The Pet

by Charles L. Grant

  He hadn't permitted her to leave.

  She'd protested tearfully and was promptly ordered straight to her room; it was late, the boy was already gone, and there was the visit to abuela Quintero the following day.

  What could she do? The last time she had defied him openly he had taken the strap to her and confined her upstairs for an entire weekend. Her mother, bless her, had snuck food up, and comfort, but could do nothing to gain her release. Luis Quintero had made up his mind.

  "He hasn't said boo to me all day," she told Jeff sadly. "I don't know if he's mad or what."

  Jeff grinned. "I think he's scared."

  "Scared? Of what?"

  He pointed at her.

  "You're crazy."

  Jeff debated only a minute before telling her about Don's asking practically the whole school about her relationship with Brian Pratt. When she protested that there was none, never had been, and as long as there was a breath in her body never would be, Jeff assured her that that's what everyone had told him.

  "He was a total loon, you should have seen him." He chuckled, and drained the rest of his milk in a gulp. "Put that on top of the detention he had and he was a Space Cadet the whole day." His head shook in amazement. "I never saw him like that before. Never."

  "Really?" She didn't bother to feign indifference. Jeff knew her too well. "Then I don't get it."

  "What's to get? I told you, he's scared shitless."

  "Oh great."

  "Hey, don't sweat it, Trace. By the end of the day, if you wink at him or something, he'll carry your books home in one arm and you in the other.''

  She laughed, and felt a blush working on her cheeks. A swallow to get rid of it, a touch to her hair to hide it, and she jumped when the late bell sounded over the seats. Two minutes later she was in the hallway, on her way to Hedley's lab, when she saw Don slumped against the wall outside his history class. She slowed, hoping he'd turn and see her, slowed even more, and finally walked right up to him and jabbed him in the arm. Startled, he pushed away and backed off a pace, his eyes wide, almost panicked, until he recognized her face.

  "Hi!" she said brightly.

  "Hi," he replied, not meeting her gaze.

  "You're, uh, late for class."

  "Yeah. You too."

  "You going home right after school?"

  He lifted a hand. "I ... I think I'm going to run a little."

  A man's voice called her name, and Don turned away, heading for the staircase.

  "I'll see you," she called softly, and kicked herself when she saw the faces of the class as she rushed to her seat. They knew. She must have it written all over her, from her forehead to her knees. They whispered, someone giggled, and she felt the blush rise again; she cursed then for a full three minutes before the pressure left her chest and her cheeks felt cool again.

  The class was endless. And her last class made her feel as if it were Friday and not Monday, and she was almost to the exit with her books cradled against her sweater when she stopped, turned, and collided with Chris Snowden.

  Chris smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Take it easy," she said quietly, her head inclined for privacy. "I saw him heading down for the gym."

  Tracey could only mutter her thanks and rush off, tears of embarrassment filling her eyes. My god, it was that obvious. And if Chris, who didn't know if she were alive or dead, if Chris could see it, then the whole school knew it. And if the whole school knew it, then her freshman sister would too. Oh, god. Dinner tonight was going to be hell.

  At the ground floor she was tempted to forget it and go home. This was ridiculous. She had never in her life chased a boy before; it was humiliating, and she had seen the blank look in his eyes when she caught him outside class-there was neither delight nor fear nor even a polite smile. There was nothing. She might as well have been a tree, or one of the wall tiles.

  She stepped out of the stairwell and into the corridor. It was deserted, the lights already dim and made dimmer by the lack of windows, the drab paint, and the absence of doors. The gym and the stadium exits were on the other side. He said he was going to run, Chris's comment confirmed it, so she walked slowly toward the doors that seemed a hundred miles away. Somewhere, a group of boys laughed raucously, probably the football team getting ready for practice. A higher voice trilled, choked, blew into laughter; the girl's basketball team heading for the small gym opposite the main one.

  And her footsteps on the hard floor, as if there were taps on her heels.

  She hurried, feeling nervous, her shoulders lifting a little, her chin bringing her face down.

  And behind her, when she slowed again to be sure this was really what she wanted, something followed.

  Uneven steps, sounding hollow, sounding loud.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw nothing, looked back and moved on.

  A boy, maybe one of the coaches, Gabby D'Amato dragging one of his brooms.

  The idea that the grizzly custodian might be following her gave her the shivers and she moved faster. She didn't like the old man; none of the girls did. They suspected he spent more time in their locker room than that of the boys, and they knew damned well he spent hours every day standing in the girls' gym doorway, watching them in their shorts and T-shirts, intently.

  Behind her. The footsteps.

  She was thirty feet from the exit, and there was no other sound on the floor but her shoes, and her breathing, and the slow trailing footsteps that were hollow, and loud, and moving closer all the time.

  Don't look, she told herself; just get to the door and get outside, and get hold of Don and shake an invitation out of him even if you have to chop him in the throat.

  Steadily, moving closer-the deep hollow sound of slapping against wood.

  Don't look, idiot; and she turned around at the corner.

  The corridor was empty.

  But she could still hear the footsteps.

  And she could see a huge shadow spilling across the far wall.

  It wasn't a man; she was sure it wasn't a man, because if it was, he was stumbling, drunkenly careening off the tiles, off the lockers. But there was no sound of anything like a shoulder striking metal, no sound of panting, no sound at all but the steady wooden thump of something moving down there.

  Something much larger than a boy, or a man.

  She blinked once, the books crushing her breasts, her mouth and throat dry, her lips quivering for a scream.

  Then it started around the corner and she did scream, and spun through the door and raced up the steps, shouldering open the upper exit and running for the seats. She was halfway down to the field when she realized the stadium was empty. Don wasn't there. No one was. She was alone.

  The school loomed above her, and she hurried down to the track.

  What was it?

  She didn't know. And she wasn't going to be dumb enough to stick around just to satisfy her curiosity. It might have been a trick of the light, and it might have been her nerves gearing up to face Don, but whatever had started around that corner wasn't human; it couldn't be, unless, she thought so suddenly she stopped, it was the Howler looking for someone to kill.

  She ran, then, and didn't stop until she reached home.

  The office door was closed, the secretaries dismissed early, and Norman stood at his window, frowning when he saw the Quintero girl race across the street as if a rapist were after her. He leaned forward to see if there was, in fact, anyone following, saw no one and grunted, and sat back at his desk.

  "It's a bitch," he said, pulling his tie loose and unbuttoning his collar.

  Harry Falcone was in the leather chair opposite, his legs crossed, his sport jacket open. "You can say that again."

  "Okay. It's a bitch."

  They grinned, but not for long.

  Norman picked up a pencil, turned it, tapped it on the blotter. "You can't do it, you know. You'll have every paper on your ass, and the board will just tighten theirs, and the parents of the seniors will be out for
your heads."

  Falcone made a noise that might have been a grunt, or a groan, and leaned back until he was staring at the ceiling. "What choice do we have, Norman?"

  "Accept the offer that's on the table, for one."

  Falcone laughed sharply.

  "Then what about binding arbitration?"

  Another laugh; this one bitter.

  "Well, then, what, for god's sake?"

  "Walk," Falcone said without looking at him. "We're going to walk. If the vote's right tonight, we'll walk on Wednesday after the last bell unless someone hands us a contract we can live with and live on."

  "Insane."

  "That," said Falcone, finally sitting up, "is your opinion."

  Norman swiveled around quickly, looked out at the lawn, and ordered himself to relax.

  "Do you have a statement you want me to read to the faculty tonight?"

  "Read the last one," he said sourly. "I've got nothing else to say."

  "Christ, Norm, you're an ass, you know that? You're a real jackass. You could be setting yourself up for life, you could be a hero and every teacher in this school would kill for you, but instead you're insisting on cutting your own throat."

  You son of a bitch, he thought; you smug little son of a bitch.

  He swung the chair back around, dropped the pencil, and leaned his forearms on the desk. Falcone was smiling.

  He picked up Don's test paper.

  The teacher's smile didn't waver.

  "I know what you're doing," Norm said evenly. "And it isn't going to work. God knows, you're not going to get to me through Joyce, and you're not going to get to me through Donald either. It isn't going to work, so lay off, Falcone. Lay the fuck off my son."

  "Oh, my," the man said, rising, smoothing his lapels as he headed for the door. "Is that a threat, Mr. Principal?"

  Norman considered a mild retraction, a half-hearted apology. He knew what the man would do if he didn't—a statement to the faculty about the principal's accusation, perhaps a judicious leak to the press. Norman becomes the instant villain, the board's henchman in the streets. Norman is losing his cool because he's lost control of his school, and would you want a man like that running this city?

  "Harry," he said, slamming the paper to the blotter, his fist planted atop it, "let me put it to you this way, I'll kick your balls into your fucking mouth if you pull this stunt again. Trust me, Harry. I'll ream your fucking ass."

  Falcone hesitated before he crossed the threshold, turned only slightly and stared back, not frowning. "I concede you the kid," he said, just barely loud enough to hear. "But I'll be damned, Mr. Boyd, if I know why you're dragging your lovely wife into this."

  The door closed.

  Norm was on his feet, ready to charge, when a restraining hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him back. There was no one there, but he felt it just the same, and began trembling when he realized how close he had come to throttling the man. He bit down on his lower lip, to feel the pain, to shock himself back, and when he did he muttered, "It isn't fair. It just is not fair.''

  Then he cleared his throat loudly, and decided he wasn't going to bring any work home, the hell with the reports. He smiled, stood, and plucked his coat from the small closet on the far side of the room. Habit took him out the private door directly into the corridor, where he turned right and headed for the main entrance. And when he pushed out onto the concrete plaza and saw Gabby taking the flag down from the pole, he paused for a moment as if part of a ceremony, gave the custodian a two-fingered salute, and started walking.

  Adam Hedley's car sped past.

  Norman watched it, praying the chemistry teacher wouldn't spot him, stop, and demand to know if anything had been done about the windbreaker found caught on his hedge yesterday. The jacket Don had claimed he'd lost two days ago.

  "I have not called the police," Hedley had told him piously that morning. "The school certainly has enough trouble these days with that maniac on the loose. Not to mention the horrid scandal it would cause at the celebrations this week."

  "I appreciate that, Adam," he'd replied, too stunned by the evidence in hand to say anything more.

  "I'm sure you do." Hedley had shaken his hand then, and had held it just a second too long. "I only want your assurance that you will take care of this, Norman. It wouldn't do to have it get out. It would be rather disastrous, wouldn't you think?"

  Norman had agreed mutely. He knew exactly what the man meant, what Falcone could do with something like this that the principal couldn't even manage his own son, and the teachers were expected to manage an entire school of kids like him.

  He knew. And he still refused to believe, despite the jacket, that Don had done such a stupid thing.

  But there was the vial in his top drawer, and the coat, and there was Don's recent, increasingly odd behavior.

  Maybe, he thought, I'll have a word with him tonight.

  And maybe not. Maybe tomorrow.

  He thought: rope, give him enough rope and he'll hang himself and I won't have to be the accuser.

  "Jesus," he muttered, "you're a bastard, Boyd."

  But he didn't change his mind.

  When he reached his corner, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. The street was empty, the sun dropping rapidly and filling the spaces under the trees with twilight. A look to his house, then, hidden back there under the trees and shadows, and it struck him with a twinge of guilt that he didn't want to go home. If Joyce wasn't there, waiting to talk, Don would be, hiding in his room.

  He had seen the boy only twice during the day; once in the corridors before lunch, looking like hell and walking like a zombie, and then again just before the final bell, heading for his locker. Norman had almost called him into the office, but changed his mind when he saw Fleet Robinson stop, whisper something into his ear, and slap his back heartily. Don had turned and grinned, nodded once, and moved on. But he still looked like hell, and it wasn't just that damnable black eye; it was the way he looked at people-blankly, as if he were little more than a shell, his body making the rounds through habit. It was the way he had been most of yesterday, according to Joyce. He still smarted from the boy's backtalk and wasn't about to yield just yet. The kid had to learn that breaking the rules meant taking the consequences.

  And if he had anything to do with that nonsense at Hedley's, he was going to pay much more than he thought.

  A breeze kicked at the leaves piling up in the gutter, and he hurried, hands deep in his coat pockets, head down, skin feeling damp. As he passed the Snowden home, Chris backed out of the driveway in her car, the top down in spite of the weather; she smiled and waved when he looked up at the sound of the racing engine. He mouthed a hello, she winked and drove away, and he stood there a moment, watching her hair fight with the wind.

  She wants to go to bed with you, old fella.

  He swallowed, looked quickly side to side before realizing the leering voice he had heard was his own, and silent.

  But it was true, no question about it. He had been in the business long enough to know the difference between a harmless flirtation and one designed to produce better grades. Chris was definitely the willing type, and as calculating as any he had ever met. He hastened, then, to pat himself on the back for not once having fallen into the ultimate trap. Returning a flirtation was nothing; it was painless, and no one much cared. And it was a kick to do it knowing full well he wasn't about to grant an A just because the girl had a fine figure or a lovely smile or a pair of eyes that made him restless at night.

  This, on the other hand, could be serious. He suspected that if she didn't get him compromised on the mattress, she would somehow find a way to compromise him by implication. Either way, he was going to have to be careful with that one.

  A laugh, bright and genuine, put a bounce in his step as he headed for the front door. Calculated or not, it was still nice to know he wasn't considered too disgustingly old for her to make the effort. In a backhanded way it was rather flattering.


  A second laugh that was strangled when he stepped over a puddle on the walk and turned around sharply.

  The water lying on the sagging brick was clear and unrippled, and along one edge was a shadow that was neither the tree in the yard nor the eaves nor himself crossing over.

  He stared at it, drawing out a hand to hold the coat's collar closed around his neck.

  The shadow didn't move.

  It suggested something much larger, much darker, than he had first imagined, but when he examined the street, the sidewalk, the yard, the stoop behind him, he saw nothing.

  The shadow was still there, and when he kicked at the water to rough it and scatter it onto the grass, it remained unmoved.

  "Jesus," he said.

  It grew larger.

  Darker.

  He stamped a foot into the puddle and watched the shadow slip over his toes.

  The shoe yanked back and he looked up quickly, then sighed his relief aloud. A cloud. It was a black patch of cloud in the overcast made unnervingly substantial by the failing light below. Nothing more, Norman, nothing more.

  He had his hand on the doorknob then when he heard the noise behind him.

  Soft. Hollow. Slightly uneven, stones dropping lightly onto a damp hollow log.

  It was coming up the walk.

  He did not turn around. Deliberately he turned the knob, pushed open the door and stepped inside. He closed it behind him without looking over his shoulder and stood in the empty foyer for several long seconds before taking off his coat.

  He was listening while a silent whisper irrationally insisted the cloud hadn't made that shadow.

  A shuffling, and Don appeared at the top of the stairs.

  A muffled hollow sound, and something thudded heavily against the door at his back, just before the door slammed open.

  Chapter Eight

  Joyce scowled as she pushed inside, grocery sacks unwieldy in her arms and her purse starting to slip maddeningly off her shoulder. But instead of the stinging, remark that came to mind, she blinked when she saw the look on her husband's face. He was pale, and moving away from her as if she were a corpse newly risen from the grave.