The Sky So Strange

One

One

Rose Wyatt, wrist-deep in pine-shavings, raised her head. What was that? A strange noise, something not normal, had caught her attention. She shook her hands free of the hamster bedding, sending the furry little creatures into a squeaking panic. "Shh!" she whispered. The dwarf hamsters, half-price this week only, paid her no attention.

Rose took a couple of quiet steps away from the small-pet section, head tilted, listening for that strange sound again. It wasn't thunder, for a change. All afternoon the skies had been grumbling, the outside light that filtered through the sign-plastered windows slowly darkening. A little rain would be nice, she thought. It had been a brutally hot summer, day after dry day. The clouds had been a welcome sign; so far, though, no rain. Wait til I get home, please - I don't want to bike in the rain.

There it was again. Rose hovered near a display of dog biscuits. The sound was coming from two or three aisles over. She concentrated. There was a muffled squeak, and then a - squish? squelch? - wet-sounding sound, and then a thump. Suddenly, goosebumps raced up her arms and she shivered. It came to her that she was alone in the small store, and that noise could be...well, anything.

Rudy had left the moment she came in for her shift. "Boss is out this afternoon, and Ty called in sick!" the young man had shouted as he slammed through the door. Great. Not that Rose expected it to be busy today. It hadn't been busy at the Critter Cupboard for some time now. Rose liked the job but she had started looking for something else. As much as Henry Stein, the owner/manager/boss, swore that business would pick up, it was obvious that this small, cramped, old-looking store was on the way out. The big chains were cleaning their clock.

The sounds had picked up a steady rhythm now. Squeak, squish, thump, squeak, squish, thump. A cartoon dog stared mournfully at her from a box, pleading to be given a compressed block of bone meal and chicken bits and who knew what else. Really, Rose, knock it off! You're in charge of the store. It's probably just a leak from a pipe, or one of the aquarium filters going all wonky. She straightened, tugged on her t-shirt, and headed briskly for the sound. On her way she grabbed a box of dog biscuits. Just in case.

Rose rounded the corner of an aisle that held the fish supplies, and came to a dead stop so hard her sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floor. Halfway down the aisle was a tank of green tree frogs Harry had just gotten in a couple of days ago. Standing in front of the tank was a big, round, man, bald and pale-skinned. He was wearing a dirty wife-beater and stained jeans. He was barefoot. There was a small pile of dead frogs at his feet.

As Rose, frozen, watched, the man reached into the tank and grabbed another frog. He raised the struggling thing to his face, seeming to study it like a scientist studies new life forms, and then his meaty hand tightened on the frog. The frog squeaked and kicked. The man's fist squeezed. The frog split open like an overcooked hot dog, frog guts spilling from the man's hand. He dropped it and reached in for another.

"Hey." Rose said, and then cleared her throat, shook off her astonishment, and tried again. "Hey! You! What the hell are you doing?" The big man ignored her. Another dead frog joined the growing pile at his feet. Rose's stomach churned and a welcome fire of anger kindled in her chest. She pulled her arm back and chucked the box of dog biscuits as hard as she could. "Take that, mother-fucker!" she shouted. The box bounced off the man's head, bursting open in a rain of heart-shaped treats. He turned to look at her, and Rose flinched back in an automatic, animalistic response to danger.

The man's eyes were so deeply blood-shot they looked like cherries. Red tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, dripping down his jowly face and joining the blood that ran from his nose. His chest was mottled with bruises, blue-purple splotches that spread across his shoulders and arms. He stared at Rose, his expression as blank as a brick wall.