Chapter Three
“See you later,” Arabelle called over her shoulder, raising her hand above her head in a half-wave.
Crystal yelled another “Thank you!” into the evening, and then shut the door to the cozy, one-storey home where she lived.
As Arabelle walked away from the little house, heading down the side street toward her own home, she found herself surprised that she hadn’t actually hated her visit. After buying a loaf of bread from Foodland—for she’d had to buy something to make Crystal believe her fib from earlier—she’d opted to go back to the girl’s house to help her with her history project.
The project had turned out all right, even without either of them ever actually going to the hospital like they were supposed to have done as a project requirement. The Internet supplied more than enough information for Crystal to seem knowledgeable about the topic.
A smile formed on her lips as she tried to imagine Crystal up in front of the classroom reiterating everything that Arabelle had crammed into her head and forced her to remember. It was bound to be both entertaining and longwinded. At least the girl had a poster board to help her along in case she forgot anything.
A sudden breeze made gooseflesh rise up on her arms, and she rubbed them vigorously in an attempt to warm herself. She hadn’t anticipated staying out so late into the evening, so she hadn’t brought a jacket along on her walk earlier. Now she regretted it.
Pulling her cell phone out of her small denim handbag, she saw that it was already eight o’ clock. She hated that it didn’t remain daylight in the spring as long as it did in the summer. Within minutes, dusk descended rapidly, and she was soon anxious as the shadows between the trees on either side of the road grew darker and more impenetrable.
Only a few more minutes, and I’ll be home, she thought to herself, resisting the urge to go ahead and call her mom to ask for a ride. Besides, when did anything ever happen in Kingwood? Never, so there was nothing to fear.
She almost believed that until something stirred to her left, making leaves rustle together. She thought that maybe she had even heard the scuff of movement along the ground. Footsteps? Someone walking?
Eyes wide, she didn’t stop to investigate, but instead kept her eyes locked on the single glowing light over her porch that was steadily getting closer and closer, a beacon of safety—but still not close enough for her to feel any comfort.
Straining her ears, she tried to hear if whatever was there in the woods was following her, but only silence answered.
Still, she was horrified by the sense that whatever was there was following her, so she trusted her intuition and broke into an all-out sprint towards her home.
“No—wait!” someone called out behind her, obviously expecting her to stop.
But the voice was masculine, which only made her run all the harder. She wasn’t stupid enough to fall victim to the false cry for help. She’d watched enough of the news to know that dirty trick.
“Please! Stop!” the voice continued.
Arabelle’s mind did panicked cartwheels as she realized that whoever had yelled that was frighteningly closer than she had previously thought. How did he catch up so fast?
She felt like screaming, but she was breathing too hard to do anything but wheeze. Why did it seem like her house wasn’t getting any closer? This was a nightmare.
But then a car turned off the main street into the lane that she was in, lighting up the road and giving her a brief moment of relief. Encouraged by the light, she glanced over her shoulder just in time to catch a glimpse of something white pulling into the shadows of the trees.
When she looked forward again, she saw that she had almost passed by her house. Slowing down, she turned back and ran through the front door, compulsively yelling, “Mom!”
There was no response at first, and Arabelle’s heart was still beating way too fast for her to remain calm for much longer. But then her mother rushed around the corner from the living room, clutching the lapels of her lavender bathrobe tightly at the throat.
“What? What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”
Arabelle stared at her dumbly. Suddenly unwilling to tell her mother what had happened, she just stood there silently for a moment before saying quietly, “I—I just wanted you to know that I was home. Sorry I’m late. I was helping a girl from school with a project.”
“Lord, honey, I thought you were hurt.” Color came back to her mother’s face, which had paled with fright for her daughter’s safety. Sighing, she asked, “So, uh, what was the project about?”
“Ghosts.”
“Uh-huh. And?”
She didn’t know why wasn’t telling her mom about being chased. Probably because she didn’t want her to worry about her. Lord only knew that Arabelle’s father’s death four years ago had already torn her mother’s emotions to shreds.
“Uh…” Arabelle’s mind drew a blank. Then, consciously pulling herself together, she said, “It was about a haunted hospital.”
“Ah, sounds interesting.”
“I guess. I think I got spooked on the way home, that’s all. Well, good night.”
“Good night? It’s only just past eight, honey.”
“I mean, I’m going to my room now.”
Her mom looked at her strangely, but then nodded and said, “Okay, if I’m that boring.”
Smiling, she kissed her mom on the cheek, saying, “You’re not. I’m just tired.”
With that, Arabelle left the kitchen and went down the short hallway to her room, where she collapsed on her bed.
* * *
Leo was panting with the sudden chase, though more from distress than from exertion. Why had he felt that the girl could help him? And why had she run when he’d attempted to approach her?
Leaning against a tree, he stared through one of the lit-up windows of the house that she’d run into. A crack in the drawn curtains of the window nearest the back of the house allowed him a narrow glimpse of her lying across a luxurious bed. She wasn’t doing anything—just lying there. But her eyes were open, and she was staring…at him.
Catching his breath, he drew back from her line of sight. After a minute, he risked a glance back around the tree and could see that it had only seemed like she’d been staring at him. She hadn’t moved, and her eyes continued to stare forward, unseeing.
If she hadn’t blinked, Leo would’ve thought that he’d literally scared her to death.
Her smell lingered outside, saturating his senses, and he savored its heavy musky-floral scent. But he couldn’t enjoy it for long, because by now the hunger was so severe that he was convinced that his stomach was eating itself. Besides, he was spying again, and he shouldn’t be.
His body demanded something more substantial than what he’d found an hour or so before, when he’d happened upon someone’s freshly tossed-out garbage. He’d been too hungry to care that he was eating trash when he’d discovered the half-eaten chicken thighs. But those had only teased his taste buds, making him all the more ravenous.
Knowing that he couldn’t stay there outside the girl’s window and feeling tortured by the wondrous food smells emanating from her house, he went back to the place where he’d found the chicken earlier.
Despite the hunger pangs shredding his insides, he experienced a brief moment of innocent pleasure when he realized that the home with the trashed chicken was only six houses down from the girl’s. He hadn’t known that at the time, but, for some reason, he now found that information very satisfying. He liked that he was keeping near to her.
Flaring his nostrils, Leo mentally sifted through the countless smells radiating out from the garbage cans, feeling horribly helpless and incompetent while doing so. He shouldn’t be eating trash; he was better than that. Nonetheless, it was food, and, at this point, he could care less what state the food was in.
Keeping a wary eye on the door of the house, he approached the same garbage can from before, drawn by the scent of fresh beef that was now seeping out from under the lid. A little too eagerly, he tore the top off the can, hardly believing his nose.
But his confirmation was there—in whole. With an indrawn breath, Leo stared down at a complete steak about the size of his hand that didn’t have a single bite out of it. Without thinking, he grabbed the slab of meat—it was still warm!—and tore into it with his teeth, ripping off deliciously spiced chunks and swallowing them before he had time to chew.
God, it was so good!
Licking his fingers and wondering why anybody would waste such a perfectly good piece of meat, he hopefully picked through the other cans, but found nothing else like it.
“There’s more where that came from, if ya want.”
Leo had been so enwrapped in searching for more steak that he’d never even heard the door behind him open. He jumped from the sudden noise, a cold slice of fear churning the just-eaten food in his stomach.
Facing the voice with a snarl already planting itself on his lips and a low growl rolling out of his throat, Leo hastily assessed the source of the words. It was just an old man—a man who looked harmless enough. Leo knew from experience that looks could be deceiving, but, upon inhaling the man’s old sweat-and-dust smell and taking in his slightly bent posture, he relaxed a little. Just an old man.
“You gonna just stand there? Or do ya want more steak?” the old man asked in a gruff, raspy voice that sounded as if he were on the verge of coughing.
Leo stared at him, quickly closing his lips in case the man would notice his long canines. Then, struggling to find his voice, he mumbled, “Sorry…for trespassing…”
“Trespassin’?” the old man barked, and Leo couldn’t tell whether that gruff voice sounded amused or angry, and it made him uneasy again. “You ain’t trespassing. I say you ain’t, anyhow, and that’s all that matters, huh?” A coughing laugh wheezed out of the old man’s smiling mouth, receding into a true coughing fit before he settled into staring at Leo again.
Leo couldn’t help but like the old man’s twinkling, friendly gray-blue eyes. They made him want to trust the kindness that he heard in the old man’s words.
Tentatively, Leo met the other man’s gaze, at the same time suddenly making connections between the steak in the trash and what the man was offering him. Stunned, he asked, “You put the steak in the can…for me?”
“I saw you earlier eatin’ my lunch—” Leo looked away, embarrassed, but the old man went on, as if he didn’t find that strange, “—and I figured you’d be wantin’ somethin’ better than that. If you don’t, then yer crazier than me.” The old man winked, spreading the leathery, pitted skin of his face into a partially toothless grin. “I like helpin’ people, and yer too young to already be livin’ off the streets, ya hear? Now come on in and have yerself another steak, hmm? They’re gettin’ cold. Besides, I could use the company.”
This was what Leo needed—what he’d wanted. But he couldn’t believe that it was actually being offered to him this easily. Too easily? Even though Leo wanted so badly to trust the old man, he was still astonished to find himself actually following him into the house.
It’s a trap! his mind wanted to warn him, but he blocked out the noise of his logic, trusting his instincts for once. He told himself that he just wanted to see what the wizened old man would do. Leo could defend himself if it came down to it. Besides, he could smell more steak frying from within the house; the odor nearly drove him mad with his still unsatisfied appetite.
“My name’s Thomas Klein, but you can call me Thom,” the old man said in front of him as he led Leo through a dusty hallway, the walls of which were covered with cracked and faded photos.
Leo looked away from the ancient faces, realizing that Thom expected a reply. But Leo had never willingly given out his name before, and his mind stalled. He had always been taught that that was the number one thing to remember not to do with strangers. That was his old life, though…
Sticking his chin out a little defiantly, Leo replied in as strong a voice as he could muster, “My name is Leonardo, but you can call me Leo.”
“Leo, eh? Well, Leo, I’m treatin’ you to dinner, how’s that?” Thom offered in a light tone—well, as light a tone as the old man could manage with his cough, in any case.
Feeling self-conscious, Leo averted his gaze and gave a barely perceptible nod, feeling an unfamiliar heat rush to his cheeks. He’d never been treated before, and so he wasn’t sure how to react appropriately.
But Thom wasn’t staring over his shoulder at him anymore, leaving Leo to feel embarrassed without being scrutinized. Not having his every action studied was new, too.
The two of them were in the kitchen now, where a dented roaster sat in the center of a warped, circular, four-legged table, the surface of which was peeling back at the edges. The three chairs surrounding the table were in poor shape, as well, and one was mismatched. In fact, as Leo looked around, he could see that all the large furniture pieces were in poorly maintained conditions.
He liked it.
“Well, have a seat, Leo!”
Thom gestured toward the chair at the other end of the table, where a clean plate and fork sat ready for somebody to fill. Awkwardly, Leo took the proffered seat, sitting as rigidly as wood. Obviously, the old man had expected Leo’s presence here, and that made him slightly more anxious. Could this be a trap?
Thom lifted the lid off the roaster, and the thought died in Leo’s mind. Gazing down on three enormous slabs of beef, his hunger skyrocketed, and he involuntarily lifted a hand to grab a piece. Then, remembering his place, he self-consciously stopped himself just before touching the meat, his hand poised in the air above the fattest steak. Quickly, he drew back, but when he looked at Thom’s face, expecting disapproval, he instead saw alarm and disbelief.
What? Leo wanted to ask, but didn’t.
Thom blinked once, twice, and then slowly shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. The twinkle that was already starting to become familiar to Leo returned to the old man’s eyes, and he grinned again.
“Don’t be shy! Go ahead ’n grab a piece, boy,” Thom rasped. Then, as if to prove that doing such a thing was okay, Thom grabbed a piece himself, ignoring the utensils beside the roaster that Leo hadn’t noticed until now. The old man slapped the greasy steak down onto his plate.
A little less shyly, Leo went to lift his hand again when he suddenly remembered why he had to keep it hidden beneath the table. His heart skipped a beat and then went crazy, and he couldn’t move with the awful dread that quickly settled in his limbs.
He was such an idiot! Thom had seen! How couldn’t he have seen? Leo had stuck his hand right out there under the bare bulb overhead, right out into plain view of anybody who would’ve been standing there. What was Thom thinking? Leo was desperate to know.
Trying to control the panic-induced panting that was taking over his breathing, Leo risked a peek at Thom’s face, but the old man was either very talented at hiding shock and disgust, or maybe he really hadn’t seen. Leo could only hope that the latter was the truth. His claws were his hugest secret—one that he wasn’t prepared to expose.
“Why aren’t you eatin’, boy?” Thom demanded, reaching across the small expanse of the table to stab another steak, using one of the utensils this time. Plopping the meat onto Leo’s plate, he poked at it deliberately, his eyes saying that Leo had better eat it. But the threat in the old man’s eyes wasn’t real; Leo could still sense the amusement behind the gray-blue gaze.
Starting to believe—needing to believe—that Thom hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, Leo accepted the steak, but couldn’t figure out how to eat it without revealing his claws again. Then, finding the solution, he tightly fisted his right hand so that his claws were buried into the thick skin of his palm. Then, keeping his still-exposed thumb turned towards his own body, he grasped the fork lying beside the plate and attempted to pierce the steak with it. The task proved difficult with the awkward hand position, but, eventually, he could pick the whole steak up and bring the soft, perfectly spiced meat to his mouth, where he painstakingly bit off small chunks, trying not to show his canine teeth.
Even eating like that, Leo was still finished before Thom, whose lesser number of teeth made chewing much slower for the old man. When Thom caught Leo staring at the last steak in the roaster, he offered it to him, but Leo declined, not wanting to have to go through that eating-while-hiding process again.
Thom didn’t finish his steak, and Leo hoped that the old man hadn’t pretended to get full only because Leo had finished so much earlier than he had.
“Well, come on, boy, I’ll show you yer room.”
Leo couldn’t disguise his shock. “My…room, sir?”
“Well, sure! You didn’t think I’d leave ya out in the cold, did ya?” The old man coughed, and then continued with, “Come on, then, follow me.”
A little uncertainly, Leo stood, immediately tucking his hands into the folds of his pocket-less pants. Eyes peering anxiously ahead of him, he followed Thom at a safe distance down a short hallway that led off the right of the kitchen. The hall ended in a doorway that opened up into a small bedroom with a wooden floor and musty smell. A neatly made twin-sized bed sat against the far right wall, and a three-drawer dresser stood against the wall directly in front of them. Leo couldn’t see anything else in the room. He took a mental note of the single window above the bed, which could prove useful in an escape, if needed.
“This here used to be my son’s room, up to when he was a boy about yer age, I think.” The old man looked around with Leo, as if seeing the room for the first time. “Well,” he rasped quietly, “he’s gone off in life, and now it’s just an extra room. Use it as long as ya like.”
With that, Thom turned to go, limping into the only other doorway at the end of the hall. It was perpendicular to the one that Leo stood in now.
Leo meant to stop him, to ask questions, to thank him, to say something, but the door shut to the old man’s room, leaving Leo alone. Beyond the closed door, Leo heard Thom give a muffled “Good night.” A fit of coughing followed.
For one bewildered second, Leo just stood there, mouth agape. Then, pulling himself together, he replied, “Good night, sir, and—” He swallowed, and finished quickly, “thank you.”
Quiet.
Entering the room with hesitant steps, Leo saw with some dismay that it didn’t have a door of its own which he could shut. Somehow, that fact made him feel less secure than he already felt.
Well, he probably wouldn’t sleep tonight, anyhow, he thought.
Eyeing the bed, sniffing the air, he assured himself that nothing smelt or looked threatening. Approaching the dresser, he quietly opened each drawer, confirming his suspicions that they’d all be empty. No pictures hung on the walls, and there was no closet to hide anything.
Okay… His mind was moving too quickly for his body to feel the exhaustion that was no doubt weighing heavy in his limbs. What if Thom came in sometime during the night to check on him, and discovered Leo’s abnormalities? Or what if Thom wanted Leo here for a reason—a bad reason?
A hundred other “What if’s” plagued his thoughts. The torrent of warnings wracking his brain was accompanied by a jolt of nervous energy, leaving him feeling jittery and suspicious. He sat on the edge of the bed, digging his claws deep into the comforter like he used to do in his old room at the lab. When he began to pick apart the threads, he caught himself and sat on his hands, not wanting to damage Thom’s property.
Finally, he lay down on his back, staring at the ceiling with no hope of falling asleep. All he could do was wait.
After an hour had gone by, Leo could hear Thom’s labored but steady breathing, indicating that the old man was indeed asleep. Leo left the room and went to search the rest of the house, seeking to appease his suspicions.
The house proved to be smaller than Leo had originally thought, with only two more rooms to explore besides the kitchen and two bedrooms: a tiny, dingy bathroom, and a living room with one sofa, a nicked-up coffee table, and a television set that sat on a small wooden stand.
There was nothing of interest to see, but plenty to smell. For one, Thom was not the only individual to have been in this house. Leo could identify another male’s scent almost everywhere, though it was old and faded. He remembered that Thom had mentioned a son.
The only other smells to concern him were the odors of gunpowder and kerosene, though those things could be common in any home. The one gun that he did find was old and locked behind a glass cabinet in the kitchen, clearly having not been touched in a long time.
Still in the kitchen, Leo couldn’t pass up the now-cold steak that had been left on the table to go to waste. Not bothering to sit down, he quickly ate it, able to enjoy it more now that he wasn’t risking being seen.
The food helped to calm his nerves, on top of the fact that he hadn’t found anything dangerous anywhere in the house. Returning to the bedroom, he turned off the light and lay on the bed, feeling the possibility of trusting Thom closer at hand.
Well, he had the final test of trust for tonight.
Covering himself with the dark blue comforter on the bed, he settled into the surprisingly comfortable mattress and closed his eyes. He was no safer here than in some alley. He put himself to sleep by repeatedly telling himself that he had nothing to worry about.
After all, Thom was just an old man.