lig
ht breeze shifted the direction of the heavy air, and the smell I missed more than anything in the world hit me. It was Papa Joe’s musky aroma. Though no longer fresh, it was there. On instinct, I followed the trail. When I reached the back door, I noticed the smell was stronger. Full clarity hit me. Papa Joe had been here and disposed of the thing.
He thought of everything and everyone, even near the end of his time here. God love him.
With a growl of disgust and sadness, I left and headed toward Dane’s house. I knew it was selfish and not part of the work I was supposed to be doing, but I had to see him. I needed to know he was okay, and in my current form, I could at least tell him the truth in my own mind while near him. It wouldn’t really be closure for him, but it would be for me.
As I cut through the side streets toward the Witherspoon manse at the edge of town, my thoughts on the love of my life, I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings. On autopilot, I made my way through the quiet town until the stench smacked me back to the present. I froze and noticed I was less than a mile from Dane’s house, and the smell of my enemy was strong and fresh. I crouched and scanned the area, looking with my sharp eyes for any signs of movement. But I saw nothing. I tamped down the growl of fury inside my chest, knowing any sound would give my position away if Hattak’katos was near. I lowered my nose and sniffed the ground, opening my mouth a bit to catch every molecule. Even though I recognized the scent trail was about twenty-four hours old, my senses were still on high alert.
Because the trail led straight to Dane’s house.
Growl Page 20
