The Pet

by Charles L. Grant

  Chapter Nine

  The stadium held over fourteen hundred people in the concrete stands alone; the wooden bleachers on the opposite side added three hundred more. Don imagined every seat filled now with people in black, weeping for the loss of the butchered Amanda Adler.

  Weeping. Wailing. Demanding retribution.

  But as he ran, the cool wind stinging his eyes into infrequent tears, there was only the sound of his soles on the cinder track, and in the stands there were only about two hundred students and less than a handful of teachers. He had counted them, or tried to, but each time he made a new circuit someone had moved, or new faces appeared and old ones vanished. Some of the kids just sat there, staring at nothing; others milled about, talking softly, tugging at arms, shrugging at leaving.

  It had happened just after third period—an announcement by his father over the P.A. system. Amanda Adler was dead, murdered in the park, and the school would close now in her memory and would remain closed tomorrow so that her friends might pay their respects in their own private ways.

  After a respectful pause he added that the Ashford Day park concert tomorrow night would not be canceled as rumored, but would be considered a memorial for the two students who had recently lost their lives so senselessly and violently. Then he asked the teachers to end classes and dismiss their charges as soon as possible.

  Brian Pratt had said, "All right! Freedom!" and Tar Boston had punched him in the stomach; Adam Hedley sat with Harry Falcone in the faculty lounge and groused about the closing, obviously one done not in sincerity but with a clear political eye out for preventing a teacher's strike from getting much play in the papers. It was, he claimed, a cynical and effective move for which Boyd ought to be given credit; and one that might be countered.

  When Harry asked for an explanation, Hedley told him about the jacket; Jeff Lichter cleaned his glasses fifteen times in ten minutes, trying to get rid of the elusive blur on the lenses; Fleet Robinson was absent; After shutting down the P.A. system, Norman sat behind his desk, and stared out the window, thinking that Harry was going to be pissed, Joyce was going to be understandably upset at the solemnization of her opening celebration, and the newspapers would probably cut his statement in half and make him look like just another politician—all in all, a hell of a day; Don immediately put his books into his locker and headed for the track.

  On the way he met Chris, who flung her arms around him and mumbled something about just talking to Amanda the other day. He was stunned and stroked her back absently while trying not to seem embarrassed as students passed around them, trying not to feel the soft tickle of her hair against his chin. No one seemed to notice. Then she stepped away, smiled, kissed his cheek, and thanked him. It was several minutes before he was able to move on, not bothering to change, needing the fresh air and the quiet, and something else to think about, except that even with the feel of Chris's thin blouse on his palms he couldn't think about a thing except Amanda, with the long black hair, hanging on Fleet's hip and taking his crude macho teasing with remarkable good grace.

  He had already known about the killing.

  Last night, Sergeant Verona had called just after Joyce had returned from her meeting. Don overheard the Boyd end of the conversation, and was prepared when his father told him what had happened. Then the phone rang again, and continued to ring for hours while reporters and god knew who else asked the principal for his official, his private, his off-the-cuff reactions. Norman handled it well, Don thought, and Joyce was right there, drafting a quick statement at the kitchen table for him to read or expand from after the first twenty minutes.

  During a pause Norman had turned to him and asked if he'd known her, if she was a good friend. He had only nodded and had gone unhindered to his room.

  He was angry because he wanted to do more than just nod his head. He wanted to say that it didn't make any difference whether she was a friend or not. She was seventeen and he was seventeen-and-a-half, and now she was dead and in some goddamn morgue lying under a dirty sheet.

  She was dead, and nobody else was. This wasn't some poor unknown sucker from another school; this was Amanda, Mandy, Fleet's beautiful dark-haired lady, and he knew her and she was dead and she was only seventeen and strangers may die even younger, but not Amanda because Don knew her and people he knew just didn't die. And they sure didn't die because some maniac was out there, getting away with murder while kids were damned dying on the damned streets and who the hell cared if he knew her or not; she was dead, and she was only seventeen.

  That morning he had promised not to say a word until the official announcement had been made. It didn't matter, since most of them knew it anyway through the macabre reach of the grapevine, and those who didn't were soon filled in after school closed and a quiet had sifted over the grounds.

  But he had kept the promise, and when classes were dismissed, he took off for the track.

  Seeing the same faces move about, seeing different ones take different places, seeing some of the kids smiling because of the time off, and some of them grim and staring blindly at the grass that rippled as the wind came up.

  There was no one in the bleachers.

  On his third lap he saw a flickering under the wooden seats, and he slowed, peered into the shadows, and sped up again. It was nothing. A trick of the light. A trick of the sky and the sun that didn't give a damn that a seventeen-year-old girl had been mangled because the cops couldn't catch one lousy killer.

  And that, he decided, would be part of the new order he had devised: no one, not even adults, would die at the hands of a crazy bastard who obviously thought he was some kind of animal.

  He walked the next lap, head down, arms limp at his sides. His shirt was stained with perspiration, his trousers damp and clinging. Tracey wasn't in school. He didn't blame her. From the garbled story he'd heard last night, she had practically been killed herself, and the first thing he was going to do when he got home was forgive her for not getting in touch, and call her.

  Someone called his name.

  He ignored it and started around the front turn, heading for the bleachers again. Once there, he would take one more lap, then go home and shower. After that he would call. And after that he would try to figure out what had happened to his best friend.

  On Sunday, when he was finally able to examine the poster more closely, he realized that in one respect he had been wrong, that no one had attempted to mutilate the picture, a finger touched the paper and he saw that the flaw was in the picture itself. There were no raised edges, no indentations. Just a static screen of white lines that made no sense at all. Flaws like that didn't come with time.

  Someone called his name.

  He scowled and looked around; saw Jeff at the railing at the bottom of the stands. A glance to the bleachers, a brief wondering what he had seen there, and he decided he had had enough. With one hand massaging the back of his neck he walked over to the nearest steps and hauled himself up, dropped onto a seat and waited for Jeff.

  "Hey," Lichter said without much enthusiasm.

  "Yeah," he said, passing a sleeve over his mouth.

  "What a bitch."

  Don rested his forearms on his knees and leaned over, still trying to get his wind back. Thinking about Amanda. A drop of sweat landed on his shoe.

  "I mean, they don't even know what this dude looks like, for god's sake! What the hell kind of thing is that? This makes what, seven? And they don't even know what he looks like!" He took off his glasses and pulled out a shirttail to clean them. "Tracey's practically ready to move in with her grandmother, and I tell you, Don, I don't blame her."

  He covered his face with his hands, drew them down an inch at a time, and looked up at the sky. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, she and Mandy were walking back from the library, minding their own business, and all of a sudden this crazy guy runs out at them, and the next thing Tracey knows, Mandy and this guy are gone into the park. She—Trace, I mean—sh screamed so much she's
hoarse, and she ran all the way to Beacher's to use the phone. Her old man was there, but she says she could hardly talk she was so scared. Some doctor was supposed to go over to their place and give her something so she could sleep." He replaced the glasses, pushed back his hair. "I bet she didn't though. I bet she didn't sleep a wink."

  Don pushed back on the seat until he could lean his elbows on the one behind. Then he squinted at Jeff. "She called you?"

  "Yeah."

  He nodded, and felt a wall begin to crack somewhere inside him, a fissure splitting the wall in half.

  "She cried a lot, believe it."

  The wall fell to dry, colorless dust. "She called you."

  "Yeah, I said she did." Jeff started to smile, then found something to look at intently on the gridiron. "She said she had to talk to someone, and your line was busy. She said she tried for nearly an hour, but she had to talk to someone, and when she couldn't get you, she tried me."

  "You were home."

  Jeff's laugh sounded almost genuine. "Sure! You think my father would let me out that late on a school night?"

  "Well, it just goes to show you," Don said, rising and dusting at his trousers.

  "Hey, Don, I told you she tried to call."

  "I know, I know."

  "But your line was busy."

  "My father," he said. "Reporters and all, and the police."

  "Oh. Well, look, you oughta call her when you get home, you know? I mean, it was you she wanted to talk to, not me."

  "Sure." He started for the stairs; he had to run again in spite of the stitch that lingered in his side.

  "Hey, Don, dammit," Jeff called.

  He didn't look around.

  "Hey, it ain't my fault."

  He started to run.

  "Well, fuck you too, pal."

  And when he came around again, Jeff was gone.

  The burning in his left eye he blamed on the wind, and he lowered his head so his vision would clear, and so he could watch the out-and-back rhythm of his feet gliding over the track.

  Out. Back. The cinder so smooth he imagined he wasn't moving at all.

  He felt it then, the slipping away, letting anger stiffen his muscles and labor his breath, color his mind until he couldn't think, could barely see, made him stop, panting, hands hard on his hips while he gulped at the sky for air to calm him.

  He was back at the bleachers, blinking the tears away and trying not to scream Jeff's name at the sky. Trying not to chase after his friend, slam him against a wall and demand to know what he thought he was doing, talking to Don's girl when it was Don Tracey wanted, Don she had tried to call and could not reach because his goddamned parents were too busy trying to lessen the blow of Mandy's death. Not soften. They were hunting for ways to let life go on with a minimum of disruption: the school and the celebration. Ashford. One hundred and fifty years. And Mandy was only seventeen and he was only seventeen-and-a-half and he would be damned if he was going to let it happen to him.

  He bent over and let his arms hang loose. His hands shook wildly but the tension wouldn't drain; his knees felt like buckling, and he was ready to give in, to collapse and try to make sense of this new thing when, from his right, he heard a noise.

  A shuffling, a sniffing, something moving under the seats.

  He turned his head and peered into the shadows. A dog, probably. That's what he had seen before—a glow from its eyes, or something in its mouth.

  A claw, or the color of its fur.

  He listened, and heard nothing.

  He stared back at the track, shaking himself all over to loosen up and drive the red from his eyes. When he was finished, he took several deep breaths he released explosively, then walked over and leaned down, supporting himself on his palms while he looked between the seats.

  He overcame an initial rush of surprise and said, "Hey, who are you?"

  But the man cowering against the brick wall only lifted a filthy hand to wave him away. A man of indeterminate age, in fatigue pants and tweed jacket, with grime on his face and dark stains on his fingers and unshaven chin. A man who pushed himself back against the wall and waved him away a second time, a third, without saying a word.

  "Are you all right, mister?"

  Again the dismissal.

  "Hey, if you need help or something ..."

  The man glowered and Don backed off, looked to the stands for someone to call, looked back and blinked. Once. Slowly.

  The red vanished, and he could see again with a clarity that hurt his eyes. But he felt nothing. He only returned to the bleachers and smiled at the man hiding under the seats.

  "Fuck off, kid," the man said.

  Don continued to smile, but there was no mirth, no humor, just a grim, silent message that he knew who the man was; he knew, and he didn't approve.

  "Dammit, fuck off you punk creep," the man snarled.

  He nodded and walked away, across the grass and up the steps and around the side of the school toward home.

  Fantastic, he thought; this is fantastic.

  If he wanted to, he could be a hero. He could go right into the kitchen and call the police and tell them that he knew where the Howler was. And if the killer had fled by the time they arrived, he would be able to give them more than just one lousy clue, he could give them a complete description. The first one. The only one. And the Howler wouldn't be so safe anymore.

  But when he came into the foyer, he saw his jacket draped over the newel post. He poked at it, then hooked a finger under the collar and flung it over his shoulder.

  Boy, he thought, this is a great day. My jacket's back and I could be a hero if I wanted.

  He went to the kitchen to get a can of soda and stopped in the doorway.

  His father was at the table, scribbling on a yellow legal pad, looking harried and tired, and not at all pleased.

  "Found your missing jacket, I see," Norman said after a glance up.

  "Yeah. Who brought it back?" He opened the refrigerator, got his drink, and hook-shot the pull tab into the garbage.

  "Mr. Hedley."

  "Who?"

  Norman dropped his pen onto the pad and leaned back. "Mr. Hedley. You remember him, the teacher? He brought the jacket to my office yesterday morning."

  He didn't understand, and stared at the man until, at last, he began to see.

  "You think I did it, huh?"

  Norman shook his head. "No, not really."

  Red again, this time like a wave.

  "What do you mean, not really? I didn't do it, if you want to know." He slammed the can on the counter, ignoring the soda foaming over the sides. "Jeez!"

  Norman puffed his cheeks and blew out. "Donald, I don't have time to argue. You say you didn't dump that crap on his porch, but he did find the coat on his hedge. And he does think you emptied that bottle in his classroom. He puts two and two together and decides to be a nice guy and come to me first, not to the police."

  "Okay," he said. "Okay."

  "And you say you didn't do it. Even after all the grief, and the detentions, you still didn't do it."

  "My god!" he exploded. "What do you want from me, a written confession? You want me to take a lie detector test?"

  "Donald, that's enough."

  Don almost told him that they were father and son, and there ought to be a little trust in a guy's word now and then.

  But he didn't.

  He said, "You're right, Dad. It's enough."

  He walked stiffly to the foot of the stairs, hesitated until he was sure he wouldn't be chased, then hurried up to the bathroom. He filled the basin with cold water and splashed it over his face, soaked a washcloth and ran it around his neck.

  But the red wouldn't go away.

  It spread across the mirror and faded to a pink pale enough for him to see his reflection; it thumped through his chest until he thought he would explode; it poured into his ears with a roaring like the ocean just after a storm; it swirled around him, drew him in, spun him out and vanished so sudden
ly he had to grab the edge of the sink before he fell to his knees.

  He was sweating, and he was cold, and he draped a towel around his neck and went into his room, closed the door, and stood in front of the poster.

  The trees were still there, and the ground fog, and the road.

  And the stallion was still partially hidden behind a screen of white lines.

  "What's going on?" he whispered nervously, reaching out a cold hand to touch the space where the stallion was fading. "What's going on?"

  Then he sat on the bed and clamped his hands to his face. Quite suddenly he was afraid. Not of what was happening to the horse, but of the madness that must be taking hold of him to make him think it was slowly disappearing. That had to be it. He had to be going crazy. There wasn't a poster in the world that had a picture that disappeared by stages, and there wasn't another kid in the world who talked to a stupid photograph and called it his friend and told it his secrets and asked for its advice. There wasn't anyone like him at all because he was going crazy, and he couldn't even tell Tracey because she had called Jeff and not him.

  Jeff was scared.

  There was some maniac running around town killing off the people he knew, there was a feeling deep inside him in a place he couldn't find that he'd lost his chance to have Tracey, and there was a madman, an unknown person or thing or something else that was taking over the body of who used to be his best friend.

  As soon as Don had walked away from him at the stadium, he'd stomped up the steps and back into the school. For a while he stood helplessly in the team locker room, knowing there'd be no practice, but not knowing where else to go. Home was out of the question because his dad was at work; Beacher's was out because he didn't have any money.

  What he wanted to do was go to Tracey's. What he wanted was someone to talk to. What he wanted was someone to tell him—as she would, he just knew it—that it was all right to cry when a friend of yours dies.

  And he did.