by Неизвестный
Eli knew about stubborn old men. His own father had been sixty when he adopted Eli. There was no regular adoption agency that would have placed a toddler with a sixty-year-old single parent, but Eli’s case was no regular adoption.
There had been… anomalies.
For one thing, the young boy had shown no verbal skills when he’d first been picked up, rummaging through garbage bins behind a restaurant.
Not only couldn’t he speak, but he didn’t seem to understand a word in any of the languages they tried. Nothing seemed to be physically wrong with his ears or mouth. The child development experts had one diagnosis, and then another.
To everyone’s surprise, within days, he began to speak. Not just a word here and there, but complete, subject-verb-object sentences. Soon he was speaking at the level of a six-year-old, even though his physical size put him at four.
The experts suddenly had new diagnoses. He was a savant, and for one afternoon, the unnamed boy delighted in this new word, saying things like, “The savant desires ice cream immediately,” and “The savant would like to check into a better hotel.”
Couples practically lined up to adopt him. Even in the Post-Crashdown chaos, there was a waiting list.
One attractive couple took the lead as the most qualified. They were in their late thirties, rosy-cheeked and healthy, with no other children, plus they owned a horse ranch. The dad loved ice cream and the mom wanted to teach Eli to play the piano.
Everything seemed perfect, until the last minute, when an anonymous tip led investigators to a secret chamber under the couple’s house. Subsequently, their ties to a non-traditional religious organization were uncovered. This group believed the unnamed child was the reincarnation of their god, who was not the regular God, but one of those ancient creatures who slumbered under the sea.
The cult’s exact plans for the child were not entirely clear, but the rosy-cheeked couple did possess an alarming number of ceremonial daggers.
When news of the couple’s arrest got out, three bombs were set off throughout the city, and the cult claimed responsibility. Some people said it was a coincidence, just one of the many crazy things that happened Post-Crashdown, but orders and paperwork began moving.
The boy, who was dubbed Eli by that point, was declared a national security threat.
Eli was issued the smallest size of orange prison coveralls—the size designated for little persons—and transferred to a maximum security holding facility at an undisclosed location.
A week later, he woke up in the home of the psychologist he’d bonded with the most—a sixty-year-old man named Joseph Carter. Even though Joseph wasn’t more than a quarter Italian, some people had taken to calling him Giuseppi, and then Geppetto, because he had snowy white hair and looked like the toymaker from the fairy tale about Pinocchio.
Despite the obvious parallels, Eli’s father never once referred to Eli as Pinocchio, not even as a joke.
After he died, Eli regretted that he never made the joke himself, either. Not knowing his own history, Eli did feel a little like a wooden puppet come to life. Making the Pinocchio joke wouldn’t have kept his father alive longer, or made the bitter end easier, but it would have been a fun memory to smile over now.
Joseph Carter never let on how he’d managed to spring Eli from jail and adopt him, but he did sell his house and move the two of them into a run-down apartment building during their first month together.
He didn’t take retirement, but continued to work, so that Eli had college money, as well as money for most of the things teenage boys desire. Eli didn’t get every video game console he wanted, but he did get some. He also went on every school field trip, and he especially loved going to horse ranches—though he avoided the one horse ranch that had been owned by his would-be murderers. The cult members’ house had been demolished, and the underground chamber destroyed, but it was still way, way, way too creepy.
When Eli was about six, Joseph Carter took him to a medical clinic to have a day surgery done on one of his ears. It was nothing major, just one of those common childhood ailments. When he woke up, he was in a different clinic entirely, and there were stitches along his hairline—up above his eyebrow, a world away from his ears.
He eyed everyone with suspicion. There’d been some complications, they told him, and he would need to stay for three days, for observations. The nurses brought him chocolate bars, milkshakes, and cheeseburgers. They let him stay up all night watching movies and eating candy. It was like they weren’t even real nurses.
The stitches were itchy.
The milkshakes were good.
He heard people talking, when they thought he was asleep, about the microchip they’d installed in his head.
He got cake and ice cream for breakfast.
You win some, you lose some.
Chapter Thirteen
Eli watched his regular Friday night TV shows, but he didn’t enjoy them.
As the time drew nearer midnight—Eli’s bedtime as set by Brenda—Eli felt his dread rising.
At eleven-thirty, he went into the bedroom, pulled the bed away from the wall, and sprinkled the catnip around it in a circle. While he was sprinkling the herbs, he was certain his line was perfect, and he felt proud of doing a good job, even on such a ridiculous thing. When it was done, and he stood back, his pride evaporated. Drunken monkeys could have done a better job.
He messed around with the catnip boundary using his hands, but only made it worse.
At the stroke of midnight, he stepped over the wobbly oval and climbed under the covers.
He waited for sleep.
He waited for forty-five minutes.
He promised himself that he would wash the dishes if he was still awake in fifteen minutes.
That didn’t work, even though it usually did.
He climbed out of bed and washed the dishes.
He made himself toast with peanut butter, and washed it down with hot milk, heated in the microwave. Then he tossed a sleeping pill down after the mess.
It was nearly one thirty now. Instead of getting back in bed, he ran himself a hot bath and climbed in. He lined his plastic alien soldiers along the ledges and talked to them about his feelings, just like a crazy person would.
He picked up Brenda’s pink razor and shaved one third of his right thigh—one third vertically.
There was no clock in the bathroom, but he guessed it was past two. He arranged the soldiers across his chest and enacted a leisurely battle.
His head got fuzzy. Green bits of catnip floated on the water all around him.
He slid down and got more comfortable, rocking his head to one side.
Was there even more catnip in the tub?
He closed his eyes and imagined aliens were making their favorite tea—Eli tea, with catnip.
He took a deep, relaxed breath in.
The breath came back out in bubbles.
His eyes flew open.
Someone was holding him under the water, their bony fingers around his neck.
He fought, thrashing around in the water. This only made a mess, with water and plastic soldiers flying everywhere.
Eli bumped the back of his head hard enough that it momentarily stunned him into going limp.
As soon as he stopped thrashing, the hand released from his throat and he bobbed up.
The cool air hit his face, and he sucked in air with wobbly lungs. The darkness regarded him with what seemed to be curiosity. Eli took a second breath. One red eye seemed to wink at him, and then the darkness flashed up and pulled him under the water.
Eli tried to remember everything Valentine had said about cat wraiths. Unfortunately, she hadn’t said much, except that they didn’t usually kill people.
What had she said?
They followed lonely people home and tried to liven things up.
This dark-toothed, smoky, shape-shifting thing didn’t look like any cat Eli had ever seen, except… were those two pointed ears near the top of its head
?
Eli stared up at the points, the view distorted by the bath water. Were those things ears, or horns? Bubbles trailed out of his nostrils.
He remembered something about cats. They often played with their prey, batting around anything from spiders to mice. When the prey stopped moving, the cats either ate it or lost interest and walked away.
Eli still had some oxygen in his lungs, and still had some fight in his body, but he stopped thrashing.
If Kitty wanted to play, Kitty would need to play nice.
Eli went completely limp in the bath water. His knees were up, and he was positioned on his back, with his head and face fully submerged in the warm water.
He held still, until the water was calm. Carefully, Eli peered up through his eyelashes. The dark face with red, glowing eyes stared back at him. Bits of green floated by.
The points at the top of its head twitched. They were definitely ears, not horns.
All at once, the bony hand released his throat. Eli willed himself to hold still, despite his aching lungs crying out for oxygen. Hold on. Hold on. Just a bit longer.
The red eyes above him blinked off and on, as though the dark monster was blinking. Thinking. Plotting.
Hold on.
The scar along his hairline began to itch furiously.
Hold on.
Something poked him in one armpit and then the other. Two bony hands slipped under his arms. With seemingly-effortless ease, the cat wraith scooped him out of the bathtub and gently rested him on his side.
Eli was just barely conscious by now.
The cat wraith tilted up Eli’s chin, pulled open his jaw, and swept two bony fingers through his mouth to check his airway.
Eli coughed and sputtered, then gasped for breath.
He kept his eyes squeezed shut, even as his breathing calmed.
Whatever was in the bathroom with him was still there. He didn’t dare open his eyes, but he felt the presence of the darkness.
He wondered if the sleeping pill he’d taken was helping to keep him calm. And then he wondered if it wasn’t the sleeping pill itself that was making him hallucinate. It was a new brand, after all.
Even with his eyes closed, the whole world seemed distorted now. Everything sounded muted, like he was still under water, or under glass.
The sleeping pills.
Brenda had picked them up recently, enthusiastically saying the brand was “all natural.” He told her arsenic was also “all natural,” and then she’d been snippy the rest of the day. But then she’d been especially eager to serve him a mug of cocoa that night, and he’d wondered if she’d dosed him with the sleeping pill to prove a point, but he didn’t dare ask.
Come to think of it, Brenda had made him a cocoa Thursday night, as well. She’d delivered it with that sweet smile of hers. He thought she was just thanking him for doing a good job in the bedroom, but now he wondered.
The bathroom floor’s tiles felt cold under his cheek, and the water evaporating rapidly off his beached body made him shiver. He kept his eyes clenched shut, trying to get rid of the sleeping-pill hallucinations by mental strength alone. He shivered again, and thought about the large, fluffy towel that hung from the towel rod, a few feet from his head. The light shifted, and then the towel was on him—a dry, warm, terry cloth blanket.
Eli drifted in and out of consciousness. The heavy meal plus sleeping pill had really done a number on him.
He’d deal with everything in the morning, he decided. He would send those “all natural” sleeping pills to the nosy-parent lab to have them tested.
The towel was so warm and comfortable.
Face down on the bathroom floor, Eli fell into a deep slumber. He didn’t usually snore, but tonight was a special occasion. He snored so loud and deep, his bones vibrated.
The cat wraith wasn’t sure if it liked Eli’s snoring. It reached into the lukewarm bathwater and pulled the plug to drain the water from the tub. It liked watching the water swirl down the drain. That was good stuff.
Then, for a full four minutes, the cat wraith perched on the closed seat of the toilet, watching the pale human snore.
The snoring was not pleasant to listen to, after all. The cat wraith picked up one of Eli’s toy soldier aliens, lubricated it with its tongue, and lodged the soldier, head-first, into one of Eli’s nostrils.
The force of Eli’s snoring exhale blew the plastic toy out in one gust.
The cat wraith repeated the process until it got bored, which was exactly five times.
Done with Eli, it coalesced into the shape of a kitten and scampered into the bedroom, where it had an intense catnip party, frolicking wildly until it got bored, which took exactly six minutes.
Chapter Fourteen
Eli woke up in his bed, naked.
The clock next to him indicated it was only four o’clock, yet the room was bright and the curtains were open. That wasn’t right. It was still spring, and the sun shouldn’t be up already.
He grabbed his phone from the dresser for a second opinion. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and he’d slept through most of the day.
What a crazy night he’d had, with the hallucinations in the tub. It was a miracle he’d gotten himself into bed. As soon as he saw Brenda, she was going to be in dire trouble for buying those evil sleeping pills.
He rolled out of bed and stepped into a pile of crunchy herbs. He gasped. There was catnip everywhere. It looked like a Disney cartoon about kittens had happened in the bedroom.
Well, this was basically Brenda’s fault for buying those sleeping pills, so she could deal with it whenever she decided to return home from her overnight at an unspecified friend’s house.
Eli cleaned up, got dressed, and ate a quick bowl of cereal standing over the sink. He checked a few messages, then left the apartment to do his planned errands. He would visit his favorite places before they closed for the day, then take the microwave to its new owner.
Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.
On the drive out to Mr. Quentin’s farmhouse, Eli turned up the music and sang along with an old Bruce Springsteen song. After two rough nights, Eli felt like he finally got Bruce Springsteen. He got it in every cell of his body.
Eli pulled up to the farmhouse at dusk.
He worried for a moment that Mr. Quentin wasn’t home. The lights were all off, after all. Then he made the connection that blind people wouldn’t turn on lights. He felt smart for figuring this out, but stupid that he had to first go through the thought process.
With the microwave box held against his hip with one arm, he knocked on the farmhouse door. The latch on the door was loose, so the door creaked open.
The house was quiet, and a smell wafted out. The dank air smelled not unlike the lizard terrarium from Eli’s fifth grade classroom.
“Hello? It’s me, Eli. I was here yesterday, with the other guy. Khan.” Eli was very careful to pronounce Khan’s name with a breathy K-H at the beginning, so it didn’t sound exactly like con.
“Come in,” came the weak reply.
Eli stepped into the darkness. His skin prickled, and he reconsidered the intelligence of stepping into an allegedly haunted house.
“Do you mind if I turn on the lights?” he asked the darkness.
The old man chuckled. “Not at all,” he said.
Eli found the light switch in the second-most-logical place and flicked it on, flooding the front living room in light.
The furnishings were what you’d expect—a mismatch of styles from several decades, none of it high end, covered in an assortment of quilts and throws.
Mr. Quentin sat in a recliner, a hardcover novel in his hands.
Eli’s blood ran cold, and his eyes widened at the sight of a white-eyed man holding a novel. It was the creepiest thing he’d seen in a long time. He nearly ran back out the front door, except he quickly concluded the pages must be braille. He felt smart for figuring out the bit about the braille, but wished he’d gotten there sooner.
> “I brought you a new microwave,” he said.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I just wanted to do something nice for you,” Eli said, and it was the plain and simple truth.
Something dark moved at the corner of his vision. He snapped his head, but nothing was there. A dark feeling reached into his chest and tugged him toward the kitchen.
“I guess I’ll set the new one up for you,” he said.
“I’ll pay you for it. Just send me the bill. My housekeeper opens my mail.”
Eli was already in the kitchen. “I could do that,” he called over his shoulder. He could, but he wouldn’t.
Eli approached the allegedly-haunted microwave. It flashed 12:00 over and over. Real scary. He reached behind it to yank out the cord. The plug wouldn’t come out easily. He wondered if Khan’s power surges had fused the plug and wiring together. He wished he knew something about electricity.
The plug still wouldn’t come out, so Eli cursed it verbally. The plug came loose at once. So, that was it, he mused. You had to talk nasty to it. Dirty little microwave.
He hoisted it off the counter, groaning from the effort. The appliance was heavy. Supernaturally heavy.
Again, something moved at the edge of his vision. It seemed to pause, waiting to get his attention, before darting away down the hallway.
He dumped the old microwave on the kitchen table, then began unboxing the new one. When he slid it into place, the gleaming white surface put the rest of the kitchen to shame.
Mr. Quentin shuffled in, and Eli gave him a quick tutorial on the two dials. The top one was the intensity, and the lower was the timer.
They ran it a few times for practice.
“That’s a nice ding,” Mr. Quentin said after the third test run.
“Can I heat you up anything? Have you had dinner?”
Mr. Quentin gazed through him and ignored Eli’s offer. “What will you do with the other one?”
“I’ll take it away.”
The old man stepped back over to the table, keeping his thin body between Eli and the old microwave.