Shadows 4

by Charles L. Grant (Ed. )

  "In a minute," she said. "I have to feed the cats."

  "Oh, sure. The cream was an aperitif. Which is the starter? Salmon or caviar?"

  She considered me, her eyes just like theirs. She wasn't laughing, either. She went out to the kitchen, and the cats trotted after her. They didn't screech this time, but I could imagine all that cream slopping loudly about in their multiplicity of guts.

  Alone, I sat and contemplated the Venus rocket and the huge new claw marks up the wood. It looked, on reflection, really too high for the cats to have reached, even balanced on tip-claw. Maybe one had teetered on another one's head.

  After a while, none of the cats, or Cathy, had come back.

  The tea was stone-cold, and I could hear the snow tapping on the windows, the house was so quiet, as if no one else but me was in it. Finally I got up, and walked softly, the way you tread in a museum, along to the kitchen door. There was no light anywhere, not in the passage, not in the dining area, or in the kitchen itself. And scarcely a sound. Then I heard a sound, a regular crunching, mumbling sound. It was the cats eating, there in the dark. I must have heard it a thousand times, but suddenly it had a unique syncopation. It was the noise of the jungle, and I was right in the midst of it. And the hair crawled over my scalp.

  I hit the light switch on a reflex, and then I saw.

  There on the floor, in a row, were the five cats. And Cathy.

  The cats were leaning forward over their paws, chomping steadily. Cathy lay on her stomach, the soles of her feet pressed hard against the freezer, supporting her upper torso on her elbows. Her hair had been draped back over one shoulder so it wouldn't get in the way as she licked up the single cream from the saucer.

  She continued this about a couple of seconds after the light came on, long enough for me to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. Then she raised her head like a snake, and licked her lips, and watched me with her glass-button eyes.

  I backed out of the kitchen. I went on backing out until I was halfway along the passage. Then I turned like a zombie and walked into the living room.

  Nothing was altered. Not even the big new runnels in the wood surround of the fire.

  I was sweating a dank cold sweat and breathing as fast as if I'd just gotten out of a lion's cage, which I hadn't yet. It was some kind of primitive reaction, because what I'd seen was really very funny, a joke. But I don't think I could have been more shaken if she'd come at me with a steak knife.

  I pondered my alternatives. I could make it out the door, and run. I needn't come back. She'd know why not. Or I could stay and try to figure her out, try to persuade her to tell me what the game was and why she was playing it, and how I could help stop her going insane.

  I was deliberating, when she came into the room. She looked straight at me and said:

  "I'm sorry you saw that."

  "Are you? Somehow I had the feeling I was meant to see. What's the idea?"

  "No idea. I like it. I like scratching the wood, too. Over the fire. See? You look nervous."

  "Must be because I am."

  She glided across the room, and slid her arms around my ribs.

  "You're nervous of me."

  "I'm terrified of you."

  She kissed my jaw, and each time she kissed, I felt the edges of her teeth. I could imagine what she'd be like if I made love to her now. Not that I wanted to make love to her.

  I wanted to leave her and run. That was all I wanted, but concern gets to be a habit, and I guess we all know about habits. Besides, you find a girl sitting with a bottle of pills and a razor blade, and you go out and shut the door? And then, in any case, I realized she was trembling. I'd thought it was just me.

  "Get your coat and your boots," I said.

  "It's snowing."

  "Excuses, excuses. Get your coat."

  "All right."

  Ten minutes later, we were on the street. The cold, silvery air seemed to blow through my head, and I started to ask myself where I was taking her. But Cathy didn't speak, just walked beside me like a good little girl doing what the adults tell her, though she doesn't understand.

  We rode the subway, and came back up out of the ground and walked to my place, to which I never take anyone unless I must, not even a rabbit. The King of Cups is where I live. Twenty-three Mason is where I occasionally eat, and less occasionally sleep, thrash a typewriter, and worry. And that's the way it looks. It's a couple of flights up, or chiropractical jerks if you use the elevator. In the snow-light, it was gray and chill and littered by reams of paper, magazines and dust. My world and no one else's, and I didn't want her here, and this was where I'd brought her. Why? Because part of me had subconsciously worked it out that this place had been built from my own individual ectoplasm, and I was going to use it to bawl her out and back to sanity, louder than any shout I could make with my throat.

  We got inside the door, and she glanced drearily around. We hadn't offered a word to each other since leaving the house.

  "Every luxury fitment," I now said. "Most of them not working."

  Cathy crossed to the window, and stood there in her coat with the snow dissolving on its shoulders. She looked at the yard two floors down, and the trash cans and broken bottles in their own cake frosting of snow. When she turned around, her face was gleaming, waves of tears running over it. She sprang to me suddenly and held onto me. I knew the grip. I knew I'd got her back. If I wanted her. Her hair seemed the only thing in the room which had color, and which shone.

  "I'm sorry," she muttered, "sorry, sorry."

  I felt tired and it all seemed faintly absurd. I stroked her hair, and knew that in the morning I was going to call Genevieve and ask her what the hell to do next.

  In the morning, about seven, I slunk out of bed, put some clothes on and went out, leaving Cathy asleep. The pay phone in the entry, as usual, was busted, so I walked down to the booth on the corner of Mason and Quale. The snow lay thin and moistly crisp as water ice, and the sky was painting itself in blue as high summer. It was an optimistic morning, full of promises of something. I got through to Genevieve, who hardly ever sleeps, and told her all of it, feeling a fool.

  "Oh boy," said Genevieve. And then: "Bring her over here to breakfast, why don't you? Maybe the dog'll chase her up a tree."

  "You think I'm on something and I imagined it."

  "No."

  "You think I should laugh it off, it doesn't matter."

  "It matters."

  "Well?"

  "Well. I think you're going as bats as she is. I don't know what I can do except feed you pancakes—little children like those, don't they?—but I know a guy who might help."

  Genevieve genuinely knows a remarkable number of guys who can help. Help you get to sing with the opera, help you find out who you were six hundred years ago in Medieval Europe, or help you find a cop who cares somebody mugged you and stole the fillings from your teeth.

  "A shrink."

  "Sort of. Wait and see."

  "It has to be gentle, Genevieve. Very, very gentle."

  "It will be. Bring her. I'll expect you by eight."

  Once you've passed the buck, you feel better. I felt better. I walked back through the snow, identifying the footprints in it like a kid: human, bird, dog. I knew I could leave all the delicate maneuvering to Genevieve, who is one of the best social surgeons there are. Sometime later I'd have to decide where I wanted to be in all of this, but I didn't have to do it right now.

  I got up to the second floor and let myself into the apartment, and Cathy was gone.

  The bed was empty, the bathroom, even the closet. I was working myself into a panicky rage when I saw her purse lying under the window. The window was just open, and the dust-drape of snow on the fire escape had neat dark cuts in it the shape of shoe soles. I climbed through onto it, and looked down and saw Cathy standing in the yard, with her back to me.

  I didn't react properly. I was just so relieved to find her. I leaned on the rail and shouted.

  "Hey, Cat
hy. We're going to Genevieve's for breakfast."

  She turned around, then, and her eyes came up to mine, but without a trace of recognition. And then I saw what it was she had in her mouth. It was a bleeding, fluttering, almost-but-not-quite-dead pigeon.

  Cathy had found her breakfast already.

  * * *

  The anthology was closed. I had already begun working on the stories, which would be delivered in four days to the publisher, when this came in from Steve Rasnic Tem. His second appearance, then, in the nick of time.

  * * *

  THE GIVEAWAY by Steve Rasnic Tem

  "If you don't cut that out something real bad's gonna happen to you!"

  Six-year-old Marsha dropped the second handful of mud she was about to smear on seven-year-old Alice Kennedy's party dress. "Like what?"

  Alice made a thinking face for a little while. "Well . . . I might tell your daddy about it and he just might give you away!"

  "Uh-uh," Marsha grunted. She proceeded to gather another handful of mud. Some of it spattered onto her shoes and she had to twist each foot just so to wipe them in the grass. It was hard to do that and still hold onto the slippery mud. Then she walked carefully over to where Alice was sitting making mud pies and raised both hands.

  "Stop it, Marsha! I told you what I'd do! I'll tell and he'll just give you away!"

  Marsha didn't understand why Alice didn't want her to smear mud on the dress anyway; it was nice and cool and besides, Alice's dress was already muddy from making mud pies all afternoon. But she was even more confused about this giveaway stuff. She'd never heard of that before.

  "What do you mean, give me away?"

  "I'll tell him you've been real bad to me, Marsha, and he'll give you away to some other family, or even worse!"

  Marsha just looked at her in confusion. "Moms and dads don't give their kids away," she said seriously.

  Alice looked up from her mud pie and smiled. "That's what your daddy did with your brother Billy."

  "That's not true, Alice Kennedy; Billy died and went to heaven!"

  "How do you know? Did you see him go?"

  "Well, no. But Daddy told me he did."

  "They have to say that, stupid! They don't want you crying and making trouble."

  "Don't call me stupid!" Marsha watched her shoes squishing into the mud. "Why did they give Billy away?" she asked softly.

  "I heard your daddy tell my daddy that Billy was too small and that he'd never be very big, ever. He sounded real sad about that. So I guess he just gave him away so he can get a bigger boy later on."

  Marsha nodded her head solemnly.

  "Know who else got given away?"

  "Who?"

  "Johnny Parker."

  "I 'member him! He was like a grownup 'cept he had something funny wrong with his head made him want to play with kids all the time. But he went to a special school! My aunt said so and she's a teacher!"

  "Well, he was gonna go to one of them schools, but they gave him away instead. Know who else?"

  "Uh-uh."

  "Shelly Cox. She kept breaking things and being mad and real mean and one night her daddy had them take her away."

  "Who's them?"

  Alice looked back over her shoulder at the backyard of her house. "I don't know for sure. Guess who else?"

  "Who?"

  "You, Marsha, 'cause you got my party dress all muddy and my daddy's probably gonna want to give me away so I'm gonna have to tell on you."

  "Tattletale!" Marsha cried, tears streaming down her face.

  "Crybaby!" Alice yelled, running toward her house.

  Marsha threw a handful of mud after Alice in frustration. "Uh-uh," she grunted as she began the long walk home.

  There were loud voices coming from the kitchen when Marsha got home. She could hear her mother crying, her father shouting. He sounded real mad. Marsha hated it when they had a fight. She sat down in a chair in the living room, picked up one of her books, and pretended to read. But she could only pretend because they were too loud.

  "Can't you do anything so simple as enter a check properly, Jennie? I bet Marsha could do that and she's only six years old!"

  "I'm sorry, Ted. I just forgot! Will you leave me alone!"

  "If I let you alone we'd be broke within the month! Last week you took out the grocery money twice and caused six checks to bounce! And you say you don't know what happened to the money! You're driving me crazy, Jennie! I can't take it! I tell you I can't take it anymore!"

  "I've tried to be a good wife to you . . ." Her mom started to cry and cough, and Marsha couldn't tell what she said anymore. She wanted to go in and see her mom, but she was too afraid. Her daddy was shouting louder than ever now.

  "You haven't been a wife to me, Jennie, since Billy's been gone!"

  Her mom was crying louder than before. Marsha could hardly understand her. "The doctor says . . . you know the doctor said I can't have any more!"

  "You're lying, Jennie; you're lying through your teeth. I know that quack's nurse! You've been lying to me, lying all the time. You just don't want to, Jennie. You just don't want to!"

  Marsha went upstairs until dinner. She thought her daddy noticed the dried mud on her shoes when she got up from the table, but he didn't say anything.

  Marsha woke up with it still dark outside. Something told her she should go to the window. She was afraid, because it was real dark out there, but she thought she should probably go. She tiptoed as softly as she could, afraid she might wake up her dad.

  A funny-looking car was parked out in front of the house. It was long and black, the longest and blackest car she had ever seen. And there was a long silver thing, jagged like lightning, that went from one end of the car to the other. This lightning was brighter than the streetlights and hurt her eyes.

  The car windows were gray. They looked dirty. She couldn't see through them at all.

  Marsha didn't want to see the big black car anymore, but she was more afraid not to see it. She didn't know why she was more afraid of not seeing it, but she was.

  Marsha tiptoed down the stairs in her pajamas, scared to death that her father would catch her and maybe give her away like he had Billy. She went into the dark living room. The front door was wide open; she could see the long black car by standing in front of the open door.

  She stepped carefully onto the front sidewalk and started walking to the car. She tried to be as quiet as a mouse like her aunt had told her once. She was scared of the car, but she had to keep walking toward it. She couldn't understand that at all.

  When she got to the side of the car she held her hands up to her eyes and leaned against the window, trying to see what was inside. But it was too gray, too dirty, too dark. She started to walk around the front of the car and to the other side to look in the windows there, when the tall man stepped in front of her.

  He was tall with black shadows all over him and he had a big white bow tie and a big white flower on his chest, but she couldn't see his coat, he was so black, so she didn't know how the flower stayed on.

  The tall man bent over. He had no face, just a head full of white fog, like his face hadn't made itself yet.

  Marsha began to cry in a soft voice, scared to death she'd wake up her daddy and he'd give her away for spoiling his sleep. But she couldn't help crying, and it kept getting louder and louder until she was sure he'd wake up and want to give her away. Her pajamas felt suddenly wet and warm and she knew she'd wet herself and he'd want to give her away for that too.

  She turned around to run back into the house.

  Two men with no faces were standing there, carrying a long thing between them. Marsha was so surprised she stopped crying.

  For some reason she wasn't so afraid now, so she walked up to the long thing they were carrying to see what it was.

  Her mommy was tied to the thing and she was looking up with her eyes all funny and her mouth open and oh she knew her mommy was dead oh dead dead dead!

  She ran screaming into t
he house and they grabbed her and she was screaming and they put something into her mouth—

  Only "they" was her daddy. He was sitting with her on the sofa now, looking all serious like when she'd done something real bad.

  "You saw the car?"

  She nodded her head tearfully.

  "Your mommy went away in the car?"

  "Ye-es," her voice broke and she cried a little.

  "Okay, I want you to listen, Marsha." He held her chin up and made her look into his eyes. "Your mommy didn't do things right, Marsha; she wasn't good enough. So you know what happened?"

  Marsha nodded her head solemnly.

  "I had to give your mommy away. That's what happens to people who mess up, Marsha. You've got to do your best, do your best for me, all the time."

  Again she nodded her head, but then her father was gone, as quickly as he had arrived, and she was all alone on the couch in the darkened living room. She looked out the window but there was nothing there. She knew everything was all over, then.

  Marsha sleepily climbed off the sofa and stumbled around trying to find a light switch. She couldn't find one so she had to make her way to the kitchen in the dark. She would have cried then, but she really didn't feel like crying anymore.

  The kitchen light switch was too high, so she had to work in the dark. It was hard to find the pans or the turner in the dark, but she finally did. At least the refrigerator light let her see the eggs, and she kept the door open afterward so she could see better.

  She knew she'd better start her daddy's breakfast now if she was to get it finished on time. The stove and counters were real high for her, so it would take a long time for her to use them.

  Daddy liked big breakfasts, and more than anything else in the whole wide world, she wanted to please her daddy.

  * * *

  It happens. A favorite author (in this case, Lisa Tuttle) and I exchange letters, manuscripts, and not a few mutterings over the years, yet have not been able to connect. Until now. Lisa spends most of her time working in science fiction, but ever since I read a story of hers entitled "Dollburger," I knew sf was not her only strength. A matter of waiting, then, and a matter of . . .