Catharsis (Book 1)

by D. Andrew Campbell

  Moving from tree to tree to bush to backyard slide, I close to within twenty feet of the officer in only a few seconds. A tree serves as my meager cover as I will it to block my body and for the tall, bearded man to not turn and look at me.

  It doesn't appear that he is fully involved in his duty, though, as he wanders aimlessly through the backyard abjectly swinging his light across the dark windows of the house. He has obviously just given up on finding any actual intruders and is just looking around to satisfy some other party (A nosy neighbor? His partner? A boss?). His dejected mumblings reach my ears, but they are too garbled to fully understand.

  What's he saying?

  I know it's not important, but the curiosity starts to nag at me. Well, the curiosity, and the challenge of wondering if I can get close enough to him to find out.

  Sliding out from behind the tree, I pad softly (I feel like the old stories of the Native Americans I heard about when I was a kid. I read about them walking softly over dried leaves in autumn while hunting game and never making a sound. Somehow I now just naturally place my feet in the quietest places as I walk. Even I can't hear me as I walk.) into the open and approach the man.

  As I approach, the smell of cologne and gun oil mixes with the bitter reek of coffee that had already been emanating from him. He has eaten a pizza within the last four hours. Sausage. And green peppers.

  I'm within ten feet of the back of him (Still standing in darkness, but completely in the exposed open.) as he shines his light into the kitchen windows.

  He's young (maybe in his early thirties) and tall (over six feet, easily) and very strong (His uniform fits his arms quite snugly, and the vibrant smell of life is strong on him.) and very close. He's gotten his hair cut recently, and I can see the short hairs standing up on the back of his neck.

  I step closer again.

  "Stupid old man," I hear him suddenly mumble out loud. "There's no one in this place. No need for us to come out here."

  The suddenness of his voice breaks the trance I had been in as I had crept up behind him, and I lose my concentration on staying silent. I inhale as I realize the stupidity of what I'm doing. His body immediately stiffens in front of me, and I realize my bigger mistake.

  He knows I'm here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  He is five feet in front of me, and I am in the middle of the open backyard. I have nowhere to go. Nothing I can do.

  His flashlight leaves the window and begins a slow sweep to his left as his head begins to turn with it. I drop to a crouch (At some point I had stood up as I approached him. I have to work on this focusing-on-what-I'm-doing thing.), and I know he has sensed someone behind him. I know it. But he is turning so slowly. Agonizingly slowly. His turn is slower than what I've seen in horror movies when the pretty blonde knows the evil monster is standing behind her in the empty house.

  Why? Is he messing with me? I ask myself. Is he trying to give me time to escape? Is he scared of what he'll see? Why turn like that?

  And then it hits me. The guy in the alley who tried to attack me that first night. The same thing happened with him. He moved slowly, too. Everything moved slowly.

  Wait a minute.

  Turning around, I look at the trees behind me that had been gently swaying in the wind before. They are motionless. No swaying. No wind. No sound. No...nothing. Everything has stopped.

  Looking back at the policeman, I see he is about halfway turned towards me. He'll see me any moment. Unless I move. Now.

  Straightening my legs with a burst of energy, I hurl myself sideways (away from the direction of his flashlight) and into the shadow of a hedge next to the edge of the house twenty feet away.

  As I land, I turn my body so that I can see the officer complete his turn behind me. The beam of light passes through the patch of grass where I was just standing without pause and continues in a circle as he sweeps it across the backyard.

  And he is not in slow motion. Not only is he not in slow motion, but he appears to be pretty agitated as he swings the flashlight back and forth letting the creamy light rest on anything in the backyard that begs the slightest tickle of his attention.

  Then I notice that his right hand - the hand that isn't holding the flashlight - is resting on the firearm strapped to his hip. It’s a hand that is one good twitch from putting a bullet through me and quickly putting an end to any exciting fun I thought I’d been having.

  That gun helps drain some of the excited energy I had been feeling. Not all. But some.

  And I'm really glad I hadn't chosen to jump straight backwards when I moved. If I had, then I would have plopped myself straight into middle of his current furious investigating.

  The curiosity and fear and anger (I suspect at himself, but I don't know for sure.) runs off of him in nauseating waves. His emotions went from neutral and tasteless to overwhelmingly strong in mere seconds. I'm definitely glad I'm somewhere he isn't searching now. The last thing I need is a scared, twitchy policeman with a large caliber handgun pointed at me. I'm not sure what's happening to me right now, but I'm sure that addition would not improve my situation.

  As I finish that thought, the policeman finishes waving his flashlight around the backyard. "That was just plain creepy," he says out loud and shudders. "I could have sworn someone was behind me."

  I recognize the talking-to-myself-to-get-rid-of-boogeymen tone to his voice, and I smile. I've been there before, but it's not often I get to be the cause of it. Especially to a trained officer of the law.

  And then my smile drops as I realize the folly of my once ingenious position next to the bush. When I had jumped away from his flashlight, I had jumped further along the path of the house that he had not explored yet. Now that he is done shaking off the willies, he is preparing to complete his circuit of the house. A path that will take him directly past me.

  "Double crap," I mumble through clenched teeth and prepare for the worst.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  There is no fortuitous slowing down of everything as he approaches this time. No distracting sounds from the far side of the yard. No time to move from the spot where I've slowly pushed my crouched (but still horribly visible) body into the dark green hedge.

  Twenty feet away.

  I watch his face as he approaches me so that I can know the moment he sees me. The more time I have to react to this, the better. I think as hard as I can about not being seen by him. I want to be invisible. I want to blend in. I want him to walk on by me without taking any notice. I know it won't happen, but I want it to happen with all my heart. I don't want to fight a cop. I don't want to hurt a human.

  Ten feet away. The flashlight's beam is swinging through the bushes to my right.

  I prepare my body to leap. If I move fast enough he won't know what hit him, and then maybe I can escape before he realizes what happened. I don't want to, but I will. I will hurt a person if it means I will live. I won't kill him, but I can hurt him.

  But I really don't want him to see me. Just keep walking past me, I think at him. Get to the front yard as fast as you can. Don't stop here. Ignore these bushes. Nothing here but us bush mice...and a scared kid. The last thought makes me smile, and I wonder if I really am scared (Not that I have much time to think about it right now, but no, I'm not. I remember fear, and when I should feel it, but I'm no longer actually afraid. It's a nice transition.).

  Five feet away and closing quickly.

  I watch his eyes from my position next to the ground, and I keep thinking, Don't stop. Don't stop. You don't see me. Something bad will happen if you stop. Don't make something bad happen.

  Two feet away.

  Run! I think at him as hard as I can.

  And he does. As he passes my ridiculously open and ineffective hiding position in the bush - his left foot landing within inches of me - he breaks into a run. It's a few stumbling steps at first, but it quickly accelerates into a full jog before he clears the side of the house.

  And then he's gone. I'm
safe (I’m sitting next to a bush in a hiding place that would be embarrassing even in a six-year-old's game of hide and seek, but it worked.) and the officer never even looked down at me.

  And he ran. When I told him to run.

  He didn't look down to see me when I told him to not look down.

  That couldn't have just been a coincidence.

  Could it?

  Either way that's a question for another day, and I'm done pushing my luck for the night. Closing my eyes, I listen for a few moments to make sure there is no one else near me (Both the men are in the front yard, and it sounds like a heated conversation is going on. Wonder if I was the cause of that?), then I take off for the neighbor's backyard playhouse to grab the bags and head home. Well, as much as an abandoned warehouse can be home.

  During my pleasantly uneventful jog to my new home, I realize I'm getting hungry again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  His name is Lazarus, Lazzy for short. At least that is what I'm deciding to call him for now. I like the name, and the symbolism behind it makes me smile. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure he knows it’s his name.

  Then again, I don't think name recognition is currently the pup's biggest priority. Surviving my - let's call it an "assault" on him - is his foremost need. Once I can get him up and moving around, then we'll focus on responding when I call his name.

  The dog chow seems to be old, but I don't think he cares. I suspect he's not had much of anything to eat lately, so any food (even old, disgusting once-belonged-to-a-now-deceased-dog chow) must be better than his previous scraps.

  I realize in my haste to leave the house's kitchen that I neglected to procure any type of bowl for him to eat out of. Without anything clean to pour the food into, I decide to just use my hand. Scooping my hand into the crinkly bag, I pull out a small pile and offer it to him. A quick sniff later (All I got from the food when I sniffed it was a sense of staleness. I hope his nose offers him something more appetizing.) and his mouth quickly covers the small collection of liver and fish-flavored food pebbles (Dogs really eat this?) and vacuums them up. Moments later the food is gone, and he stares up at me with big brown eyes.

  "More?" I ask him, and in answer he just tilts his head at me and nudges my empty palm with his nose.

  Smiling, I dig out another handful of the grainy food and offer it to him. The second handful disappears almost as quickly as the first one.

  We continue this pattern through half a dozen more handfuls before he finally seems to wear out. Petting his head as he lays it on my lap, I listen to his wheezy breathing even out. It's relaxing.

  Having never had a pet growing up I'm not used to the sublime happiness that can happen when another creature trusts you enough to sleep on you. This dog (That I very recently attempted to kill. He seems to have forgotten this, but I certainly haven't.) is trusting me to watch out for it while it is unconscious and defenseless. Under normal circumstances, that would be simply impressive given its obvious history with malnourishment and street life. But I am no longer an example of normal circumstances, so this becomes even more amazing.

  Lightly running my fingers through his shaggy coat, I smooth out the burrs and blemishes I find. Even when I find a nasty tangle in his fur and have to dig it out with my fingers, he barely stirs. He is dead to the world (Although that does strike me as a poor choice of words.) right now.

  I don't have the heart to move him, and I'm happier than I've been in a long time so I just lean my head back against the wall and enjoy the moment.

  "I can do this," I tell myself. I'm not really sure what has happened to me this past week, but I will be strong enough to survive it. "I am stronger than whatever this is, and I will beat it."

  Sighing (Those were big words coming from a scared kid, but sometimes I can convince myself with my declarations. Sometimes.), I look around the warehouse and notice it is getting lighter around me.

  "Going to be morning soon," I whisper to my sleeping (and only) companion. "What am I going to do today?"

  In response to my question, Lazzy snuffles deeply and wiggles himself even tighter against my small frame.

  "Apparently not getting up any time soon," I tell myself in response to his movement. "Might as well get myself situated for a while."

  The light coming in through the dusty and film-covered warehouse windows is muted enough that it doesn't bother my eyes. I spend the next few hours watching the sun's rays slowly creep across the floor and swathe my feet in their golden light. It's relaxing and almost pleasant.

  My stomach hasn't bothered me since my jog home earlier, but I know the hunger is still inside of me just waiting to unleash itself. When the time comes that I can no longer fight it off, I know I won’t be able to use Lazzy again, though. I won't risk not being able to stop myself with him.

  With my free leg, I nudge one of the grocery bags a bit closer until I can finally grasp it with my outstretched fingers and pull out some of the snacks. The first bag I grab has a sealed pouch of cookies near the top, and I pluck it out.

  Chocolate chip cookies. It's certainly hard to go wrong with those as a snack. Maybe not the best breakfast choice, but "healthy" isn't my main concern right now (I’m happy to settle for not-alive-and-full-of-blood.)

  Quietly ripping the small bag open, I pour half of its contents into my hand. They are small and "snack-sized", but they're still more sustenance than I've had in days. My brain waters at the idea of eating them, even if my mouth doesn't.

  Ignoring my own wish that the cookies had been full-sized and chewy as opposed to tiny crunchy discs, I lean my head back and dump them into my mouth. I close my eyes with the thought of the deliciousness that is to come and begin to chew.

  But the delicious, expected flavor never arrives. I taste nothing. Well, I do taste something, but it isn't what I was expecting. I taste dry crunchy cardboard. Even that's not right, though. Cardboard has some flavor, even if it's a disgusting flavor. This has nothing. No flavor at all. Whatever I'm chewing, it certainly isn't a pile of cookies.

  "Ugh," I mutter and spit the flavorless mush into my hand for a quick inspection. It sure looks like chewed up cookie, I think to myself.

  Leaning forward, I gingerly sniff the masticated bits of brownness in my hand. The faint aroma of chocolate tickles my nose. It's faint, but it's there.

  Wrinkling my nose, I pluck out a chunk of the cookie with my fingers and drop it back into my mouth. It's a disgusting but necessary experiment (At least that's what I'm telling myself in an attempt to quell my brain's revolt at what I'm doing.) to make sure the taste is gone.

  Chewing slowly, I swallow the flavorless gruel. Nothing. My taste buds might as well be non-existent for all the information they're feeding me.

  "This is going to be frustrating," I say to the remaining pile of cookie bits in my hand.

  Scraping the mess in my hand back into the half full package, I dig in the grocery bag for something else to eat. After some quick rooting, a bag of fruit snacks catch my attention.

  "That'll do," I say to my new prize and rip off the tear-away strip sealing them.

  I hold the small foil and cellophane (Foilaphane?) package to my nose and inhale deeply. A robust cornucopia of fruitiness tickles my nostrils as I breathe in.

  "Perfect," I continue, "now that is something my taste buds can't ignore."

  I contemplate whether to try just one or to dump the entire bag into my mouth and fully commit. Should I be cautious in case I'm still haunted by the flavor demons, or give in to my desire to eat like a normal person and enjoy the greed of a whole bag of fruit shaped gelatin?

  Compromise seems like the best venture, and I go for just half the package. Exhilaration at the thought of the rainbow of flavors that will soon attack my tongue wells up in me.

  The fruity smells from the bag dance in my nostrils as I tip my head back and gobble the little chewy nuggets. Deliciousness will be mine!

  But it isn't. I can still smell the fruit from the bag in my han
d, but as I chew I get nothing from my tongue. My teeth maul the squishy lumps in my mouth in a desperate attempt to get them to release their hidden treasure of flavor.

  A sigh escapes me, and I hold the bag up to my nose in an attempt to jumpstart my taste buds. My nostrils are engulfed in a fruit overload, but none of it travels to my mouth. After swallowing the tasteless lump in a futile attempt to show dominance over my food, I drop the remaining fruit snacks and their bag back into the grocery sack.

  Defeated, I realize I can't trick my body.

  Thoughts of cereal and my father come back to me. The night this all started (When was that? A week ago? Three days? So much has happened since then.) I had sat at the kitchen table talking to my dad for the last time and trying to eat food to no avail. I had assumed it was just an issue with that night. Maybe something to do with adrenalin and fear fatiguing my body. I had hoped it was only a temporary issue and not a permanent side effect of my new...let's call it a "condition". Apparently, I was wrong in that assumption.

  It's about time I come to accept what my new diet is going to consist of, and it won't be baked goods. Or anything fruit-flavored. Or anything I want to think about for that matter.

  I also don’t want to think about the fact that I'm starting to feel the hunger tickle deep down inside of me.

  But before I give into my desire to feed again, I have an idea for one more experiment.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  My hunger is only a faint tickle deep in the core of my body right now which makes it easy to ignore and forget about. I want it to stay that way, so I decide to see how long I can go without straining myself or using any of my newly acquired abilities. It certainly seems that the more I push myself and what I can do, the faster I burn through whatever energy levels I have stored. Maybe if I can spend the day being as relaxed as possible, then I can stretch what energy I have stored up and put off having to feed again anytime soon.