The Pet

THE PET

CHARLES L. GRANT

"An exciting and well-written horror story. ... A brilliant and furious tale ... as skillful as the whisper of the surgeon's blade."

-Whitley Strieber, author of Catmagic

The water lying on the sagging brick walk was clear and unrippled, and along one edge was a shadow that was neither the tree in the yard nor the eaves nor himself crossing over.

The shadow didn't move.

It suggested something much larger, much darker, than he had first imagined, but when he examined the sidewalk, the yard, the stoop behind him, he saw nothing.

The shadow was still there, and when he kicked at the water to rough it, it remained unmoved.

He stamped a foot into the puddle and watched the shadow slip over his toes.

The shoe yanked back and he looked up quickly, then sighed his relief aloud. A cloud. It was a black patch of cloud. Nothing more.

He had his hand on the doorknob when he heard the noise behind him.

Soft. Hollow. Slightly uneven, stones dropping lightly onto a damp hollow log.

It was coming up the walk. ...

Look for these books by Charles L. Grant

AFTER MIDNIGHT (editor)

GREYSTONE BAY (editor)

THE HOUR OF THE OXRUN DEAD

MIDNIGHT (editor)

NIGHTMARE SEASONS

THE ORCHARD

THE PET

THE PET

Charles L Grant

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

THE PET

Copyright ©1986 by Charles L. Grant

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

First printing: June 1986

For Kathryn. Because.

ONE

A cool night in late September, a Wednesday, and clear- the moon pocked with grey shadows, and a scattering of stars too bright to be masked by the lights scattered below; the chilled breath of a faint wind that gusted now and then, carrying echoes of nightsounds born in the trees, pushing dead leaves in the gutters, rolling acorns in the eaves, snapping hands and faces with a grim promise of winter.

A cool night in late September, a Wednesday, and dark.

... and so the boy, who really wasn't a bad kid but nobody really knew that because of all the things he had done, he looked up in the tree ...

And from the Hudson River to a point midway across New Jersey, the land climbed in easy steps toward the Appalachian chain. The forests were gone and so were most of the pastures, replaced by communities that grew in quick time into small towns and small cities, pieces of a jigsaw fit too close together.

One piece was Ashford, a piece not the largest, settled on the first of those low curving plateaus, its drop facing south, low hills at its back. From the air it was indistinguishable from any of its neighbors-just a concentration of lights, glints on the edge of a long ebony razor.

... and he saw the crow sitting on the highest branch in the biggest tree in the world. A big crow. The biggest crow he had ever seen in his life. And the boy knew, he really and truly knew, that the crow was going to be the only friend he had left in the world. So he talked to the crow and he said ...

The park was in the exact center of town, five blocks deep and three long blocks wide, surrounded by a four-foot stone wall with a concrete cap worn down in places by the people who sat there to watch the traffic go by. At the north end was a small playing field with a portable bandstand erected now behind home plate, illuminated by a half-dozen spotlights aimed at it from the sides; and the folding chairs, the lawn chairs, the tartan blankets and light autumn jackets covered the infield, protecting the large audience from the dust of the basepaths and the spiked dying grass slowly fading to brown.

A student-painted banner fluttered and billowed over the handstand's domed peak, unreadable now that twilight had gone, but everyone knew it proclaimed with some flair the approach of Ashford Day in just over a month. The concert was a free preview of the events scheduled for the week-long celebration-a century-and-a-half and still going strong.

The high school band members sat on their chairs, wore their red uniforms with the black and gold piping, and played as if they were auditioning to lead the Rose Bowl parade. They slipped through "Bolero" as if they knew what it meant, marched through Sousa as if they'd met him in person, and they put fireworks and rockets, Catherine wheels and Roman candles exploding and spinning into the audience's imagination, into the dark autumn sky, when they bellowed and strutted through the "1812 Overture."

At the rim of the field, back in the bushes where the lights didn't reach, there were a few giggles, a few slaps, more than a few cans of beer popping open.

... do you think it'll be all right?

The parents, all the relatives, the school board, and the mayor applauded as if they'd never heard anything quite so grand in their lives.