The chest pressure eases off quickly. It is only an early indicator. It can mean minutes, hours or days. Minutes and days are rare. Normally it will happen within two to twenty-four hours, and there is nothing I can ever do about it. I never know exactly what it is, from where it will come or who it will strike. It is the most helpless feeling one can ever have.
I step closer to the patio door to better identify who I’m seeing. Becky turns her head toward me. I cannot see her expression. What is she feeling? Prior to her confiding in me that she had the same forecasting ability, there was only one other person I had ever known who could do it as well. That person is also inside, and I can still feel the impression of her on my soul. What is she feeling as she stands before her society of sabre-toothed cat protectors? Is she also recognizing the signs of an approaching death?
I don’t like this at all, this feeling. I also don’t like being out here, not hearing what they’re saying, what they’re planning. I try to tap into my other talent of reading people, but there is nothing. I’m too far away and there’s a physical barrier between us, and my pride won’t allow me to go back in.
Walk. That’s what I need to do. Go for a walk. It’s better than standing here fretting. I step off the deck and explore the yard; a combination of human tamed grass, trees, bushes and flowering plants, all surrounded by a border of wild. I walk toward the sound of rippling water and come upon a creek. It is sprinkled with conveniently placed rocks. I ease down the bank and gingerly step across. From there it’s a forty-foot walk up a rise where I peer over the top. The path cuts straight across a small meadow of purple, white and yellow flowers, and then disappears into the trees. I walk into the meadow, and the bubbling of the creek recedes. From the meadow, I am drawn into the trees, where I stop and listen. Other than my own heavy breathing, silence prevails. I’m surprised at how quickly I have become winded. Is it because of the thin air at the higher elevation? I continue along the climbing path.
I break from the trees and meander through a group of large boulders at the base of a rocky, boulder strewn slope. Across the top of the trees is the house. There are tiny people stepping out onto the deck. Have I walked that far? How long have I been gone? I start back down and then am startled by a noise.
My head jerks up toward it. There is nothing but rocks and a couple of bushes with yellow and green leaves. My heart pounds rapidly against my chest. When I can’t hold my breath any longer I start down again. I glance back as I round the boulders, and then bring my attention forward as I start into the shade and darkness of the trees.
Another noise.
I jerk around. Several fist size stones bounce to a stop right where I just was. A ribbon of fear runs down my back, and then into my rubbery legs. I start sidestepping down the path. I keep a watch on the rocks and boulders until they are no longer in sight, then give my full attention to my quick decent through the trees. The sudden darkness under the thick canopy of leaves causes more shivers up and down my spine. I have to keep moving, and I have to keep looking in all directions. Smilodon will only attack from the rear, so the idea is to present my posterior in any one direction for only a few seconds at a time. I keep turning and half running forward and backwards. A movement to my right; I look; there is nothing. I keep going down through the forest, forwards . . . backwards . . . sideways . . . another noise. This time I see it. It glares at me and chatters its little squirrel chatter. “Get out of my forest,” I’m sure it is saying, “before I sick the big cat on you.”
I spin to second noise; a second squirrel scampers down a tree branch. They are ganging up on me. One grabs my attention while the other intends on attacking from the rear. They’ll rip my throat out and drag me into their nest or wherever it is that they live, to store me away for the winter. I’m well aware of the stupidity of my thoughts, but rush away from the furry forest rodents anyway, down the path, turning every few seconds to present my back in different directions.
I break into the meadow. I expect a hungry herd, den, flock, swarm, drove—whatever it is one calls a whole lot of sabre-toothed cats—impatiently pacing about in the flowers and grasses—awaiting my arrival. There are only buzzing bees. My mind has become twisted. I push on, spinning suddenly every few steps. There is something on the edge of the meadow, against the trees, hiding low to the ground below the grass and purple blooms. Only its back shows, and its tail. Is this the one I’m supposed to see, or is this the one that will suddenly jump on my back and run it’s sabres through my neck, probably bite my head completely off?
Be aggressive. There’s no point in playing dead when you’re about to die. I spread my arms, yell and growl, and race toward the cat that thinks it is well hidden. I’m sure my human face will back him down. I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see one closing down upon me, but there is nothing. I whip my head forward and stop. The sabre-toothed cat I am fool heartedly running at is the remains of a long-ago fallen tree with a branch snaking off like a tail.
I laugh and then turn and drop to a crouch in the grass and flowers. My heart is slamming against my chest wall. I wait and watch until it slows, and until the common sense side of me regains control. I stand up and embarrassingly look around. I’m glad there are no witnesses.
I retreat to the path and then casually walk over the rise and down to the creek. When I arrive at the creek I stop and look back. There are no cat faces glaring down at me. You’re still being stupid, Zach. I turn around, step on a slippery rock, and land flat on my back in the creek. The shock of the cold mountain water drives the remaining fear out of me. I don’t move. There is a pain growing in the vicinity of my left buttock, the point of me which struck the rock with my full weight as the rest of me flopped into the water.
“Are you all right?” Aileen is standing on the high bank. I can see nothing beyond her except blue sky until a few seconds later when Becky appears by her side.
“What are you doing, Dad?”
I grin up at them. “Isn’t this the pool?”
“You’re embarrassing me.” Becky walks away.
Aileen steps down to the water’s edge and presents her hand.
“Give me a second,” I say. “There’s some pain.”
“Is something broken?”
“Just my pride, I hope.” I roll to my side and push to my hands and knees. The cold water is already numbing parts of me. “I’ll be okay. Just a bruise.” By the time I get to my feet I have a crowd. Aileen is still at the water’s edge. She presents her hand again and this time I take it, although I don’t need it. In some way by touching her, I’m confirming that she is real. I am a writer and sometimes my imagination can get carried away, turn fiction into fact.
Her touch sparks a memory; uncomfortably erotic. I push that memory away. This is for sure Aileen Bravelli. The crowd shakes their heads as one and goes back to the house. Aileen lets loose of me and we climb up the bank.
“Thank you.” I pull wet hair back out of my eyes.
“You’re welcome.” We walk across the yard toward the deck where everybody has clustered, but I don’t see Becky. “You have a very nice daughter.”
“Generally, yes. She can be a handful at times.” My shoes make a squish, squish sound as I walk. “What did she tell you?” We stop in the middle of the yard where I’m appreciating the hot sun.
“Not much. We communicated a bit on the Internet, as I do with a lot of people who are interested in the sabre-toothed cat. She never said you were her father, never gave her last name. Nobody does in chat rooms. She was Butterfly Reba. Any idea how she picked her name?”
“She’s a competitive swimmer. She’s best at the breaststroke, but she is beautiful in the butterfly. A couple of years ago the coach tried to hang Butterfly Reba on her. She didn’t like it, so it didn’t take.”
“I was wondering where she got the huge shoulder and upper back muscles. Things are starting to make sense. I remember now you saying she had changed her name to Reba, but since her written communi
cations had a very adult quality to it I never put you two together, not even when I saw her, despite the fact that she has your features. She was so mature looking that when she showed up I thought she was a college student on summer break.”
“Did you invite her here?”
She shakes her head. “Not exactly. I was intrigued enough about her knowledge of Smilodon that I think I said something like, ‘If you’re ever in the area, look me up.’ I really didn’t expect her.”
“She talks as though you and her are old friends. She admires you and wants to be a paleontologist.”
“I’m not a paleontologist,” she corrects.
“You used to be, and you still have the knowledge. In her mind you’re as good as.”
“Aileen was. I am no longer Aileen.” She puffs up her cheeks and then blows out. “I’ll send Reba home. Considering who she is, it’d be the wise choice.”
“Especially before her mother finds out you’re alive.”
“She doesn’t have to know. I’m Samantha Sikorski. I don’t allow photos to be taken of me. It would do no one any good to reveal who I was.” Her tone turns hard, “Unless your reporter mentality decides there’s a profit in it.”
“You don’t have to get angry with me. I haven’t said I’d uncover you.”
She softens. “I’ll thank you in advance for not.”
“How did you get out alive? Tanya saw them carry you away.”
“A story for another time,” she says. “I’ll get you a towel.
We start toward the house. Becky is standing at the deck rail looking down at us. “One other thing.” I touch her arm and she stops and looks at me. “She has my talents.”
It takes a few seconds for the meaning to sink in. “Which ones?”
“All of them. And she’s stronger.”
“Damn!”
“And you’re still a real easy read.”
She continues on. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
“Oh oh!” I say.
“What now?” She lifts her eyes to look up at Becky, who is lowering a small camera away from her face. Aileen turns around. “Damn it!”
“Too late. I don’t know what you’re worried about. She’ll probably only show it to her mother, and then I’m the one who who’ll be dead.”
“If Tanya sees it, you might be dead in the figurative sense. If the wrong people see my face, I’m dead in the real sense.”
“How . . ?” I shut my mouth.
“Obviously I don’t have to tell you. From the look on your face you’re reading the inside of me and getting the entire picture.”
“I’m getting some.”
“Damn it to hell! I’ve worked hard to make what I am, who I am. I don’t need a couple of mind readers with cameras to come along and destroy it all, and get me killed.”
She leaves me dripping on her lawn. I watch her until she stops and says something to Becky whose face shifts from pleasantly neutral to shock. She consciously resets her face back to neutral and drops her head. Aileen must have told her she wasn’t wanted anymore, and to erase the photo. Having made that point, Aileen turns around and proceeds to talk to Patrick. Suddenly Becky’s head snaps up; her eyes go to the back of Aileen’s head and her mouth drops open. Then, without changing her expression, she turns her head toward me. A chill runs down my spine. She steps back a step, then another. She closes her mouth and walks into the house.
Becky now knows that her friend Sam and I already know each other, and from the look on her face, she knows how. My mind is rapidly working on damage control. I start for the house and am suddenly stopped by the returning tightness in my chest, my sign of looming human disaster. I slowly turn and scan the far reaches of Aileen’s property. I don’t know if the approaching death will be at the pleasure of a couple of sabre-toothed cats, or a tree falling on someone during an earthquake. I only know that a human crisis is approaching and when it happens I’ll either be a witness, or very close by.
I can’t stop it and I can’t escape it.
Chapter 17
The sliding door is open but I don’t want to leave my muddy foot prints on her carpet. I see Brian and catch his eye. He comes over. “Whenever you’re ready to go,” I say.
“About fifteen minutes. Give you a chance to dry a little before you sit in my truck.” He doesn’t sound very happy with me.
I find a quiet corner of the deck where I can lean on the railing and let the sun bake my backside. After a few minutes Aileen steps up next to me and hands me a towel.
“Thanks,” I say. By now it’s a bit late, but I take it and dab at what little can still be soaked up. “I’ve got to go with Brian to get my rental that I left at his place. I still need to talk with Becky so I’ll be coming back here.”
She crosses her arms and leans against the railing. “I wish you’d take her with you and not come back.”
“You’re not going to make hostess of the year with that kind of talk.”
“Ask me if I give a damn.”
I drape the towel over my shoulders. “She may leave on her own anyway. She knows.”
“She knows what?”
“About us.”
“There is no us.”
“There was eight years ago.”
She only stares at me.
“I said she’s better than me. I think she’s a lot better than me. When you stopped to talk to her a while ago, after pulling me out of the creek, I watched her. When you turned around to talk to Patrick it was like a movie running in her mind, projected from the back of your head. I don’t know what all she figured out but the look on her face made me want to crawl into a hole.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re so easy to read, it’s scary, and with her mental strength, she can probably reach in and take it, unlike me who has to wait for it to come out of its own accord.”
“Damn it to hell! She’s dangerous! She’s got to go.” She starts to turn away—to search the house for my daughter, I imagine, and throw her out on her psychic ear. “On second thought, maybe she shouldn’t go.” She lets her body rest against the rail again. “She can’t go without the two of us first having an adult, one-on-one conversation.”
“Or the three of us,” I add.
She turns on me. “Listen Zach; what your daughter thinks of you for what happened eight years ago is no concern of mine. But I’ve buried who I was back then and I don’t want some kid digging it all back up and putting me and what I’ve created here at risk. There are people, and I think you know who those people are, who would be very interested to know I’m still alive.”
“Where are they?” I ask.
“I don’t know and don’t want to know. If they . . . he finds I’m alive I’ll either become dead for real or his slave again. Right now Aileen Bravelli is long gone and she has to stay that way.” She presses a fingernail against my chest. “No matter what I have to do!” Her eyes flare with an evil intenseness. “So you’d better hope Reba hasn’t picked a name out of her mindreading.”
“What do you mean by that?” I push myself upright and she backs off a step. “No matter what you have to do?” I feel my protective instincts rising. “What does that mean?”
Her jaws tighten and loosen. “Just get her out of here before it comes to that. I don’t know what I’d do and to be truthful with you, that scares me a hell of a lot more.” Her body tension eases a bit. “I’ll go find her and convince her that she has to leave, and that she has to keep her mouth shut, then please get her out of here.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know. The problem, I think, is that she only has pieces, and probably all the wrong pieces.”
“Maybe tell her the truth,” I say. “She’s a sensible kid. She’ll do the right thing.”
“If she was sensible, she wouldn’t be here.”
“She’s just looking for adventure. It goes with the age. What did you do when you were that age?”
“I didn’t dri
ve 2000 miles by myself to go looking for a wild and dangerous animal.”
“Maybe not, but would you have, given the same circumstances?”
The corners of her mouth turn up slightly. “Damn right I would have! And my dad would have found me, whipped my ass and dragged me home to stand before the maternal tribunal.”
“So, I ask again; what are you going to say to her?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll figure something out. In any case, you both have to go back to Texas and forget who I am.”
She starts to walk away and I say, “One more thing.” She stops dead and turns to look at me. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to hear one more thing. “Have you been feeling anything?”
She gives me the blank look, and then her face changes. “The something bad is about to happen feeling?”
“Right.”
“No. I haven’t had one of those in years.”
“Neither have I, but I’ve had it twice in the last hour.”
Her back becomes stiff, and then like I did she scans the edges of the yard and the trees.
“How close to here has the nearest sabre-tooth sighting been?” I ask.
“Don’t know,” she says awfully quick.
“Could my feelings mean a sabre-toothed cat attack?”
She laughs. “They don’t attack humans just for the hell of it, or even for the food. They’d rather go after elk and deer, or a moose. The only reason they’d go after man is to protect their young and their pregnant females. That I’m aware of, there have only been two such attacks. They were both hunters, about a year apart back in 02 and 03. When the men were found they were well consumed. The official report was bear and mountain lion.”
“I remember reading about them. What about eight years ago when they went after us, and took down the sheriff’s deputy? What were they protecting?”
“Maybe the pregnant females. Of course at that time they hadn’t experienced anything but what was in the Sans Sanssabre gardens, and game we allowed them to have . . . pigs and cows. I’m sure that once they tried some humans, they didn’t find them very satisfying, hardly worth the hunt. They won’t go to the trouble of searching humans out, but they will protect their own, as I’m sure they did with the two hunters. And they will not waste the kill. Food is food.”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 48