The Pet

"Sure. Ain't you never seen the dumb clothes Chris wears? Like she was a nun sometimes? That's mutilation, brother, and she ought to be arrested for it."

They laughed quietly, shaking their heads, sharing the common belief that Chris Snowden's figure was more explosive than dynamite, more powerful than a speeding bullet, more likely to cause heart attacks in every senior class male than failing to make graduation.

Lichter took off his glasses and polished them on his jacket. "I'll tell you, she's enough to make me wish I was a virgin again."

This time Don's laugh was strained, but he nodded just the same. He wasn't a prude; he didn't mind talk about sex and women, but he wished the other guys would quit their damned bragging, or their lying. If they kept it up, one of these days he was going to slip and get found out.

"So, you start studying for the bio test next week?" Lichter asked, his sly tone indicating he already knew the answer.

"Yeah, a little," he admitted with an embarrassed grin. "Should be a snap."

"Right. A snap. And if it isn't, you and I will be standing outside when graduation comes around," He sighed loudly and looked up at the stars.

"Oh, god, only eight more months and the torture is over."

The wind kicked up dust and made them turn their heads away.

"School," Jeff said then, with a slap to his arm.

"Yeah. School."

Lichter nodded, left waving at a slow trot, veering sharply right and vanishing. Don knelt to work the combination of the lock he had placed on the tire chain, then straddled the seat and gripped the arched handlebars. They were upright, cranked out of their racing position less than ten minutes after he had brought it home from the store. He didn't like hunching over, feeling somehow out of control and forever toppling unless he could straighten his back. He pushed off, then stopped as soon as he was on the sidewalk. To the right, far down the street, were the hazed neon lights of Ashford's long shopping district; directly opposite was the narrow island of trees and grass that separated the wide boulevard into its east and west lanes; to the left the street poked into a large residential area whose houses began as clean brick and tidy clapboard and eventually deteriorated into rundown brownstone and aluminum siding that had long since faded past its guarantee.

He glanced behind him and smiled suddenly.

On the path, just this side of the last lamppost, was a feather. A crow's feather twice as long as a grown man's hand. It shimmered almost blue, was caught by the wind, and tumbled toward him.

He waited until it fluttered to a stop against the bike's rear tire, then shook his head slowly. Boy, he thought, where were you when that kid opened his big mouth?

But as Jeff would say-the story of his life. Honest to god giant crows were not in his stars.

Tanker Falwick swore impotently under his breath. Thorns in the red-leafed bush had snagged his coat sleeve and held it fast, and he couldn't move quickly without making a hell of a racket. He slapped at them angrily while he rose and peered over the wall. And groaned with a punch to his leg when he saw his last chance for decent prey getting away. The boy was turning, bumping his ten-speed down off the curb and across the street. Away from the park, in spite-of the moon.

It was too late. Goddamn, it was too late.

"Shit!" he said aloud, and yanked his arm until the thorns came loose.

"Fucking shit!"

A glance up at the moon riding over the trees, and he swore again, silently, hoping that the squirrel he'd killed earlier wouldn't be the only meal he'd have tonight. There hadn't been much meat and its heart had been too small, and twisting off its head didn't give him near the same satisfaction as tearing out a kid's throat.

Several automobiles sped past, a half-empty bus, a pickup with three punks huddled and singing in the bed, a dozen more cars. None of them stopped, and when he headed back into the trees, he couldn't hear a thing, except his paperstuffed shoes scuffling wearily through the leaves. He hushed himself a couple of times before finally giving up. He wasn't listening, and there was, most likely, no one else around to hear.

The whole place had just been filled with damned kids, just filled to the rafters with them, and every opportunity he'd had to introduce himself to one had been thwarted in one way or another.

A large dirt-smeared hand wiped harshly over his mouth, not feeling the stiff greying bristles on his chin, on his sallow cheeks, on the slope of his wattled neck. He sniffed, and coughed, and spat into the dark.

Then he drew his worn tweed jacket over his broad chest, hunched powerful shoulders against the wind, and moved toward the center path.

He waited in the shadows for a full five minutes, then stepped out and took a deep breath.