The Pet

by Charles L. Grant

  Tomorrow, he promised himself, crossing his heart and pointing at his eye; tomorrow he would have a whore, and then get the hell out.

  And if the moon didn't show, he'd kill somewhere else.

  The door was open just enough to let a bar of light from the hallway drop across the brown shag rug, climb the side of the bed, and pin him to the mattress. Don lay on top of the covers, head on the pillow, hands clasped on his stomach, and checked to be sure his friends were still with him.

  Above the headboard was a poster of a panther lying in a jungle clearing and licking its paw while it stared at the camera; on the wall opposite, flanking the door, were posters of elephants charging with trunks up through the brush, their ears fanned wide and their tusks sharply pointed and an unnatural white. Elsewhere around the large room were pictures and prints of leopards and cheetahs running, eagles stooping, pumas stalking, a cobra from the back to show the eyes on its hood. On the chest of drawers was a fake stuffed bobcat with fangs bared; on the low dresser was a miniature stuffed lion; in the blank spaces on the three unfinished bookcases were plaster and plastic figurines he had made and painted himself, claws and teeth and talons and eyes. And above the desk set perpendicular to the room's only window was a tall poster framed behind reflection less glass ofa dirt road bordered by a dark screen of immense poplars that lay shadows on the ground, shadows in the air, deepened the twilight sky, and made the stars seem brighter; and down the road, just coming over the horizon, was a galloping black horse, its hooves striking sparks from hidden stones, breath steaming from its nostrils, eyes narrowed, and ears laid back. It had neither rider nor reins, and it was evident that should it ever reach the foreground, it would be the largest horse the viewer had ever seen.

  His friends.

  His pets.

  After examining them a second time, he rolled over and buried his face in the crook of his arm.

  His parents refused to allow real animals in the house, at least since Sam had died and they had given the kid's parakeet to an aunt in Pennsylvania. Because of the memories; and it didn't seem to make a difference that Don had loved the dumb bird too.

  When he pressed for a replacement—any kind, he wasn't fussy—his mother claimed a severe allergy to cats, and his father told him reasonably there wasn't anyone around the place long enough anymore to take adequate care of a dog. Fish were boring, birds and turtles carried all manner of exotic and incurable diseases, and hamsters and gerbils were too dumb to do anything but sleep and eat.

  He had long ago decided he didn't mind; if his parents weren't exactly thrilled about what he wanted to do with his life, why should he fuss over the absence of some pets?

  Because, he told himself; just because.

  And suddenly it was summer again, the sun was up, and he was down in the living room, bursting with excitement. Both his folks were there, summoned from their chores in the yard and waiting anxiously. He could tell by the look on his mother's face that she expected him to say he was quitting school to get married, by the look on his father's that he'd gotten some girl pregnant.

  "I know what I'm going to study at college," he had said in a voice that squeaked with apprehension, and he bolstered his nerves by taking his father's chair without thinking.

  "Good," Norman had said with a smile. "I hope you'll get so rich I can quit and you can support me in a manner to which I would love to become accustomed."

  He had laughed because he couldn't think of anything else to do, and his mother had hit Norm's arm lightly.

  "What is it, dear," she'd asked.

  "I'm going to be a doctor."

  "Well, son of a bitch," his father had said, his smile stretching to a proud grin.

  "Oh, my god, Donald," Joyce had whispered, her eyes suddenly glistening.

  "Sure," he said, relieved the worst part was over and there was no scene to endure. "I like animals, they like me, and I like learning about them and taking care of them. So I might as well get paid for doing what I like, right? So I'm gonna be a veterinarian."

  The silence had almost bludgeoned him to the carpet, and it wasn't until several seconds had passed that he realized they had misunderstood him, that they had thought at that moment he had meant he was going to be an M.D.

  Joyce's smile had gone strained, but she still professed joy that he was finally decided; his father had taken him outside after a while and told him, for at least the hundred-millionth time, that he was the first member of the Boyd family to get a college education, and Donald would be the second. He said he hoped with all his heart the boy knew what he was doing.

  "Being a teacher, and now a principal," Norman had said, "is something I'm not ashamed to be proud of, son. Being a vet, though, that's not ...well, it's not really anything at all, when you think about it. I mean, helping cats instead of babies isn't exactly my idea of medicine."

  "But I like animals," he had argued stubbornly. "And I don't like the way people treat them."

  "Oh. Dr. Dolittle, I presume?" his father had said lightly.

  "Yeah. Maybe."

  "Don." And a hand rested on his shoulder. "Look, I just want to be sure you're positive. It's a hell of a step, making up your mind about something like this."

  "I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't."

  "Well, at least think about it, all right? As a favor to me and your mother. It's only August. You have a full year to graduation, and even then you really don't have to make up your mind. Some kids take a lot of time. You just take all the time you need."

  He had wanted to shout that he had done all the thinking he had to on the subject; instead, he had only nodded and walked away, and had walked and run for the rest of the day. When he finally returned home, nothing was said about the announcement, and nothing had been said since.

  He grinned now in his bed; he wasn't quite as thick as his father thought him. He knew they were hoping he would come to his senses and decide to treat rich old ladies instead of little old poodles.

  What they didn't know was that he didn't want to work with poodles or Persians or dachshunds or Siamese; what he wanted was to work with the live equivalents of the pets in his room.

  They'd scream bloody murder if they knew about that.

  But he didn't mind, because nothing they could do would make him change his decision; now if he could only stop minding the sound of them arguing.

  The voices in their room, as if at his command, stopped, and he undressed quickly and got into bed. Stared at the ceiling. Wondered if he was soon going to become part of a statistic. Jeff Lichter's folks had divorced when he was ten, and he lived with his father two blocks over. He was an all right guy, nothing wrong there, but Brian Pratt lived with his mother, and whether it was because of the divorce or not, Brian was practically living on his own.

  Nuts, he thought, and rolled onto his stomach, held up his head, and looked with a vague smile at the panther, then over to the horse, then the otters on the nearest bookcase. There were no names for any of them, but he shuddered to think of what Brian or Tar would say if they ever found out he sometimes talked to them all. Just a few words, not whole conversations. A touch on one for luck before a test, a wish on another that he would meet The Girl and wouldn't have to suffer the guys' teasing anymore, a wish on still another that he would wake up in the morning and discover that he had turned into a superman.

  He grinned.

  Don the Superman! Leaping tall buildings at a single bound! Carrying Tar Boston over the park and dropping him headfirst right into the pond.

  Saving Chris Snowden from a rampaging Brian and letting her be as grateful as she wanted.

  Using his X-ray vision to see through Tracey Quintero's baggy sweaters just to check if anything was really there.

  Don the Superman.

  "Don the jerk," he said.

  It was funny, when he thought about it; how the little kids were the only ones he could really talk to. For some reason most of them thought his stories were pretty okay, except for tha
t one little monster tonight. A laugh was muffled by the pillow. A good thing the brat's parents had come along just then or he would have had them all really seeing that giant crow in the tree.

  And damn, wouldn't that be something!

  Don the Superman, and his giant pal, Crow!

  Just before he fell asleep, he wished he could wake up and discover that he was the handsomest kid in the entire city, maybe the whole state, maybe even the whole world.

  Just about anything except waking up to see plain old Don Boyd still there in the bathroom mirror.

  Chapter Three

  The next seven days slipped into October on the back of a lost football game in which Brian dropped three sure touchdowns and Tar and Fleet each fumbled once, an article in the weekly newspaper implying that the Ashford South principal was delaying successful contract negotiations by his refusal for political reasons to support the people he led, and a series of grim reports on New York television's early evening news programs concerning the Howler—since his last victim had died almost two weeks before, the police theorized he had either committed suicide or had left the state, a notion adopted by Don and Jeff with an accompanying shiver of macabre delight.

  On Tuesday morning Chris Snowden walked to school only a block ahead of him, and he could not decide whether to try to catch up and hope for a conversation, maybe she'd throw herself into his arms, or hang back and just watch. In the cafeteria he and Jeff scowled at the offering of scorched macaroni and cheese, and decided that Chris was probably into older men these days, college guys, if not their fathers.

  Then Don watched Tracey Quintero pick up her tray and carry it to the gap in the wall where a worker was waiting to scrub it down for the next user.

  "Hey, Jeff, do you think it's possible for someone to be in love with two women at the same time?"

  "Sure. I think."

  "It has to be possible. I mean, different women have different things to offer a guy, right? And a guy can't find everything he wants in one woman, right? So he has to find them in different women, right?"

  Jeff looked at him sideways. "What?"

  "It makes sense, don't you think?"

  "It makes sense if you're crazy, sure."

  "Well, I'm not crazy, and it makes sense, and I think I'm in love."

  "Lust," Jeff corrected. "It's lust."

  "What a pal."

  "Well, hell, Don, that's nuts, y'know?"

  "I thought you agreed."

  "I did too until I heard what you said."

  He poked at the macaroni, stabbed at the cheese crust, and sighed as he opened a carton of milk. As he drank, Chris walked in, alone, saw him, and smiled and walked out again.

  "God," he whispered.

  "Maybe she likes you."

  He didn't dare believe it; he didn't even know her.

  "Or," said Jeff as he rose to leave, "she knows your old man and wants to polish a few apples, if you know what I mean.''

  Don sagged glumly, and Jeff realized his mistake, could do nothing about it, and hurried out. Don watched him go, then rose and followed slowly.

  Lichter had reminded him about a girl he had gone with as a sophomore.

  He thought he had found a one-way express ticket to heaven the way she treated him, trotted after him, made him laugh, and taught him the preliminaries of making love. Then, one day at his locker, he had overheard her talking with Brian, giggling and swearing on her mother's grave that the only reason she saw him was because of his father.

  "I am not working one minute more than I have to to get out of here," she'd said. "And what tight ass teacher's gonna flunk me when I'm messing around with the principal's kid?"

  Several, apparently, after he broke it off that next Friday night. He had confronted her, she had denied it, and he had lost his temper, forgetting one of his parents' cardinal rules: never yell or threaten because it cheapens you and puts you on the defensive, because a threat made has to be carried out or it's worthless; if you're going to threaten, make sure you can do it.

  She had laughed at him.

  And though she was gone before the end of the year, he felt no satisfaction. All her leaving had proved was that she had been right, and smiles in his direction were seldom the same anymore.

  On Wednesday he saw Chris again, and she ignored him.

  It should have made him feel better; instead, he felt lousy, especially after his guidance counselor told him how expensive it was going to be to study veterinary medicine. His father was going to have a fit, and his mother might even relent and permit him to get a job to help defray the expenses.

  He almost forgot Thursday's biology test.

  "The meeting's over by now," Joyce said.

  Harry Falcone punched at the pillows behind his back and watched with a lopsided grin as she dressed. "Tell him it ran late."

  "They always run late. He doesn't believe it, you know."

  Falcone shrugged; he didn't care.

  When she was finished, she turned to look at him, the sheet just barely over his groin, his dark curly hair in matted tangles over his face. Patrician, she thought; put a toga on him and he'd look like a Roman senator about to slice up an emperor.

  His smile exposed capped white teeth. "Thinking about seconds?"

  She was. She hated herself for it, but she was. She wanted those hands on her rough not gentle, she wanted the weight of him crushing her into the mattress, she wanted the forgetfulness his sex brought and she wanted to cut his throat for what he was making her do to her family.

  "No."

  "Too bad," he said. "Once the strike starts, it'll be hard seeing you."

  Gathering her hair so she could tie on the ribbon, Joyce walked out of the room and picked up her coat. A hesitation—did she leave anything behind Norman would notice?—before she opened the apartment door.

  "Hey," he called from the bedroom.

  She waited.

  "Nice lay, kiddo."

  Bastard, she thought, slamming the door behind her, wincing as she headed for the fire exit and took the stairs shakily.

  It was stupid, and it was the stuff of dreamlike romance—that a man would come along and sweep her off her feet, carry her into the sunset and unheard of ecstasy. She had told herself a thousand times that it was partly Norman's fault, that his preoccupation with running the school and unofficially running for mayor had somehow left her behind.

  She was no longer his partner, but a woman expected to remain ten paces back in his shadow.

  The catch was, she'd never been able to keep a secret from her husband.

  Her eyes, too large for deception, betrayed her every night, and she was positive he was taunting her, tormenting her so she would admit it to his face.

  And as she drove home, making sure she approached the house from the direction of the building where the meeting was supposed to have been held, she put a hand to her breast and felt the residue of Harry's touch.

  It would be a hell of a lot easier, she thought, if she could just decide if staying with Norman was mere habit, or real love. And if it was the latter, what would Harry do if she broke the affair off?

  The temperature slipped just before dawn, and the ground was covered with crackling frost, the first of the season. It ghosted the windshields and sugared the lawns, and as he walked to school he watched his breath puff to clouds. It was a good feeling, and he took long strides to force himself awake. He hadn't been sleeping long the night before, when something inside reminded him about the exam. He had awakened instantly and sat at his desk until just before sunrise, alternately reading his notes and talking with the galloping horse who had no pity for his error.

  When his mother came home from the committee meeting, he had gone rigid, expecting a scolding for being up so late, and was surprised when she passed the door without stopping, sounding for all the world as if she were crying.

  At the end of the block he turned left, having studiously avoiding staring at Chris's house. He crossed the street and moved mor
e briskly, keeping his eyes wide, hoping a good strong wind would slap some sense into his foggy brain.

  On his left were small houses crowded together on small lots, smothered by trees and azaleas and evergreen shrubs. Two blocks later they were stopped by a high chain link fence almost buried under swarms of ivy that rolled over its top. A large manicured lawn began on the other side, sweeping back and down the slope toward practice fields and the stadium, sweeping ahead of him toward the bulk of the school itself-a building of red brick and greying white marble, two stories in front and three in back, where the land fell away; tall windows, wide tiled corridors, an auditorium that seated over eight hundred, built in the 1930s and never replaced.

  Ashford North, on the far side of town, had been constructed in 1959, was brick and white marble, one story with tinted windows, and it looked like a factory.

  From the sidewalk Don climbed three steps to a wide concrete plaza that led to a dozen more low steps and the glass front doors. Paths were worn brown over the grass to the side entrances, and there were faces in the classroom windows watching the students hurrying, dawdling, daring the first bell to ring before they stepped inside.

  He didn't wait, though a few called his name; he pushed straight in and swerved left to the banks of multicolored lockers at the end of the hall. A fumbling with the combination lock, and he grabbed the books he needed for his first three classes. A few rushing by greeted him with yells, but he only waved without turning; he was tired, and he didn't want to talk to anyone until, if he were lucky, he finally woke up.

  He didn't.

  He almost fell asleep in trig, actually dozed for a couple of minutes in English, and in German sat with his fingers pulling on either side of his eyes to keep them from closing. None of the teachers noticed. None of his classmates did either.

  Just before ten-thirty he passed the glass-walled front office and saw his father standing at the chest-high reception counter with Mr. Falcone. They were speaking softly, heatedly from the way his father slapped a newspaper against his thigh and the way he swiped the side of his hawk's nose as if he were a boxer; and as he moved on with a worried frown, the biology teacher stormed out of the glass-walled room and nearly collided with him. There was no apology; the man marched on, and Don's throat went dry. The voice of the corridor buzzed until he had a headache, and he stumbled back to his locker, took out his biology notebook and text, and floated into study hall, where he tried to concentrate on the lessons.