Strays

by Matthew Krause

  “I don’t have to tell you what he does,” she said. “Do I?”

  She looked at Tom then and noticed that he had crept closer to her, was almost close enough to touch her and could have done so with a gentle reach if he wanted. Something in his eyes … she knew he wanted to take her hand. And yet he did not, keeping that respectful space. It was the first time any boy or man had done that.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t.”

  “So,” Sarah continued. “Two weeks ago, I’m laying there, waiting to see if he would come. And it hit me—I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to spend my nights wondering about the monster in the closet. I just … couldn’t … take it.”

  “So you ran.”

  “So I ran.”

  Well,” Tom said. “That’s all I need to know.” He pushed against his knees and stood. “Here’s what you need to know. We’re not completely safe here.”

  “I’m sure of that.”

  “The man in the car last night, the one my friend the cat scratched to high hell—”

  “You saw that?”

  “I did. Anyway, I have a feeling he’ll be back. And something tells me your stepfather isn’t done looking for you.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “He’s not. There was a guy last night at the convenience store, talking on the phone to him. I heard him say the name Big Buddy. Something about flyers and a reward.”

  “No, you’re not safe,” said Tom. “Not here.”

  “So where do I go?”

  Tom smiled. “I know a place. It’s far from here, and it may take some work to get there. But you’ll be safe there. I can promise you that.”

  “Where is it?”

  “One thing at a time,” Tom said, placing his hands on his hips. “You need to clean up a bit, maybe change your clothes. There’s a stream about thirty yards to the north.” He pointed off into the woods, in a direction that was perpendicular to the direction Sarah had originally assumed was north. “Right through those trees.”

  Sarah looked off to where he pointed. “Go with me?”

  “Hey, I’m a gentleman. You need your privacy.”

  Sarah considered this and grinned. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I’ll be right here,” he said. “You see or hear anything, you scream as loud as you can. I know you can do it.”

  “You bet your life I can.”

  “You scream, and I’ll be there,” he said. “Nothing’s going to hurt you. I promise you. Nothing’s going to hurt you as long as I’m around.”

  Sarah felt a flush of her face. It was a wonderful mixture of embarrassment and joy, something that maybe was what love was supposed to feel like, or at least that’s how it looked in the movies. Still clutching the peeled orange in her left hand, she pushed herself to her feet with her right. Once standing, she bent briefly to pick up the bag of fresh clothes Tom had gotten for her. She hefted the bag in her hand and looked at Tom.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  “You thank me when you’re safe. Now go clean up.”

  “Yes.” She looked at him a moment more, and then something took over her body, and she threw her arms around his neck, hugging him close. The orange in the left hand pressed into his shoulder, and she felt the juice oozing out, and the bag in the right hand swung and slapped against the small of his back. She heard his bottomless, melancholy laugh in her right ear as he gently eased her away from him.

  “Go,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

  Sarah stepped back, clicked the heels of her sneakers, and saluted with the hand that held the dripping orange. “Whatever you say, captain.”

  “That’s right,” said Tom, his smile broader now. “Whatever I say. Those are some wise words to live by.”

  Fight

  She walked a few paces out of camp in the direction Tom had pointed. Already, she could hear the gentle hiss and trickle of the stream. Tucking her arm in the handles of the plastic bag, Sarah pulled the orange apart and pushed slice after slice into her mouth. The sweetness made the front of her head tingle and numb, and although she had never been intoxicated or even dared to taste one of Big Buddy’s beers, she imagined this was how it might feel.

  She ate as she walked, and the sound of the stream grew louder. Soon, she was at the end of a small gully, the ground halting at a two-foot drop where the stream had eroded the soil when it was much higher. Finishing the last orange slice, Sarah jumped off the ledge and landed in the graveled shore of the stream. The sound of the water was perfect, a lazy dribble that shut out the world without being so loud as to overwhelm her thoughts. She stared at the water and scratched a dry patch of skin just below the nape of her neck.

  “Well,” she said to no one, “what am I supposed to do now?”

  She would have killed for a shower and a bar of soap, even a bottle of shampoo if she was being greedy. But there was nothing like that here. She watched the water for several moments, then sat and opened the plastic bag to look inside.

  Tom had done okay.

  There were two t-shirts in there, both of heavier cotton that you would imagine from a C-store. One of them was a dark teal, and on the chest of it was an upside-down trident head made to look like the letter M—current logo of the baseball team up in Seattle. The other actually made Sarah laugh because it looked so out of place—a navy blue fabric with teal stripes across the chest, out of which jutted same-color silhouettes of palm trees against a yellow semi-circle that was supposed to be the sun; magenta letters spelled out MADE IN MIAMI after the style of that TV show with Don Johnson that Big Buddy watched on Friday nights.

  Sarah folded both t-shirts roughly and tucked them under her arm. She looked in the sack again and found three items the color of dry sand—a long pair of shorts with large pockets, and two pair of pants that looked to come just below Sarah’s knees, what she thought were called capri slacks. After a moment, she opted for the slacks and the Miami Vice t-shirt, separating them from the other shirt and the shorts.

  She set her clothes on the ground, careful to keep the plastic bag underneath them and looked around. Yes, she was alone. At least it seemed that way. She ventured a look back into the woods behind her—no sign of Tom, creeping about and spying on her. Of course, he was good at staying hidden if he was indeed there but Sarah chose to believe that he was not. He said he was a gentleman; she wanted to take him at his word.

  Satisfied that there was no one slouching about, Sarah peeled off her windbreaker and the sleeveless blouse she wore beneath it. Still watching the trees, she slipped off the blouse, which stank of that ammonia-sweat smell, and looked at her body. It was thin, and the skin was pale and dry, and for a moment Sarah wondered what any of them saw in her—Big Buddy, the shaggy boy named Rhino, the shark-eyed Creepy Jack … even the good-hearted Tom. She did not have much of a figure to start with, and after a few days without food there was even less to love. And yet, they loped after her, leering, slathering, pawing.

  Stop it!

  Well, no, Tom didn’t slather and paw, but as for the others. What was it? She was not unattractive, she knew, but she was far from beautiful. Her breasts were small, even if they did turn up a bit in a way that Big Buddy called “perky.” Her hips were narrow. She was greatly in need of getting what her mother called “meat on her bones.” No, indeed, she was not setting any known standard of beauty. So why were they after her? Why?

  She took the sweaty blouse, went to the stream’s edge, and dipped it in the water. The water was cold, but she did not care, and she soaked the blouse well, then squeezed it dry and proceeded to wipe off her sweating torso. She wished Tom could have found her a fresh bra, but he was too modest for that, she sensed. Her old bra was a bit sticky now, but it would do. She pulled each cup away from her chest, wiping each breast clean as best she could, then dipped the blouse in the stream again, soaked it and squeezed it damp, and used it to wash her face.

  Once she was done cleaning her upper body, she pulled
the Miami Vice t-shirt over her head and pushed her arms in the sleeves. It was not the best fit, perhaps a bit loose, but it felt good to have a clean shirt against her skin. Satisfied, she looked about the forest again, then kicked off her sneakers and slid out of her jeans. Again, the same cleaning process for her legs and backside, dipping the damp blouse in the water to clean it and washing herself as best she could. She slid off her panties and again wished she had a replacement, but the thought was quickly followed with a wave of gratitude for Tom’s kindness. Had he brought her fresh panties, there would have been something … well, something off about it. That would be the kind of move she would expect from Big Buddy, who would no doubt have asked her to model them. The very fact that Tom had not even brought her fresh undergarments seemed to suggest that he knew how she would react, knew how afraid it might make her, and he was protecting her heart as well as her body.

  She washed her underwear—it felt weird for her to think of them as panties—in the river and squeezed them dry. She twisted them double and squeezed again, getting every last drop of water out, actually anticipating putting them back on again, but at the last minute she decided better of it. She lay them gently atop the plastic bag and poked her legs into the capri slacks. They felt weird against her skin without her undergarments, but she would live.

  Feeling fresh now, she removed the clean t-shirt and shorts from the plastic bag, replacing them with her damp and dirty clothes. She slid on her windbreaker again. A cool breeze whispered through the trees, promising the rain on its heels. Sarah closed her eyes and let it blow through her. Sometimes at night, the nights Big Buddy used to come for her, she would tell herself to breathe, only breathe, and soon it would be over. Now she wanted to breathe again, only to breathe, this time because it was right and it was good and there was nothing happening at that moment. She was waiting for nothing, expecting nothing, just letting the wind breathe to her as she breathed back.

  It was the most peaceful moment in her life.

  Until the twig snapped.

  Sarah’s eyes fluttered open, and he was there, about twenty yards down the stream, looking at her. He still wore his long-sleeve flannel unbuttoned over the untucked gray t-shirt. He had the same drunken leer that he had offered her in the C-store mere hours ago. Once he was certain she was looking, he held the hem of his t-shirt with the thumb and forefinger of each hand, just as he had in the store, and flapped it in front of the fly of his jeans like a matador.

  “Hey there!” Rhino shouted, shaking his head wildly like a bull. “Where’d you run off to, girlie-girl?”

  He was not wearing his glasses now, and he had ditched the Seattle Seahawks cap. His massive splash of hair hung in his eyes and about his face and neck, but she could still three of the awful letters (LAY) tattooed across his Adam’s apple as he thrust out his chin and bared his teeth in an ugly grin.

  “Shouldn’t run off like that,” he said. He stepped into the stream, his gray sneakers splashing in water about two inches deep. “We never got a chance to play.”

  Rhino tucked his thumbs in his belt loops and affected an exaggerated saunter like an old farmer surveying crops. His legs swung forward in sluggish arcs, splashing on the wet rocks. He was in no hurry to get to her. His eyes, which Sarah saw were as gray as his sneakers as he advanced, bore an ignoble arrogance, the eyes of a predator that had trapped its prey and was savoring the final moments.

  Sarah tucked her clothes under her arm. “You better not come any closer.”

  “Whatcha going to do, girlie-girl? Call the cops?” He leaned his head back and cackled. “Fifteen’ll getcha twenty. That’s what you said. Well, they gotta catch me first.”

  Sarah spun on the rocks and leapt up the embankment, springing into the woods. Somewhere behind her, Rhino’s laugh ripped through the woods, a dark spirit in its own right, swirling and pinballing off the trees as it tracked her. She could hear the splashes of his sneakers pick up rhythm as he charged across the river after her.

  “Tom!” she screamed. “Toooommmm!”

  The slap of Rhino’s sneakers on the cold earth could be heard right behind her, drawing closer with every stride. He was fast, much faster than Sarah would have thought, and that laugh, that awful laugh like the soul of a madman, chuttered and chirped behind him!

  “Tooommmm!” she screamed.

  “Tom!” cried Rhino behind her, sounding not the least bit winded. “Where are you, Tom! Let’s play, Tom! Let’s plaaayyy!”

  Sarah felt the smack of a truck hitting her in the back. She fell forward, thudding hard on her elbows as Rhino followed through the tackle and drove her to the ground. His weight was on top of her, pressing her chest into the earth, and then a thick-fingered hand was in her hair, pushing her face against a bed of pine needles.

  “There you go, girlie-girl?” Rhino said. “How you like that?”

  Sarah tried to scream, just as Tom had told her to do, but Rhino had pressed her face into the ground, stuffing her mouth with dirt and needles.

  “We’re gonna play now, girlie-girl,” Rhino said. “And you’re going to like it, aren’t you?”

  Sarah thrashed against the forest bed, trying to throw him off. A second fat hand grabbed her left arm and twisted it back. Something screamed inside her shoulder joint, threatening to break her, and she screamed even harder into the ground.

  “You keep fighting,” said Rhino, “and I’ll pull this arm right out, yes, right out of the socket. You want that girl? You want that?”

  Sarah bent her legs and arced her hips, bucking like a wild horse trying to throw off the rider. She could hear Rhino’s laugh, right behind her ear. The hand that held her arm tugged ever so slight, and the pain in her shoulder burned harder.

  “Listen here,” Rhino growled. “You got fight, and I like that, but this has gotta stop now. I hate to do this, girlie-girl. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He pulled back even further on her arm. The pain was like someone injected fire into the joint. Sarah could feel the tendons, the muscles, the ball of the joint crying out in protest. She bit the earth and waited for it to happen, but damned if he wasn’t doing it slow, taking his time with it, dragging her into hell an inch at a time.

  “Here it comes, girlie-girl,” he whispered, his voice right in her ear. “Here it is. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Don’t say I didn’t. Here it is, baby, don’t say I did—”

  A familiar shriek shredded its way out of the sky, a tuning note for a choir of screams. Rhino’s own scream joined the chorus, and Sarah felt his fingers loosen their grip on her arm. The second hand in her hair disappeared completely. The beefy weight that had pinned her to the earth now lifted itself from her back, and she had the leverage to push now, to pivot him off of her. She thrashed her hips and flipped, and Rhino bounced backward, and she rolled over to her back and stood up in time to see the carnage.

  The cat—that crazy, wonderful, ginger cat—had attached itself to the back of Rhino’s head, digging itself in like a big red tick. Its forelegs and haunches were buried deep in Rhino’s mane of hair, and she saw its head come up and down, jaws wide open, fangs borne and wild, gnashing at the top of Rhino’s skull.

  Rhino was on his knees now, flapping his hands at his head trying to ward off the attack. His screams were crazed and guttural like a wild bird.

  The cat kept clawing deeper, burying its face in Rhino’s hair, shaking its head side to side as it worked teeth into Rhino’s skullcap. Rhino howled, too blinded by pain to process, and he thrashed his torso up and down, back and forth snapping about at the waist in an effort to whiplash the cat off of his head.

  The cat only howled and growled as it tore into the thin connective tissue of Rhino’s scalp. Rivulets of blood could be seen flowing from out of Rhino’s hairline, pasting his disheveled bangs to his forehead. Rhino hopped about on his knees, waving his arms madly. Sarah watched, sickened with herself for feeling such fascination, and she pushed herself to her feet, standing over him. R
hino flopped over on his backside, and he twisted his head and turned it up to her, his eyes now wide and pleading. If Sarah had felt an ounce of mercy, the cat did not give her the chance to act on it.

  A final screech issued from the cat’s throat, shredding its way from some black place of torture in its chest. It snapped its head back, a bloody chuck of hair and flesh dangling from its jowls. With a shake of its head, it flipped the gruesome treat from its mouth and began to howl again, its forelegs stretching deeper into Rhino’s hair, its neck muscles tensing and popping as it strained to extend its body.

  Rhino arched his head back and cried, his voice pitiful and small, and Sarah saw something that made her stomach crawl. On either side of Rhino’s face at the level of the temples, two orange cat paws jutted out from his ample mane. It was impossible, Sarah thought. There was no way the cat’s forelegs were long enough to wrap around the skull of a man, least of all a fat skull like Rhino’s. And yet, there it was, the cat’s twin paws, digging their way out Rhino’s hair, the pad’s widening and claws extending. Like a pair of twin mousetraps, the paws clapped down over Rhino’s eyes.

  Whatever last bit of will Rhino had, it escaped like steam from a broken valve. His scream reached a whole new level of inhuman, long and squealing, gurgling in the throat, sounding strangely to Sarah like the fingernail of God dragging across a chalkboard the size of a continent. The cat’s claws flashed and curled into Rhino’s eyelids, and with bullet quickness snapped outward. For a single snapshot in time, Sarah saw one of the claws hook the outer corner of Rhino’s right eye, curling all the way through and ripping, widening the socket just a centimeter or so before the cat pushed off with its back paws, made a high back flip in the air, and landed on all fours no more than a yard behind its wounded prey.

  Rhino flopped on his back now, his palms pressed into his eyes. Fresh blood was oozing from all sides, down his cheeks, around his temples. Sarah stood over him, staring down in the shattered face, and for a moment she felt something like pity.