Where the Cats Will Not Follow

by Stephen Stromp

  “We need to keep digging in the other spots to find out if there’s more,” suggested Everett. “Phillip, how far down did you get?”

  “Few feet.”

  “Ayden, grab your shovel,” he ordered. “With the three of us digging, we’ll get deeper faster.”

  Although the clay became thicker the deeper we dug, we quickly widened and deepened Phillip’s pit. We dug until the hole was up to our knees, until it was roughly the same depth as Everett’s. We dug until I heard Everett yell, “Stop!”

  And there it was. We found ourselves looking upon another bone protruding from the earth. The piece of rounded bone was the same yellowish-brown as the bone in Everett’s pit. As Everett and Phillip again scraped away the thick clay, I watched the bone slowly emerge from obscurity and into frightening recognition. First, two sunken holes directly apart from each other appeared, followed by a third, slender hole centered beneath them. The rounded portion that had been jutting through the clay became the forehead. And when they uncovered the upper jaw, there was no mistaking that what stared back at me were the empty eye sockets of a human skull. Each time I blinked, the vision of the skull was transposed with visions of the frozen faces in my dream.

  Phillip scrambled out of the pit in a panic. “OK. I see what’s going on now,” he said, his arm trembling as he pointed at me. “You told us where to dig. And we just happened to find bones in those spots. Obviously, this joke’s on me,” he concluded. “Right?”

  Everett let out a sigh. “He was guessing when he told us where to dig.”

  “It didn’t seem like he was guessing.”

  “Well, he was,” Everett vowed. “I was just letting him pick the spots for shits and giggles. So either he got lucky. Or, for all we know, there are skeletons buried under every square inch of these woods, and it wouldn’t have mattered where we dug.”

  As they argued, I climbed out of the grave and peered down the hill. Though an ambitious start given the size of the area I was attempting to excavate, I had barely uncovered a foot. We had found bones. The people in my dream were real. Surely she’d be there. She had to be. Her light was the brightest of them all.

  “Why don’t you let him speak?” Phillip demanded.

  “Fine. Ayden, tell Phillip you didn’t know about the bones. That we didn’t plant them.”

  But I wasn’t even registering their dispute. I had already started down the hill, dragging my shovel behind me as I headed for the clearing.

  “Ayden!” snapped Everett.

  I turned back. “We have to dig for her,” I said apologetically.

  He was startled for a moment by my open reference to the dream. Yet instead of becoming angry, he simply nodded in acknowledgment and grabbed his shovel. At that point, with the discovery of human remains, he no doubt found whatever caused me to be so emphatic worth exploring. Phillip followed reluctantly. “This is batshit,” he muttered.

  We dug with ferocity. Even Phillip, questioning our truthfulness, did not let that compromise his contribution. With each shovelful, I could feel us getting closer to the frozen woman. I knew she was there just waiting to be freed. I pictured her beautiful hair flowing round her head as if it were her aura.

  “Easy now,” advised Everett as the pit became knee-deep. We removed chunks of clay in individual portions, careful not to damage any bone that might’ve been just beneath. We dug that way for what seemed like an hour, until the edge of the pit nearly met our hips. We were exhausted, but Everett could tell by my relentlessness that it was important we continue.

  Phillip, however, failed to see the point. He slowed his efforts until he finally pitched his shovel aboveground and rested against the dirt wall. “There’s nothing here,” he moaned, wiping the back of his soiled arm across his forehead.

  “Please,” I begged. “Just a little deeper.”

  But after some time, even Everett laid down his shovel. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been digging for almost an hour.” He then leaned in and whispered, “Maybe she’s in another spot.”

  “But she was right here!” Frustrated, I hurled my shovel out of the pit. Where could she have been? If my dream had been right about the other bodies, why wasn’t she there?

  Yet I didn’t have long to contemplate how the frozen woman had evaded me. Suddenly, we heard footsteps. Fierce and deliberate, they crashed through the woods and charged toward us. We cowered in the pit, peering over its edge. “Who the hell is in my woods!” a hoarse voice bellowed. Intent on pursuing his trespassers, he marched straight past the grave holding the unearthed skull. The old man stomped his way down the hill, trampling the mayapple in his path. He wore a camouflage jacket and orange hunting cap. His face sagged with age, but he remained a strong, powerful man.

  “That’s Mr. Peterson,” I whispered to Phillip.

  “The murderer,” added Everett before defiantly climbing out of the pit to face him. “We found your bodies, you murderer!” he shouted at the old man. “You’re gonna die in prison!”

  Our hiding spot divulged, Phillip and I reluctantly scurried from the pit. “Shut the fuck up,” Phillip whispered tersely to Everett. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  It wasn’t until we stood aboveground that I noticed Mr. Peterson held a shotgun at his side. “You fuckers better get the hell off my land!” he roared, raising the gun. With its barrel aimed directly at us, Everett and I took Phillip’s advice—and ran. The three of us tore out of the woods, leaving our shovels behind. “That’s it! Run! Goddamned pieces of shit! Get the hell outta here!” he croaked.

  With my heart leaping out of my chest, we escaped the trees and ran through the field. My legs were rubber by the time we reached the house. Dirt shook from our shoes and clothes as we rushed down the basement steps in a stampede. Everett shut the door to his weight room behind us. Still panting, he picked up the phone. “I’m calling the police,” he announced.

  Phillip looked as if he was going to protest but did not. He instead collapsed on our old foldout couch. I sat next to him, exhausted and exhilarated at once, listening as Everett described our grim discovery in the woods.

  8

  Lightning Bugs

  By uncovering the bones, I imagined we had solved countless murders. But Mom wasn’t the least impressed. She made it clear she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of our digging holes in the woods, especially when it led to us being chased by a man aiming a shotgun at the back of our heads. So instead of being treated like heroes, we were immediately grounded. And not just a normal grounding—a confined to our rooms grounding. Everett was given additional lectures for putting me in danger and for not calling to warn she’d be greeted after work to the scene of Everett, Phillip, and me in the back of a squad car. Everett’d have to endure similar lectures when Dad was home on Sunday.

  But by the very next afternoon, I found myself peering over the driveway at a police cruiser and two officers talking to Mom—and Everett. Of course Everett was out there. He had a way of defying our parents’ orders. He could talk his way out of—or into—just about anything.

  I cracked open my window in hopes of hearing why the police had stopped by unannounced, but the wind swept their voices away. Mom looked weary. Her graying, brunette hair was tousled by the wind. She nervously pinched her bottom lip as she listened to the officers. Everett wore his baseball cap. I couldn’t see his face. At one point, he looked up to me and flashed a smile. I opened my hand in a still wave. One of the officers noticed Everett’s gesture and gazed up to my window. His large, mirrored sunglasses made him look like a humanoid bug. I quickly closed the blinds and retreated to my bed.

  After what seemed like an hour, I heard the doors to the police car slam. Not a moment later, Everett bounded into my room. “You’re not supposed to be in here,” I reminded him.

  “Oh. OK. I’ll leave,” he replied and performed an about-face.

  “Get back here,” I commanded with a laugh. “So did they arrest Mr. Peterson yet?”
>
  “Mr. Peterson’s—not going to be arrested.”

  “Why not!”

  He picked up an arrowhead off my desk that I found while walking the cornfields. I found it just before the planting season, when the ground had been freshly cultivated. I collected several of the carved spears that day. The rest of the collection was in a jar somewhere in the basement.

  “It turns out he didn’t kill those people.”

  “Who did then?”

  “No one. Well, some could’ve died in a battle, I guess. But most probably just died of old age. Or got sick maybe. The skeletons we dug up—were Indians.”

  “Indians?”

  He handed me the arrowhead. I felt the dulled yet still jagged edges along the sides of the stone before placing the tip of my finger on the point. I imagined an Indian from another time using other rocks as tools to chip and carve the stone into a weapon, making it sharp enough to kill an animal or perhaps a rival from another tribe if necessary.

  “The mounds we used to play on—turns out they’re actually burial mounds. The police sent some experts into the woods. Even though the bones are probably a couple hundred years old, they’re preserved so well because of the ground being mostly clay.”

  “Are they going to dig for the others?”

  “No. They’re just going to do some testing to see if they can date the bones and find out what tribe they’re from. Right now, they’re guessing Ottawa. Or Chippewa. But they don’t really know for sure. The police contacted some Native American association that deals with this stuff. And they want the bones left where they are. They don’t have much of a say in it, though, because it’s private land. But they got Mr. Peterson to agree not to mess with the graves.”

  “Oh my God. You called him a murderer!”

  “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

  “Are we going to be arrested?”

  “No. We’re not going to be arrested. And he’s not going to press charges for our trespassing—for now at least. But he’s made it damn clear we’re not to go on his land. Ever again.” My heart was broken. Knowing it was Indians buried underground, I could stop obsessing over the frozen woman. But the woods was a part of me. I couldn’t imagine never being able to slip through to the other side of the grape leaves again. “We’ll go back. We just have to let this blow over,” Everett promised, sensing my dismay.

  “I don’t know what possessed you two to start digging out in those woods. But you’ve sure caused a lot of trouble for Mr. Peterson,” Mom scolded from the doorway. “You know he hates anyone stepping foot on his property. Yet you just had to provoke him. He’s an old man, you know. He was questioned by police. And now he has all this ruckus going on in his woods.”

  “But we thought he was a murderer,” I countered.

  “Well, you’re lucky he’s not. I can tell you that.” She took notice of the sleeping bag beside my bed that Everett used from time to time so he’d be near me when I woke. She began rolling it up. “I’m covering Gloria’s day shift tomorrow. I have to be up early, so I want you two in bed soon.” She held the sleeping bag tight under her arm while pointing at Everett. “No sleepovers tonight. Got it?”

  “Sure thing, Mom,” Everett replied in an extra syrupy voice.

  “I’ve caused so much trouble,” I moaned as soon as she was gone.

  “She’s pissed. But she’ll cool down in a couple days,” he assured. “She always does.”

  “I should’ve known those were Indians buried in the woods. I should’ve known Mr. Peterson didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Go easy on yourself. How could you have known? You can’t expect to decode everything in your dreams. I asked you to focus on finding the coins. And you found them, which proves you’re getting more accurate. And . . .” He leaned in close to make sure I was paying attention. “You’re also getting stronger. Those bodies you found, I didn’t ask you to look for them. But there they were, buried in the woods. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if those skeletons belonged to Indians or if they were people Mr. Peterson murdered. The important thing is you saw them in your dream, and they were there for real.”

  “I guess.”

  “And there’s something else. Do you remember those lightning bugs when we were kids?”

  It seemed like such a random thing for him to bring up at that moment. But I nodded, thinking back to Everett and me camping in the backyard. Just before bed, I watched a lone lightning bug flicker its yellowish-green glowing abdomen from across the lawn. As I dozed off, I allowed my mind to replay the blinking light. I focused on it floating its way through a dark night. And as I slipped into a dream, the lone twinkle multiplied into hundreds of flickering lights. I was lost in the calming twinkles when Everett shook me awake. He peeled back the flap of the tent, and I saw a cluster of the same glowing lights that were in my dream. The bugs hovered just outside the entrance of the tent, flashing like Christmas lights in July.

  “Well, I’ve been trying to find a way to go beyond dreams,” continued Everett. “And then yesterday and the day before, I’ve seen you go so far beyond.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those lightning bugs were nothing compared to those cats—and that deer.”

  “But those cats,” I protested, stunned, “they were probably just hunting mice in the field. And that deer—it was just an animal in the woods.”

  “What did you say you wanted to see when you had your eyes closed in the field?”

  “Cats.”

  “And what were you thinking just before you saw that deer?”

  I tried to remember my thoughts as I dug in the clearing, just before Phillip alerted me to the presence of the doe. “The forest. The animals,” I answered. Everett didn’t say another word, allowing me to fully absorb his point.

  9

  Monsters in the Corn

  It was a warm and windy night. We stood in the side yard boxed in by the enormous blue spruces along the side of the house and those that lined the edge of the property. Everett kept his arms folded as he gazed up to our parents’ bedroom window. My attention was instead drawn to the pines behind us, creating an ever-present roar as wind rushed between their needles. In the near darkness, with their limbs bowing and swaying, they resembled an ink drawing that had become animated.

  “Light’s finally out,” Everett reported, calling my attention back to the window. Before I knew it, he darted off into the darkness of the backyard. “C’mon!”

  Only the distant light atop Mr. Newberry’s pole barn allowed us to see faintly into the summer night. We rushed past the small garden. The tall sunflowers, densely packed sweet corn, and cherry tomato plants thrashed in the wind. The wind felt charged. Electric. As it flowed up and under my T-shirt, causing it to flap against my stomach and chest, it felt as though it were transferring its energy to me. My pupils grew to take in as much of the night as possible. Staring wide-eyed into the infinite darkness with an energy flowing through me that seemed impossible to deplete, I felt like an animal. I felt compelled to run and leap into the darkness all through the night.

  We ran side by side through the field and cut toward the corn. The tall stalks thrashed high over our heads. “What’re we doing out here?” I wondered.

  “Experimenting,” he replied. “Like in the field with the cats.”

  In my manic state, I offered myself up bravely without hesitation. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just stay close. And stay low,” he answered, hunching over as we slipped farther into the corn. “We’ve got to keep hidden.”

  “Hidden from who? Mom and Dad don’t even know we’re out here. And no way Mr. Newberry’s out here in the middle of the night.”

  “Not from who. From what,” he corrected. “We’re not hiding from Mom and Dad. Or Mr. Newberry. We’re hiding—from monsters.” A strong mix of fear—and curiously, excitement—rushed over me. But I was still profoundly confused. “The monsters from your bedroom walls,” he clarified.

  M
y heart leapt to my throat as my mind instantly brought forth the mesh of figures he spoke of. Thick horns protruding where ears should’ve been. Wide grins boasting elongated, sharp teeth. Skulls too stretched to be human, with hollow, unevenly sloped eyes. Unnaturally twisted and melted faces.

  These were the imprints etched into the cheap paneling in my room, at least what I saw when looking at the twists and knots of the faux wood. The awful pattern repeated itself throughout the room, multiplying the grotesque monsters thirty or so times. My bed was pushed against the wall. And during the day, when I felt safe, I’d use my finger to trace their shapes. But at night, I’d turn my back to them, praying they’d remain contained inside the two-dimensional pattern. When I was younger, I’d line up what I considered to be my most brave stuffed animals between myself and the wall. They were my soldiers, my protection were the monsters ever to reach for me in the night.

  “They’re real,” declared Everett, his voice low and serious. “And after all this time, they’re loose. They’ve finally escaped your walls. Didn’t you see them behind us as we ran? They were hot on our heels. They chased us from the house and through the yard. We’ve lost them for now. But they could be anywhere. The field. The woods. The cornfield. Do you hear that?” He appeared startled as stalks whipped behind us.

  I told myself that Everett was only pretending. That the stalks were only moving because of the wind. Regardless, I stuck close to him. And then I began to wonder. If I allowed myself to believe what Everett was saying was true, then based on their impressions on my wall, the monsters, in their true flesh and at their full statures, would no doubt be terrifying menaces. “Let’s go back to the house,” I pleaded in a whisper.

  He shook his head. “There’s no going back. I told you. They’re right behind us.”

  “But Mom and Dad are still at the house. What about them?”