He reached up and gave the cat one long stroke, which was how you turned on the purr. Before Maggie brought him the Orange Boys three years ago, he’d never been a sound sleeper, but it wasn’t long before he discovered that contented purring was the best tranquilizer ever invented. Even when the Boys were kittens, the little purrs affected him. The huge deep adult purrs worked like anesthetic.
But not tonight. Will lay sleepless, staring into empty darkness above him. Curtains shivered in the breeze from the windows, casting watery gray moonlight across the foot of the bed. Freud dropped into sleep three times as Will waited for his own sleep. The first two times, he stroked the cat to start the purr. The third, he didn’t bother. Instead, he tried to concentrate on the low, constant sound of the ocean, on the cries of nightbirds wheeling in the sky.
He almost turned the radio back on, but a little Coastal Eddie went a long way and nothing else came in well at night on the cheap little radio. Then he considered the television. He hadn’t even checked out the new stations he was supposed to have; all he’d watched was the local news the night before. Might as well try it. Tentatively, he reached for the nightstand and felt around for the remote control, but when he finally found it, he managed to knock it to the floor. Briefly, he considered retrieving it, but moving that much would take him even farther from sleep. Ditto, reading. He hadn’t brought anything to bed and getting up would be counterproductive. With a sigh, he withdrew his hand and used it to pet Freud into a new bout of purring.
Still, his mind refused to shut down.
It was because of the walk. Because of Maggie. Because of the anniversary of Michael’s death. He and Maggie had walked all the way down to the Crescent and sat on a large flat rock, their feet hanging down. If the tide had been in, the waves would have lapped almost up to their knees, but as it was, the water never even touched their feet.
The night of Michael’s funeral, they’d gone there too. That was the thing. It was a place they’d often visited over the years, but never on the anniversary. Brief anger welled at Maggie for leading him there tonight, but he could have steered her in another direction. Hell, maybe he even helped set the direction; he couldn’t be sure.
You really have to get over this. Everybody else has. Pete probably didn’t even know it was the anniversary of Michael’s death. Not that he had ever cared anyway. Michael had been the oldest, tall and handsome, with great grades, a golden boy. He played varsity football and baseball and girls adored him. When he died, he was about to enter his senior year, Pete his sophomore year, and Will was still just a kid. As such, he idolized Michael, but Pete lived in the older boy’s shadow in every way. He had the same broad shoulders, but was short, so they just made him look wide and squat even though he wasn’t overweight. His hair was dishwater blond, not golden like Michael’s, his eyes were muddier, his grades lower. He couldn’t make the football team, but didn’t do too bad at wrestling. Because he spent all his spare time practicing on me.
Pete’s jealousy burned hot and obvious, and he turned his rage on Will whenever he could. When he got caught in the act, especially if it was by Michael himself, he just beat Will harder the next time. Will had tried telling on him a couple times, but true to his promise, Pete exacted harsh revenge, so Will learned to keep quiet. Their parents refused to believe that Pete was as abusive as Will claimed—he knew where to hit for maximum effect and minimum bruising—so he gave up and tried not to attract Pete’s attention.
They knew Pete was mean. They knew he was a bully. Why were they so blind? An old question with a simple answer. They were parents: They didn’t want to see. They thought it was all the usual childhood rough and tumble. Kids will be kids, the way of the world. All that crap. And to some extent it was true. Back then, Will suspected Pete was rougher than the typical older brother. Now he was sure. If he’d known then, would it have mattered? Probably not.
But everything has a silver lining. Will understood his abused patients a little better than many therapists. He understood why battered wives took beatings over and over, and because of that, he was better able to help them see their way out of abusive relationships. At least, if they actually wanted out. Many didn’t. They thought, on some level, they deserved the beatings.
Will had never felt that way. Even when he was little, he knew why Pete picked on him. He knew he was a substitute for Michael, whom Pete despised. He’d been right, too. After Michael died, Pete was marginally nicer to him, though by then fear of Pete was so ingrained that he never trusted him, and although the beatings and teasing subsided greatly, his fear grew. Will wasn’t sure why; memories about that time were muddled, and his best guess was that his father’s subsequent death increased his fear of Pete, who became the man of the house, at least in his own eyes. (Mom was always in charge, but she was as blind as ever.)
Will had nightmares about Pete’s eyes staring at him. Glaring, enraged, accusing. His own brother was his boogeyman long after such fears should have been put away. Maybe that was why ghost stories had never scared him. The real thing was so much worse.
Will skipped a grade and he and Pete were in high school together a short time. Pete pretended he didn’t exist, which was exactly what Will had hoped for. Pete entered junior college when Will was in tenth grade, and a year later, joined the Navy, which was the second-best thing that could ever happen. The best would have been his falling off a cliff, but you couldn’t have everything.
Although Will made it his business not to know anything about Pete’s doings after that, a few things got through, either via Mom or Pete himself on a rare holiday visit. He became an electronics tech, was eventually promoted to a first-class petty officer. (Will, always a civilian, found the term “petty officer” highly amusing and he and Mags had spent hours thinking up special jobs just for officers who were especially petty.) Finally, Pete became a chief and claimed he ran the whole shebang up at Fort Charles, where he may have spent most of his time. His stories varied. On the rare occasions he decided to visit, his importance and job assignment grew more interesting with every beer he drank. Inevitably, with a twinkle in his eye, he’d end his tales with “If I tell you more, I have to kill you.” Mom and most anybody else listening would laugh at this, but Will never detected a trace of real humor in Pete, even then, when his formerly surly brother’s newly born pleasant personality had taken center stage. Evidently, the Navy taught him more than how to clean a gun. But then, he already knew how to do that.
Freud stretched, one paw reaching all the way up to Will’s forehead, as if telling him to stop thinking. The cat’s motor started up on its own, rumbling soothingly. This time, it worked. Will slid into fitful sleep, haunted by the old dreams about Pete’s eyes.
4:17 A.M. Will glanced at the glowing clock on the radio as he sat up, not knowing what had disturbed his sleep, but knowing something had. Only one cat was on the bed with him. Rorschach, by the position. Will could see nothing, but touch told him that the feline was sitting up, facing the door, and that his muscles were tensed.
Will heard something, but it wasn’t in the room. Maybe out near the foyer. The front door? It was a soft sound, and the muted squawk of a bird followed. Rorschach sprung off the bed and left the room to join the investigation. There was another small shriek, followed by a noise similar to the first one. No. It can’t be.
Will reached under the bed and grabbed his old baseball bat, just in case, then rose and walked softly down the hall. He found the triplets sitting in the dimly lit foyer staring intently at the front door. Rorschach glanced his way and trilled. Freud, tail plumed straight up with avid interest, sniffed the doorjamb. These were not frightened animals. Will rested the bat against the wall and turned on the porch light before peering out the peephole. Nothing. “So what’s up, guys?” he murmured as he unlocked the heavy wooden door. The cats crowded him, curiosity boundless, Rorschach trilling, the other two meowing in the tone they usually reserved for raw steak. He blocked them with his legs, muttering, �
�Knock it off.” Finally, he pulled the door open and peered out through the ornate semi-security screen door. The first thing he saw was at eye-level. It looked like a thorn poking through one of the heavy gauge wire holes. He pushed on it and it dropped, his gaze following. It wasn’t a thorn, but a beak. Yep, again. On his doormat lay a small pile of birds. Not crows, smaller creatures, more gray and white than black. Mockingbirds, maybe. His mother used to call them catbirds, but he didn’t know why. Some appeared dead, most of them wounded, and a couple were sitting up, looking dazed. Stunned.
The cats went nuts, proving that humans weren’t the only ones who possessed a version of Jung’s universal unconsciousness. They knew exactly what they were looking at and they wanted them. Will wondered what these cats, who’d never hunted their own food, would do with birds. Probably not eat them. His own curiosity roused, but then he flashed on what the Orange Boys did with the little rabbit-fur mice he bought for them and instantly decided all the growling and tossing and batting wouldn’t be nearly as cute with a living creature as it was with toys.
Ah, isn’t that sweet? He remembered the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Locke, cooing those words as her big gray tabby, Bruiser, batted around a hapless gopher he’d caught. Will had watched, fascinated, while Bruiser tormented the creature for a good twenty minutes before administering a death bite and trotting off with the dead thing, maybe to eat, probably to show off his hunting prowess to Mrs. Locke or maybe some other cat. Back then, he’d been too young to understand what the cat was putting the rodent through, no matter how well-deserved the torment, but now he did understand. He looked at his own fluffy little killing machines. “Sorry, guys, you’re civilized.”
He continued to watch the birds. One flew away successfully after several false starts. Meanwhile, another sat up and more birds began moving. The screen had evidently been far less deadly to the mockingbirds than the glass to the crows. After a few more birds took off, Will decided to let nature take its twisted course and used his foot to push all the cats out of the doorway long enough to close the main door before he turned off the porch light. “I’m going back to bed,” he told them. “What about you guys?”
They didn’t even look at him. All three had already moved in and flattened themselves against the marble tile and were trying to see beneath the door, very much like they did when an auto race was on TV and they tried to figure out how to get at those little cars.
12
“Hey, baby brother.”
I knew I should’ve let the machine pick up. “Hello, Pete. What’s up?” Will hit save on the computer then stared out the window. As usual, the Crescent was spectacular. Out to sea, whitecaps rode the choppy waves.
“Business is what’s up, bro.” A patented hearty chuckle followed. “I just wondered how the new cable’s working? Like it? Have you checked out those adult stations I tossed in?”
Oh good, porn from my brother. What’ll he give me next? Electronic VD? “I haven’t had time to watch anything yet,” he said in the friendliest tone he could muster.
“So you don’t know if it’s hooked up correctly?”
“The local news came in fine.”
“Good. The hook-up’s probably correct, then. Give me a call if it isn’t.”
“Will do. I’ll talk to you later—”
“Hang on there, pardner. You sure don’t like talking on the phone, do you?”
“I’m just busy.”
“Maybe I should make an appointment so we can talk for an hour sometime.”
“Fifty minutes,” Will said dryly. “I’m booked a month in advance.”
“Willy boy, you have no sense of humor,” said the man who didn’t realize Will had just made a joke. “Sounds like business is booming.”
“It’s busy.”
“Busier than usual?”
“Why?”
“Just wondered. I’ve heard people get crazier when it’s hot out.”
“Tempers are shortened,” Will replied. “But my patients all live on the coast. Even when it’s hot, we still have the ocean breeze.”
“Then why are you so busy?”
“I don’t know.” Will hid his irritation. “Sunspots?”
“Hey, is that a joke?”
“I don’t know. It might be.”
“Sunspots, solar flares, all that stuff, can affect satellite transmissions. Why not people?”
“Why not?” Will paused, an idea coming to him. “Is there a lot of activity right now?”
“Seriously?” Pete sounded astounded that Will would ask him a real question. With good reason; Will was amazed he had, but maybe something like that could explain the deviant bird behavior, so it was worth asking. “You want to know about solar storms and so forth?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. Things are pretty active right now. Magnetic storms produce solar flares. Those can interfere with radio waves. We’ll be running warnings about digital breakup during especially high activity.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Digital images will briefly break up, sort of pixilate, sometimes. It’s not a big deal; in fact, it’s a lot less annoying than traditional interference. But that’s not what you’re asking about. You’re asking about people acting crazy and sunspots, right?”
“Well, no, not seriously.”
“Don’t people get nuttier during a full moon?” Pete persisted. “That’s a fact, right? It’s the same kind of thing.”
Why did I get myself into this conversation? “That’s supposed to be an old wives’ tale. It’s perpetuated because people expect it to happen. An especially bad accident that happens during the full moon is going to be remembered for that reason. Odds are that there are just as many accidents on other nights.” Though he wasn’t about to tell Pete, Will wasn’t all that sure there was nothing to those old tales.
“Oh. Do you get crazier patients when the moon is full?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
“What about that cat of yours? Does it get the full-moon crazies?”
“My cat? How did you know I have a cat?”
The chuckle. “Well to hear poor old Mickey Elfbones tell it, it was more of a mountain lion. It about scared the piss out of him.”
“Mickey’s a big phobic, then. My cat is normal and harmless. Even during a full moon.”
More chuckling. “Don’t go on the defense, Willy. Will, sorry. I know Mickey’s scared of cats. He’s afraid of dogs, too. In fact, he’s damn near terrified of anything that has fur and walks on four legs. Doesn’t mind reptiles, though. Isn’t that weird? He has a horned toad for a pet.”
“It’s unusual, but not unheard of. He must’ve had a bad experience with something furry and generalized the fear.”
“You’re smart, baby brother. Do you remember Shagrat and Gorbag?”
“The names are familiar. Names from a book.”
“Well, yeah, the names were from Tolkien’s Ring books, but what I’m talking about were a pair of bull mastiffs that belonged to Mickey’s dad. Big ugly bastards. Remember now?”
A scarecrow man with red hair throwing a ball down the beach. Will saw him suddenly in his mind’s eye as if it happened yesterday. It was low tide and he and Maggie had just walked around an outcropping that would flood later. They came right up behind the man, who had just thrown a ball. Giant pale dogs chased after it, but sensing the kids, suddenly turned and started back toward their master—and them—snarling and barking, drool flying. The man glanced back and told them to leave unless they wanted to be eaten. Will and Maggie ran like hell and the dogs didn’t follow. That had to be Mickey’s father. “I vaguely remember,” he told Pete.
“Daddy Elfbones trained the dogs to knock people down and hold them. He used to sic them on Mickey.”
“That’s unforgivable.”
The old Pete emerged in unabashed laughter. “It was hysterical. Poor old Mickey never got over it. The old man had those dogs guard his room so he couldn’t come out when
he was supposed to be doing homework. Those dogs were always up his ass.”
“You think that’s funny?” Will said it before he could stop himself. Engaging Pete any further was not what he wanted to do.
“Of course it’s funny. It’s hilarious.” A pause. “You’re just too sensitive. You always were. I mean, that’s what makes you a good shrink, right?”
Will didn’t reply.
“Sorry, bro. Didn’t mean to step on any toes. But you know what’s really weird about Mickey? He’s scared of birds, too. Why would he be scared of birds?”
“I don’t know,” Will said slowly. “Maybe he was attacked.”
“By birds?” Pete sounded incredulous. “Birds don’t attack except in the movies.”
“They sometimes swoop people to protect their nests. They can get pretty aggressive under the right circumstances. Or he might have been walking through a flock of gulls milling around on the beach when they decided to take flight. That’s not aggressive, but it can feel that way, especially to a kid.”
“Have you ever seen birds go crazy, Will?”
“I remember watching The Birds on TV then feeling a little nervous walking among the gulls.”
“So you’ve never actually seen them attack?”
What is he doing? Does he know about the crows? Or last night? How could he? “I’ve been swooped by a mockingbird a few times. It had a nest in the yard at my other house.”
“Did it scare you?”
“It surprised me. It didn’t frighten me. Why?”
“You just really sounded like you knew what you were talking about.”
“I’m a shrink,” Will said, dry as dust. “I’ve heard firsthand accounts of attacks on patients by all sorts of creatures.”
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