The Pet

by Charles L. Grant

  There were no horses in Ashford, and it was only Delfield for god's sake looking for his stupid fat dog.

  Closer to the light, and he saw a glint of dark green hovering in the air; two of them now, and a long second passed before he realized they were eyes. Green eyes. Large, and slanted, and staring right at him.

  The streetlight didn't reach to the middle of the blacktop, but when it passed the white on the ground, Tar could see a massive black flank, and the side of a massive head. One green eye flaring. A flash of long white teeth.

  And steam, maybe smoke, drifting from its nostrils.

  "Shit," he said, and started to trot away. He didn't know what it was, but he wasn't going to hang around long enough to find out. He'd go somewhere else. Maybe Brian would know.

  The sound picked up speed, and when he reached the middle of the empty boulevard, he looked over his shoulder and saw it.

  Running, forelegs high, hooves casting greenfire and greeneyes dark with hate.

  The hope it might have been some sort of joke, Don getting back at him for the dead bird and the bike, faded to an ember. And something inside told him he was dying.

  Running, galloping, and seemingly moving in slow motion.

  He broke into a panicked sprint, slanting across the avenue toward the inlands in the center, leaping the curb and ducking around the trees, the bushes, toward the center of town. Sooner or later he'd see a car, the cops, and everything would be all right.

  Don't look; and he did.

  It was pacing him ten yards behind, fully visible now and terrifyingly huge. Green eyes staring, greenfire snapping, the steam from its nostrils raising a cloud that it moved through, an ebony ghost flying through the boiling fog.

  Tar whimpered and ran harder, leaping over a fallen branch, plowing through a bush he couldn't swerve around in time. He stumbled and grabbed a tree trunk, spun around, and ran again.

  Hooves on the blacktop, iron striking iron.

  A U-turn break in the island surprised him, and he fell shouting to the street, the skin on his palms scraping onto the tarmac, one cheek slamming down and bringing tears to his eyes. He lay for several seconds gulping air, wondering where all the traffic was, the people, why couldn't anyone see what was going on? He swallowed and tasted blood; he pushed himself to his knees and staggered to his feet.

  A snorting; he spun around, and it was standing right behind him.

  Tar screamed for his father.

  And the stallion reared in a cloud of greenfire and white.

  The telephone rang, and Tracey hurried into the kitchen to grab it before it woke her mother or one of her nosey sisters. She hadn't been able to sleep, had come downstairs to do some studying, which she knew would make her tired sooner or later. A knee banged against a chair and she swore as she yanked the handset off the cradle, taking a moment before saying hello.

  "Trace?"

  "Don?" She fumbled for the chair and sat down in the dark.

  "You awake?"

  "Yeah, sure." She tried to see the wall clock in the dark, but there was only enough light from the front room to tell her it was close to midnight; how close she couldn't tell.

  "No, you weren't. I woke you. I'm sorry."

  "I wasn't asleep, Vet," she said almost angrily. "I was studying." She inhaled slowly and rubbed a knuckle across her eyes. "What's the matter, something wrong?"

  "Why should anything be wrong?"

  "Well, it's nearly twelve on a school night for one thing. And you're whispering for another."

  "So are you."

  "I don't want to get killed."

  "Neither do I."

  She pushed the chair closer to the doorway so she could see the front door. Her father was due back from his shift any minute now, and she didn't want him catching her on the phone. After wriggling back on the seat, she brought up her legs to sit Indian fashion, holding on to one ankle with her free hand. "Don, what's up? You want me to elope or something?''

  He laughed, and she was glad to hear it; she hadn't heard much of that lately and it made her feel good. "C'mon, hero, what's the occasion?"

  She listened without comment then as he told her about the car and the dead bird mangled in his front yard. And when he told her about finding Boston's car keys under the bike's wheel, she groaned. "What a jerk," she said. "What a stupid jerk." When Don agreed, she asked what he was going to do.

  "I don't know. I thought I was going to let him know I knew and maybe he'd get off my case. But I figure he'd deny it, then rearrange my face for the parade."

  "God, what a mess."

  He said nothing, and her eyes narrowed. This wasn't it, she thought; this isn't why he's calling.

  "Tracey?"

  "Still here, hero."

  A pause. "I like 'Vet' better."

  She frowned now. "Sure. Okay."

  "Trace, this may sound dumb, but have you ever made a wish?"

  Have I ever, she thought, and what's wrong with you, Don?

  "Sure I have," she said. "Every year on my birthday I blow my lungs out for a zillion bucks and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Doesn't everybody?"

  "You ever wish on a star?"

  "What is this? Hey, are you trying to get me to do a term paper for you or something? Is that what this is? Are you taking a survey?"

  "Tracey, please."

  She heard it then, and she didn't believe it. Because they were both whispering, it had been difficult to tell, but the moment she recognized it, she knew it was true. Don was afraid of something, and it wasn't Tar Boston.

  "Okay," she said slowly. "Yeah, I do now and then." She laughed. "Silly, isn't it?"

  "Do they ever come true? Your wishes, I mean."

  "Don ... no. I mean, I don't think they do. Not like they were magic, anyway. You wish for something hard enough and it comes true? No. You work at it and make the wishes come true yourself, if you know what I mean."

  "God."

  "Hey, Vet, would you please tell me what this is all about?"

  "Tracey—"

  A key rattled in the front door, and Tracey quickly told Don her father was home, she'd see him tomorrow in school. She hung up and had the chair back in place just as her father walked in the door. When he demanded to know why she was up so late, she pointed to her books in the living room and explained that she hadn't been able to sleep and, she added when she saw the expression on his face, what was wrong, was he hurt?

  "No," he said wearily. "A hit-and-run just before I left."

  "Oh, god, no." A closer look, then, and she bit down on her lower lip.

  "It was somebody I know, wasn't it?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know."

  "Father."

  He made his way toward the kitchen, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  "Father?"

  "Please, child, go to bed."

  "What?" she insisted.

  "It was as if someone had run him down, then kept backing over him. Again and again. He's so mangled we don't know who he is yet."

  Chapter Sixteen

  The day wasn't as bad as he feared it would be. With all classes cut by twenty minutes, the lessons were either uselessly short or not given at all. He spent then as much time as he could looking for Tracey, but the only time he saw her, martial and uncomfortable in her red-and-black band uniform, she was with a group of her girlfriends. When she spotted him, she mouthed an incomprehensible message to which he shrugged his ignorance and moved on before the late bell rang.

  Brian stayed away, once deliberately ducking into the wrong classroom just to avoid him. Don saw it and grinned, thinking some good might come of this medal stuff after all.

  But study hall was strange. He sat in his usual place and flipped through his zoology textbook, trying to discover what the stallion had in common with the real world. After five minutes, however, he felt someone watching him. By then he had almost grown used to it; the students in the hall inspecting him slyly, some outright staring, some of them hesitant as
if they wanted to reach out and squeeze his muscles or take off his shirt, anything to discover the secret of the strength that had pummeled the Howler into the ground.

  But this was different. From the others he could feel envy and disbelief and a fair dose of new respect; from this there was something he couldn't name at all.

  He looked up and around. The rest were either reading or talking softly among themselves. None of the football team were there; they were down in the gym getting ready for the rally. Then his gaze took in the front of the room.

  It was Mr. Hedley. He was sitting behind the desk with his fingers folded under his chin, and he was staring at him. Boldly. Without apology.

  Don looked down quickly and turned a page, another, and glanced up without raising his head.

  Hedley was still watching, and suddenly Don felt as if he were squeezed into one of the teacher's test tubes, forever floating in a solution, forever exposed for inspection before being dumped down the drain.

  He swallowed, flipped back a few pages, flipped them forward, and forced himself to read paragraphs at random, none of the words filtering through, none of the illustrations registering. And when he looked up a third time and saw the man still watching, the skin across the back of his shoulders began to tighten and he found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

  He knows, Don thought, and blinked at the idea.

  No. Nobody knows. He can't know.

  He squirmed and turned to look out the high windows at the clouds massing on the horizon, seeming blacker and higher because of the intense clarity of the near sky still untouched by the coming storm. It made the roofs of the houses below the stadium more sharp-edged and less dingy, made the gridiron more brilliant, and added vibrancy to the colors of everything he saw. It was odd, that light, as if it were artificial; he focused on the stadium's rear wall and the first houses behind it, thinking they could have been razor cut from stone and polished with diamonds. In a way it was beautiful; and in a way it was so unreal, it was almost frightening.

  Hedley's voice was quiet: "Mr. Boyd, you have nothing to do?"

  No one laughed.

  Don half-lifted his book and looked down at the page.

  "One should never waste time, Mr. Boyd, even the few minutes we have here. In some countries, in the old days, that was a criminal offense.

  Just as wasting someone else's time is just as criminal."

  Don didn't understand, but he was positive the man was trying to send him a message.

  He knows.

  he can't know

  And the bell rang.

  He filed out behind the others, feeling Hedley watching him all the way to the door. He wanted to turn and demand to know the reason, and refused to find the courage. Whatever the man's problem was, it couldn't have anything to do with what happened. Maybe he was pissed because he still thought Don had vandalized his house.

  He hurried for the stairwell and headed down for gym, was reaching for the door when someone grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the crowd into the landing's corner.

  "Hey, what ..."

  It was Chris. She was in her cheerleader's outfit, the short Indian-style skirt exposing her long legs, the white sweater with the school name exposing even more because it was so snug. Her hair was in two braids that dangled over her breasts, and she wore a beaded headband she kept pushing up with a thumb.

  "Hey," she said quietly, her eyes on the students who passed through the door.

  "Hey," he said, and waited.

  She smiled so beautifully he had to smile back, and had to resist the urge to put a hand to her cheek.

  "You seen Tar?"

  He shook his head.

  "The jackass didn't come in yet, can you believe it?" She pulled at the headband, adjusting it with a grimace. "He wants to make some kind of grand entrance, I bet."

  "I don't know," he said. "That's not him, y'know?"

  She shrugged; she didn't give a shit whether it was him or not. "It's still dumb. If he does do it, Brian's gonna take off his head." A quick laugh he could barely hear, and she leaned closer. "Are you okay? I mean, I was gonna call or come over, but I figured ... you know."

  "I'm okay, yeah. Thanks for asking."

  "Well, listen, I gotta get up to the library before the Dragon chews me up for being late stacking her precious books, but listen ..." She looked at him then, took his arm and maneuvered him unprotesting until his back was flat against the wall and hers was to the staircase. "So listen, are you going to the game?"

  "Sure, I guess so."

  He could see a few faces turn toward him, look away, none of them was Brian's.

  "What about after?"

  Tracey, he thought. "I don't know. Beacher's, I guess. I hadn't thought about it. I suppose it depends on whether we win or not."

  Before he could stop her, she took his hand and pressed it briefly to her breast, leaned into it and away, and released him with a smile.

  "After," she whispered. "Win or lose." And she was gone.

  His face burned, his hand burned, but he didn't dare touch one to the other for fear of losing the sensation that lingered on his palm. He wondered if anyone had seen; it had happened so fast he wasn't sure now it had happened at all. He pushed through the door with his eyes down, and when no one said anything, he broke into a slow trot and veered into the gym.

  The classes were sitting by the walls from which wrestling and gymnastic pads were hanging. The teachers were in the middle of the basketball court, leaning over their roll books, checking the room and every so often barking out a name to which a "yo!" or a "here" was shouted back.

  Don stood by the double doors, not knowing where to go, until someone spotted him and called out his name. He waved blindly and lowered himself into a crouch, trying not to hear the silence that washed over the gym, not to feel the eyes that examined him frankly. He studied the polished floor between his shoes. He sat on his books and studied the floor again, until a pair of cleated black shoes stepped in.

  He looked up; it was Brian Pratt in his football pants and shoulder pads. Pratt hunkered down, stared at him, and shook his head. "I don't get it."

  Don's lips moved into a smile he didn't feel. "Get what?"

  "How you did it?"

  "Just leave it, all right?"

  Pratt shook his head again. "My old man was right, you know," he said. "It's always the assholes of the world who step in it and come out smelling like roses."

  Don's forearms were resting on his knees, his hands between them clasped now and white-knuckled. "Leave it, huh?"

  "Oh, my. Hey, you gonna get tough with me now, Duck?" He looked up, expressionless. "Just get off it, all right?" Pratt jabbed a stiff finger into his shin. "Just don't get tough with me, Duck, you hear? Don't you believe for a minute I'm like that farting old man." He stood without effort. "And stay away from Chrissy or I'll fuck you over so bad your own mother won't recognize you."

  He walked away, arrogant, cleats smacking on the hardwood floor until one of the teachers ordered him off to the side. Pratt nodded and did as he was told, and left by the far door without once looking back.

  The eyes were on him again; he could feel them, and he prayed for the bell to ring so he could go back to his locker, get his jacket and books, and head for the stadium and the day-ending pep rally. He prayed for Brian's head to fall off as soon as he walked onto the field. He prayed for a tornado to rip through the school and carry him away, to a place he never heard of and whose people never heard of him.

  When the bell did ring, he was the first out the door, the first to the stairs, and had just started working his combination when the word spread about Tar Boston.

  The band marched raggedly onto the field, a fanfare of hard-edged drums leading the way the Ashford Braves on the warpath. It formed an A across the fifty-yard line and played the school song, the "Star-Spangled Banner," and two marches. The students cheered, whistled, and clapped as the band marched off again and took its place in the first
four rows in the concrete seats' center. Ashford Day banners had been strung between the goalposts and hung from the top windows; a handful of workers adjusted the banks of lights that would illuminate the field that evening for the game; a portable platform was carried out to the field, microphones and chairs set up, and Don's father, the head cheerleaders, and the coach hurried into place. All very efficient and over in no time.

  Don sat in the top row and did nothing but watch Tracey playing her flute and holding her music in one hand. Snippets of their conversation last night kept drifting back to him, and he was sure he had not mistaken the concern in her voice, or the caring. By the time his father began to speak, he had made up his mind to meet her after school and tell her everything.

  Including the fact that he had probably murdered Tar.

  It had to be. Even discounting exaggeration as rumors and fact danced around each other and merged, it was clear that the condition of Tar's body was the same as the Howler's. It was also clear that no hit-and-run driver would be stupid enough to return to the scene and race back and forth over a body he had just created, just for fun, or because he was crazy.

  It was the stallion.

  And he was frightened in a way he'd never been before. Not because of what had been done, but because he didn't feel the same as he had when Amanda had died at the Howler's hands. Then he was angered; now he was ... glad.

  And it made him sick.

  A person was dead. A human being. Someone he knew. And he was glad Tar was dead because the stupid asshole couldn't torment him anymore, couldn't hang on Brian's every command, couldn't murder birds and smash bikes and pretend he was a king in a land without royalty. Dead. Smashed beyond recognition until the dental work had been run through whatever tests they do.

  Now that I know you're here, what do we do next?

  He needed to talk, and he needed to be alone, and he applauded absently as the coach was introduced, as the players were introduced and ran onto the field between two lines of cheerleaders waving their pompons and leaping into the air, as the band played marches and another speech was made, and reminders were given about the parade.