Feral Page 5

Her father laughed. “Beats me,” he confessed. “Which one do you want?”

  Claire pointed toward the closest room. “This is fine.” She stepped inside, gently placing her suitcase on the floor, next to a small dresser adorned with glass knobs, its top decorated with a vintage pink dresser scarf. The scarf wasn’t on straight, though—it was bunched up into a pile in the middle. Claire reached to straighten it. But her fingers had not yet even grazed the material when it came back to her in a chilling whoosh—the memory of the robe she’d worn her first night home from the hospital.

  It had been pink, too, and kind of silky, just like the old scarf. Her father had bought it for her because the weather was growing too warm for Claire’s old terry cloth robe. He’d wanted her to have something light and comfortable to wear. And pretty, too—the robe was pretty. Girls were always drawn to pretty things, after all.

  She’d waited for the din of her homecoming to finally subside—for Rachelle to go back to her own house and her father to go to sleep and the dark of night to cover the Welcome Home! signs in her bedroom. Claire had grabbed her walker and forced her broken body out of the bed and into the bathroom. Unable to lift both hands from the walker at the same time, she’d flicked the light on with her elbow. And she’d rolled her shoulders backward, letting the silky robe fall open.

  She’d cried, seeing herself in the mirror for the first time. Cried, and sworn angrily under her breath, because everyone had lied to her—it was bad, the way she looked. She would never be pretty again—not like she had been.

  When she’d finally run out of tears, she’d advised the puffy-faced girl in the mirror, “Cut some bangs. Wear your hair down. Move on.”

  She’d avoided mirrors after that. It hurt to look at the truth in a mirror—like staring directly into the sun.

  Claire snatched her fingers away from the dresser scarf without bothering to straighten it. She turned away, staring instead at the footboard of the antique iron bed that would be hers for the duration of her stay in Peculiar. But even that made her think of Chicago.

  She’d been sitting cross-legged on her own bed little more than a week ago when her father’d knocked on her door and sheepishly eased into her room with a printed email in his hand.

  “I don’t know how you feel about it,” he’d said of the last-minute opportunity for a sabbatical in Peculiar, Missouri. “It isn’t what we planned on.”

  What they had planned on was Claire returning to her old school in Chicago for the spring semester. In all honesty, though, that email had lessened the tightening pressure of going back to her old life, like a clamp being released all at once. No Chicago alleys? No classmates looking at her with pity as she finally made her return, all of them knowing what had happened to her? No putting on the same uniform she’d been wearing the day of the attack? Not having to make incessant I can’t this afternoon, have to run excuses to Rachelle, who would no doubt be letting her eyes roll across Claire like a woman in a supermarket turning a piece of fruit over in her hand, expecting to find bruises? It sounded like paradise.

  She’d smiled at her father—the kind of honest smile that just had to be believed, no questions asked. “Let’s go.”

  Dr. Cain had cocked his head to the side in pride. “You’re so brave,” he’d told her admiringly. Brave. He’d been using that word ever since the hospital, when she’d first cracked open her eyes and squeezed his hand. A real fighter.

  Now, though, Claire’s shoulders drooped as she glanced about her new room. Instead of feeling as though she’d found her escape, Claire felt no different—no lighter, no happier, not even relieved. She was the exact same person she’d been a state away—surrounded, now, by beat-up antique furniture and overgrown everything and freezing drizzle tapping against her window. When she peered through her gauzy curtains, the hulking silhouette was still in the window across the street.

  She shook her head and muttered, “What have I gotten myself into?” as a draft poured in through the ill-fitting Dutch door that led to her balcony. Though she was still wearing her coat, the cold, wet night air trickled across her face, and she shivered.

  She plopped down on the old bed, pulling her phone from her coat pocket. She opened her email account, chose Rachelle’s contact, and typed, You wouldn’t BELIEVE this place! So creepy! Perfect start to a horror movie! Then clicked “Save Draft.”

  Claire had been doing this for the past nine months, writing to Rachelle. No—she’d been writing to the old Rachelle, the friend she never would have avoided. The friend who never would have looked at her like she was about to fall apart. And clicking “Save Draft” instead of “Send,” because the old Rachelle was gone. Claire didn’t know how to talk to this new Rachelle, worried Rachelle, tiptoeing-on-eggshells Rachelle. She’d smiled when Rachelle visited. She’d sent her quick, single-syllable texts in response. But she had stopped talking to her—really talking—like they always had. Suddenly, instantly, that always-there understanding between them was gone. There was no going to the movies to celebrate anything. No jabbing each other in the ribs. No teasing. She scrolled down the contents of her “Drafts” folder, which contained more than two hundred unsent emails to Rachelle.

  “Race you to that casserole!” Dr. Cain shouted from his room down the hall. Claire smiled at the excitement in his voice, tossed her phone and her coat on her bed, and hurried down the stairs to join him in the kitchen.

  “What’s the verdict?” Dr. Cain asked her as he peeled the aluminum foil back from a blue-and-white CorningWare dish and shut the refrigerator door with his foot.

  “It’s . . . different,” she managed. “But no real adventure ever started out with the same old, same old, did it?”

  Her father smiled at her again—a proud smile that warmed her.

  They heated their dinners in a small convection oven on the counter beside the coffeepot, filled the floral plates they discovered in the cabinet, and carried them to the table just as sirens started wailing in the background.

  Claire tightened her fist around her fork, her heart picking up pace.

  “Wonder what that’s about,” her father said, turning his head in the direction of the wail.

  Before Claire could think of anything to say, the overhead light flickered, buzzed, then died completely.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  FIVE

  Half an inch of freezing rain was all it had taken to yank the power line straight from the electric weatherhead on the roof of the Cains’ rental . . . and from the other two houses sharing the winding road.

  But the storm didn’t stop there—it kept pummeling Peculiar, long after every light on the horizon died, enveloping the town in two full inches of sheer ice. Trees rustled in the wind, their smaller branches clinking together. Larger limbs groaned incessantly—and as the weight of the ice pressed harder, they began to pop, filling the air with sounds like shots from a firing range. Every once in a while, a limb would break free, jingle like a falling chandelier, then explode against the air with a furious boom the moment it struck the ground.

  The relentless noise kept Claire awake that night as she lay on the living room couch by the fireplace, struggling to find even brief moments of sleep as her father snored in a nearby chair. There were other sounds, too—the kind of rural chatter that had never filtered in through her Chicago bedroom window: an owl, the lonesome wail of a distant coyote, and a soft hum that she recognized as the absence of any sound at all. It struck Claire that this was the first time she had ever been somewhere that she couldn’t hear a single car—no engines, no tires splashing in puddles, no horns. Even stillness has its own strange buzz, she thought.

  A wild growl and a scream made Claire rise up, toss off her blankets, and race across the living room to her father.

  “Dad,” she hissed. “Dad.”

  Dr. Cain bolted up, scrambling to find
his glasses.

  “What is it?” he asked as he pushed the wire frames up his nose. “What’s the matter?”

  “Listen,” Claire whispered as the desperate wail filled the air again. “Someone’s hurt,” she insisted. “Someone’s screaming. There it is again! I think it’s a girl.”

  Dr. Cain put his hand on Claire’s shoulder. “It’s a bobcat,” he told her. “Probably fighting with some other animal.” He paused, looking at her. “Are you okay? Do you want to get up for a minute? Pretty sure I threw a deck of cards in my suitcase. Challenge you to a mean game of Go Fish till you’re tired again.”

  Claire smiled. “No,” she whispered. “That’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

  She covered herself back up, but somehow, the popping of the trees seemed oddly familiar to Claire. Frightening. Especially when the air in between the popping was filled with that high-pitched scream.

  Hours later, dawn finally broke to reveal that nature had only added to the misery being heaped upon the residents of Peculiar; a heavy layer of fog had persisted that night, hovering over the ground, twirling from the ice-covered branches, slinking through the air in clumps and swirls. The moisture-heavy fog added another coating of ice, weighing down the last of the still-attached tree limbs—and the main power line running down Claire’s street, in between transformers.

  She tried to busy herself, as the morning hours progressed. She flapped out the front door in her naval trench to beat at the ice on her front step with a hammer in an effort to make the entryway less slippery. She placed skillets of water on the front porch, and retrieved them when they were frozen, sliding them into the old refrigerator. The ice, she hoped, would turn their fridge into a kind of giant cooler, help preserve the few tidbits on the shelves. Dr. Cain had cautioned her against putting their perishables in the ice along their back porch, like she had first intended. “Might bring hungry animals to the door,” he told her.

  Which only made her remember the bobcat’s scream.

  As if all that wasn’t enough, three additional inches of snow fell that afternoon. By the time night arrived—marking a full twenty-four hours without power—the whiteness of the new-fallen snow reflected both the light of the full moon and the weird blue glow emanating from the whining, busted transformer near Claire’s house. The reflecting light made the world still feel dimly lit, even a full hour after sunset.

  While Dr. Cain heated canned chili on their gas stove, Claire emerged from the house with a large piece of cardboard tucked under one arm—a sign made from one of their few moving boxes. She clutched a roll of duct tape and a box cutter—both of which she’d found in the garage.

  The world around her looked as though it had been suspended in a chunk of Lucite as Claire stomped toward the curb, while the giant hulking silhouette from across the street stood in his window, staring. He’d been staring at her all day—every single time she’d stepped from the house. Claire tried to convince herself it didn’t mean anything, that he was probably a combination of worried and bored, just like everyone else in town.

  Still, though—he gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  Claire frowned at him as she sliced off a piece of tape with her cutter. The blade, sharp and slender, raw and dangerous, flashed in the bluish glow from the transformer.

  She finished taping her sign—in which she spoke directly to Peculiar’s power company—to the metal trash can at the edge of her yard: NO POWER—WEATHERHEAD UNDAMAGED. READY FOR HOOKUP written in thick black marker.

  The sign was a bit overdramatic, maybe. But Claire didn’t think she could stand another night lying in the living room listening to the sounds of snapping limbs. Their creaking and groaning drew goose bumps all over her skin. It made her heart beat like the world’s fastest metronome. It forced fearful sweat to break out on her forehead. And though she had thought about it off and on as the hours had passed, she still could not figure out why.

  Besides, the utility company’s work trucks had circled in the distance all day. She had seen them from her bedroom window as she’d tried to fill her hours by unpacking. Workers in white buckets had been visible as they’d tried to reattach lines. For some reason, it felt as though they were avoiding her street.

  Now, beneath the building pressure of glistening limbs, the road’s main power line sagged even farther, threatening to completely pull free from the transformer.

  With one more gust, the transformer sparked, spitting orange rain.

  Claire shrieked, raising her arm over her head. When the sparks died, she lowered her arms and reached into her coat pocket. She dialed the number for Missouri Electric—which she’d memorized, by this point—with the box cutter still in one hand.

  The same busy signal bleated into her ear. She growled in frustration, hung up, and dialed another number. 9-1—

  She paused. Staring at the numbers on her screen, her ears filled with the sound of stomping feet—a whole gang running.

  She gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes, let her thumb land on the final “1,” and held the phone to her ear.

  “What is the nature of your emergency?” the 911 operator asked, as Claire hugged herself, still gripping the handle of her box cutter.

  “I have a live line in the street,” Claire said, telling herself that this would be the solution. “Three of them, actually. The lines to the houses on this street have all been ripped free. And the main line that runs down the road is about to get ripped from the transformer, too. I—”

  “Ma’am,” the tired voice answered, “that’s a matter for the power company. If you are not in any immediate physical danger—if this is not a dire emergency—”

  Claire’s jaw chattered as she gestured toward her own house’s line, illuminated by the transformer’s glow that lay black and coiled in the ditch, like a snake ready to strike. “Three live lines,” she repeated, as if she were surprised the operator couldn’t see it herself. “Tomorrow, if we get any sun at all, they’ll be laying in melting snow. That’s an emergency, isn’t it? Besides,” she went on, “I’ve—I’ve tried the power company all day, but I keep getting a busy signal. And their trucks just keep circling around here without ever coming down our street.”

  “Ma’am, the power company is responding to priority issues.”

  Claire sighed loudly into the phone. The selfish side of her—the side that hated how afraid her dad was of burst water pipes, the side that wanted to stop wrapping her feet in Saran Wrap to hold warmth in her shoes, the side that could not stand the idea of another night without a TV or radio to cover up the awful, brutal popping of limbs (God, the noise was worse even than the bobcat’s wail, somehow)—wanted to ask what could possibly be a bigger priority than heading into day two with no power in subzero weather.

  “Ma’am,” the operator barked, “Missouri Electric has been doing an admirable job of reattaching lines, considering the magnitude of this storm. I’m sure it’s a long wait on your road, but you’ll just have to be patient.”

  Another gust of wind forced the tiniest slivers of branches to jingle like charm bracelets. Behind Claire, the transformer threw sparks the size of golf balls.

  In her attempt to get out of the way, Claire tripped over her own feet and fell from the street straight into the edge of her yard, her hip slamming painfully against the small curve of a shallow drainage ditch. She threw her left hand out to catch herself before her face hit the ground, too. Her cell flew out of her grip and her palm burned as it pressed through three inches of snow. Her coat had pulled back from her body as she’d spun downward; cold seeped straight through the side of her jeans. The fall sent echoes of pain through the once-broken and stitched-together bones that had already been aching since the start of the storm.

  Across the street, a front door flopped open in a burst, and the faceless silhouette emerged wearing a leather jacket that only emphasized his girth. His enormous shoulders took up the sky like a billboard.

  Claire shivered at the sight of the giant coming tow
ard her. “No, no, no,” she pleaded, struggling to find the cell phone she’d dropped. She gripped her box cutter even tighter as she slipped again, banging her tailbone against the road.

  The figure clomped across the street, showing no sign of discomfort as brutal gusts sent tiny frozen pellets flying into his face.

  Claire could see him clearly now as his boots thudded closer—see his face, not just the black outline of his head. The indentions of his scowl deepened in the glow from the transformer.

  “Stop,” she ordered, her voice the high pitch of panic. She raised her weapon, holding the point toward the towering hulk. “Stop,” she tried again. God, the guy was big. He could be a full-blown psychopath, for all Claire knew. He sure as hell looked like one.

  She could see her cell—or at least the small rectangle in the snow where it had fallen; she slipped once more as she tried to push herself forward. The tips of her fingers burned against the cold as she clawed through the snow and pawed at the solid layer of ice beneath, attempting to grab her phone. The man paused just behind her, looming over her in a way that made her feel like a June bug wiggling on its back, struggling to right itself.

  When he squatted, reaching for her, Claire screamed, her voice slicing through the still night air.

  “Oh, hush,” he grumbled as she squirmed.

  “Watch it—” Claire shouted. “I’m—talking to 911,” she lied. “I’m—”

  The man lunged forward and grabbed her wrist with one enormous hand, his tight grip making her relax her fingers. She whimpered as he snatched the box cutter away from her.

  “Please,” she begged as she scrambled, trying desperately to get to her feet.

  “They teach you that move in some self-defense class in Chicago?” he asked.

  The softness in his voice made Claire stop. “Say what?” she panted.

  “It’s a great move—sliding around on ice with a knife in your hand.”

  She flinched when he retracted the blade.