The Pet

There were two high schools in town-Ashford North and Ashford South. He attended South, where his father was the principal, and he had to work like a dog to get his competent grades because he was the honcho's kid and favoritism was forbidden. Norman Boyd had been in charge there for five years before his son became a freshman, and Don was as positive as he could be without proof that his father had met with all his prospective teachers privately before school began, perhaps one at a time in his office, and told them that while he didn't expect them to curry favor by giving the boy good grades just because he was who he was, neither did he expect them to punish Don if decisions were made that they didn't agree with.

Don was to be treated just like any other student, no better and no worse.

He was sure that's what had happened. And sure now they were ignoring their boss since it looked more and more as if the faculty was going to walk out at the end of next month over a salary and hours dispute that had erupted last May.

His father didn't believe him.

And neither did his mother, who taught art in Ashford North.

Besides, she was too busy anyway. She had all her lessons and projects to prepare for and grade, she had her private painting to do whenever she could take the time and get back into Sam's old bedroom, and she had the Ashford Day Committee that was beginning to keep her out of the house and his life most nights of the week.

And somewhere in between, when she thought about it at all, there was little Donny to look after.

Damn, he thought as he turned the corner sharply, nearly scraping the tires against the curb; little Donny. It wasn't his fault that Sam had died, was it? Sam, whose real name was Lawrence but called Sam because his mother said he looked like a Sam; Sam, who had been five years younger than Don, and had died screaming of a ruptured appendix while the family was on vacation, camping out in Yellowstone. Four years ago.

In the middle of nowhere.

Sam, who was a shrimp and liked listening to his stories.

It wasn't his fault, and nobody really blamed him for not telling them about Sam's pains because he wanted to go so badly, but he was the only child left and godalmighty they were making absolutely sure he wouldn't leave them before they were good and ready to let him go.

He swung around another corner, slowed, and looked down the street as if he'd never seen it before. It was an odd sensation, one that made him close his eyes, and open them again slowly to bring it back into proper focus.

Slower then, the bike on the verge of wobbling.

It was much like his own street-homes dating back to the Depression and beyond to the turn of the century, all wood and brick and weather-smooth stone, with small front yards and old oaks at the curbside, the sidewalks uneven and the street itself in deep shadow, where the leaves still on their branches muffled the streetlights' glare.

And several cars parked at the curbs.

Nothing at all out of the ordinary, and ordinarily he would have ridden right on. But tonight there was something different, something he couldn't see, something he thought he could feel. It seemed familiar enough-Tar Boston lived halfway down, in a green Cape Cod with white shutters and no porch-and yet it wasn't the same.

Slower still, as if someone were behind him, pulling a cord and drawing it beneath the tires.

He closed one eye, opened it, and gripped the handlebars a bit tighter.

The cars.

It was the cars.

No matter what color they were, they were dark-gleaming dark, waiting dark. The facets of their headlamps glowing faintly like spidereyes caught by the moon, and the windshields pocked with the onset of frost.

Their sides reflected black; their tops reflected the shadows of dying trees. They were giant cats from the jungle somehow transformed, and all the more menacing for it.

Finally he stopped in the middle of the street and watched them, licked quickly at his lips and imagined them waiting here just for him, waiting for him to tell them what to do. A stable of cars. No. An army of cars. Patiently waiting for the order to kill.

His mouth worked at the start of a smile while he nodded to them all and told them his name.

From somewhere down the block, just past the middle, an engine rumbled softly.

Metal creaked.

A chassis rocked slowly back and forth in place.

He bit at his lower lip; he was scaring himself.

A headlamp winked.

Tires crackled as if they were frozen to the blacktop.

Jesus, he thought, and wiped a palm over his mouth.

The engine died.

Metal stopped shifting.

There was only the faint hiss of late downtown traffic.

He pushed off again and barely made the far corner without swerving off the road, then headed rapidly back up the boulevard toward home. A bus grumbled past him, exhaust clouding his face. He coughed and slowed again, watched as the amber lights strung along its roofline vanished when the street shrank into the dark that hung below the lighted sky above the next town.