Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (20 page)

One of the black cats strolled across the yard. It had a small patch of white on its right hind leg. It paused and meowed deeply, sounding not ill, but very forlorn, the way animals can. Lynn called to Abbott, but the cat ignored her with kitty aloofness and trotted off. Kain had seen neither hide nor hair of the beasties in a week, not even the dog. Apparently, they were keeping their distance.

“I haven’t seen Costello in days,” Lynn said.

“Abbott and Costello,” he chuckled. “Cute.”

“I found them in the rain. They were just kittens. They would have died if I hadn’t taken them in.” And before he could say it: “I know. A sucker for strays.”

He took a good swig of his lemonade. “How do you tell them apart?”

“Did you see the patch on Abbott’s leg? Costello’s is on the left.” She looked about the yard wistfully. “I don’t understand it. They’re practically joined at the hip …”

“I’m sure he’s around,” Kain said. She nodded almost imperceptibly, clearly not reassured.

“He’s a she,” she said, and he gave her a look. “They both are.”

“I’m sure she’s okay. Cats
do
wander.”

“Yes … but she never does. She’s a real homebody.”

“I could take a look around.”

“… No … you’re right. She’ll be back.”

“What about the others? All accounted for?”

“Uh huh.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“You hesitated.”

And she did so again. “It’s Pepper. The tabby? I think he might be sick.”

“Where is he?”

“Inside. He just lies around all day like a bump on a log. I know how that sounds, it sounds like a cat. But when I look at him, Kain … it’s like he’s a different cat altogether. Am I making any sense?”

“Can I see him?”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“If anything should get him going, it’s me.”

Lynn considered her options, then nodded. “I’ll get him.”

She returned a minute later and stood behind the screen door, stroking the tabby as she cradled him. Kain got to his feet and kept his distance. The cat was old by any measure, flush with silver whiskers, a full sixteen years (and that was only in Lynn’s keep; she had found it on her doorstep, fully grown, nearly frozen to death back in January of ’46), and seeing it now, the way Kain was seeing it—the listless animal held sickly, lifeless eyes—it almost seemed dead.

“He looks doped, Lynn.”

“I know. He’s eating okay, but mostly he just sleeps. He barely moves from one spot.” Mild surprise rose in her face. “He’s as calm as a pond.”

She brought the tabby outside and set him down with a tender stroke of his ears. The cat sat straight on its hind legs, seemed to come to rest, like a clock that has just wound down. It blinked once, very slowly. Lynn drew a string from her pocket and dangled it before the animal.

“He’s an old geezer,” she said, swinging the string to and fro, “but any other time, he’d be all over it.” She brought the string closer to Pepper’s face, interfering with his thick whiskers. The cat listed, staring off into space.

Kain couldn’t be certain the thing saw him; for all he knew, it had suddenly gone blind. He knelt and snapped his fingers in front of it. Nothing. He stroked it behind the ears.

“He should be purring like crazy,” Lynn said worriedly. “It’s like he’s dead inside.”

Kain saw not a trace of the Turn’s ill effects. External effects, like the yellowed eyes, had cleared up nicely, but it was clear that the Turn had done its vile work on the inside. Sometimes, the brain lost something when time turned; what that something was, God only knew. It was as if a part of the brain—memory, perhaps, of how to purr or bat a string—was lost, stuck in the other timeline, doing its thing there … and
only
there. He had seen this mostly in mice, at times in dogs and cats. The odd Stiff, one in a thousand. One of Brikker’s monkeys had turned so stupid after a Turn that Brikker had asked for the private’s weapon. Shot him right between the eyes, a lesson for all monkeys present. Brikker had a name for the malady—the bastard had a name for everything, save those lucky enough to “participate” in the Project,
they
were simply enumerated like concentration camp victims—he called it “Animal Crackers.” Maybe the Marx Brothers would have found it amusing.

The cat’s pupils were wide black stones.

“I don’t know, Lynn. You could take him to a vet.”

“I did. Yesterday. He didn’t find anything wrong. But he told me he’s never seen anything like it.”

“Me either.”

“All the others are fine. Beaks, too. I checked Abbott last night. You know, for that yellow stuff in his eyes. Nothing. Same with Pep. I wish—”

“Lynn?”

“… I wish I could find Costello.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

“Her.”

“Her.”

She said nothing further on the subject, and they finished their lemonade in silence before returning to their task. They worked just as silently, moving slowly along one side of the barn, Lynn keeping her thoughts close to her heart, Kain wondering how long it would be before her memories would start to kick in.

By noon he had his answer.

~ 20

She had to start over; standing on high above her, moving steadily with his roller, Kain had pretended to miss what she had said.

“A dream,” she repeated. “An awful dream.” She went on, dabbing some paint on the trim of the first of three windows on this side. “I was in the kitchen with Ryan. He was really upset.”

“About what?”

“I can’t be sure. I was sitting at the table. He was at the sink, giving me a hard time. I’m pretty sure of that.”

“He was upset with
you?
”

“No … at least, I don’t think so. I—”

She stopped, granting herself a moment to recall. Finally, she looked up with a sigh. “I’ve lost it. Maybe he
was
angry with me. I just don’t know.”

“Anyone else there?”

Again she tried to remember. She shook her head. “I thought there was …”

“What is it?”

“It’s just a dream,” she said. “Forget about it.”

She dabbed on more paint, but her attention was clearly elsewhere. She was missing the mark with her brush, getting more on the glass than the grayed wood.

“Lynn.”

She stopped painting and met him with anxious eyes. “It’s Mortimer,” she said. “He came into the kitchen—in my dream—and all of a sudden, he just started going crazy. Fur up, hissing … the whole nine yards.”

“Go on.”

“He was all wound up over my son.
Terrified.
And then Ryan, he … he … he had a baseball bat, and … oh my God.” She cupped a hand to her mouth, very nearly drawn to tears. “I don’t know why I told you this. It’s just a stupid dream.”

“
Hey
… it’s all right.” But he saw something in her frightened eyes, something colder and darker.

“There’s more … isn’t there.”

She nodded.

Kain rolled the last of the paint off his roller and climbed down the ladder.

“I think Ray was there,” she said. “Everything in me is telling me it was him.”

“Maybe it was me. You said Ryan was upset.”

“No. It was Ray, I’m sure of it. It’s just that … well, there was something about that dream. That dream just wasn’t right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It just scared me, I guess.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I feel pretty stupid, though.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I’ll never stop looking over my shoulder, will I? I mean, I go months without thinking about Ray, and then wham. I just dream him up.”

“You can’t control your dreams, Lynn.”

“It’s just so frustrating … I just wish—” She stammered. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” he said. “You can’t change the past, Lynn. It’s who we are.”

“Then I’d rather not dream,” she said, and despite her sullenness, poked him. “Now get back up there, slacker.”

~

Her brave attempt at changing the subject seemed to brighten the mood, at least for a spell, and they kept on with their task. Still, she was clearly preoccupied with more than her unsettling nightmare, and only when they broke for lunch on the veranda did she come forward.

Ryan had been suspended.

“He’d been drinking,” she said, and you could almost taste her disappointment. “I thought that after last week … things might have changed.”

She went on. “He used the
f
-word in class. Can you believe it? I don’t know what that boy is thinking anymore. I mean, I know boys swear. I’m not stupid. But in class?”

“In my day, we wouldn’t have said boo. They would have strung us up.”

“I know,” she said. “We had the fear of God in us. When the principal called me yesterday, he was almost fit to be tied. He said the school can’t tolerate that kind of behavior, they
won’t
tolerate it … that drink was a sin. The gateway to damnation.”

“The man said that?”

“Pritchum Tate’s a part-time minister,” she said. “I had him three years myself. Lonnnng before he got the principal’s job. He really believes all that fire and brimstone stuff.”

“That bad?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. He used to scare us into doing our homework.” She slipped into her best Pritchum Tate drawl, raising her hands wide, as if addressing the flock. “
The Road to Perdition is paved with F’s.
”

“You’re joking.”

She crossed her heart. “Hope to die.”

“Did it work?”

“Not for me,” she admitted, half laughing. “I dropped out two months after I met Ray. Lee came along”—Lynn counted on her fingers—“I’d say eight months after that. ‘
Road to Perdition,’
right?”

“You don’t believe that.”

“I guess not,” she said. “But a lot of folks do. Towns talk, you know? People here … they’re set in their ways about things like alcohol … sex. Didn’t you know? Everything you do sends you straight down there.” She pointed Straight Down There with a slight grin, but it faded quickly. “When I look back at me and Ray, I think maybe they’re right.”

“We all make choices, Lynn. It’s how we learn to live with them—the good
and
the bad—that matters.”

“But Ryan’s making all the wrong ones.”

“And he’ll keep making them. That’s part of growing up. He has to find his way.”

She nodded.

“So how long?” Kain asked. “The suspension.”

“Two days. He still has Finals, so they couldn’t make it any longer. But if anything like this happens again, he’s gone. Expelled.” She gave him a look. “You’re wondering why I didn’t ground him.”

He raised a brow.

“He’d just sneak out when I’m at work,” she lamented. “I did take his allowance away. For a month. It’s only a few dollars, but at least he won’t be buying booze with it.” She shook her head sullenly. “Is it too much to ask for a normal life?”

He was not the one to ask of course, but he was about to reassure her when Buddy (gray-brown stripes) and Champ (furry gray puffball) strolled across the yard. Neither cat regarded them, and suddenly the striped one bolted after a squirrel down in the gully. Champ stopped to watch as if he were Buddy’s mentor, as if mentally jotting down the errors in Buddy’s approach. The squirrel skittered up the oak, while Buddy, clearly outplayed, lay sprawled halfway up the trunk with his claws stuck in the bark. Champ took this in stride, perhaps laughing inside (if indeed cats did that), but when the puffball turned to the drifter his bulk seemed to double. The cat hissed rudely and scampered off.

“Well,” Lynn said, half jokingly, “at least
they’re
normal.”

Of course they were. Beyond the boundary of the bubble at the time, they’d been spared the evils of the Turn. Kain wished he could say the same. His headache had cleared but two days ago; the week had been hell, every muscle in his body screaming. It was only this morning when he had felt alive enough to live.

“Can I ask you something, Kain? Something personal?”

He was chewing his ham sandwich. She tapped her bottom lip, and he dabbed some mustard away from his. He nodded to her. He knew.

Lynn grew flushed. “I guess you’ve caught me staring a few times. I didn’t mean to.”

She was staring now.

“Oh God, look at me,” she said, and forced herself to look away. “I’m my mother.”

“It’s okay, Lynn. They’re just birthmarks.”

She turned to him, clearly uneasy. “I wouldn’t have asked—”

“I know,” he said. “Because of what Ryan said, right?”

“Why was he so upset, Kain?”

“I wish I knew,” he said. “But he can’t be happy I’m staying here.”

“But he’s not pitching anymore, I don’t think—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No. I guess not.”

“The truth is, he just doesn’t trust me.”

“That’s not true.”

“I don’t blame him, Lynn. I’m used to that. I can’t remember the last time people were this good to me. Isn’t
that
a statement? Says a lot, doesn’t it.”

“People shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

“
You
weren’t … and I can’t thank you enough for that. But trust is earned.”

She spared a nod. But he could sense something beyond her agreement. It came as he expected.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.”

“What did he mean … you
‘did’
something.”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you … are you in some kind of trouble?”

“It’s what a lot of people think. Drifter on the run.”

“I’m sorry. I should mind my own business.”

“No,” he said. “But I was wondering why you hadn’t asked by now. I was starting to think I was boring.”

She smiled at that. “They’re amazing, you know.” She pointed with her eyes to his temples.

“My mom always thought so,” he said. “Hers are identical.”

Ice cubes to Eskimos.

“Mom told me as much,” Lynn admitted. “I wasn’t prying, just so you know. When I stopped in the other day, she just came out with it.” She shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“At least my story’s straight,” he joked, and she laughed. Laughter was good.

“You know,” she said, “you don’t strike me as a Miami man.”